I am interested in buying a Big Sky Evolution tent, but after reading so many posts about Big Sky's horrible delivery performance here on BPL I am pretty much deterred.

But all these negative review date back to 2008 and earlier. I wonder whether their delivery performance has improved now. The Evolution tent I am interested in is supposed to be available in 2Q2011. I could live with that as long as it is really available then. Also Big Sky states that they will only charge your credit card when they actually ship the product.

Has anyone ordered from Big Sky recently and what was your experience concerning their delivery performance?

Christine

I was one of the first group of people to order from Big Sky, and after a delivery delay of 2 years and 3 months I can state that for me there won't be any recent experiences.

Also, it was more than a delivery delay that people were dealing with. Big Sky consistently misled people as to delivery status. They (he) would return emails about tent information, but not about refunds or delivery. Bottom line is that I simply wouldn't trust the company under any circumstances.

Good luck if you decide to go with them, though, and report back what your experience was.

I would say that any company which committed fraud at the level that they did in the past should never have any more business directed their way.

If I didn't believe in "bad kharma" I would spend my free time making sure he never sold to another unsuspecting buyer. I can't comment on his products as I never received mine, but I can tell you that his ethics, business practices, and lack of customer service should be enough to keep him from selling too many items.

Christine,

There certainly was a ton of bad press which apparently was his fault.

That said, our own Ben Tang - one who is quick to give his feelings, has been singing Big Sky's praises for quite awhile since the bad press stopped. I point that out to say maybe they've improved in areas where lacking and turned the corner. Maybe not.

I'm sure Ben will share his thoughts with you if you ask him.

Todd

Not 100% sure but I think he got Mirage used. Or at least pre-owned.

Ben bought a new Mirage 2P at the PCT Kickoff auction. His previous 1P may have been used.

I would suggest to the OP to email Bob and ask him about availability. I have no doubts that he will be a little less optimistic about the delivery times of products coming from sources he does not actually control now. Tarptent had some of those problems too. But like I said in another thread, communication is the key.

My personal experiences (from myself and my brother-in-law) have seen waits at times but the communication was always good, so it really was not that big a deal, especially for me as I am never NEEDING a tent. ;-)

I have to turn in a review of the newest Evolution next week. I will say that each tent of theirs I use I keep being more impressed.

Yes, Raymond is right. If you are interested in Big Sky tents -- give Bob Molen a call and confirm that the model you want is in stock and ready to ship. If not, then make sure you can live with the expected delivery date and you have flexibility in case of delays.

I am very pleased with Big Sky tents. I've owned the Evolution 1P and 2P and my current tent is the Mirage 2P. The first two were purchased used here on this forum, and the latter one was purchased directly from Bob -- when I met him at last year's PCT kick off.

Bonus: Big Sky is the ONLY tent maker I know that seals all of its silnylon tents at the factory. Very smooth and nicely done and never a leak.

Edited by ben2world on 02/06/2011 16:54:35 MST.

Thanks for all the input!!!
I am loooking forward to Ray's review now.
Christine

After hearing such good things about the Evolution 2P, I placed an order. I read about peoples' experiences getting orders filled by Big Sky but I was willing to wait some in order to get a superior product. It's now been months since I heard from Bob Molen and I've tried multiple e-mails, phone calls, etc. Anyone have another way of reaching him? I really just want to get an update on how long he thinks it's going to be, or at least how long until he knows how long it's going to be.

Thanks!

Hopefully you paid with a credit card, or paypal or such, and less than 6 mo ago, so you can dispute the charges and have them reversed.

FWIW, you have looked in your spam folder, right?

Not that this helps your situation, but I figured it might be a relevant data point for this thread. I purchased a tent from them last spring and received it in a matter of several weeks. was actually sooner than I had expected. Really happy with their product as well. All my contact with Bob was through email

I did an online order for a Mirage on 11/18/11 and got an email confirmation back but no delivery date. My credit card said payment pending. Then about 2 weeks later the payment pending disappeared (no payment made). Ive emailed (to all email addresses) and left voice messages for Bob with no response at all. So, I guess I wont be getting this tent!

My credit card was not charged yet -- apparently they changed that policy a while back. (I did have the same pending charge thing happen as mentioned above, and like the other person's pending charge, it eventually just went away.)

I did finally hear back from Bob, who apologized for again taking a really long time to reply to my e-mails and phone messages. He writes "As you know, we have had trouble getting the factories we contracted to produce our tents to ship them in a timely fashion so we are in the process of doing more of our production so we can ship our orders in a more timely fashion." He thanked me again for my patience and said he'll let me know when he has tents in.

I'm not exactly sure what "we are in the process of doing more of our production" means, but perhaps it means someone is making his tents? Or not? I'm not sure.

Maybe the moral of the story is that cottage industries outsourcing to Asia is not a good business model.

One would think that sending tent parts out to independent sewers for manufacture would be A-OK, and a win-win for all concerned; but along come the State and Federal labor departments, and sometimes the tax people pile on, to drive a small business to distraction. No wonder small businesses take such a big risk with outsourcing to foreign producers. The fact that BSI is still in this pickle after years with the same problem makes one wonder if there is any good solution, short of major changes in the law to favor small business manufacturing domestically. Time will tell.