Instead of contacting thousnds of Librem 5 backers
for final shipping data (shipping adress, modem type etc.)
and waiting for their response
Purism ought to adapt Librem 5 backers online database
https://shop.puri.sm/my-account
so backers may provide online the required info - on their own
leaving e-mail contact for final stage of confirmation before shipment
Does it make sense ?
yea that’s how it was done on many projects i backed on igg f.i. - just a site where you enter your preferences - power socket type, batch, color, delivery address and date, etc.
Reaching everyone via e-mail does not mean that they necessarily will do this manually - they could write a bot which accepts e-mail replies in specific format (“hey I wanna gemalto pls8-eu”) and processes them automatically.
Btw, this approach is probably even easier to develop (does not require any efforts from the UI side), so could be even better as an ad hoc solution.
And if i reply with “I want that geschlecht something deutsche wuderwaffe modem (sorry don’t remember the exact name)”? easiest really just to make simple interface with dropboxes 
than arbitrary text parser.
Guys… why do you assume the email will ask you to send an answer by mail?
The most obvious way is to receive a notification by mail that directs you to a web form (with login).
The hard part is not sending out 10k emails.
I guess the most complicated/new/custom part of it is to be able to select a preferred batch and be only able to select batches that have open slots, respecting the order date.
They need to be sure that the web form works as intended, doesn’t break in any spectacular way, and that every detail makes sense to everybody, no matter where they live and what modem they want etc.
I don’t think it is that complicated Form is to express your preferrence not to hardbook a slot. You can then run simple algorithm at due time which will distribute slots according to preferences.
Respectfully, that may be the “most difficult” part, but it is still fairly trivial to have X slots then initially send out X-5% emails and await confirmations, including setting a flag that that account has been notified Y times on A/B/C/etc dates.
This allows you to select a number for the next batch have a buffer and continue on and scales pretty much indefinitely. Also this should have been a known requirement for well over a year and should be something that was developed and tested quite a while ago.
I understand that creating this phone is a huge undertaking; but I also understand that this is not a software or hardware development task and is rather something that should have already mostly existed for their other Librem products and only needed slightly modified to accomplish this task with those modifications happening by a team not doing any of the software or hardware development.
I mean all of this with the utmost respect. This is one piece where Purism should have already had all the pieces in line and in place long ago as there would be no harm in this being completed before the phone was then as soon as making the announcement that emails were going out soon, this could have been utilized within 24 hours.
Also getting the responses immediately after announcing emails were going out would not have been a problem with starting shipping on the 24th, they would have responses to work with instead of the current speculation that they haven’t even finalized the email/form yet.
If this was in fact already done, someone taking a moment to post a screenshot of the email/form in the forum would do quite a bit to silence this aspect of speculation (even if those emails hadn’t gone out yet).
This approach does also allow for accurate tracking of actual selections not just preferences which is more convenient for the packaging/shipping team(s).
They assumed right! 
Presumably the magic number in the Subject allows somewhat automatic processing of replies. I just worry that MIME randomness may make this approach harder than it needs to be.
Just saying. They didn’t ask which modem we want. So there Will be another mail confirming the modem model.
From the email:
We will use your preferences along with your priority and place in the order queue to determine which batch to assign you. Once we have assigned your order to a batch we will follow up with you to select the modem and power supply you would like and to confirm the correct shipping address.
Before the email asking for which modem we’ll like, it’ll be great if Purism could add the finial modems to their FAQ and which modem would be best for each region.
The only tricky part would be if they hope to add more modems for future releases. But I’m happy to purchase another modem module depending where I travel or if I change carrier.