Why Some Mayday Products Will Be Out of Stock for the Next 6–8 Weeks

We wanted to take a few minutes to explain something that is going to affect the availability of some Mayday and Sleeve Kings (our sister company) products over the next several weeks.

The short version is this:

We have ended our relationship with the factory that has manufactured most of our card sleeves for more than eight years. Unfortunately, the end of that relationship has gone very badly.

As a result, a large amount of inventory that we reasonably expected to have available in China is currently being withheld from us. That means certain products may be unavailable for the next 6–8 weeks while our new manufacturing partner catches up.

The good news is that production with our new factory is already underway, and this is a temporary supply disruption — not a long-term problem.

So...what happened?

We have worked with the same primary card sleeve factory in China for over eight years.  When they first started they had just 4 small production lines and the whole family was pitching in to produce the product, they were a true "mom and pop" type of operation and the workforce was basically the extended family of the owners.  They really wanted our business and were super grateful to earn it.  

Like any long-term manufacturing relationship, there have been occasional disagreements, delays and accounting issues along the way. Until recently, though, we had always been able to resolve them.

Unfortunately, that changed very suddenly.

Our former factory maintains an accounting system where orders can be charged to our account when we place them, rather than when the goods are actually completed. Over the summer, they demanded that we pay the entire balance showing on their ledger and began withholding shipments — including large wholesale orders and inventory that was supposed to replenish our fulfillment warehouse in China.

We questioned the accounting because we wanted to make sure the products we were being charged for had actually been manufactured.

After extensive discussions, we ultimately paid the requested balance.

Before doing so, we specifically asked about the inventory being held at the factory and how we could collect it. On August 29, our factory contact told us in writing:

“Once we receive the balance payment, we will release all of the goods.”

We sent the final payment on August 31.

The goods were not released.

How much inventory are we talking about?

This isn't a few cartons sitting in the corner of a warehouse.

The factory's own inventory accounting showed 5,740 master cartons of our products being held for us. 

We subsequently discovered that another 180 master cartons from two previously requested shipments had never actually been shipped either. When those cartons are added back, our working inventory total becomes approximately:

5,920 master cartons.

That's nearly 600,000 packs of card sleeves.  At around 100 sleeves per pack for some skus and 50 sleeves per pack for others, that is around 45 MILLION SLEEVES!

And remember — this is product we expected to have available to fulfill orders, replenish warehouses and supply distributors around the world.  That is also a payment to the factory well over 6 figures.  

Then the story changed

After we made the requested payment, we continued trying to arrange pickup of the inventory and shipment of outstanding orders.

Instead of releasing the existing goods, the factory subsequently proposed making a bunch of new product over the following month rather than refunding us for the payment as agreed to. 

We don't want them manufacturing more products for us. We ended the manufacturing relationship. What we want is very simple:

Either release the products that were represented to us as existing inventory, or return the money we paid for products that were not actually manufactured.

We have repeatedly asked for exactly that and they actually agreed to it when we met in person earlier this week.  But, at this point, our former factory has done neither.

Yesterday when we asked directly whether they intended to refund our money or release our existing products and outstanding orders, we did not receive an answer. Instead, we were told to have a lawyer handle it. 

So that is exactly what we are doing.

We are pursuing this legally

We have retained legal assistance in China and are beginning the process of formally pursuing the return of our inventory and/or the money paid for it.

We have extensive documentation, including factory accounting records, order records, payment records and years of WeChat communications.

We hope the matter can still be resolved without a lengthy legal fight. But after more than eight years of working together, we are extremely disappointed that it has reached this point.

We also want to be transparent with our customers because the dispute has an immediate real-world consequence: some Mayday and Sleeve Kings products are going to be harder to get for a little while.

What does this mean for customers?

The impact will depend on where you normally receive your products from us.

Customers and stores supplied from our Utah warehouse:
For the most part, business should continue normally. Our warehouse in Spanish Fork, Utah has its own inventory, so stores, distributors and customers whose orders are normally fulfilled there are largely unaffected right now.  We have several months of inventory in reserve there and expect to be restocked before we run out.

European distributors and larger wholesale customers supplied directly from China:
This is where the largest disruption will occur. We had several large orders and restock shipments that were supposed to leave China directly. Because those shipments are now being withheld, some distributors and larger customers may see shortages for approximately 6–8 weeks.

United Kingdom:
Our UK inventory has already been getting tight. Fortunately, a major restock shipment did get out before this situation came to a head, which will help considerably, but availability on some sizes may still be limited.

MaydayGames.com, SleeveKings.com and Maydaygames.eu customers:
Many products that would normally be available through our direct-from-China inventory will temporarily show as unavailable or out of stock.

If the product is already stocked in one of our other warehouses, you may still be able to order it normally.

There is also some very good news

We had already begun working with another manufacturing partner, and they have now become our primary sleeve factory.

Production is underway.

More importantly, we are extremely happy with what we have seen so far.

The samples coming from the new factory have been excellent. Their attention to detail, manufacturing consistency and quality-control procedures have impressed us, and we believe the finished product will be better than what we were receiving before.

We have already placed substantial replacement and restock orders with them.

So although the next several weeks are going to be painful from an inventory standpoint, we think this change will ultimately leave our products with a stronger and more reliable manufacturing operation than we had before.

Is Mayday or Sleeve Kings going anywhere?

Absolutely not.

We want to make this very clear.

This is an inventory problem, not an ongoing business problem.

We aren't shutting down. We aren't discontinuing our sleeves. And we aren't struggling to find someone capable of manufacturing our products.

Quite the opposite — replacement production is already happening.

The frustrating part is simply that you cannot instantly reproduce almost 6,000 master cartons of inventory covering dozens and dozens of different sleeve sizes.

It takes time.

Our current expectation is that the most significant disruption will last roughly 6–8 weeks, with availability steadily improving as replacement production arrives.

Why are we telling you all of this?

We could have simply put a bunch of products on the website as "Out of Stock" and said there were manufacturing delays.

But that wouldn't really explain what happened.

A lot of you have supported Mayday Games and Sleeve Kings for many years. Retailers and distributors depend on us to keep these products available, and consumers understandably wonder what's going on when dozens of sleeve sizes suddenly disappear from inventory.

You deserve a better explanation than "supply-chain issues."

So there it is.

A manufacturing relationship that lasted more than eight years ended badly. We paid money after being told our goods would be released. They weren't. A very significant amount of inventory and money is now tied up in a dispute, and we're pursuing every appropriate legal avenue to recover it.  In the last few weeks we have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars and don't have the inventory we were promised.  Its brutal!

At the same time, we've moved forward.

We have a new factory.

We have replacement production underway.

We like what we're seeing from them.

And we're going to get our inventory rebuilt.

Thank you for bearing with us

There will undoubtedly be some frustrating out-of-stock notices over the next month or two. There will be sleeve sizes that normally ship immediately that temporarily aren't available.

We apologize for that inconvenience.

Our team is working hard to minimize the disruption, prioritize the most important sizes and get replacement inventory into our warehouses as quickly as possible.

And if there is one positive thing to come out of this, we believe we will emerge with a better, more reliable manufacturing partner and stronger quality control going forward.

Thank you, as always, for supporting us.

— The Mayday Games Team