The eagle and the wren

Once upon a time all the birds of the world decided to find out who among them should be their king. After intensely debating the matter they finally decided for a flying contest (big surprise, I know). Whichever bird could fly the highest, would be king.

All of the birds thus gathered and took off into the air. Not for long and the only birds still in the competition were birds of prey. And among those the eagle proved strongest. After seeing his last opponent giving up, the eagle congratulated himself and began his descent. As the eagle was descending he suddenly heard a small but loud voice above him: «I am king! I am king!» It was the wren, who had hidden in the feathers of the eagle, waiting for his chance.

The eagle obviously was not amused, but he was too exhausted to do something about it. And thus the wren was crowned king of birds.

Zaunkoenig is the German name for «wren». You could say that hiding in big birds is in our DNA. So it should come as no surprise that from here on out all Zaunkoenig gaming mice will reach you by hiding in FedEx airplanes. Not because we are trying to outsmart FedEx of course; but because we think FedEx is the best shipping provider for Zaunkoenig.

FedEx

It feels like every FedEx employee knows how big the FedEx cargo air fleet is. Our contact at FedEx told us the fleet size currently would be between 708 and 710 airplanes, when we asked him. I am quite sure that if you called the FedEx CEO in the middle of the night and asked him about the size of the FedEx fleet he would be able to tell you on the spot. I am doubtful the DHL CEO would be able to do the same thing.

According to Wikipedia, FedEx has the worlds largest cargo air fleet. And that is why we chose FedEx as our new shipping partner.

Zaunkoenig only sells directly to you; the consumer. You cannot buy a Zaunkoenig on Amazon or Newegg, and you never will be able to. We do this mainly so that we can stay close to you. If there is something wrong with a Zaunkoenig, we do not want to hear about it through Amazon or Newegg, weeks after the incident. We want to hear it directly from the horses mouth, as quickly as possible. The shorter that feedback loop is, the quicker we can improve our gaming mice.

Zaunkoenig does not have warehouses all over the world (we are not quite big enough for that, yet) and at the same time we have customers all over the world: Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the United States; the list is long. This one time, we even shipped a Zaunkoenig M1K to the worlds most remote island; almost at least.

The only logical choice for our shipping provider thus is FedEx. With the worlds largest cargo air fleet they are best positioned to quickly ship to countries all over the globe. Trains and trucks simply do not cut it when you have to reach remote countries.

Express

All of our gaming mice are shipped out via FedEx Express, but not FedEx Economy. FedEx Economy could take up to a week to reach you, but with with FedEx Express the shipping time to most places is three days.

If you are based in the United States and you order a Zaunkoenig on a Sunday for example, you typically would have it by Wednesday. Within Europe you would have it by Tuesday, and for countries far away from Germany, like Japan or South Korea for example, you would have it by Thursday.

Quick shipping times are not only important for new Zaunkoenig customers however. It is an obvious thing to point out, but over time our customer base has grown significantly. Back in 2019, when we started selling the Zaunkoenig M1K, our first gaming mouse, on Kickstarter, there was only a handful of Zaunkoenig gaming mice out in the wild. As of today there are over two thousand. And we needed to start thinking about how to support their owners in case they needed help.

With our old shipping provider shipping toward the United States could take up to three weeks. If you are a professional gamer and your dog chews through your Zaunkoenig you need a replacement quick; and not in three weeks.

Up in the air

Short shipping times, even to remote locations, is why FedEx is the best choice for all future Zaunkoenig customers; and our current ones. Considering how little a Zaunkoenig weighs the eagle will not mind having us aboard; I think.