Paizo Order #3389075 - Fixed?

[chavamana]

So I just got the email where my subscription order was 'fixed' and my shipping increased by $10.40 *and* it is now being sent in 5 packages instead of 2. (And frankly, what I ordered would have normally come in 1 package based on previous shipments before your system was upgraded.)

Can you please check my order and see if you can fix it back to what you sent me on January 8th?

Any chance you guys are considering going back to the system that you used back in 2013?

[Sara Marie]

Order is in review.

[Sara Marie]

Okay I think I figured this one out. The reason we had shipping issues in the first place is that one of the envelope sizes was being funky which didn't allow a bunch of products to ship standard postal or first class. This mostly affect people with 1 or 2 subscriptions who had cheapest or first class set. In your case, your subscriptions are set to default to USPS First Class. The first time around, a number of the items in your order didn't think they had a first class envelope they could ship in, so almost all the items were in two packages (one First class package and everything else in a Priority package). The second time around when we were fixing orders, suddenly all those items had the envelope size back and could ship first class as per the My Subscription setting designated.

These are the other shipping methods and costs:
USPS Priority Mail 1 package $18.69
UPS Ground 1 package $22.44
USPS First-Class Mail and USPS Priority Mail 5 packages $34.51

I've switched it to Priority for now. If you'd like another option, just let me know.

[chavamana]

Priority will be fantastic... and in fact saved my $5 from my original email. I used to be tagged as 'cheapest' which in my case meant you guys always shipped it to me at priority :) (except for the danged large card game base sets).

Should I just shift my subs to Priority?

Thank you - I know this can't be easy for you guys.

[Sara Marie]

If you are choosing between USPS options, then Priority is probably safer than First Class if you have more than 1 or 2 subscriptions. Cheapest is the only method that will change a specific month's shipping if there is a cheaper option. Every other choice will do its best to ship via the selected default even if there is something cheaper.

If you want to know the why behind this set up:

There are a small number of customers who have issues with specific methods, be it UPS or USPS or Standard Postal which uses UPS-Mail Innovations andUSPS for delivery. We need them to be able to select an option and not have it change even if something else is cheaper, so that they can avoid a specific method. Example: a customer used UPS and they always leave it on the door step where it gets stolen whereas if they use USPS, the carrier can put it in their mailbox. Therefore, theoretically, if you choose anything other than cheapest, the shipping code will do its best to ship your subscription orders the method you selected, unless it physically can't, at which point it selects another service (and I can't remember off the top of my head if it defaults to cheapest at that point or uses another criteria). Since for these customers it is often a matter of whether or not they can subscribe from us, we want to make sure they have as best chance as possible to ship things their preferred method.

[chavamana]

Since I really really dislike the way UPS-MI handles shipments to my state and am worried that my cheapest will get shunted to them in the new system (unless that isn't the case?), I think my best bet is to tag is USPS-Priority.

Thank you very much Sara Marie. And thank you for the explanation, since I remember people explicitly asking for this feature :)

I *like* it. That change dropped all my shipping costs by at least $10! ... and back into single boxes.

Let me change that to THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH!