Clearly Canadian Promises Remaining Delayed Preorders Will Start Shipping Next Month

Image courtesy of Clearly Canadian

Back in 2015, fans of Clearly Canadian were excited to learn that the 1990s sparkling soft drink would be making a comeback. So excited, in fact, that a crowdfunding campaign by the brand’s new owners brought in tens of thousands of preorders. But more than a year after Clearly Canadian reached its funding goal, many customers still don’t have their drinks, and they’re not happy about it.

Clearly Canadian has missed several target dates for shipping the products so far: first, it was September, then the company updated crowdfunders in October saying the bottles would arrive by mid-November.

Finally, in February 2016, Clearly Canadian announced that some customers would be receiving their preorders soon. The company produced and shipped 9,000 cases at that time, Jennifer Black, Clearly Canadian’s director of energy, tells Consumerist.

“We were delayed in shipping all the pre-orders at the beginning of this year because the plant in Vancouver shut down in the middle of our run — we definitely didn’t plan for that,” Black said.

That still leaves 16,000 cases left to ship, and many unsatisfied customers. Though the company posted an update on July 12 promising that as soon as production resumes, all outstanding online preorders “will be shipped and delivered first — worry not,” some people were still upset at the wait.

“Tired of being told to be patient,” one customer wrote. “You are running a business so make good with your commitment and send out everybody’s orders that have been waiting years for!maybe it would be a good idea to hire a call center to do your customer service because frankly service is not one thing any of us have been getting.”

“I ordered over a year ago and never received….I give up,” another posted.

“I’ve been waiting over a year for my cases and have yet to receive anything,” someone else commented. “An update on if I’m ever going to receive my cases would be nice.”

The wait should be over soon, Clearly Canadian says, with Black telling Consumerist that the remaining 16,000 cases “will be produced and shipped this August through September.”

“Our journey has been a community driven and sourced, from the ashes, turnaround,” Black says. “Nothing like this has happened before.”

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