On-Line Stores and Shipping

[Greyskull]

This is a request to all you publishers out there.
As someone who likes to order RPG books from on-line stores, and I do not mean just the PDF files, I have come to a problem. While I like the books to arrive fast, this is not always the case. Sometimes I prefer to pay less for shipment, even though it means a Land shipping, one that will take longer, even if it is 6 weeks.
Not all of the On-line stores even offer that chance for a customer to choose. If you already have established an on-line store, and you charge for shipping, why not let your costumer take up a slower shipping, at a lower rate?
I ordered recently 6 books, and the shipping for them, for a 4-10 day shipping, was a staggering 49.5 Dollars. I am sure that a land mail would have cost half that much, if not less, and yes, I might have taken the longer wait, but at least give ME that choise to make.

Enough ranting for now.

 

[Ed Cha]

Yeah, I don't mind media mail shipping either. That's the low rate for books, CDs, etc. It doesn't seem to take that much longer anyhow. I think more sites should offer it.

I hate to pay for shipping, too, but what can you do? Amazon is usually pretty good, but sometimes they are never able to get a book out. Not to slam on their excellent service and great prices (and free shipping), but I've seriously waited two months for a book that was "coming soon" and it never arrived.

If you're looking for some great indie press books, the company I run with Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games called Indie Press Revolution offers very low rates for international orders (like to Israel) and FREE Priority Mail shipping on all orders within the U.S. of $25 or more. Check it out sometime. All the books on there are really good!

 

[rpghost]

Not all of the On-line stores even offer that chance for a customer to choose. If you already have established an on-line store, and you charge for shipping, why not let your costumer take up a slower shipping, at a lower rate?

The simple reason we don't (RPGShop.com) is cause many times the package goes missing and never found, 90% of the time the customer starts asking where their package is before it's even supposed to get there. Lots of times it arrives totally beat to crap or soaking wet.

In short, it's a logistics nightmare and a financial risk to do ground (boat) shipping. So we stoped and only now offer AIR MAIL service. We only charge actual shipping plus $3 handling and for Canada and Mexico that is usually very resonable (Round $10 for a book).

Best of luck!
James

 

[Greyskull]

Land Shipping

I don't know why there were many cases for you where the package got lost, beat to crap, or soaked wet. I, and several friends have used land shipping many times to order books from abroad, and never once did the package suffer any damage, or gone missing.
About costumers complaining, as long as your site, and the e-mail affirmation about their order lists how long it might take for their order to arrive there should be no problem, but if they do send their e-mail inquire too early, a simple e-mail telling them that politely just that might do the trick.

I order 6 books from an on-line shop, and the shipping went to a staggering total of 49 US$, and that is no reasonable price at all. I have ordered from amazon for books, and it cost me less than that. The price might seem reasonable when you look at shipping in the US, or to Canada and Mexico, but when you look at shipping to Israel the prices seem to just skyrocket!

Sorry for the rant, but this is fairly important to me to get this message through.

 

[Ed Cha]

Actually, I have heard of a lot of packages getting beat up and busted up at the edges. I've even seen boxes with their contents about to spill out of them. So maybe media mail is not the best for businesses to ship abroad after all. It's a cheap alternative for shipping your own stuff, but a business has to be responsible for all shipments and this is not a good way.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sometimes even when you use other forms of shipping, things get lost.

For example, I ordered roughly $300 worth of miniatures from a European company. They sent them three times and they never arrived. No tracking numbers, no way to see where the item was, it was just gone. No problem getting my money back, but it was very infuriating as these are miniatures you can't get in the US.

 

[Treebore]

If anyone finds a cheap way to ship to Israel, or anywhere international, from the US let me know. Land mail is the cheapest, but still pricey, and I have recieved shipments from Taiwan and Hong Kong that were very beat up and took longer than the six weeks, one time took 9 weeks and 4 days. So far it has been reliable from Thailand.

 

[thundershot]

No offense to online stores, but that's why I order off of amazon. Great prices and free shipping. The only book that I got a little ticked about was the World's Largest Dungeon, and because of the inconvienience, they upped my order to next day shipping (when it came in) and a $10 coupon. Not bad, I'd say... But most books, I'll happily wait to save a big chunk of change. This isn't my only hobby, so I've got to save $ where I can.



Chris