To whom it may concern:
I'm a fan and I love supporting Pathfinder and Paizo's product lines. However, this month, I feel the shipping options did not live up to the intent of the options themselves. Specifically, I'd like to call attention to the difference between these two options:
Hold subscription items to ship with my Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription
Combine items when possible, but make sure my Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes are shipped as soon as possible. Due to varying product schedules, occasionally I may pay to ship a volume by itself.Hold for monthly shipment
Ship my subscription products once a month, so I'll pay only one shipping charge.
I understand these options present different shipping methods depending on the type of subscriptions the customer has, but due to the recent delay of this month's Adventure Path, I feel these options did not treat customers with courtesy, especially since you now have products that might be of greater importance to customers besides the Adventure Path.
Since I am a subscriber to the Adventure Path, I know all my stuff will get shipped with my AP, but that is a delay of 1 month for all the other things I was hoping to get this month. As is explained under "Hold subscription items to ship with my Pathfinder AP" option, I understand that some things may ship by themselves, however, the reverse does not seem to be the case. If the AP is late, the shipping of other products should not suffer. If this happens again, what's the difference between the two shipping options above? The difference I see is that all my items get delayed 1 month and I get a much larger than expected bill on the next month, rather than, I feel rationally, getting customers their products as soon as possible despite problems with the AP.
I guess I would rather have only two options for shipping:
1 - Ship individual items as they are available (identical to the current option like this)
2 - Monthly Shipment (This shipping option would only ship items that are ready to be shipped by a particular date. This date would be chosen to coincide with the availability of the AP. If any subscription item is late, including the AP, it does not ship.)
Thanks for listening
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I'm not totally understanding, you could have changed to a monthly shipping this month almost 3 weeks ago when we were told the PA was going to be released in Nov (that's what I and at least a few dozen others did - this was posted all over the place the week the bestiary was released.) and as soon as you got access to your PDFs switched back to hold for AP, meaning that you'd still get the AP as soon as it comes out, and you'd get your Oct monthly shipment. But that is changing your preferences, and is not something that the company should do without notifying you. That's the reason why you can change you shipping priority at any time.
That's fine. But then I have to log into the site and do this manually. If I'm really busy and I don't have time to do this, then, yes, I don't get the shipping options I want.
However, this month, with the delay, I'm just not seeing where the first option helps anything. Plus, I never received the email regarding the delay. I only discovered this after not seeing any ship notification recently and I logged into the site and saw that all my stuff was on a November shipment.
Many others have had to contact customer service regarding this.
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That's fine. But then I have to log into the site and do this manually. If I'm really busy and I don't have time to do this, then, yes, I don't get the shipping options I want.
However, this month, with the delay, I'm just not seeing where the first option helps anything. Plus, I never received the email regarding the delay. I only discovered this after not seeing any ship notification recently and I logged into the site and saw that all my stuff was on a November shipment.
Are you saying that you want a option like "hold for AP except when an RPG supplement comes out first"? Otherwise you're complaining about them doing what you told them to do (hold your shipment for the next AP).
If you wanted to guarantee a shipment a month, why didn't you select the "hold for monthly shipment" option? you might have to wait an extra week or two for your AP, but you'd get everything as soon as the last item for the month comes in - since normally (not always, but normally) most items for the month come in within a week of each other, its not that much longer of a wait and when an AP is late (like this month, and the First November,notice its usually the products that need to be submitted in the major Con season) you still get your other books.
I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to figure out what parameters you want in the additional shipping option to get it the way you want it, while still being automated. Without flags on every single product saying "ship my books as soon as this one is availible", which you would have to log onto the side to click, I don't see a viable way to do this.
That's fine. But then I have to log into the site and do this manually. If I'm really busy and I don't have time to do this, then, yes, I don't get the shipping options I want.
However, this month, with the delay, I'm just not seeing where the first option helps anything. Plus, I never received the email regarding the delay. I only discovered this after not seeing any ship notification recently and I logged into the site and saw that all my stuff was on a November shipment.
Are you saying that you want a option like "hold for AP except when an RPG supplement comes out first"? Otherwise you're complaining about them doing what you told them to do (hold your shipment for the next AP).
If you wanted to guarantee a shipment a month, why didn't you select the "hold for monthly shipment" option? you might have to wait an extra week or two for your AP, but you'd get everything as soon as the last item for the month comes in - since normally (not always, but normally) most items for the month come in within a week of each other, its not that much longer of a wait and when an AP is late (like this month, and the First November,notice its usually the products that need to be submitted in the major Con season) you still get your other books.
I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to figure out what parameters you want in the additional shipping option to get it the way you want it, while still being automated. Without flags on every single product saying "ship my books as soon as this one is availible", which you would have to log onto the side to click, I don't see a viable way to do this.
What I want is to not have the situation that happened with one particular product being late holding up a shipment. For me it was the AP, for others, it was the Second Darkness dice that made the whole shipment late.
I think the option to hold for the AP doesn't make sense and confuses people unnecessarily. It also forces people to manipulate their shipping settings depending on whats late rather than just setting it and forgetting it.
So to be very basic about it, I'd like the "Hold to ship with the AP" option to go away. As far as I can see, it doesn't add anything to Paizo's ability to get stuff shipped out.
Director of Brand Strategy
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What I want is to not have the situation that happened with one particular product being late holding up a shipment. For me it was the AP, for others, it was the Second Darkness dice that made the whole shipment late.
I think the option to hold for the AP doesn't make sense and confuses people unnecessarily. It also forces people to manipulate their...
I think Hold for AP was introduced when more customers put higher priority on this line than on the others. Before the RPG came out, people's highest priority was usually to get the AP as soon as possible. If they got a Module or Companion a little later it wasn't so bad. Now it seems that people's priorities have shifted to the RPG books being the priority, though those won't ever come out frequently enough to warrant a "hold for RPG" option. It sounds like you want either the never hold anything option so that nothing ever sits in the warehouse, or the monthly option, in which case you get one shipment a month whether it contains an AP or not.
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Director of Sales
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What I want is to not have the situation that happened with one particular product being late holding up a shipment. For me it was the AP, for others, it was the Second Darkness dice that made the whole shipment late.I think the option to hold for the AP doesn't make sense and confuses people unnecessarily. It also forces people to manipulate their shipping settings depending on whats late rather than just setting it and forgetting it.
So to be very basic about it, I'd like the "Hold to ship with the AP" option to go away. As far as I can see, it doesn't add anything to Paizo's ability to get stuff shipped out.
I think that you have a good point. There was definitely a disconnect between what a few subscribers thought would happen and what did.
However, I believe the problem was not with the shipping options themselves, but rather a lack of explanation on our part. I think we did not have enough information available for some subscribers to make the correct decision to get exactly what they want.
The "Hold for AP" option remains the preferred option for many, many subscribers, and the one that best serves their wishes. This option will not be going away, however, I think that we need to have a better explanation available. We will be updating the FAQ soon with fuller explanations of the various options and the ramifications for choosing each of them. Furthermore, we are currently developing a new funcitonality which will give subscribers even more control over their upcoming shipments .
Thanks,
cos
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Senior Software Developer
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No, we're actually just concerned that the moon might explode in the 23rd century, and we're trying to get ahead of the game. (Or cash in on the disaster profits if it's unavoidable and there's money to be made.)
Also, I should clarify our R&D priorities: death rays before moon rays. As always.
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No, we're actually just concerned that the moon might explode in the 23rd century, and we're trying to get ahead of the game. (Or cash in on the disaster profits if it's unavoidable and there's money to be made.)
Also, I should clarify our R&D priorities: death rays before moon rays. As always.
it's nearing winter - might want to prioritize heat rays above death rays so that you don't have another snow-ocalapse