Director of Sales
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I just wanted to let everyone know that we have a lot of Promotional Black Dragon orders to fill right now (literally thousands) and we are filling and shipping them as fast as we can. We hope to get your order filled this week, next week, or even the week after. If there is some problem with your order, rest assured that we will contact you.
Please, keep in mind that
We expect to ship them out in late June. Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery in the US—longer for international orders.
For full details, please see the Black Dragon FAQ.
So you order may be "Ready to Ship" for a while, but please just have a little bit of patience and we'll get your miniature out to you as soon as we possibly can.
Thanks,
cos
could you please tell me why it takes 6-8 weeks for delivery
and could you break it down in time frames
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Director of Sales
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*bump!*
could you please tell me why it takes 6-8 weeks for delivery
we have a lot of Promotional Black Dragon orders to fill right now (literally thousands) and we are filling and shipping them as fast as we can
and could you break it down in time frames
We hope to get your order filled this week, next week, or even the week after.
I have to say: I love Paizo. Your customer service is excellent. Whenever my Dungeon disappears you send me a new one right away from out of the office. (Since moving to Santa Monica, CA, I have been skipped on two months and no month has ever arrived within a week of the time I received it in Seattle.)
However, your fulfillment on other orders is terrible, and it's not just this miniature. I ordered a set of Sqwires. The order was processed and ready to ship on 4 May. It arrived on 18 May with a Priority Mail postmark of 16 May... 12 days after it was listed as ready to ship.
Though I ordered the Dragon the day it became available to Dungeon subscribers - last Sunday night, in time to give to my kids (who are big D&D players and are going away on Sunday 2 July for the summer) if it were, say, Amazon, there is no way it's going to get here. The FAQ says please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, but nothing on any of the forms leading up to actually placing the order says that. I ordered UPS shipping this time so I could track it and in the hopes that it would receive higher priority than US Priority Mail, but it only helps when there is something to track.
Dunno who's doing your fulfillment, Paizo, but they're terrible when the shipping firms will do daily pick-ups faster and at no extra charge.
- Ket
*bump!*
could you please tell me why it takes 6-8 weeks for deliverywe have a lot of Promotional Black Dragon orders to fill right now (literally thousands) and we are filling and shipping them as fast as we canand could you break it down in time framesWe hope to get your order filled this week, next week, or even the week after.
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Director of Sales
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I have to say: I love Paizo. Your customer service is excellent. Whenever my Dungeon disappears you send me a new one right away from out of the office. (Since moving to Santa Monica, CA, I have been skipped on two months and no month has ever arrived within a week of the time I received it in Seattle.)
However, your fulfillment on other orders is terrible, and it's not just this miniature. I ordered a set of Sqwires. The order was processed and ready to ship on 4 May. It arrived on 18 May with a Priority Mail postmark of 16 May... 12 days after it was listed as ready to ship.
Though I ordered the Dragon the day it became available to Dungeon subscribers - last Sunday night, in time to give to my kids (who are big D&D players and are going away on Sunday 2 July for the summer) if it were, say, Amazon, there is no way it's going to get here. The FAQ says please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, but nothing on any of the forms leading up to actually placing the order says that. I ordered UPS shipping this time so I could track it and in the hopes that it would receive higher priority than US Priority Mail, but it only helps when there is something to track.
Dunno who's doing your fulfillment, Paizo, but they're terrible when the shipping firms will do daily pick-ups faster and at no extra charge.
- Ket
First of all, thank you very much for the compliment!
With regards to your previous (Steel Squire) order, according to my records, the order was placed on 5/4/06 and was shipped via USPS on the same day, 5/4/06. You should have received a secondary "now shipping" confirmation email on that day. Unfortunately, we cannot control how long the USPS takes to deliver an order, and I couldn't tell you what's up with the postmark.
With regards to the FAQ, this Promotional Black Dragon is a special-case scenario. This is why we put the FAQ directly upon the product page itself. To do otherwise would either bury this important information on the full Paizo.com FAQ (which, realistically, most people don't read), or burden every single order placed on Paizo.com with the information. We chose to put it there.
cos
Is there any way to find out if I will actually get a Black Dragon mini? I don't particularly care when it ships, but I would like to know if there are enough left in stock for me to get one.
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Senior Software Developer
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Is there any way to find out if I will actually get a Black Dragon mini? I don't particularly care when it ships, but I would like to know if there are enough left in stock for me to get one.
If you see the "add to cart" button, then we have enough to ship you one. (If you've already ordered one -- I'm at home and can't double-check your order history right now -- then your Black Dragon mini will arrive, as soon as we get to it.)
What is the expected delivery time?
I received a "shipped" e-mail on June 29 and have not received yet.
I would think that priorty mail should have been here days ago.
If I'm just wrong and not being patient enough, no worries.
Should it be here by now? Or what is expected delivery time AFTER shipment?
Thanks
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Director of Sales
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An order shipped via USPS Priority mail usually takes about 3-5 business days to reach its destination, and today would be the fifth business day from the date of shipment. Given the holiday this week, I would expect that the USPS is slightly delayed (as it usually is around holidays) so your order should be arriving sometime next week. If you haven't seen it by next Friday, send me an email at customer.service@paizo.com.What is the expected delivery time?
I received a "shipped" e-mail on June 29 and have not received yet.I would think that priorty mail should have been here days ago.
If I'm just wrong and not being patient enough, no worries.
Should it be here by now? Or what is expected delivery time AFTER shipment?Thanks
cos
Sounds good.
Thanks
Wow, I am surprised at how long it's taking actually. So what percentage of sales increase are we talking here that a 4 oz. miniature causes a 3 week backup in ordering? You guys better be making a profit or I am going to slit my belly.
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Chief Technical Officer
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We've managed to achieve many of our goals for the Black Dragon promo. One of them, of course, is to make a profit on the mini itself, which we've done.
Another goal is to garner add-on sales, menaing people purchasing stuff in addition to the mini—and that has happened to a startling degree. The average value of an order containing a dragon mini is significantly higher than I personally thought it would be.
Another goal of the promotion is to raise awareness and usage of paizo.com among our subscriber base, and we have seen that—menaing there's a general increase in other sales, too.
All that, plus the thousands of packages represented by the dragon alone, gets us a backlog which we're working through.
Also, the <a href="/store/games/cardBoardGames/dAndD">European D&D board game</a> happened to arrive just as we were prepping to ship out minis, so we also had to fill all of the preorders for that at the same time.
So, yes, this promotion has done well, and we're doing our best to make sure we serve as many customers as we can as quickly as we can, but it does take time.
-Vic.
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Another goal is to garner add-on sales, menaing people purchasing stuff in addition to the mini—and that has happened to a startling degree. The average value of an order containing a dragon mini is significantly higher than I personally thought it would be.
Speaking of, I ordered a good many items in addition to the mini (order #643903). A week ago, all items -- including the mini itself -- showed a status of "Ready to ship." Today, two of those additional items show a status of "Waiting for product."
So I guess I'm waiting for those other items to get back in stock until my entire order is shipped? How come they were ready to ship last week but there's no stock today?
Well, I understand, though I am sure you guys understand that making a person wait a month (ordered on June 21st myself) or more for a product isn't going to garner future patronage.
I bought this because it was a good price for a specific mini and while waiting isn't killing me, I can't imagine I'll use Paizo for anything other than subscription orders in the future. To be honest I am not one of the folks who added other stuff onto the order, so possibly I am of the minority that isn't so much of a loss. :(
Either way, I still thank you for selling a specific mini from the War of the Dragon Queen set.
Hello,
Just wanted to follow up and let you know it arrived yesterday.
Thanks
USPS dropped the ball a bit, but it got here and that was the important part.
Thanks again
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Director of Sales
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The fact that my miniature hasn't shipped yet is highly aggravating. On the other hand, the fact that I haven't received a single notice from Paizo regarding this situation is infuriating. My order was placed on the first day when the mini went on sale. Yet I've heard from people who have already received the mini, despite ordering it well after I did. Any comments? Did it ever occur to anyone at Paizo as to how much work it would be to ship these things, or did all the managers roll 1s on their Business Sense checks?
Once again,
When will the mini ship?
We expect to ship them out in late June. Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery in the US—longer for international orders.
This includes Serbia.
writing and complaining that you haven;t received your order before the required 6-8 weeks only serves to mark you as a troll. Let the guys do their work and ship your minis. Not sit here and answer your questions about when *EXACTLY* will you get your mini.
Relax. You will get your mini. The only thing complaining about this stuff will do is to mark you as a "problem customer' for later reference.
You had a Holiday in the middle of shipping...you had Origins in the middle of shippijng, you have all the normal work of publishing 2 magazines. Its not like the good men at Paizo are sitting back and laughing at all y'all. Granted, if I was working for them, I'd be considering putting in a little extra something in all the orders to people who DID NOT cmplain, but that is just my brand of customer service.
I'm actually more concerned about missing issues of Dragon than I am the mini. The mini will get here. The Gargantuan Black Dragon will get here. The Colossal Red Dragon will get here.
(I have to wait three years to use it, but it will get here before that....)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Just to let you know, getting all of these shipments out is a very, very high priority for us.
For the past several days, Paizo's owners, CEO Lisa Stevens and myself, have spent each day in the warehouse getting packages shipped.
We even put Gary Teter, our lead programmer, to work in the warehouse all day Thursday, and then set him the task of revising processes to improve workflow and decrease turnaround time—and he's already rolled out system modifications that have noticably improved our fullfillment processes.
One of our biggest bottlenecks right now is that we've had more international orders that we expected, and customs forms for international shipments have to be filled out by hand, so when we get to international orders, our throughput drops like a stone. (And if an international order is over four pounds, it requires different paperwork that's even worse.) We're working to automate this process, but the bureaucracy is not easy to navigate.
Regardless, we believe that our backlog will be entirely cleared out next week. Thanks for your patience!
-Vic.
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Chief Technical Officer
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A week ago, all items -- including the mini itself -- showed a status of "Ready to ship." Today, two of those additional items show a status of "Waiting for product."
So I guess I'm waiting for those other items to get back in stock until my entire order is shipped? How come they were ready to ship last week but there's no stock today?
Right now, the logic that puts up the "ready to ship" display on the web page is overly simple; it just indicates that we have copies of that item in our warehouse, but it doesn't account for whether those copies has already been "spoken for" by someone who ordered it ahead of you. When we don't have a backlog, this usually isn't a problem, but it's a problem now.
Unfortunately, due to the way that other parts of our system work, there's not a quick fix for this problem, but we are working on it.
-Vic.
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One of our biggest bottlenecks right now is that we've had more international orders that we expected, and customs forms for international shipments have to be filled out by hand, so when we get to international orders, our throughput drops like a stone. (And if an international order is over four pounds, it requires different paperwork that's even worse.) We're working to automate this process, but the bureaucracy is not easy to navigate.
Don't forget to make sure the chickens are properly sedated and the black candles are engraved with the appropriate runes before lighting them. (Customs forms are hell. I feel your pain!)
All understood and I know I appreciate Technical Directors and others in the packing warehouse!
One thing though, does your last comment mean there is a chance that even if it says ready to shop, we may not get one due to this unique backlog? Just curious is all. I know one time when I was a manager at a retail store, we had a day where an odd 50 people ordered items that needed shipped. Some were items that had com in on special order too, but regardless it took us two days to ship everything and that was working very hard with 3 people. That was long compared to the usual day-of shipping we were used to. SO I can understand the situation here at Paizo, though don't get too surprised by frustrated customers in this day and age of fast shipping.
I know Newegg.com and Buy.com coddle me with their shipping times. I sometimes wish the drivers would go slower because they ship almost too fast.
Since I haven't cancelled my order yet, I am obviously allowing those 6-8 weeks (or longer) for delivery. But that sort of answer doesn't address the fact that Paizo was quick enough to write a circular letter advertising the beginning of the shipment process (and another one urging me to buy the promo, when I had already bought it), yet isn't considerate enough to send a letter saying "guys, be patient for a little while longer." I shouldn't have to monitor your message boards to see what's going on with the orders.
I guess I should just shut up and be happy if I receive it before Christmas, since you've got it all covered with the "or longer" statement.
Pray you never work in a warehouse (or in any other environment) where massive demand surges overwhelm your team... you might end up being badgered by people who are as rude as you are. Having to take the time to reply to rude customers only further delays the shipping process. Were you able to live normally before this mini came into existence? Why are you suddenly losing your head over it? Ah, you must be a product of today's materialistic "instant gratification culture". Chill, buddy... and don't forget to call your local postal service to yell at them, too... I have nothing further to add...
Once again,
This includes Serbia.When will the mini ship?
We expect to ship them out in late June. Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery in the US—longer for international orders.
You are one cool and composed dude, Cosmo. I'd buy you a beer, if I could. And by the way, I noticed you mailed my order a few days ago... thanks! And don't let these ungrateful wieners bring you down! :-)
I am also awaiting a Black Dragon order. I understand you are shipping them out as fast as you can.
So, approximately how fast is 'fast as you can'?
I mean, you sent an email saying that the figs arrived sooner than expected, so let's say June 12. There has been 25 working days since then - how many units have you shipped? 1000? 2000? Are you shipping 50/day? 75/day? 100/day?
Now that everybody has said his part, could we please return to the usual polite tone here on these messageboards ?
I don´t want to pick out anyone, but if we all keep to our usual calm and polite posting that is normal on these boards, I´m sure we can do away with harsh criticism and snide comments on others posts, which only serve to foster an inflammatory mood I don´t need on this messageboards also.
It´s hot outside already, I don´t need rising temperature on the net on top of that.
Just calm down a bit, and try to reread your posts before posting them, in case your language has gotten a little sharper than neccesary - it happens easily, to everybody (me of course included).
Stefan
I just wanted to say that I received my dragon mini over the weekend and placed it at a place of honor right in front of my DM's screen on our playing table.
It was great to see the look on my players' faces as they came in: "We're not facing that today, are we?" they ask, with dread.
"Oh, no," I reply. "I just wanted to show you what came in the mail today."
Too much fun for the DM.
Thanks again!
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I am also awaiting a Black Dragon order. I understand you are shipping them out as fast as you can.
So, approximately how fast is 'fast as you can'?
I asked something similar in another thread and they said you'll get it as soon as they can ship it, no kind of time frame. Rick, when did you place your order and when did it ship?
So lets see if I get this straight. I ordered mine the day they became available after fighting with the system for 1 hour and 22 minutes since it was overloaded.
Still haven't recieved it or shipping notice
My buddy here in the same city ordered his several days later and has already recieved his.
Seems to me like there are some problems with the order system.
Orders should be filled in the order they are taken not randomly.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Orders should be filled in the order they are taken not randomly.
Because there are different procedures to ship USPS and UPS orders, and international orders, and orders that are only black dragons and orders that have no black dragons, and orders that combine black dragons with other items, in order to maximize our efficiency, we've been focusing on one type of order at a time. This way, we don't have to think about the process, and can focus on throughput. It's just pack, pack, pack. But it's not random—within each grouping, earliest orders are prioritized first.
Because of this, it's possible that somebody who ordered a dragon later than you will ship a few days before you, but it will help everybody get their dragons faster.
Outside of this, orders can also be delayed if other items on the order are out of stock, or if there's a problem with the credit card.
Are you shipping 50/day? 75/day? 100/day?
As I mentioned before, different processes take different amounts of time to fulfill, with international orders killing our throughput. But we have generally been able to ship hundreds of packages per day.
However, keep in mind that there's plenty of stuff coming through the system that doesn't include dragons. Again, as mentioned previously, our shipment of the UK D&D board game arrived at about the same time as the dragons, so there were quite a few outstanding orders for that. Similarly, there have been a few major D&D books, and the War of the Dragon Queen minis set, all of which had outstanding orders that were placed before the black dragon mini even went on sale. As these items arrive, older orders get dropped into the fulfillment order.
To be clear, we're not any happier than you are about the fact that orders are taking a long time to fulfill. We like it when we can turn around an order for an in-stock item within one business day, and we're doing our best to get back to that goal. In addition to having lots of people pitch in in the warehouse, and imporving systems to improve throughput, we're also permanently increasing our warehouse staffing levels.
-Vic.
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I asked something similar in another thread and they said you'll get it as soon as they can ship it, no kind of time frame. Rick, when did you place your order and when did it ship?I am also awaiting a Black Dragon order. I understand you are shipping them out as fast as you can.
So, approximately how fast is 'fast as you can'?
I ordered my dragon the night I received that Dragon magazine. Then, two or three weeks after that (much sooner than I expected), I received an e-mail that it was shipped, and it was in my mailbox probably last Friday (the 14th), though I did not check the mail until Saturday (our neighborhood has community mailboxes and my wife and I have to remember to stop on our way home from work--don't get me started on it...). So, if I were to guess, I think it took about 4 weeks from order to my table top.
--Rick
First of all, thanks to Vic Wertz for providing a very detailed explanation of what is going on. Paizo is obviously understaffed and didn't expect such a massive influx of orders at once (as also shown by their server crash on the day when the SoBD became available). This is a reply that I find very acceptable, and would not have said a thing if such a comment was posted earlier.
Second, the fact that I do not work in a warehouse does not mean that I do not have to deal with angry users. In fact, I deal with them on a daily basis, since I work as a computer programmer in a small IT company that does not have a separate tech support department. However, while I may scream and throw fits around the office, I am never, ever unpleasant to my users, even if their comments are often a lot less polite and a lot less warranteed than my comment here. I've had users call me on my private cell phone at night, call me on my home phone, send me e-mails on my private e-mail address, and so on. I didn't have to give those phone numbers and addresses away, but I did, because I think that maintaining my company's image through providing service is important. So, please, refrain yourself from making snarky comments in the future.
The primary reason why I posted here is because I learned that several people from countries as far away as Australia, who had placed orders after I did, had already received their items. I did not consider this fair, and I wanted an explanation. I now got that explanation, and all is well.
Oh, and if you had your postal service return several very expensive items to their overseas sender because the mail delivery person was too lazy to bring a package notice to your house, you'd scream at them as well. Particularly after having to dish out hundreds of additional dollars for shipping. As for instant-gratification, I am not even going to bother to answer to that. Not to someone who's already received their item.
In the interests of message board harmony, I offer my apologies to you, sir, for having made snarky comments when your grievance clearly was none of my business. I could address some of the other points you mentioned, but will refrain from doing so... aside from correcting you on one fact of lesser importance, namely, that I have not yet received the dragon mini (I have merely been informed that it has shipped). In all sincerity, I wish you a pleasant and peaceful day, better luck with what sounds like an awful postal service, no more angry/rude customers calling you on your private cell, and happy gaming... and hope you will forgive me for my trespass. Our world breeds loads of stress and aggression that we all can do without, and I certainly did not need to throw oil on the fire without cause.
I think I too will feel much happier when I hand my boss my resignation letter in a few days time... yeehaw, freedom! Let's just say I recently had an epiphany...
By the way, are you actually a native Serbian? If not, what are you doing there (if I may ask) and, stinky postal service aside, how are you enjoying it? I dream of working abroad again in the near future, and just like to know how people like the places where they are currently stationed...
All the best to you, Sammael, and to overyone else on these boards...
I recieved the E-Mail today that my Order shipped yesterday.
Now I´m eager to see how long it takes.
There is a german proverb: "On High Seas and at Court, you are in Gods hand alone." I think we can add post office to this:-)
Stefan
To Cosmo and Vic and all the staff at Paizo... THANK YOU for all the hard work, patience, grace, and understanding that you display here and with all your products. You truly are a great group of people to work with and I think most of the Messageboard readers would agree. We may whine, we may wheedle, we may cajole, but overall, you guys do a great job.
And to show my support, and to offset some of the complainers, I just ordered one of your Sorcerer on Black Dragon minis. Least I could do for all of the great entertainment you provide!
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Director of Sales
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To Cosmo and Vic and all the staff at Paizo... THANK YOU for all the hard work, patience, grace, and understanding that you display here and with all your products. You truly are a great group of people to work with and I think most of the Messageboard readers would agree. We may whine, we may wheedle, we may cajole, but overall, you guys do a great job.
And to show my support, and to offset some of the complainers, I just ordered one of your Sorcerer on Black Dragon minis. Least I could do for all of the great entertainment you provide!
Rad.
Mine arrived yesterday, it's absolutely awesome!
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CEO
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Hey y'all:
We just shipped out all the original orders for the Black Dragon promo mini that were placed in June. Thursday and Friday, we will be cranking out all the orders that are ready to ship as of noon Wednesday. We are fast approaching being caught up again. Thanks for everyone for their patience!
-Lisa
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Just to let you know, getting all of these shipments out is a very, very high priority for us.
For the past several days, Paizo's owners, CEO Lisa Stevens and myself, have spent each day in the warehouse getting packages shipped.
We even put Gary Teter, our lead programmer, to work in the warehouse all day Thursday, and then set him the task of revising processes to improve workflow and decrease turnaround time—and he's already rolled out system modifications that have noticably improved our fullfillment processes.
One of our biggest bottlenecks right now is that we've had more international orders that we expected, and customs forms for international shipments have to be filled out by hand, so when we get to international orders, our throughput drops like a stone. (And if an international order is over four pounds, it requires different paperwork that's even worse.) We're working to automate this process, but the bureaucracy is not easy to navigate.
Regardless, we believe that our backlog will be entirely cleared out next week. Thanks for your patience!
-Vic.
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I feel the pain. I work for a tshirt company that you guys work with. We got hit with a slew of orders like 300+ once for a certain shirt. We spent 10 days or more just tring to get the orders out and we had 4 people working on it.
Order #641038
Placed:Jun 01, 2006
Shipped Jun 29, 2006
I placed an order for the Black Dragon promo on June 1st and my account says it was shipped on June 29th, but I still haven't received it. Where is that darn dragon hiding?