Looks like some weekend warrior at Amazon is at it again. I tend to pre-order most Pathfinder products as soon as Amazon lists them. I've had the "Advanced Race Guide" ordered since the book appeared.
This morning, Amazon sent me the following:
"Due to a lack of availability, we will not be able to obtain the following item(s) from your order:
Jason Bulmahn "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide"
We've canceled the item(s) and apologize for the inconvenience."
They did the same thing with another book a few months ago, again on a weekend and Paizo's Sales Department was able to straighten it out. I hope they can convince someone at Amazon to stop being so quick to cancel orders. Hell, I've had items pre-ordered on Amazon sometimes for years.
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Yeah same here, what the hell man. That pisses me off. Now I have to order it directly and have it take even longer to get to me, and I don't get the pre-order price. Amazon has failed me today, shame too. Well Paizo, looks like you'll be getting my money directly for the larger purchases from now on.
I got this email as well! >:-/
Can the folks at Paizo do something about this, please??
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I think I read somewhere that the issue is that Paizo's printer/distributor is not very reliable about filling wholesale orders from places like Amazon. I checked around other bookstores and I think Wal-Mart and Books-a-Million are projecting they won't get it in stock until July 3 now. It is frustrating, but it looks like Paizo is the only place (online) that has the book for the next three weeks.
I dropped a note to Amazon while I was at it. I don't think it's Amazon policy, per se. It looks like some bumble on the weekends gets a wild hair and starts cancelling orders. I've rarely had this happen, in fact, I think only twice and both times with Paizo books. The last time, Paizo was quick to get it straightened out.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm chatting with Amazon's customer service right now. They say they canceled my order "because the item is not available" and "because we don't want our customers to wait".
...The item wasn't available when I ordered it. Nothing changed. And canceling my order doesn't make me wait less.
WTF?
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I'm chatting with Amazon's customer service right now. They say they canceled my order "because the item is not available" and "because we don't want our customers to wait".
...The item wasn't available when I ordered it. Nothing changed. And canceling my order doesn't make me wait less.
WTF?
I wouldn't be too concerned. Assuming Amazon gets it at the same time as other online retailers do (early July), I doubt they'll let them undercut Amazon's prices. See here: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game/Jason-Bulmahn/97 81601253903 You can still preorder from them if you want, and their price matches Amazon's if I remember correctly.
The problem is that Amazon shows the 18th of April as the release date (same for Amazon Germany). Nobody bothered to correct it (I did it for Germany, but had the wrong release date; June 1st).
That's nothing new. Amazon has a long history of posting wildly inaccurate release dates. I think I once heard it was because they need a release date before they can put up preorders, and so they just make one up.
I also sent an email to Amazon for my canceled pre-order. Maybe if enough of us do it they will compensate the early pricing. I think it was only a dollar something difference but since it is over the $25 mark we get the free shipping on ordering it with Amazon. You have to have the member's card to get the free shipping on an order with Books-A-Million and paizo charges 8 bucks to ship their books. I wouldn't really even mind paying closer to the actual retail price if i wasn't charged a fourth of the book cost in shipping.
I talked to customer service as well about this. I didn't get anywhere, of course; book distribution and availability is way above the pay grade of the minimum-wage customer service guy. Not his fault. Probably not anyone's fault; I just hope they fix it.
In the mean time, I'd recommend everyone who has had this problem bring the issue up with Amazon customer service. They track these things, and it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
GT
Sometimes I wonder if I should switch to Amazon for my Paizo book needs. Then threads like this remind me, why I never do :)
Unfortunately, ordering from Paizo is not an option overseas. Besides, I got a nice little voucher here that I want to use on that book.
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I'll bring this thread to the attention of our Sales Sensei tomorrow to get the problem corrected.
In the meantime, please note that Paizo will ship internationally and if you absolutely want it the moment it's released, please consider a subscription directly from us. (Though also note that ordering it from wherever you like to do your shopping is also fine by us too!)
Chief Technical Officer
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For the explanation of why this happens, please see this post from Chris Self responding to when they did this same thing with Ultimate Magic.
For the explanation of why this happens, please see this post from Chris Self responding to when they did this same thing with Ultimate Magic.
This isn't about pushing release dates, Vic. Amazon does that most of the time with Paizo books. This is a rare anomaly where orders are actually cancelled.
I never expect a Paizo book on release day, but I don't like it when the order is cancelled outright at though the book was no longer scheduled for release.
I got the same email from Amazon. You know what? I did the proper consumer thing: I came over here to Paizo, put in an order, and voila! Already got an email saying it shipped. Sure, no preorder price guarentee. Since Amazon just made sure I wasn't getting the book but Paizo did, the way I see it, Paizo gave me the order price guarentee--I ordered it for the price listed, and now it's on its way :)
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Chief Technical Officer
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For the explanation of why this happens, please see this post from Chris Self responding to when they did this same thing with Ultimate Magic.This isn't about pushing release dates, Vic. Amazon does that most of the time with Paizo books. This is a rare anomaly where orders are actually cancelled.
I'm pretty sure the root cause is the same... but I definitely don't know what makes them decide to cancel some and just postpone others. (Maybe they only cancel if their price changed in the interim?)
If you can't get it thru Amazon... check your local Comic book store.. they can order most the Pathfinder books thru Diamond Comics wholesale.
The only downside is Diamond Comics doesn't seem to get the books for 2-3 months after they are released ( dunno why )
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Chief Technical Officer
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If you can't get it thru Amazon... check your local Comic book store.. they can order most the Pathfinder books thru Diamond Comics wholesale.
The only downside is Diamond Comics doesn't seem to get the books for 2-3 months after they are released ( dunno why )
Diamond *Books* is actually our book trade distributor; they get products at the same time as all of our hobby distributors.
In the meantime, please note that Paizo will ship internationally...
Thanks, but no thanks. While I'd save money on the actual book, the delivery cost of 14$ and change would make the whole affair more expensive than any other option.
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Here is what Amazon E-mailed be back with:
Hello,
Unfortunately, when we contacted our supplier, we found "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide" was no longer available. That's why it was canceled from your order--you haven't been charged for it. Once an order is canceled, it no longer appears in your order history.
I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Until recently we still thought we'd be able to get the book for you.
One of our aims at Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we haven't met that standard. I'm truly sorry, and I hope you'll give us another chance in the future.
We'll consider your feedback as we plan further improvements. Customer feedback like yours really helps us continue to improve our store and provide better service to our customers.
We hope to see you again soon.
Thank you for your inquiry. Did I solve your problem?
Take it as you will.
This is purely speculation, but someone above said Amazon had a release date of April 18th for the book. So to Amazon it looks like all these people have been waiting for a book that was supposed to come out in April. Maybe be it’s an automatic thing that happens if customers have been waiting X amount of days for their orders.
Like I said purely speculation, and I’m not trying to justify it for Amazon, just throwing in my 2 coppers.
To put things in perspective, I pre-order nearly all of the Paizo books from Amazon. The release dates are always pushed back, without exception. However, this is only the second time where Amazon has cancelled the order and both times were on a weekend. It's unlikely that this has anything to do with Diamond or any release date or availability issues. This is simply an Amazon snafu and they will no doubt have the book available again by the end of the week. So far, I've yet to find any retailer besides Paizo who has it in stock.
Amazon Customer Service said that they would forward this to their Purchasing Department, so hopefully this will be avoided in the future.
I talked to customer service as well about this. I didn't get anywhere, of course; book distribution and availability is way above the pay grade of the minimum-wage customer service guy.
They don't make minimum wage, they make 10 bucks and hour or better.
Just got off the phone with Amazon and their excuse was, "We don't know if we will ever get any in stock so we cancelled all the orders."
My boyfriend works for Amazon customer service, I'll ask him if he knows any inside information when he gets home. He had the book preordered as well. I haven't heard him hit the roof yet, so it either didn't happen to him, or he just hasn't checked his email yet.
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I just checked, and he is signed up to receive an alert when the item becomes available. I remember him saying once that sometimes when a book is in preorder mode for a certain amount of time, the system auto-cancels orders. I might be wrong on this though.
I guess Amazon figures that if no money exchanged hands, then what's the problem with cancelling the order. A bunch of p*ssed off gamers, that's the problem!
I just checked, and he is signed up to receive an alert when the item becomes available. I remember him saying once that sometimes when a book is in preorder mode for a certain amount of time, the system auto-cancels orders. I might be wrong on this though.
I guess Amazon figures that if no money exchanged hands, then what's the problem with cancelling the order. A bunch of p*ssed off gamers, that's the problem!
If he had a friendly (and helpful enough) lead, they should submit a ticket to the books team about the release date versus the street date. Also have them cite the order numbers cancelled and contact details from customers as proof of a problem. If the lead is knowledgeable enough, they should be able to find those details with the right tools.
It worked for me when the Core Rulebook failed past the ESD and EDD. Especially when we could prove the inventory was in the FCs.
He's pretty cool with most of his Leads (they thinks he is Lead material *yay I'm proud of my man moving up in the world /squee*), and I know of at least 4 fellow gamers on staff. Maybe we could get something done. He won't get home for at least another 1 1/2 hours, though.
Update from boyfriend:
Don't bother calling customer service, they can't tell you any more than that email did. He said it was probably due to some sort of publishing error, most likely due to not enough copies being made. More than likely, the price they set when the book becomes available will be similar to the price you were promised on the pre-order.
He said it was probably due to some sort of publishing error, most likely due to not enough copies being made.
I can assure everyone, there is no error with the number of copies made. The problem lies solely with release date errors and/or not enough copies being ordered by Amazon's supplier.
Our sales team is still busily working on this, and should have it resolved very soon.
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This is why I'm glad I ordered directly from Paizo. I have the book in my hands instead of dealing with some other company's fulfillment problems.
We've pre-ordered from Amazon.ca and haven't had a notice of cancellation (yet).
As expected, the book is once again available for pre-order through Amazon, at a substantial savings.