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I find it strange, that a combined shipping of a bunch of products is more expensive than splitting it into two or more shipments. I find it even more strange that when I add a product to the shopping card the shippment and handling increases by a certain amount but does not decrease by the same amount when I remove the just added product again.
I would appreciate if anybody can explain this to me. What is the best I could do to minimize shipping costs?
Chief Technical Officer
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I find it strange, that a combined shipping of a bunch of products is more expensive than splitting it into two or more shipments. I find it even more strange that when I add a product to the shopping card the shippment and handling increases by a certain amount but does not decrease by the same amount when I remove the just added product again.
I would appreciate if anybody can explain this to me. What is the best I could do to minimize shipping costs?
The best overseas rate is Bound Printed Matter (one of a couple of rates that fall into the category "USPS Package Service"), but it has some restrictions; the package must be under 4 pounds, and it must contain at least 50% bound printed matter (e.g. books and magazines). If you go over the 4 pound limit, or add something heavy that isn't a book, the package is no longer eligible for the BPM rate, and it switches to the next best rate, which is usually Priority Mail (which is way more expensive).
Once you remove the item in question, you'll need to reselect the cheaper rate from the pop-up (by default, it stays with the last rate selected for the order, which in that situation would be the more expensive priority rate).
In the not-too-distant future, we'll be adding some tools at checkout that will help enlighten this sort of thing.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Seems like it's mostly tied to the availability of "USPS Package Service" (seems like a flat rate) and "USPS First-Class Mail" (varying cost, based on ... # of items? weight?)
Your situation is a little different. Because playmats and dice and such aren't books, they're not eligible for Bound Printed Matter, but—so long as the weight is under some limit (I don't recall off the top of my head, but I think it's either 14 oz or 1 lb), you can go by USPS First-Class Mail, which is more expensive than BPM, but is still cheaper than Priority.
I know this sounds kind of crazy, but if you want a package consisting of less than 2 pounds of of non-books to ship for less money, add in enough books to outweigh the non-books (without going over 4 pounds), and you'll find the shipping cost will go down.
...if what I want to order doesn't fit (but somehow makes it through the checkout screen anyway)
No worries—that rarely happens. Our system knows all the weird rules, and generally can't get stuff like that wrong (unless we have the wrong weight or size for one of the products in our system, but that's clearly our problem!).
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The best overseas rate is Bound Printed Matter (one of a couple of rates that fall into the category "USPS Package Service"), but it has some restrictions; the package must be under 4 pounds, and it must contain at least 50% bound printed matter (e.g. books and magazines). If you go over the 4 pound limit, or add something heavy that isn't a book, the package is no longer eligible for the BPM rate, and it switches to the next best rate, which is usually Priority Mail (which is way more expensive).
Once you remove the item in question, you'll need to reselect the cheaper rate from the pop-up (by default, it stays with the last rate selected for the order, which in that situation would be the more expensive priority rate).
In the not-too-distant future, we'll be adding some tools at checkout that will help enlighten this sort of thing.
Thanks for the reply. Good to know these facts.
This is what I will do: I will just order a couple of Pathfinder Player's Guides. They are inexpensive, more convenient for my players than the PDFs, and will together with the other books of my order hopefully outweigh the non-book stuff.
I think it's better to give my money to Paizo than to the Postal Service.
Hello!
Yes, it's really good to know these facts, many thanks to the thread openers and Vic!
Now I have got a question regarding shipping, too:
I'm a modules, adventure path and planet stories subscriber.
As for the shipping options, I can essentially select bundling all together or send every item seperately.
Now I'm ogling becoming a chronicles subscriber as well, but as this might increase the size of the packages, I wonder if the items could be split into two packages a month. Is this possible?
Greetings, Daniel
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Chief Technical Officer
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Thanks for the reply. I'll experiment a little with my order.
Also, I think I found the 'wonkyness' that was confusing me.
On the shopping cart screen, if you change the amount of the items you want to order, it updates the shipping price accordingly - but it doesn't change the shipping method, even if it isn't eligable anymore. (It DOES do this when adding a new item, but simply altering the ordered amount doesn't seem to generate a check.)
This carries through to the 'checkout', 'select payment' and 'confirm your order' screens. You can no longer choose the shipping method from the list, but if you don't touch it, it won't update. I'm not sure if it generates an error once you actually click the "Place Your Order" button, though.
-Gerko, could give a step-by-step example if this is not clear enough.
We noticed that last week. Gary's major rewrite of the shipping display will fix that. In the meantime, just adjust the pop-up when you get to the confirmation page.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Now I'm ogling becoming a chronicles subscriber as well, but as this might increase the size of the packages, I wonder if the items could be split into two packages a month. Is this possible?
We've come up with some ideas on how to do that automatically, but it hasn't been necessary yet. 4 pounds is a *lot* of books, and even if you subscribe to everything, we haven't topped that limit yet.