This morning my dog Mac woke me up barking at the door. Thank goodness he did because the delivery guy was there and I didn't hear him knock or ring the door bell. He brought the mini cafe kit that I ordered from
banggood.com on July 9th. Today is August 27th so it took quite some time, but I knew it would, as it was coming from China. I paid less than 2 dollars extra to insure the package and get a tracking number, which also allowed me to sign for the package as proof that it was delivered, which I think was so worth it.
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| Mini Cafe kit |
The box is covered with different kits that the company sells. Mine is the one in the top right hand corner, weirdly named "Dense Feeling Moment" but referred to by me forever after as "Mini Cafe". I'll probably come up with a different name for the place.
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| Unboxing kit |
The first thing I noticed was the box this kit came in was super flimsy compared to the box my Pet Shop kit came in.
The next thing I noticed was the instructions were on very thin paper, and appeared to have been shrunk compared to the pet shot instructions.
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| Mini Cafe kit parts |
The kit itself seemed OK though, with three little bags of parts, some printables, the main wood pieces, and even glue (which I was told would not be sent). Glue was also sent in the Pet Shop kit, so I don't know why they say they won't send it, lol.
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| Instructions |
I pulled out the instructions from the Pet Shop to compare them, and the pet shop instructions (on the left, below) are much larger, with illustrations showing each part in each bag). The whole page (on the left), showing the contents of a package, was shrunk to the little box midway down the page (on the right). This may be a problem, as I really found the package part descriptions with illustrations to be helpful because so many parts look similar. Other than the package description shrinkage in the new kit, all else seems to b the same in the instructions.
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| Comparing instructions from pet shop kit (on left) to mini cafe kit (on right) |
In the picture below, the Pet shop kit box is the blue one on the left; the new cafe kit box is the yellow one. The blue box is thick and lustrous and a real box with a lid. The box holds it's shape when opened and it was very convenient for keeping the kit pieces together while i was working. The new, flimsy yellow box on the right falls apart and lies flat when opened, losing it's box shape completely. It can be put back together again, but without the front lid down, it loses shape. I guess the company was trying to cut corners and save money. Hopefully the kit itself will be OK.
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| Comparing kit boxes |
Despite the changes, I am looking forward to starting this kit.
I have another one on the way, that I ordered 3 months ago, from Ebay (Green's Bar). That one got lost in the mail and the seller had to resend it. He begged me to choose another kit (one that was in a tin can) and was very unhappy that I wanted the kit I had originally ordered. He said he had lots of the other kit in his warehouse, but that is not my problem; I wanted the one I ordered, or to get reimbursed so I could order it elsewhere. I ordered my Pet shop kit from the same seller with no problems so hopefully Green's Bar will arrive without any more problems.
