For me the fact that he is willing to stand behind his product and make it right is a large factor in my purchase. I have had/owned just about every bag made to date minus the mahal and whenever I had an issue with one none of them stood behind the product. I would have purchased the mahal because of the lifetime warranty but I didnt need that much space. Just my 2 cents.
I am sorry but this is b.s.
Innova will send you a new bag just from a picture.
GBDS will fix any bag but has been known to ask people to pay for the shipping to him and he will pay the shipping back if a bag gets damaged. And will pay for the shipping if it is a defect. (Full disclosure - I have a 5 year old proto-Silverback - it's a little dirty and some s-style carabineers that are really thin cut into one of the strap loops on the back a little making it start to fray and I will be sending my bag to GBDS to be fixed - my fault for using flat carabineers with edges instead of round carabineers.)
And I know firsthand that GDS stands behind their product.
I wish @ all the best but polyester fabric and single stitching makes every one of those bags susceptible to the same rips and frays - it is inherent in the materials. And that doesn't count the issues reported about the sew patterns being off on a few...
Having to provide 2 or 3 bags for every bag you sell because of failures is not a business plan I would want to follow. How much mark-up is built into the bags? Not enough to cover the reported failures, I would imagine...
And to hear the second batch of bags is just more of the same first batch with the polyester material and single stitching? Sounds like just more potential product failures to overcome with providing 2nd or 3rd bags...
That said, I love the design of this bag... but it is what it is | The vendor messed up the stitch patterns a few times, used a inferior material that @ was planning on getting and single-stitched areas of the bag that were high stress areas...
I hope @ survives as a biz until the 2nd generation of the bags - cuz I do believe if the vendor does what @ asks in that 2.0 bag - It will be a great bag. But this current batch ain't.