Thanks, I'll check with my team, I really like the idea of setting up our own thread for announcements and discussion. We'll look into potential sponsorships as well.
Indeed, the bitcointalk audience is one of, if not the most reliable audience that you could expose your product to - you've got many experienced users that are happy to tell you their thoughts and you've also the remaining users - from newbies to medium average users that for sure are looking for the next reliable hardware wallet to buy. From the back of my mind I can give you an example such as Satochip[1]. From my perspective I think that this is one of those moves that you'll never go wrong with - worst case scenario you'll get some raw feedback regarding your product which, from my perspective, will only improve it in either way.
I'll also check out the notifications bot, because I've been relying on email notifications and it seems like I've been missing a lot.
Do check it out as it is a really handy feature. You've got two great guides here[2][3].
Thanks for the feedback! I think we just need to ramp up and have higher volumes before considering a separate distribution center. But it's definitely something we'd want in the future.
One thing we've done in the last ~6 months is enable better import tax estimates when purchasing directly from us. For example, plugging in a random address in Portugal, it tells the customer that estimated taxes and duties will be $71.21 if shipping via UPS Worldwide Saver (in addition to shipping cost). It's just an estimate, but at least it's better than blindly ordering direct from us and getting hit with a large unexpected import tax bill.
I think we can, in general, reduce Passport's price over time as we scale production. Increased volume will mean lower costs, and we can pass those savings to our customers.
The tool itself is already quite handy, but I wonder if UPS has also a policy similar to Amazon regarding foreign shipping. In Amazon they'll estimate how much you'll pay in customs and bill you right at the checkout - if it ends up being less they return the money to you but if it ends being more than they initially estimated they'll cover the difference. Is this how UPS model works as well?
Also, regarding production costs, could you shed a light on what was a big challenge while building Batch 2 as a product? Did you encountered some problems in a specific part/supplier? How are the suppliers picked? Do you have some kind of evaluation methodologies that you apply in your selection process?
[1]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5181719[2]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5229697.0[3]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5248878.0