Hi all. Me again. Canadian subscriber. I've got no problems at present, but since it seems late or missing issues are becoming an epidemic, I thought I'd offer up a snapshot of my subscription woes since January. Bear with me as I rant and rave.
In this thread, on 13 November, I said:
I'll give each mag ~40 days before crying for a replacement.
I gave Dragon #339 that and more. Finally I gave up. Cosmo kindly sent me a replacement on 19 January (thanks again!). That's 51 days after #339 left Paizo. Mind that replacements are sent Global Priority. Maybe I'm crazy, but I get the impression "priority" is meant to imply FAST. The replacement arrived 30 January. That's 11 days. Isn't that a bit long, even if it is being help up at the border?
Dungeon #131 arrived in a slightly more timely fashion than most issues lately. I got it last week on 7 February. It clocked in at 49 days, but at least I didn't have to cry to Cosmo again.
Now surprise, surprise. I opened my mailbox this morning and lo, I found a Dragon therein. Yay! methinks, It must be #340. But, nay! After 78 freakin' days it turned out to be my long MIA #339. WTF?
In his First None Now Two thread from last week, Peruhain of Brithondy describes a similar experience. Ultimately says he:
Must have been stuck in some weird little demiplane in the postal distribution center.
To which the Director of Operations replied:
And remember that next time an issue is running late, it might just be stuck in that demiplane again. :)
This raises the question of how long we should expect to wait. Now, Peruhain, you didn't say which country you're in, or how long you'd been waiting before requesting the replacement. Jeff, you seem to imply we should be ready to wait indefinately.
Back to that thread from November...
US subscribers can mail customer service after two weeks, but we really prefer that you give it another week if you can be patient.
So by Vic's estimate folks in the US should give an issue 14 days. Let's double that to 28 days for Canadians. We're all going way over that folks, by about another factor of 2.
Note that at this time, while Dragon #341 and Dungeon #133 have shipped, I am still waiting for both #340 (so far 43 days — it's more than 2 weeks overdue) and #132 (22 days — it should arrive this week, but won't. Maybe next…).
Now, understand that I'm not blaming Paizo in any way for any of this. On the contrary, everyone at Paizo has always been terrific. But I am concerned for Paizo. Having countless of pissed off subscribers impatiently waiting for the next awe-inspiring issue that never seems to arrive is bad for business. Having to send out countless replacements for issues that will likely arrive eventually anyway is bad for business. So I want to know: is there something proactive we can do about this? It all seems to boil down to the postal service sucking eggs! But is it Canada Post, the USPS, both? Does something happen at the border to cause these delays, or is it much closer to Paizo itself?
Chief Technical Officer
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Mind that replacements are sent Global Priority. Maybe I'm crazy, but I get the impression "priority" is meant to imply FAST. The replacement arrived 30 January. That's 11 days. Isn't that a bit long, even if it is being help up at the border?
The USPS doesn't have guaranteed delivery times for Global Priority. They set a delivery "target" at 4–6 days. So, yes, 11 days is long, yet nonetheless unsurprising.
It all seems to boil down to the postal service sucking eggs! But is it Canada Post, the USPS, both? Does something happen at the border to cause these delays, or is it much closer to Paizo itself?
Well, we do have some problems within the US, so there are certainly USPS issues. But Canadian subscriber problems, especially in the last couple of months, have become noticably disproportionate. Canada Post problems seem to ebb and flow—when Paizo first took over the magazines, it was terrible. It got better, and worse, and better, and worse. Honestly, I don't know what we can do, though. We've considered offering a high-priority shipping option, but the extra cost would have to be insane, especially outside the US. We're open to ideas, though.
-Vic.
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