I've already posted in the customer service section about my particular missing issues, this post is meant to ask the question of the rest of the subscribers.
I have noticed that almost _every_ month my _Dragon_ subscription is late, but my _Dungeon_ subscription arrives on time. I'm not talking about a little late, I'm talking a LOT! I still haven't received Dragon 353, which was on stands in February.
I understand that Dragon and Dungeon are printed and shipped at different times in the month, and that it can take longer to get to certain places, but this seems like a big discrepancy to me, and I'm not getting any answers.
In my case I live near Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Not exactly the other side of the world. I could understand if this happened once in a while, but it's almost every issue, and it's ONLY Dragon, not Dungeon. I don't seem to be alone in this. Other posts in the Customer service section seem to suggest that people get their Dungeon sub on time, but not Dragon.
So... How many of you are having the same problem? How many of you get your Dungeon magazine in a reasonable time, but not your Dragon mag? In my case, I am almost always 2 issues behind with my Dragon subscription. Why is it that they can get to retailers faster than they can get to me BY 2 MONTHS!
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's only a small handful of us. Even then, it seems weird that there is such a discrepancy, and that Paizo can't seem to answer the question.
http://paizo.com/dragon/messageboards/generalDiscussion/atLastIKnowWhyTheIs suesAreRunningBehind
ha ha. trés drole.
Actually, for the last few months I've been getting my magazines at around a good time. Earlier than when I used to get them.
But this issue ruined it. I had DRAGON #355 shipped on April 3rd and it's already April 17th and I still haven't received yet most everyone did.
I hope my magazines don't come late like they used to...again!
I was thinking, given that it seems the Dragon subscriptions arrive up to two months later than the shipments to the stores (and sometimes never) maybe Paizo chould just mail, or email, us coupons for a free mag instead. Then we could go to Chapters, or Indigo, or the LFGS, and get our mag on time!
Director of Sales
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Deimodius,
I've answered your other thread, as well.
As for the coupons, we will actually credit your subscription an extra issue if you decide to pick up your magazine locally, but we still want to ensure that we are crediting for a missing issue and not just an issue that is delayed. We'd still prefer that you want until your next issue arrives before we send a replacement/credit your subscription.
actiontactica,
It appears that we responded to your email and your replacement is on its way.
Razz,
We are still in the normal 1-3 weeks delivery time for US addresses, so we're still a bit premature to start worrying about it yet. Let me know if you haven't seen it by the end of the month, and we can take another look at your subscription at that time.
Thanks!
cos
Cosmo, I appreciate that you answered me about my _specific_ problem in the customer service section, but as I mentioned above, I posted this to see what the experience of other subscribers has been.
The argument that "lots of things can happen between there and here" doesn't seen to hold water because if it did it stands to reason it should happen equally to my Dungeon subscription, especially if they are both shipped at the same time. but as I _keep_ pointing out, my Dungeon subscription is _never_ late, while my Dragon subscription is almost _always_ late, and usually by 1 or 2 months.
Is it possible that Canada Customs has a problem with Dragon magazine but not Dungeon? if so, maybe Paizo should find out. Maybe Dragon is on a watch list or something?
Razz,We are still in the normal 1-3 weeks delivery time for US addresses, so we're still a bit premature to start worrying about it yet. Let me know if you haven't seen it by the end of the month, and we can take another look at your subscription at that time.
Thanks!
cos
Oh, I'm sure it's just been delayed. It was just weird cause for the past few months I've actually been getting them nice and early, a good 1 to 1 1/2 weeks after being shipped, but this month is rather late.
I was told here by one of the Paizo staff, can't remember which one, but one reason is it might be my local post office? That they might consider magazines to be lower priority to send than other mail? Were I to contact my local post office and make a complaint about them not letting my magazine arrive would that help?
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Chief Technical Officer
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In my case I live near Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Not exactly the other side of the world. I could understand if this happened once in a while, but it's almost every issue, and it's ONLY Dragon, not Dungeon. I don't seem to be alone in this. Other posts in the Customer service section seem to suggest that people get their Dungeon sub on time, but not Dragon.
If you're going by the number of posts in each section, well, we ship more copies of Dragon than Dungeon, so I'd expect more individual Dragon issues to go missing.
All I can tell you is this: the processes are identical for both magazines, beginning to end. And every step of the process happens pretty much simultaneously for all non-European subscribers, right up to entering the postal system. All issues are mailed at the same time—they *have to be*, in order to qualify for periodicals rate postage.
Once they get into the postal system, though, they're at the whim of the post office. Quite literally, non-news periodicals are one of the lowest priority items for them to deliver. If your mail carrier's truck is full, and he didn't have room for periodicals, it's perfectly acceptable to delay them until he does have room.
If your Dragon issues are routinely late, and your Dungeon issues are not, perhaps there's some other monthly mailing that's hitting your postal route at the same time as Dragon, and that's causing the delay. (Or maybe your mail carrier just takes longer to read your copy of Dragon than he takes to read your copy of Dungeon. ;-) )
Delivery times do vary by post office, and even mail carrier. When we used to publish Star Wars Insider, I had two customers in Atlanta that lived a block apart, but were on two different postal routes, and one of them routinely got their issues two full weeks before the other.
If you do have regular delivery problems, it can't hurt to mention it to your post office, but to be honest, we don't anticipate that most of them will be willing or able to do anything to help.
In practice, the best thing you can do to solve a recurring delay is to have your subscription mailed to a different address on another route—ideally one served by another post office.
Since around last December both my Dungeon and Dragon issues have arrived 2 months late. It wasn't a problem in 2006 (it took "only" 4-5 weeks to get them) but something must have changed recently.
As an active board reader it's really frustrating to watch people talk about stuff I won't get for 2 months, and then when I do get it nobody's talking about it any more because it's "old news". Argh.
Yeah, I'm in T.O. as well. I blame Canada Post. You can complain to them here. I don't know if it will do any good though.
Can't Paizo threaten them with lost custom or something?
Mr. Wertz says that magazines get short shrift from carriers if their trucks are full and may explain why they are late.
I think step one should be verifying this with Canada Post. if CP admits that may be the case, I think step two should be putting together a petition, or similar document, signed by Canadian subscribers asking that our magazines be delivered on time. They can dismiss us if only a few of us complain individually, but with a united front they can't _really_ ignore us (or am I being naive?).
If Canada Post refutes Mr. Wertz, we shall have no choice but to press Paizo to seek a solution for Canadian subscribers who are so far behind everyone else!
As I've already suggested, instead of shipping us our issues, Paizo could give us a coupon each month to take to Chapters, Indigo, or our LFGS to exchange for the mag.
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Chief Technical Officer
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You should realize there's a distinction between "takes a long time" and "is late." With Periodicals, there technically is no such thing as "is late," because neither the USPS nor Canada Post guarantees delivery times.
From Canada Post: "Service standards are estimates of how long it will take for the mail to be delivered from the point of deposit to the destination points. Service standards are not guaranteed." (The USPS has similar language.)
The USPS service standard for Periodicals is supposed to be 1–7 days, based (more or less) on zones. Canada Post's service standard for Publications (their equivalent of the USPS Periodicals) is quoted at 4–15 days nationally.
However, neither the USPS nor Canada Post have audited figures to determine how often they make these standards—they really don't even keep track. However, I can tell you that in our experience, the USPS usually takes 2–3 times as long as their estimate, and I'd guess Canada Post is in the same ballpark. Our recourse? None. Your recourse? None.
In short, nobody is guaranteeing delivery times. They can't, so we can't. While we may have delivery estimates, we've certainly never promised delivery times, because it's simply out of our control.
Paizo is guaranteeing, though, that you will get your issues, even if we have to reship them; if something prevents that from happening, we'll get you a refund.
If you're regularly getting you issues later than you like, talk to your post office. If they can't help you (and they probably can't), you'll have to either deal with that fact, or ask us to refund your subscription. Because there's NOTHING WE CAN DO to make them get to you faster.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I'd also like to make it clear that your problems are not representative of most subscribers, or even most Canadian subscribers, or for that matter even a large percentage of Canadian subscribers.
Here's some research I did in October of last year, cribbed from a previous thread on the topic. (Note that "late" means what Paizo considers late, as the postal services don't admit to lateness, as I mentioned above):
I've just looked at the best data we have for measuring subscription delivery failures, which is the number of reship requests we have for any given issue. (The numbers I'm discussing are indicators of claimed late delivery as well as non-delivery.)Specifically, I looked at reship requests for Dungeon 133–140. What I found is that the worldwide total percentage of reship requests ranges from .4% to 1.1% of copies shipped. (That latter figure is 139, an issue with known delivery problems, including a late shipment from the printer and a fire on a truck carrying several dozen subscriber copies to New York state. Dropping that issue out gets us a flat 1% failure at worst).
In Canada, the reship requests, as a percentage of Canadian subscriber copies, range from .17% to 4.02%—and those two data points were consecutive issues (136 and 137)! Obviously that last figure is pretty bad, but then the fact that the reship requests the previous issue were only .17%—less than half of the next-best number on the entire chart—indicate that the problem isn't chronic—it's random.
Further, I suspect that the failure rates we're seeing would be considered very low by both Canada Post and the USPS. The USPS publishes their service performance results online, and, while they don't mention Periodicals performance, the best number on the page is 97%, and that's for Express Mail. (Their lowest number is a stunning 42%, which represents 3-day parcels.)
Well I live in Toronto and I've been having the same problem. I have a subscription to Dungeon that I get every month. I've had a subscription to Dragon since December, so far I've received only one issue in the mail (the China Mellville one). I got it in March. I had to write to customer service and they mailed me the Malcethet and Modron ones, but I have yet to see any other magazines show up in the mail other than the one I got in March. I sure hope I get my issue for this month, so I don't have to complain to customer service again. Its not much fun to have a subsription to a magazine and have to write to customer service to mail your issues to you every month. Needless to say, I don't suspect I'll be renewing my subsrciption to Dragon (unless I see some drastic changes in reliabililty)
I have written to Canada Post to ask them about this issue. Below is my email to them. I'll let y'all know what they say.
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I have two monthly magazine subscriptions from the same US publisher (Paizo Publishing, LLC). One is called "Dungeon" the other is called "Dragon" and both are gaming magazines.
My "Dungeon" magazine subscription arrives on time _every_ month, but my "Dragon" magazine subscription is almost _always_ 1 to 2 months late! I have spoken with other Canadian subscribers (including those in the Toronto area) and many of them are experiencing the same problem.
The publisher informs us that both magazines are shipped at the same time via US postal service to Canada Post.
Is there a reason my magazine is always so late, and sometimes never arrives at all? Are magazines considered less of a priority? How can I be assured of having my magazine delivered on time every month? Why is it that my "Dungeon" magazine is always on time, but my "Dragon" magazine is almost always very late?
Thank you for you help in this matter,
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I am having the same problem with my Dragon magazines. I also live in Canada and am wondering if that is part of the reason for these delays. I just received my issue 353 a few days ago and it was riped all along the cover. I have not receive issue 354 yet but in the mail today I received issue 355, very strange. This problem needs to be addressed ASAP for I just ordered a year subscription to dungeon and am hoping that this doesn't spill over to that magazine also. These magazines are so valuable to me and my gaming but frustration has set in and by no means do I ever want to stop subscribing but this must be some how addressed.
So please get it fixed