Cosmo's page

Followup question, after a convo with my FLGS:

If your preference is for retailers to buy direct from yall, how should a store reach out to Paizo about placing an order as a retailer, rather than a consumer?
My FLGS is half-bookstore and half games, so they'd been getting their Pathfinder books from Diamond. We found the website link to register as a Paizo-friendly retailer, but not any details about how to buy direct as a retailer. If yall don't do wholesale to retailers, are there any other wholesalers who you'd recommend?
I'm so sorry you're goin through this, team. It sucks, and you deserve so much better.

We announced our upcoming Direct to Retail program earlier this year. While we are hard at work bringing this program to life, it won't be launching until later this year.

In the meantime, your FLGS is doing everything right: Register on our retailer locator, and sign up for our retailer newsletter.

We will be contacting these retailers to let them know when the program launches. If your FLGS is interested in being one of my guinea pigs and wants to be a pilot store to test the program before it goes live for everyone, have them email their store info and interest to Paizo Retail at <directtoretail [at] paizo.com>.

I removed a post that was a little needlessly combative, to avoid sparking off a pointless argument going into the weekend.

Please remember the human on the other side and keep the discussion focused on the rules and the playtest, and not on the other posters or their preferred playstyle.

Hey folks, let's try and take the temperature back down in our replies and try to keep the discussion more on the rules, classes, and playtest, and less on others' styles of posting or play style.

Remember the human and that we're all here because we're fans and to make the best game possible.

Well... I suppose that that's what I get for believing them when those skittermanders insisted that they would help set up the sale.

Thankfully, these much-more-trustworthy goblins have assured me that they have straightened things out and the sale should be working as intended now. With very few spontaneous explosions.

If you do not see the sale showing up, try clearing your web browser cache and refreshing the page. You may also want to be ready to duck when doing so.

As with every year we hold our Fall & Winter holiday sales, please remember that the additional volume will result in increased response times for our CS department, as well as increased shipping times. While we are taking steps to mitigate this as much as we can, I also thank you in advance for your patience as we strive to make sure any effects of the increased volume affect as small a number of customers as possible.

If you are still waiting on an order from the beginning of November, please see this post.

Hello! I know y'all are wanting to know what going on with your subscription shipment and I am here to give everyone an update.

We have gotten an immense amount of support for the release of the Pathfinder Player Core and Pathfinder GM Core, and we couldn’t be more humbled and grateful for this amazing outpouring from the Pathfinder Community. Seriously… you folx are the best!

Unfortunately, however, this added volume is coming in at the same time as a perfect storm of other issues (both foreseeable and unforeseen) and this has resulted in an overall delay in orders leaving the warehouse. Due to some internal shipping issues, a number of orders were erroneously marked as “shipped” but have not yet left the warehouse. Furthermore, a number of customers rightfully reached out to CS about the delay, and we set them up with replacement orders, not realizing that the order being replaced is still waiting to be picked up. The real catch here is that we are unable to determine which orders have left and which are still waiting to go out.

On behalf of the CS team, and all of Paizo, I sincerely apologize for these errors. Rest assured that we have taken steps to address the issue to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Now, for the plan forward, here is what we are going to do:

• As we cannot determine which “shipped” orders have arrived at their destination, which have left and are still on their way, and which are still awaiting pick up, we need to re-establish a baseline shipping estimate that will cover all existing shipped orders. We will now consider the shipping window for all orders that “shipped” since Nov 1 to have left the warehouse on Wednesday, November 22nd. Please note that we will be closed for the holiday on Thursday the 23rd and Friday the 24th. This should account for both orders that have yet to leave as well as the general holiday-related shipping slowdowns and give all orders, even ones that have yet to leave, all the necessary time to arrive before we give them up for lost.

• For people who have already contacted Paizo CS about an order that shipped since Nov 1, and were set up with a replacement shipment, please contact Paizo CS on the same ticket you used previously. We want to make 100% sure that you get your order.

• For subscribers who have not yet received a shipping notification for your November subscription shipment and still need your PDF, please contact Paizo CS at customer.service@paizo.com and we will get you taken care of.

• For everyone else who is waiting on any other type of order and has not yet received a shipping notification, I once again apologize for the delay, but we hope to be getting orders moving regularly again after November 27th.

I know this update will come as a disappointment for many, and I am deeply sorry. Getting into numerating the various issues that caused this, both foreseeable and not, smacks to me of making excuses for what happened, when I would much rather make solutions for the people that it is happening to. Thank you very much for your patience as we work to get things back on the proper track.

HRM... I keep telling the CS folks to quit being so nice and helpful to people, but they just never listen!

I'll just have to redouble my efforts to crush their spirits.

...

(I kid. Austin and the whole CS team are all pretty awesome and it warms my icy little heart to see that recognized. Thank you!)

...logged in today to check on the status of my preorder (and long-awaited pre-order pawn discount) only to discover that it's been cancelled by paizo?..

...and since re-solicited for next year?..

...i can understand if the OGL shenanigans earlier this year forced paizo to re-shuffle their plans, but for them to quietly cancel my preorder without even an email notification is not cool at all...

...some authoritative clarification would be appreciated; at the moment i'm not even sure whether i can trust placing another pre-order...

Ahoy! I apologize for the order cancellation!

It appears that a number of the AV5E preorders got improperly caught up in a mass cancellation of dead/invalid orders and were quietly and completely wrongly canceled. This included your order.

I have uncanceled your order. Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention because finding your order also brought a bunch of others up. Now we can take care of those folks as well! :D

-cosmo

It seems I have been lax lately. I must redouble my efforts.

I pronounce these rooms to be silly.

Y'all need more robust watches.

Gundalf420 wrote:

Hi!

I ordered my first book from Paizo directly, which was Treasure Vault, It's not moved since the 19th, and I'm certain that it's lost in shipping. I'm super bummed because it was slated for arriving by the 22nd, and I've lost the hype of reading it now that it's on AoN.
I sent a few emails to support but haven't heard back yet.
I love this game so far as I'm brand new to this, and was really looking forward to this one. :(

Well, it's been almost 4 weeks now since it shipped and no book and no replies to any of my inquiries to customer.support@paizo.com. This is unacceptable, and I would like a refund or I'll issue a chargeback.

If you're reading this, I guess you could say I got the worst end of their customer service and I would NOT RECOMMEND buying from them. This is unfortunate because I love this game and want to support them but for weeks of not a single response? That's bad.

Needs more Cosmo.

Edit to add:

Here is a good source of absolutely true and completely cannon Cosmo content.

Rei: good luck, maybe you'll get a murder trial!

captain yesterday wrote:

Cosmo's Slightly More Evil Twin wrote:

Since we're all currently WFH, do you miss my occasional visits to your desk to creepily loom over your cubicle wall and stare at you until you acknowledge me?

Not as much as when you do it from outside his living room window.

Especially since I live on the fifth floor щ(゜ロ゜щ)

I will say that Cosmo's looming way always a nice way to punctuate an afternoon, and a good incentive to line the top of the cubicle with more plushies and figurines so there would be no place to loom.

(ಠ⌣ಠ)

Since we're all currently WFH, do you miss my occasional visits to your desk to creepily loom over your cubicle wall and stare at you until you acknowledge me?

30 minutes ago Me: must be very careful using this x-acto knife for intricate crafty things.

Cosmo DM: OK, you're fine.

5 minutes ago Me: getting some foil for this baking sheet for baked potatoes.
Cosmo DM: OK, you crit failed. You take bleed damage from aluminum foil papercut.

Cosmo DM is best DM.

But I don't blame Cosmo.

ಠ_ಠ

Pontiff Rysky, of Cult of Cosmo wrote:

I Blame Cosmo that I hate when I’m right.

I did get the automated response that acknowledged that I sent them something. It even sets me up to expect utter failure.

Quote:

Your request (173326) has been received and will be reviewed by our support staff. With the current situation of COVID-19 (coronavirus), we are taking all necessary steps to keep our office spaces safe for our employees. This may lead to longer than normal response times between emails. We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause and thank you for your understanding and patience.

:)

Skeld wrote:

So.....

Cosmo is now Brian Bauman's dog?

I expected more of an announcement on that.

Whenever I discuss my dog in workplace chats, coworkers frequently experience a split-second where they mentally apply whatever I said to our mutual coworker.

In truth, I relish these occurrences and do absolutely nothing to prevent them.

I gotta lotta fond memories of that dog.

Let's face it, only Cosmo could be so evil as to have invented autocorrect.

Not invented. Improved!

Improved the duck out of it!

I blame cosmo for my players not going to the rafters with pugwampis. Instead they just threw things at the pugwampis; nowhere near as fun...Except for throwing the gnome bard at them twice.

Pugwampis have + 5 Stealth (at base) and enough Int to pair that with Invisibility Potions. It's also worth noting that Gnolls are immune to the unluck aura, and intelligent enough to procure and supply Pugwampis with these potions. And possibly even to train Pugwampis as rogues.

They can only react to Pugwampis if they know that they are there. :)

...just sayin'.

{pupils dilate three times larger than normal, begins drawing up plans for wyvern-carried underchin-mounted Gremlin Electric GAU-8 runcible cannon}

I'm Cosmo, and I support this General Silliness.

*channels positive feelings and offers hugs to all the awesome Paizo Employees*

*offers hugs to all the awesome Paizo Employees*

*offers hugs*

...

Avoid close contact with people.

:)

Day 167 of me deciding not to delete every single post in this thread purely out of a desire to prove the initial assertion untrue.

We shall see what tomorrow holds...

It turns out I forgot to tell my daughter that she's getting a filling tomorrow, and the appointment is right about when school starts.

I can only imagine the sense of doom she feels when I give her a ride tomorrow and we turn left instead of right and she asks "where are we going?" To which I'll cheerfully reply "Disneyland!".

:)

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Rei: ...then it'll be an OSHA thing, and I'll probably go to jail.
Katina: This seems like a whole ordeal.
Rei: I'm imaginative.

Vany, you know there are six, maybe seven, live clowns in your car's trunk right now?

omg he doesn't

OMG SPOILERS!

I should probably flag this post as inappropriate

You misspelled "GENIUS".

Folks... Folks... Folks... I'm definitely looking forward to playing in this game. Now, you will have the opportunity to mess with me with what you make me play, sure...

BUT!

...you also have the opportunity to help me mess with BULMAHN!

I just have two words:

CLOWN. BARD.

Tune in and do with this what you will. :)

a mental picture of Cosmo cackling like Klaw in Black Panther.

I love this.

Hmm... Perhaps I should withdraw the pugwampis for now...

Selene Spires wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

I blame Cosmo that I went "Fav happy" on a Twitter account I was following, so they blocked me.

What is wrong with people? *hugs*

Eh. It's my fault for breaking Twitter etiquette.

I don't know what this term, "fav happy", actually means. Google is no help.

Virginia J.: THIS IS HORRIFYING
Virginia J.: I LOVE IT

I'm holding out for the Geordi La Forge visor, myself.

Space is big. Really, really big.

Pfft. It's peanuts compared to the walk to the chemist down the road.

Expose, Report, Complain!

...

Not gonna lie: I love that.

Oh hey! This is in my wheelhouse! I know this! Neat-o!

So Anguish has a decent overview (fake numbers notwithstanding), except for this part:

As well, Amazon asks for a whole crate of books. Paizo might sell those to Amazon for $35 each because it takes almost zero effort for them to send out a crate, and because the order is so large. Amazon decides they are willing to sell the books to you for $45.

As Sara mentioned above, we do not sell directly to Amazon. We sell to a distributor who in turn sells to Amazon. Furthermore, it is worth noting that we also have no control over our distributor's relationship with Amazon. So whatever deal Amazon manages to get with their distributor is generally completely opaque to us. This leads us to the very relevant point that Steve makes:

Amazon is known to deliberately sell books at a loss.

This totally happens. It's generally referred to as a "loss leader" and is something that happens all the time. Businesses will choose to strategically sell product A at a loss because it generates much more activity and profits in area/product B.

However in the case of Amazon, specifically, it isn't quite that simple. You see a product listed on Amazon, it is not necessarily being sold by Amazon. This is the Third Party Platform that Steve refers to. The actual seller of any given product can be more or less obvious, so who is taking the loss, or if someone is taking a loss can be unclear. We also offer discounts to distribution from time to time (where we absorb the loss to increase sales), and distributors will offer discounts from time to time (and they absorb the loss to increase sales).

Added to all of this, Amazon sets their prices by an algorithm. When their bot sees a price for a product somewhere that is lower than the price Amazon has for the item, the algorithm drops the price on Amazon. The actual process for this is vastly more complex than that, and also an Amazon trade secret, but that's generally how it works.

Through this business model, Amazon utterly dominates the retail industry, and especially the book industry. You want some Pathfinder books, so you search the internet for them. You see the books you want for super cheap on Amazon and go there to get them. Since you're setting up a shopping cart anyway, you go ahead and get those headphones you've been wanting and a new charging stand for your phone. Maybe a new set of dice as well. Oh, and you should probably take this opportunity to pick something up for that person's birthday next month... and so on.

Tl;dr - This is Amazon being Amazon.

I have only myself to blame.

ಠ_ಠ

Katina: omg when Beyonce dies we can bring her back with a Seyonce?

Chris 2: I have so many questions... 1) How do you kill a bear? 2) How do you prep a bear for cooking? 3) Why are you resorting to eating bears? 4) Do they come with honey?

Chris 1: Answer to first 3: Bare hands

Last Q: obvs

Rei: Wait, how can i become a doctor in parasol dueling?

Katina: You have to go to medical parasol dueling school for like 8 years.

We can try and book you in for Wednesday Afternoon. How's that for you?

I look forward to it.

Are you free this week? I'd like you to take care of* a small thing** for me when you get the chance.

...

...

I Blame Cosmo for COSal relationships.

FTFY

New year, new work to be done...

:)

Cosmo wrote:

Point of order: The profanity filter is totally a thing and has always been. And causing it to trigger and/or bypassing it has never been allowed.

I blame Cosmo for being hypocritical since he's the one that taught me to avoid absolutes.

Oblig.

I Blame Cosmo since I'm not allowed to say my favourite word on here anymore.

Point of order: The profanity filter is totally a thing and has always been. And causing it to trigger and/or bypassing it has never been allowed.

So that word (delightful as it may be to sprinkle into polite conversation like a surprise turd hidden in a field of flowers) needs to remain in use only elsewhere. Around here, you'll need to some word that is even more descriptive of that sort of crapulence to use instead.