Factors to consider are the free PDF when the product ships from Paizo, and Amazon's history of notoriously unreliable shipping times for Paizo products.
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What Paul said.
The biggest incentives for the subscription are the free PDFs and the most excellent customer service you receive from Paizo.
My biggest problem with Paizo is that they offer more quality products on a monthly basis than I can afford - for now!
The other advantages:-
1) You get a free PDF version of the document, pretty much as sson as it becomes available
2) There is a 15% discount on other stuff bought at the Paizo store (believe me, this adds up nicely)
3) When (If) you buy other stuff, you can have it shipped with your subscription items ("Moved to side cart"), and it seems to be far cheaper that way for the additional items
4) You avoid the usual Amazon "This will be shipped... sometime... we think" kind of situation :-)
Aiddar
The PDF with interactive maps was what made me recently opt for a subscription over Amazon. You also get a discount on other purchases which you can bundle with your subscription without it raising the cost of shipping too much. I'm sure I'll keep using Amazon for certain purchases since I don't want a PDF for rulebooks, but the extras on the AP subscription make it worth it. You also would wind up paying about the same in shipping from Amazon if you only buy one AP book. In order to get free shipping at $14 a pop you actually have to buy 3 books per shipment.
I'll defend Amazon a bit here and say their problems with Paizo products stem from the distributor they use and not anything they or Paizo are doing wrong.
It depends on the specific situation, but they certainly bundle everything up as cheaply as they can for you (within whichever option you've selected for shipping).
Sometimes, adding one item can push you over a size limit and require two boxes (or sometimes a more expensive method if you're an international customer). As a general rule though, two books wont cost double what it costs to ship one book. Their system is smart enough to try several packaging options and to select the cheapest by default.
Yeah, basically the more you order, the less likely overall the shipping you'll pay per item (though it depends on weight and other stuff). I can vouch for the fact that if you tell them to pack your items together in a monthly shipment, it will save you some money usually. (Cheaper to mail a hardcover, softcover, and a map together than separately)
I remember before GameMastery map .pdfs I subscribed and I found it wasn't worth it because I ended up paying more for shipping than I would just pay for the item retail + tax. Now that there's map .pdfs with that it's a good deal (but sadly by the time they came out with the map .pdfs, I was needing to put myself on a budget, and decided I couldn't afford a subscription regardless :( ).
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shipping big packets is an issue on its own (for taxes, europe) when you have a low-value packet, you pay nothing/not a lot (for books)
for non-books, or lots of books, the taxes increase a lot (along with the shipping) and brings it to a not-acceptable range (for me)
because of this, I cancelled all my non-books subscriptions (cards, maps, pawns...)
I really hope paizo will open a store/delivery place in europe for a more "local" shipping :)
until then I'll keep on buying all of their (excellent) books, and some cards, occasionnaly
Stephane
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They tried this in the magazine days using a european magazine distribution house... it was horrible
I really hope paizo will open a store/delivery place in europe for a more "local" shipping
One of you that is a Venture Capt / very active for Paizo in Europe should propose to open a distribution center for them.
Find a local space / secured, where the items could be received. You then help Paizo rent a local office/warehouse where they could store the items.
Then you set up a local PC / printer (label printer) and go to work for them on a part time basis.
They pay you $x.xx per hour to ship out orders on a daily basis. It might eventually grow to be a full time gig for you!
Paizo saves money by shipping in bulk to your location, and the local customers also see a savings. There is SOME cost (rent + cost per hour of your time) but I suspect the savings would offset this.
Outsourcing it to a NON-gamer could work if that non-gamer/company is trustworthy. But a gamer run distribution center, that gamer KNOWS the product line and is already passionate about the product.
If I was setting all this up...personally I would open a small retail game store. Retail space, gaming space....and warehouse/distribution center space.
You might KNOW of a local game shop that could do this...or one of you might be an entrepreneur and want to go into biz for yourself!!
Just my 2 cents... and I am looking at various subscription models myself. Not sure what I want to buy in physical form all the time yet besides the comic.
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I wonder if you could do something like package them up in Paizo HQ slap on mailing labels that were applicable for a Europe based mailer out of the UK (or other viable european city.) Then load all the packages into larger shipping containers, send them to a central location and then pay peeps to uncrate and hand over to local shippers. Probably only a viable option for subs but it might cut shipping costs? One would need to factor duty into the the final shipping costs, might take a math major to figure it all out:)
I doubt it would have as significant effect on costs as people are assuming. Any saving on shipping is going to be eaten away through increased handling costs, increased customer service work (dealing with irate calls to Paizo when the European/Australian guy messes up somehow - which would no doubt take much more to sort out given time zones and distances), increased taxes through shipping larger packages (every package into Australia over $1000 is going to be hit by GST on top of any cutoms/excises, for example). Plus you'd need to rent storage space to receive the shipments. It might only be needed for sixty days a year or so - but you're still going to need some ongoing commercial space and that doesnt come cheap. (Or have some guy operate out of his garage and put up with the inherent reliability risks with using volunteer over professional labour).
At the end of it all, subscribers are going to get their stuff later than otherwise, not much cheaper and the complexity of the whole thing has increased significantly - meaning more errors, more time taken to chase those up and longer delays in rectifyng them.
One of you that is a Venture Capt / very active for Paizo in Europe should propose to open a distribution center for them.
I don't think that changes anything unless you're massive. The duties and taxes still need to be paid by the entity that imports the product into the country. All that would likely happen at Paizo's scale is an extra markup layer would be added.
As a long term UK subscriber - to Dragon and Dungeon prior to Pathfinder - I remember the nightmare that was outsourced European subscription fulfilment by TPFG.
The service was rubbish and product arrived late and often badly packaged or damaged, and TPFG just didn't fulfil some orders in the end. I seem to remember Paizo/Lisa ended up flying some people to the UK to sort out the mess when this all fell to bits - and I presume Paizo lost money on it in the end as they sorted it all out for all UK and European subscribers.
If fulfilment was again outsourced I'd be seriously considering cancelling my subscriptions - I'd rather pay the small premium for transatlantic shipping, Paizo service, the PDF copy, and most importantly Paizo customer service than risk some amateur, part time, or commercial but uniterested operation buggering things up on a regular or maybe monthly basis.
So if you get multiple items (say multiple subscriptions) the shipping costs don't rise linearly?
AKA right now it's costing me $6 in shipping for one $14 module. But if I got the $14 module AND the deck of item cards AND the Pathfinder Companion... the shipping would be... closer to $18? or more like $7-$8?
I can give a very specific recent example:
- Shipping for 1 AP module: $6
- Shipping for 1 AP module, four other softcover books (32-64 pages each), AND the Bestiary Box: $13.50
(All shipments were to a California address.)
So yeah, the shipping costs per item definitely go down if you order more items.