I bought a StandDesk via the KickStarter, it's more affordable than most decent offerings out there. The only pain was the surprise shipping charge at time of delivery (it was way more than advertised). Regardless, I'm excited to see more of these options.
So, I emailed them and explained how burned I felt by the whole thing. They argued with me that preorders are not being given free shipping. So, I pointed them to the FAQ page. This was on October 15. As of November 4, 2014 at 3:10 PM CST, their FAQ page still says preorders will receive free shipping. If they're not honoring that for preorders, I'd be super angry if I were trying to preorder the desk and got bait-and-switched into paying shipping when they're clearly advertising otherwise. And, lo these three weeks later, the FAQ still tells me I paid an extra $58 for my desk that I paid for in May.
Beyond that, communication with these jokers has been spotty, spread across various social media channels. (It looks like they abandoned Twitter months ago. Friday and today were the company's first activity on Facebook since May.) The Kickstarter page saw very little activity over the summer and then Steven Yu posted a long "we're sorry" post explaining some of the unexpected things that happened to delay shipping and to affect the shipping costs. Every item in the list is something that would have been totally understandable if it had been shared as it was happening. Instead, the company chose to go radio silent. From my point of view, when I've sent someone more than $500 for a product that doesn't exist yet, that radio silence leads quickly to that sinking feeling of having thrown away a bunch of money. Some honest communication about the situations would have just gone so far to not burning through whatever good will the Kickstarter backer community had toward them.
Luckily, it seems that this long nightmare is about to be over and desks are leaving their warehouse. On October 17, I was told via email that my desk was scheduled to arrive "in 2 weeks" and that they would get it processed and out to me "as quickly as possible". Friday I emailed to ask about the status, and as you can guess, I haven't heard anything back.
Overall, the experience with StandDesk has been frustrating and uncertain and after all this delay, they're letting others like IKEA to catch up. For my part, I'll be thrilled to receive my desk, but mostly just so I can never have to deal with this company again. With any luck, packaging and delivery will be good enough that they won't have availed themselves of literally the last opportunity to vex me.