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Organized Play Member. 10,733 posts (11,026 including aliases). 1 review. 2 lists. 1 wishlist. 4 Organized Play characters. 9 aliases.


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Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

Leon Aquilla wrote:
This got delayed into October and nobody has said anything. Absurd.

Due to the logistics issues that have been driving the delays in product release dates, there are quite a few products that are seeing their estimated release dates shift, sometimes more than once. We may not be able to leave a note in every product discussion every time a release date changes, however, customer service maintains monthly New Release threads in the customer service forum and if products are delayed, we post updates to those threads.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

This product has been moved to the October 2021 New Releases group. Due to the global shipping & logistics issues affecting manufacturing and delivery of our print products, estimated release dates for future products may continue to change unexpectedly. To stay updated about changes to our new release schedules, please visit our customer service forum where we make a monthly post for each set of new product releases.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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YawarFiesta wrote:

Any chance we might get an update about September releases?

Humbly,
Yawar

I'm working on that right now :D

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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Umbra-Arcturus wrote:
Just got a shipping notice! Huzzah!

This was an error. We're looking into it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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Hey folks, I want to come back to this thread, but after posting it last week thinking I would have the time to occasionally pop in and answer things, my week got unexpectedly turned in a different direction. I'm going to close it until next week so that I have time to catch up with questions that have already been asked.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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I posted a similar thing in another thread but wanted to add the information here too:

I know there were a lot of people who were watching the individual product page for Secrets of Magic and seeing the release date as August 25 right up until the 24th when it was updated to September 1st, and that this caused confusion and frustration for folks who were looking forward to it dropping on the 25th.

This issue was user error on my part. When we realized the dates were going to change, I went to go update the changes on the August Product Group, and somehow either missed or missed saving the change to the retail release date field. No one who works directly with the Product Groups realized that date was still set for Sept 25th until Tuesday, and even at that point I didn't realize that was the field from which the website took the exact date data (I had it in my head that it pulled the exact date from a different part on the product's individual page).

I'm sorry for the confusion and frustration caused by this and thank everyone for their patience.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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I haven't been able to read the thread yet, but wanted to address this part the part about the website release date changing last minute as that was user error on my part. When we realized the dates were going to change, I went to go update the changes and somehow either missed or missed saving the change to the retail release date field. No one realized that date was still set for Sept 25th until Tuesday, and even at that point I didn't realize that was the field from which the website took the date data (I thought it pulled it from a different part on the product's individual page).

I'm sorry for the confusion and frustration caused by this and thank everyone for their patience.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

Rysky wrote:

Ah, just found this, selling directly to Retailers.

Right before quarantine though so don’t know if it was fully implemented or still being done.

I believe "hiatus", but I'm not entirely sure where things were left off with that.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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kcunning wrote:
Is anyone else not getting any tracking with their tracking numbers? The tracking number (USPSMI) was generated on Aug 18, but there's still no info.

Tracking has been really hit or miss lately. We're still seeing the packages arrive from what customer's have been reporting, but the tracking and delivery confirmation is either inaccurate, slow, or missing all together.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

Svyatoslov wrote:
My order was created but I don't have any shipping estimates like other seem to. Just "Transit Estimate Not yet shipped"

I double checked and everything on your order looks good to go.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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WatersLethe wrote:

I have a really dumb question.

If I placed an order for some random old paizo books and miscellaneous merch now, would that have even a small impact on how quickly this months releases are getting processed and sent out?

I wanted to buy some junk for no good reason, then imagined someone about to process my subscription order having to stop and go find old stock, pack a new box, and put off my PDF access to Secrets of Magic for another day. I somehow paranoided myself into holding off.

I will make a longer post about this when I can, but we try very hard to not penalize people for buying more from us. When we say that we expect subscription orders can all be shipped in 1-2 weeks, that does include orders from folks who have added additional items.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I could *not* figure out why no one was posting in this thread yet, and I just realized it was still locked/closed. Opened the thread up, though please email customer service if you have questions about your specific order.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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The retail release date for August products was shifted to September 1st.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I wanted to address some of the shipping/logistics conversation without derailing this thread further, so I created a post here: "Logistics of New Product Releases on Paizo.com". You can ask questions there, or in the monthly threads that customer service posts for updates on new releases' shipping.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I wanted to address some of the shipping/logistics conversation without derailing this thread further, so I created a post here: Logistics of New Product Releases on Paizo.com. You can ask questions there, or in the monthly threads that customer service posts for updates on new releases' shipping.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I noted in a couple product discussion threads there has been some discussion about subscriptions, shipping, digital assets, etc. and I wanted to address some of them without derailing those threads further.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43e1o&page=12?Secrets-of-magic-hype#590
https://paizo.com/products/btq027uy/discuss&page=9?Pathfinder-Secrets-o f-Magic#401

For the last several years, we’ve been in the habit of releasing new products on a monthly basis on the last Wednesday of a month. Depending on where the conventions fall, PaizoCon and Gen Con might throw that off. Additionally, in the fourth quarter, (September to December), release dates are earlier in the month so that we can get products to distribution and subscribers before the winter holidays.

In general, the warehouse begins building pallets and shipping product to distributors about 3.5 weeks before the retail release date. This is so that distributors can receive their products and then turn around and fulfill their retailer level orders in time for the release date. About 3 weeks before the retail release date is when my team typically runs a process that generates orders for subscribers. Typically we try to do this on a Thursday so that we have Friday to address issues, and customers have the weekend to review their order and contact us if something isn’t right. The following Monday my team focuses on questions that have come in regarding subscription orders, and then when we feel confident that all or most have been addressed the warehouse begins shipping out subscriber orders and preorders. Depending on the mix of products involved, it can take 1-2 weeks to package, and process for shipping the pending subscription and preordered new releases. While it’s our goal to have everything that can ship to be processed for shipping before the release date (as that means subscribers will at least have their digital assets), we do occasionally go over our estimated shipping window. While it usually works out that subscribers have their orders processed for shipping and thus their complimentary digital assets prior to the release date, it is not guaranteed.

(In the past we have usually had the most issues with warehouse delays around Gen Con (late July or August) as the Gen Con release is typically the one with the most subscribers getting product, as well as the most products, and a large number of staff from the warehouse or customer service are also prepping or working the convention).

In order for a product to be included in one of our monthly releases, it has be to be in our warehouse in time for us to include it on orders for distributors. If it isn’t in on time for distributors, it won’t get into retail stores with the other new releases, so it gets bumped to the next month. It would be unfair to have a new release (particularly a big one) not go to stores, but still go to subscribers. Doing that would be a great way to make distributors, retailers, and our fans who shop at those retailers really upset with us. We appreciate customers purchasing our products, whether it is directly through us, or via another retailer. No matter where our gaming community shops, we want people to feel confident, supported, and excited about purchases; not regretting their choice of where they shopped.

Within distributors and subscribers, we have a lot of overlap between our RPG brands: Pathfinder and Starfinder; and both brands ship out in monthly releases together. Every month my team (customer service) runs a process that creates subscription orders for customers. This process is not only putting items from various subscription lines into order for folks, it is also building shipments and calculating costs, creating orders which will soon be settling funds on customer payment methods. Its an exciting time for customers who are eagerly anticipating new products, and it is exciting for us too… as well as an intense and sometimes very stressful experience. We take the responsibility of creating orders and charging people’s payment methods very seriously, and it is imperative that we make responsible choices, not just on behalf of for one subscription line or brand, but for all of them; and not just for one subscriber, or only our paizo.com customers, but for distributors and retailers and their customers, too.

Logistically speaking, it does not work to separate our process for new releases by brand or product. When I first started at Paizo a million years ago, we were in a position where we had to ship products as they came into the warehouse, and we could not always wait to group them together, though we tried to offer customers the option to ship things immediately or have them grouped together. This was a logistical nightmare for operations and the fall out from it did everyone (Paizo, distributors, retailers, and customers) a disservice. We have been able to be far more consistent and efficient by have a single release date each month, and overall I have found that consistency is something that helps the most people manage their subscriptions more effectively.

As far as 2020 and 2021 have gone… its been chaotic, uncertain, and deeply frustrating for everyone. Throughout 2020, my team had a backlog of issues in the thousands, and so far almost every release in 2021 has had logistic and timing issues. I cannot stress enough that globally manufacturing, production, and shipping logistics are all having massive issues. Labor shortages, supply shortages, shipping container shortages, port back ups and delays, the problems right now cover the entire supply chain, for all sorts of businesses not just Paizo. These things are all contributing to rising costs and transit times across the board. In addition to that, we’ve been addressing some internal problems with our shipping code, like updating rate tables that were woefully out of date, working on getting new VAT (Value Added Tax) and retail sales tax regulations sorted and implemented. For some folks this means shipping and handling costs will go up due to increased costs and corrected shipping rates, and for a handful of people, shipping and handling might actually go down or stay stable as we have access to new rates or services that we were missing out on before.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is that my team is committed to helping folks sort out their order issues.

I don’t know that I will have a whole lot of time to be able to respond to follow up questions, but if you have general questions, I will do my best to answer what I can. I prefer to be forthcoming and transparent about stuff when and where I can be, so that customers can make informed decisions about where and how they spend their money.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Lets bring the focus back to the contents of the book rather than shipping issues.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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The order creation for August's 4 products appears to have successfully finished creating orders. CS will be addressing issues that might have arisen with order creation in the morning. We hope to begin shipping ASAP so if you have something critical like cancelling, updating addresses, etc, please do that as soon as possible or let us know via email if you need assistance.

~sara marie

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Crashed near the end due to an illegal state exception which sounds way more exciting than it really is. Restarting order creation.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Tech Revolution has been moved to a September Release and we will be starting the process of creating subscription orders for August shortly.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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We are hoping to hear an update in the next hour or so on when the last item (tech revolution) will arrive.

Very likely we will be creating paizo.com subscription orders this afternoon, and begin shipping as soon as possible Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.

I will update this thread once I hear back on whether we have an update on Tech Revolution and if that will be included in August or September's new releases.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Moved the order creation to Monday as we did not get an update on the expected arrival of the last of the August items.

-Sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Hi folks, just a quick note that not all of the items are in the warehouse yet, so the new releases listed might change if they don't all make it here by Thursday, or we might end up pushing order creation for subscribers back a bit further.

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I moved the dates for the set into late August. I need to enter data into the fields to keep it preorderable, but please assume it is TBD*, and not any one specific date at this time.

*To Be Determined

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I'm closing the thread while it is being looked at so as not to keep adding to the posts that need to be reviewed.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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vagrant-poet wrote:
The bookmarks on the pdf are largely missing. Can we get an update here when they are fixed?

I'm going to track down the person who can help answer the question about the bookmarks. As far as an update goes, if a file that is in your digital assets gets updated, you should receive an email notification that there is a new version to download when it happens. There should be a checkbox on your account settings to opt in/out of digital asset update notifications.

(Thanks for bring this to my attention Aaron!)

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Themetricsystem wrote:
Question: Is this accurate? If so, that's a HUGE departure from literally every module or AP book Paizo has ever put out to my knowledge and I think that it may serve everyone well to present this idea far more up-front in the marketing.

Ron just followed up in that thread.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

Swiftbrook wrote:
If you contribute to the $50 level and get the physical Beginner Box and Pack Worlds, can you add other items to your Paizo order to save on shipping?

I think that technically it is possible?

However, the mechanism for redeeming the physical humble bundle items is different than the regular shopping cart. You wouldn't be able to add stuff directly to the code redemption "check out" process. Calculating shipping costs to see if you'd actually save money, isn't going to be convenient on the customer side, and customer service does not have the capacity to make these calculations for everyone who would want to check.

Additionally, the physical items aren't really intended to be combined with other purchases. The amount of physical items we ship for Humble Bundles is a very large spike in shipments that vastly exceeds our usually pace of fulfillment. When orders are just the HB items, our warehouse can pre build boxes and packages, print shipping labels off in batches, hire contractors for a short window of time, and knock them out very quickly in assembly line fashion. As soon as other items are combined, that order cannot go through the assembly line of fulfillment and would go into our regular shipping queue, taking longer to be shipped, and causing additional delays our usual flow of orders.

It's not ideal that this is the case (for both Paizo and the customer). I'd love to be able to encourage people to do more shopping at the same time as their Humble Bundle order is being fulfilled, but unfortunately it is not practical to do so at this time.

I know that some folks have managed to get the website to add their Humble Bundle physical items to other orders. Within our shipping code, there are ways to add items to existing submitted orders. In many cases combining items into existing orders will come up as a shipping option during check out, and if a customer is able to convince paizo.com's check-out or redemption process to let them do this, then it shouldn't cause a problem for the customer other than perhaps slowing down how quickly it's fulfilled for shipping from our warehouse. However, I can't promise that it will actually save money to combine packages, or that it won't result in having to contact customer service to fix an unintended consequence.

Some of our shipping methods are lower cost based on the contents of the packages, which means there are potential combinations of items that restrict something from being shipping a certain method. Sometimes for international customers, combining orders means a package gets charged differently for VAT or import/customs fees/taxes. There can be hidden costs to combining packages for customers that we cannot predict due to the variety of different item combinations or location based regulations.

We will of course provide assistance for orders, but I really can't promise that trying to convince our website to combine items will result in a good experience for folks.

I guess the TL;DR is: if you want to try to combine orders, note that this is outside the intended parameters of the redemption tool. Customer service doesn't have the capacity to calculate if something might be cheaper for you, or if it might change how your order is taxed by your location, etc. We will always try our best to help you if something goes wrong, so please let us know as soon as possible if something breaks with your orders or account.

-sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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I'll take nice surprises :D

I'm trying to get a sense of where we're at with shipping stuff and orders and will update Monday after I can touch base with Jeff S in the warehouse.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

It's on this page: https://paizo.com/paizo/account/redemptions (under your Account settings).

~sara

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

The two items are under one product code: PZO7110-HB21.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

J03_M4M4 wrote:
My international order (36534607) went from ~$40 total across two shipments to ~$90 in one shipment, is this correct? ~$60 shipping for a book and a map seems a bit excessive, even for international, considering 10 items last month was ~$90. Can someone have a look at this, please and thank you :)

You should have a new confirmation email.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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Just as a heads up, as we figure some of this stuff out, you might see future subscription shipments' shipping and handling go up. We're looking at current international orders, and it is looking like several locations are/were being underquoted.

Please also keep in mind that the EU has new VAT requirements and many places are cracking down on making sure international orders are getting taxed.

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