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Recently I purchased the combat pad, along with steel squires spell templates and a back order of the first few gamemastery modules I missed. These items where held over by the UK postal service and required additional payments upon collection to cover additional import charges.
I noticed that the Pathfinder Chronicles Subscription includes the item cards product range and I was wondering if this will be an issue regarding UK imports? It would be extremely annoying if my combined shipping was held over by the postal service with an additional charge.
Paizo do so many great (non-book) products that are really difficult to obtain in the UK (and likely in other International countries too) and the additional import costs and collection issue has always made me think twice about ordering them.
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I can only answer this question about Germany.
So long as the order + shipping for books does not get over 100 Euros, everything is okay, no additional import tax has to be paid as the tax amount stays under 7 Euros (books have 7% sales tax).
Since toys and cards have 19% sales tax, this 7 Euro limit is reached quite easily. i.e. about 1,50 Euros from the cards alone. The spell templates also fall into this category, as well as the combat pad.
My advice is: check out the custom regulations in the UK (Wikipedia has lots of information for Gemany about that, so I can only surmise that similar entries for import customs may be available for the UK) and place/split your orders accordingly to skim through this, without any additional import sales taxes (and perhaps even lower shipping rates).
I think the normal subscriptions Pathfinder, Gamemastery, Pathfinder Chronicles and Planet Stories altogether may not reach that limit. Perhaps only in months with more than 2 Chronicles Products, or when the Campaign Setting ships. It depends also on the shipping rates you get, if you get over the weight allowance for the "small" envelope (i.e. international shipping for US$ 6.86 for packages under 4 pounds, but you also have to take the tara for the packaging into account).
I do not know how the weight measurements for the products are stored in the databse (in pounds or in ounces), but I had sometimes trouble during the Green Ronin sale to order more than two books in one package, but that is a queation for.
That's my advice about ordering from Paizo (or from the US altogether).
Chief Technical Officer
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All I can tell you is that we do our best to accurately report (via the appropriate customs forms) the contents of our shipments (including product type, value and weights). What happens with that information on the other end is beyond our scope of knowledge. Other customers can share their experiences, obviously, but if you need to know the regulations, I'm not sure who to suggest you talk to to learn about that locally. Perhaps you can ask at the Post Office?
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I'm not an import/exports lawyer, but my understanding is that if you import anything upon which VAT is chargeable into the UK via the mail from somewhere outside the EU, you are required to pay the VAT and import duty on it. There's probably also a processing charge on top of that. Books are 0% rated for VAT so you don't pay any duty or a charge for books, but card-sets and other such things are liable for VAT, so it has to be paid. In short, this is liable to happen to every package that isn't marked 'books' (well, unless it's marked 'children's clothes' or something else which is 0% rated!) I don't know whether it is likely to happen - I don't know what proportion of mail is checked like this - but I wouldn't order anything VAT chargeable from outside the EU without expecting the price to go up substantially due to VAT/duty/fees. More's the pity.
Which leads to another question: 'map folio'... book? Or toy/game? It's important!
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Chief Technical Officer
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Which leads to another question: 'map folio'... book? Or toy/game? It's important!
Well, for customs purposes, we can call it a book. But unfortunately, for shipping purposes, it doesn't qualify as Bound Printed Matter. (Packages need to contain 50% BPM by weight to qualify for that shipping rate, so as long as it's shipping with a Pathfinder or another book, it'll qualify.)
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Which leads to another question: 'map folio'... book? Or toy/game? It's important!Well, for customs purposes, we can call it a book. But unfortunately, for shipping purposes, it doesn't qualify as Bound Printed Matter. (Packages need to contain 50% BPM by weight to qualify for that shipping rate, so as long as it's shipping with a Pathfinder or another book, it'll qualify.)
That makes things easier then. Perhaps I'll subscribe to Pathfinder Chronicles, starting with the map folio, then try to remember to turn off my subscription before any cards get sent, and turn it on in time to pick up subsequent books. Do you think that'll be possible? Or is the release schedule not clear enough/will there be months where you'd be sending PC book plus PC cards at the same time?
Darn this stupid insistence on borders :( Could we be the 51st State and part of the EU at the same time, please?
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Well, for customs purposes, we can call it a book. But unfortunately, for shipping purposes, it doesn't qualify as Bound Printed Matter. (Packages need to contain 50% BPM by weight to qualify for that shipping rate, so as long as it's shipping with a Pathfinder or another book, it'll qualify.)
That makes things easier then. Perhaps I'll subscribe to Pathfinder Chronicles, starting with the map folio, then try to remember to turn off my subscription before any cards get sent, and turn it on in time to pick up subsequent books. Do you think that'll be possible? Or is the release schedule not clear enough/will there be months where you'd be sending PC book plus PC cards at the same time?
Darn this stupid insistence on borders :( Could we be the 51st State and part of the EU at the same time, please?
If the UK were both 51st state and a EU member then I'd be the happiest non-UK European citizen since it would mean that other EU members wouldn't have to pay customs for ordering things from the US through the UK :p
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I'm going to pop out to my local post office some time in January and get some idea of costs based on the product info on the Paizo products and will post the results.
In the meantime, does Paizo intend on making the Chronicles products available through other European retailers such as Waterstones as well as local hobby/game stores?
I noticed a fair number of products are available through Amazon so I guess as a last resort I could order through them if the import tax is too high.