$45 USD for Shipping? You have got to be kidding me!

I bit the bullet and bought the whole bundle, then was totally shocked to find that the shipping price for the beginners box was $45 USD.

That's obscene. Especially when I can get the Beginners box at my local game store where I usually play Magic and Table Top games for less than that. Something that I fully intend to do.

It does not cost that much to ship something from the States to Canada. I've bought things significantly more expensive and heavier and had it shipped through USPS and it did not come out to that much.

Hell, that's a price I would expect to ship something from Canada to the UK, something I do quite regularly. There's no reason for it to cost that much.

I would be more inclined to have paid more on the humble bundle itself, if the shipping was included in the original price then to be shocked when it came to paying for the shipping.

If that is the norm for your shipping outside the US, you will not have me making purchases to your online store for physical merch.

In the thread about donating the box. Somebody found out it would cost $50 USD to ship it to Switzerland.So yeah 45 to Canada sounds off

I don't know what alternate universe you have been getting your shipments from, but those kinds of charges are typical from ANYONE in the US to Canada for the kinds of materials in question. The rare exception is if the company doing the shipping has Canadian distribution - which is what Amazon does, in bulk, to circumvent most (but not all) of it. So do most wholesalers.

The blame is squarely on YOUR GOVERNMENT. They have extremely odd, often Byzantine, rules as to what taxes/fees/etc. to apply to stuff mailed/shipped into Canada.

The Canadian government is INFAMOUS in its games it plays with shipments across the border. One of the infamous instances goes back 20-30 years where they wanted to charge $5,10, or more PER ITEM for sending home videos on VHS, or even BLANK CD/DVDs across the border, supposedly to fight video piracy.

Another game company, Palladium (based in suburban Detroit), had a kickstarter a couple years ago, where the standard item was $140.
The TYPICAL shipping for the item in the contiguous (lower 48) US
was $10-25, based on distance. Alaska and Hawaii was about $48

CANADA, on the other and, STARTED at higher than the Alaska numbers, even if only being sent to Windsor, less than an hour from Palladium. For that matter, Palladium couldn't even drive the stuff to Windsor and mail it, without having to pay the outrageous fees.
Beyond that, depending on the postal inspector, other fees could be charged.
Some of the kickstarter backers had no further charges.
Some of the backers were charged up to $80 US, payable on delivery, to the Canadian Government.
-THIS WAS FOR THE EXACT SAME PRODUCT.

IT all depended on what category the INDIVIDUAL INSPECTOR decided EACH ITEM fit (and when all the flames flew back then, there apparently were 2 or 3 different categories, and at least one inspector that treated it as a CHINESE import for determining import fees, despite the company being in the US and shipping from the US, simply because the product was made under contract in China - which is NOT how the system is supposed to work).

If you wanted to appeal the unfair charges, you had to send your unopened package to be reinspected (paying the shipping for that yourself), and were out those shipping fees even if you won your appeal.

Similar issues occurred with another kickstarter I supported, for a Blu-ray version of an anime from the late-80s/early-90s. ($50 base price) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/madoverlord/bubblegum-crisis-ultimate- edition-blu-ray-set/posts/1116416

The reason why there's a $45 charge from Paizo for that shipping across the border - They're having the customer pay the "worst case scenario" for fees/GST/excise taxes, so that the shipment doesn't get caught up in the "Games Canuck Postal Bureaucrats Play". Because, packages getting hung up in transit, or arriving with humongus COD fees from the Canadian Taxman, tend to produce FAR worse customer ratings and feedback than charging up front and overpaying said taxman to make sure he can't pull that crap.

I bit the bullet and bought the whole bundle, then was totally shocked to find that the shipping price for the beginners box was $45 USD.

That's obscene. Especially when I can get the Beginners box at my local game store where I usually play Magic and Table Top games for less than that. Something that I fully intend to do.

It does not cost that much to ship something from the States to Canada. I've bought things significantly more expensive and heavier and had it shipped through USPS and it did not come out to that much.

Hell, that's a price I would expect to ship something from Canada to the UK, something I do quite regularly. There's no reason for it to cost that much.

I would be more inclined to have paid more on the humble bundle itself, if the shipping was included in the original price then to be shocked when it came to paying for the shipping.

If that is the norm for your shipping outside the US, you will not have me making purchases to your online store for physical merch.

As a fellow Canadian in the exact same position, this. A thousand times this.

The shipping cost being that high is complete crap. Looking for some kind of official answer from either Humble Bundle or Paizo about this. A simple shipping calculator on the bundle page would have solved this up front.

Now we've bought the thing, and we are stuck.

A simple shipping calculator on the bundle page would have solved this up front.

Not a calculator, but the bundle page already has shipping estimates (although Canada isn't on that list). If you click on the physical beginner's box and scroll down in the description, you'll see the following text:

ESTIMATED PRICING GUIDE
Australia: $65
China: $60
Continental US: $10–20
Europe: $50–$65
Russia: $65-$90
South America: $55–$80
Taiwan: $60

From that, I'd know that Canada is going to cost more than continental US but probably less than Europe, so I'd personally have put it somewhere in the $30-40 range. $45 isn't too far off of that. It'd be nice if that page was adjusted to include Canada though.

The Beginner Box by itself, with no packaging materials, weighs 3.5 pounds. The smallest box that it ships in weighs 0.5 pounds, and the packing materials needed to protect it in transit weigh 0.05 pounds, for a total shipped weight of just over 4 pounds.

Unfortunately, the cheapest rate available through the USPS for international parcels weighing 4 pounds or more is International Priority.

If you go to https://postcalc.usps.com, set the destination to Canada, enter a package value (it doesn't matter what you put in, but the Beginner Box's MSRP is $34.99) and then select the Medium Flat Rate Box (the most cost-effective choice for the size and weight of the Beginner Box), you'll see that it costs $45.95 to ship to Canada.

If you set the destination country to Switzerland, you can see that it would cost you $66.50 to ship that package; the rate is the same for most of Europe.

We get *slightly* better rates than that web page gives you, but not much. Our shipping charges are set up to cover our costs, not to make a profit.

(We also offer UPS international, but it's a little bit more expensive most of the time—the price to Canada for the same package would be $47.83.)

They're having the customer pay the "worst case scenario" for fees/GST/excise taxes, so that the shipment doesn't get caught up in the "Games Canuck Postal Bureaucrats Play". Because, packages getting hung up in transit, or arriving with humongus COD fees from the Canadian Taxman, tend to produce FAR worse customer ratings and feedback than charging up front and overpaying said taxman to make sure he can't pull that crap.

We're not charging for that *at all*—when there are applicable taxes or import fees, the recipient's postal service collects them from the recipient.

It'd be nice if that page was adjusted to include Canada though.

We will provide Humble Bundle with the necessary information!

The Beginner Box by itself, with no packaging materials, weighs 3.5 pounds. The smallest box that it ships in weighs 0.5 pounds, and the packing materials needed to protect it in transit weigh 0.05 pounds, for a total shipped weight of just over 4 pounds.

Unfortunately, the cheapest rate available through the USPS for international parcels weighing over 4 pounds is International Priority.

If you go to https://postcalc.usps.com, set the destination to Canada, enter a package value (it doesn't matter what you put in, but the Beginner Box's MSRP is $34.99) and then select the Medium Flat Rate Box (the most cost-effective choice for a box the size and weight of the Beginner Box), you'll see that it costs $45.95 to ship to Canada.

If you set the destination country to Switzerland, you can see that it would cost you $66.50 to ship that package; the rate is the same for most of Europe.

We get *slightly* better rates than that web page gives you, but not much.

(We also offer UPS international, but it's more expensive most of the time—the price to Canada for the same package would be $47.83.)

Well Vic, I do want to thank you for such a quick response to this issue. I understand that this issue will probably be coming up a lot over the next two weeks.

My point about the shipping calculator is so that the customer would be able to see the shipping cost and make the decision whether or not to spring for the shipping of the physical goods. A short list of random countries, at the end of a description you have to scroll through, after clicking on the Beginner Box Physical goods is not a solution. Its not up front or broadcasted.

Now I find out after I've bought the thing and it feels like the cost was hidden from customers.

If I'd known the cost of the shipping would be almost twice the cost of the entire bundle, I would never have purchased the top tier. I love the products, but now I'm asking HB for a refund.

Also note that the USPS raised their shipping rates in mid-January this year. Priority International went up about 10% (on average) and First Class International went up about 21-22% (also on average).

Well to be fair the Humble page tells you up front your going to have to pay shipping, as soon as i saw that i came to the site and checked how much it would be buy going through the purchase process. Which IMO was just common sense.

However even if you only get all the digital stuff, at $25 it's still a steal, thats if we ever get the content. Frankly i'm more disgusted by the fact it's coming up on a day and half since it launched and we still can't download the stuff we've paid for.

The fact they don't seem to be able to fix it any time soon is most worrying, and i'm reluctant to ever use them again. First time i've seen a disaster like this with Humble Bundle

See this thread for just how much the response to this exceeded their expectations. I'm a long time Paizo customer, but I've only bought the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game up until now. I jumped on this. While I've redeemed by codes, I'll just wait a few days to download my stuff to let the traffic die down.

You don't even have to rush to redeem the codes. They don't expire. So, if you can, just give it some time. Paizo is actually a great company with great customer service. But they are a relatively small company that apparently underestimated the rapid response to this offer.

I'll be frank: Asking more for shipping than what the MSRP is for the product is bad business, regardless of the circumstances. Pure and Simple.

If you can't offer a product at a fair price, shipping included, don't offer it, especially if you want to ship internationally.

When converted to CAD, the shipping is $62, for something that I wound up getting at my local store today for $40. So if the cross-border shipping price is that bad, then how is my local store, a privately run business, able to sell it at MSRP?

And Basara549, don't get me started on cross-border taxes. I live in Alberta, the whole "Country of Origin Labeling" fiasco drove the price of beef from $2.99/lb to $6/lb. And that's in Alberta, the largest producer of Beef in North America. 6 times out of 10, I guarantee that the steak on your plate is either descended from, or came directly from livestock raised on an Albertan's ranch. The US is just as bad as Canada, if not worse, in this regard.

If you can't offer a product at a fair price, shipping included, don't offer it, especially if you want to ship internationally.

We're *offering* it to people, not *forcing* it on people. There are plenty of people that don't *have* better options—not offering it would make things far worse for these people. If you can get a better deal locally, by all means, go right ahead—we appreciate your business just as much whether you buy direct from us or not.

When converted to CAD, the shipping is $62, for something that I wound up getting at my local store today for $40. So if the cross-border shipping price is that bad, then how is my local store, a privately run business, able to sell it at MSRP?

Because your store isn't buying single copies one at a time from the US. They're buying copies that they have shipped along with other products that they're ordering from a distributor that is most likely also in Canada. Those distributors in turn are buying products by the case or even by the pallet from us. In volumes like that, we can ship a few hundred copies for a few hundred dollars, meaning the per-unit shipping cost is a lot closer to $1 than $45.

Hmm, new personal goal: get my subscription numbers up to reach a pallet a month.

*eyes Steve's subscription line under his name*

You ought to be almost there now! ;)

Hmm, new personal goal: get my subscription numbers up to reach a pallet a month.

Yeah, I've tried. It just doesn't work.

I've had pallet-sized orders. It's pretty impressive.

(Not with Paizo, no.)

I'll be frank: Asking more for shipping than what the MSRP is for the product is bad business, regardless of the circumstances. Pure and Simple.

Pure, simple, and wrong.

If I attempt to order a single paving stone or masonry brick, unless it is made from some exotic material, it will cost more to ship than the MSRP of the item. Why? Because the price of the item is fair, and therefore low while the effort required to transport it is high due to size and weight.

So yeah. Wrong. Price of item and cost to ship have no relationship except in the minds of those who are upset they are expected to pay more for a thing than the amount they arbitrarily feel is appropriate.

Basara549 wrote:

They're having the customer pay the "worst case scenario" for fees/GST/excise taxes, so that the shipment doesn't get caught up in the "Games Canuck Postal Bureaucrats Play". Because, packages getting hung up in transit, or arriving with humongus COD fees from the Canadian Taxman, tend to produce FAR worse customer ratings and feedback than charging up front and overpaying said taxman to make sure he can't pull that crap.

We're not charging for that *at all*—when there are applicable taxes or import fees, the recipient's postal service collects them from the recipient.

Then that's even worse, because as I noted when Animeigo did its Bubblegum Crisis Blu-ray kickstarter, Canada and many of the EU countries were nastily random in their application of additional fees, sometimes in instances when they weren't supposed to. And, the Palladium instance was with about 3-4 kilo (7-9 lb) package, and while they avoided the EU circus, Canada still bit some people and not others.

Some people just don't seem to understand that Amazon and some other online sellers have ways of "gaming" the system (pun unintended) concerning additional fees, and that even if they pay the high shipping that others have to require, they could still get a double-whammy when it gets there.

Oh, and speaking of that Palladium instance, I had to argue with a couple of idiot aussies who couldn't understand why Palladium shipped (literally) all the AU/NZ kickstarter backers stuff for distribution from a central AU location.

They used Amazon & some eBay sellers as counter-examples, and couldn't grasp that regular shipments not through such places, actually cost more.
I was called a liar, when I went to the shippers' own web pages, and found that the costs for the packages going from MI to Canberra would have been
Through USPS: Starting around $112
Through FedEx: Starting over $200
Through UPS: Starting at over $400

For a package that cost $25 to ship to California, $48 to AK/HI, $75 to Canada. for a $140 product kickstarted before KS was set up to arrange for extra fees for overseas shipping.
Even with shipping overseas (which took a couple weeks to get there) and being sent out by australian post (IIRC) it cost about 1/3 of what it would have cost to mail it directly from the US. And, while that was happening, the harpies tried to use some online stores violating Palladium's request "do not sell US product overseas until the ship gets there with the official release product", as somehow Palladium lying to them about sending to the supporters first (And, of course, the sellers selling at barely above wholesale, and using Amazon to skirt most of the shipping costs). When someone that does that with Wizards or GW stuff, there's hell to pay - but those are the 600 lb. gorillas in the room. Small companies often have to worry about losing commercial buyers, even if the buyer broke the rules.

Sometimes distribution is best handled through a shipment, then local mailing - something that Paizo wasn't set up for, at least not in this instance. Then again, I don't think they anticipated this level of response, either.

Isn't this the entire reason Exploding Kittens set up offices in like a dozen countries? Anyone who kickstarted was charged shipping that was from within their own country.

Paizo used to have international distribution centers (way back in their magazine days). However, it introduced a whole bunch of customer service issues that left them with the view that the costs outweighed the benefits.

It's been a while since they've discussed it, but when it came up previously the answer was close as I've ever heard them say to 'never'.