My JMJ Mustang was delivered from GAK in an unopened box, all the way from San Bernardino, CA. They had plainly taken delivery into their warehouse and shipped straight from there. However, it was absolutely playable and even though the intonation was further away from accurate than I would normally expect, I could’ve gone out and gigged with it and it was only a few more £s than the SadEx (copywrite Ezbass, 2021).
I suspect that most of our major retailers have or had furloughed their shop staff and are/were running basically a warehouse operation.