I just ordered a Roku Streaming Stick 4K last night. Today I got a message saying it's shipped. It will take 3 to 7 business days before it arrives with the free shipping method. Then after I get the stick I have to fill out a form on "https://my.roku.com/HDMI" and include the serial number of my Roku Stick in order to get a free HDMI extender. I will then have to wait another 3 to 7 business days for the free HDMI Extender to arrive! I think this is absolutely ludicrous!
First off Roku, since the extender is FREE why don't you just include it in the packaging with the actual Roku Streaming Sticks in the first place? Why do we have to order it separately and then have to wait another several days for the HDMI extender to arrive? When I ordered a Fire TV Stick 4K Max last year it came with a free HDMI extender inside the box! Which is the way it's supposed to be since you need it for the product! So why can't Roku do the same thing?
Even if Roku won't do that for whatever ridiculous reason, why isn't there an option at checkout when ordering the Roku Stick initially on Roku's website to select a free HDMI extender right then and there? This way it would ship WITH your Roku Stick at the same time and it wouldn't have to be a separate order that arrives several days later! This way we could get the Roku Stick and the FREE HDMI extender on the same day and NOT have to wait potentially another full week for the HDMI extender to arrive separately!
This is a very stupid way to handle this issue! Roku, what is your problem? Why make this so difficult and annoying for NO reason at all? Do you just enjoy ticking off your paying customers or what? I would love to hear the explanation of why it's being done this way! Because it's tremendously stupid!
I’ve always thought the extender offer was for someone who picked up a Roku stick in store without understanding the different physical formats or having any idea that his TV didn’t allow space to install it. So, it prevents a return at the store for not fitting, and products with too many returns look bad.
And, by the way, it may be free to you but it probably wasn’t free to them. I’m guessing they expect only a small fraction of stick buyers (< 10%??) to want these, in order make the cost of shipping individually lower than the cost of including them. And since they’ve been in the business for a while, I assume they have pretty good data on that.
Roku would not have to ship the extender separately at all if they simply made it a standard part of what's inside the Roku box in the first place. That is what Amazon does with their Fire Sticks. This way if you need the extender you have it included and if you don't need it then you don't have to use it. I find it hard to believe that Roku including the extender in the package would be too costly for the company. Since they are giving them away for free anyway, but make you go out of your way to have to order it separately.
Yeah, that’s what I tried to say above. They’ve been selling sticks for a while, and appear to believe that the cost of shipping them separately * the percentage of people who order them is less than the cost of simply including them and having them thrown out by 100-that percentage. At first, that was probably a guess, but after selling them for a while, I assume they now have some data that backs up that belief. If the data changes, they’ll probably change how they ship them. (Unless they are truly dummies, but this is pretty simple math, so I suspect not.)
You make some decent points. If this is because Roku believes that most people won't want to use an HDMI extender and that it would be a waste to include it in the Roku packaging itself that would make sense. Because then it would make sense to ship it separately to only those who actually want it so it wouldn't be wasted.
However, that still doesn't validate why they make you receive your Stick first, then have to type in the serial number and then have to wait several days to get the extender separately. As I said initially, they could give you an option when ordering the Roku Stick on the website to add a free extender right then. This way the people that want the extender can add it with their order for free, and those that don't want the extender could not select it. This way both the Roku and extender would get shipped together so you get them both at once and don't have to wait several more days for the extender to arrive afterwards.
My main issue with this is the fact of having to wait several days to get the Roku and then go through that entire process all over again waiting for the extender to arrive next! So if you want the extender you shouldn't have to order it later then wait to get it shipped later, that's the real flaw in how this works. Roku needs to modify this policy so it's more convenient for the customer ordering.