Every once in a while during the last 2 years I tried buying stuff from Paizo but whenever I check out the shipping costs (international) I shake me poor head and empty the shopping cart again.
Someone is trying really hard not to make sales to overseas customers :(
I know you cannot beat Amazon (you can't, right?..right??) but a price difference that big is just too much to understand.
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Fun fact: Amazon has shipping centers all around the world. If you order from Europe, your stuff is actually shipped from Amazon warehouses in Sweden (IIRC). That's cheap. If your stuff isn't at hand, it gets ordered from the central warehouses in the US - and because Amazon moves so much stuff around from US to other warehouses, they get massive bulk discounts on shipping and it's still cheap.
I am well aware of that, I do not really think it is funny. Having to pay thrice the amount for shipping makes it really hard to convince myself to buy something from Paizo and if those shipping costs would not be so outrageously high I would buy everything from here.
I do not care if I have to wait 20 business days for something but I do care about how much it costs.
Director of Sales
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I sympathize, I really do.
However, the reality is that it just costs that much to ship products overseas. We do not make any profit whatsoever on our shipping and handling fees (usually quite the opposite, in fact), so what we charge you to ship it is what it costs us to ship it to you. We do not have the capacity to have fulfillment centers all over the world. In fact, we don't even have "fulfillment centers" at all. We have our warehouse. Right here in Redmond with the office. From here, we ship all of our orders.
The good news is that we rely on both of our revenue streams: Direct sales, as well as distribution. So this means that if it works better for you to purchase your Paizo products from Amazon, or (even better) your local gaming store, then that is perfectly fine by us! I am primarily concerned with you getting your Paizo products and being pleased with them. How that happens should be though whatever means works best for you.
Thanks,
cos
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Thorsten with a name like that chances are that you are German. If that is the case maybe my experience might help you:
-when ordering from America take care not to let the orders get to large, otherwise you might have to pay customs IIRC they always check if your order is over 150 € including shipping and handling. If that's the case (maybe on lower amounts too) you have to pay 7% for books and 19
% for other items (like keychains, posters and dice) If the customs charges are under 5 € you don't have to pay them at all.
-as our beloved happiness-inducenment imp told you, paizo tries very hard to keep shipping cost as low as possible, but they can't compete with amazon (amazon.com is including shipping is still way cheaper than amazon.de - amazon.com.uk may be an option too)
-if you have a subscription shipping isn't even all that high on softcovers and products like cards and books - the really expensive stuff are hardcovers and boxes products.
I have recently started my subscription with ultimate equipment and while it cost a bit to ship it it's worth it for several reasons:
-free pdf
-exchange rate (today 1 $ = 0,79676 EUR
-dealing with the nice customer service
-I love my pathfinder beginners box, but bought it from a german onlinestore (the one attached to the German pathfinder pubs- they had the second printing when I ordered and I wanted that one)shipping cost was higher than the product. For the same reason, a pathfinder pawns subscription isn't really an option right now . Vic Werts said in another thread that it is even heavier than the beginners box and so only UPS priority is an option.
-So with a subscription and some attention when it comes to combining orders and suspending subscriptions you can maintain your subscriptions here without an economic disadvantage
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I would prefer to buy from my FLGS if there was a way to purchase it there but I got a free PDF of the product by submitting a receipt, etc. I know it's a benefit of being a subscriber, but it means us overseas REALLY have to pay for the privilege. There is life outside of the US. If something could be organised with Paizo distributors around the world, that would be awesome.
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I would support my FLGS but if I did I would not be able to get everything I want because of the ultr high prices over here in Australia. Also lucky we have such a high tax free allowance for goods that can be shipped in to Australia.
Paizo has to support their packaging department but Paizo does have high shipping costs, even when they add shipping incentives, Paizo does have high shipping costs on large orders. It works out cheaper, for the most part, to purchase a US postal address and have my items shipped there. Then from there have them shipped via DHL or FedEx to my door.