And after they spent the past couple of weeks cockily batting away concerns about how they'd handle the traffic load, too. "You're all talking like we don't know what we're doing" is the line I recall being used several times.
Supplier 1: RS Components redirected to a product interest page - no purchase option
Supplier 2: Premier Farnell redirected to a international region picking page with no US link - no purchase option
Traffic wasn't the real problem. People are familiar with lines and queues- I wait in a slow long line every time I go to the grocery store.
Seems like they simply did not test their launch with either distributer internationally. Combine that with months of hype and last minute server/traffic arrogance for an angry social mob.
However, their suppliers, who are apparently fairly large companies, haven't been able to handle it. They said they warned them that the traffic would be enormous.
Do you think that (a) they are being realistic about their customers or that (b) your servers will be unable to handle the load described by that scenario or (c) neither or (d) both?
I'm in the first batch of the ZPM Espresso machines via Kickstarted, which blew out past their expectations by an order of magnitude, and allowed them the opportunity to re-jig production methods and schedules, based on ordering 10 times as many parts as expected.
I've held personal and business accounts with Chase and TD Bank, as well as trader accounts with a couple of brokerages, and the documentation requirements were pretty basic in all cases. I've looked into opening accounts at other banks at various points too.
In some cases the easiest alternative is to simply buy an off the shelf US corporation, and have the company that sets it up register a US bank account for it. That's certainly often less paperwork and hassle than dealing with a personal account, especially if you set up a Delaware corporation.
I'd love to be proved wrong on this.
If you run into problems, buy an off the shelf Delaware corporation online, with a registered agent, and create the account for that. Bonus, depending on where you do business you can potentially save quite a bit of tax by structuring things properly that way.