Forgive me for the question, but it was my understanding that Paizo people don't bumple their skin over where their products are purchased. So, does anyone happen to know how long it takes new products to hit the "shelves" at Amazon? It will help me make purchasing decisions.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
True, Paizo has stated numerous times, they want the customer to purchase their items where ever it makes the most sense for the customer.
In terms of Amazon, they've been regularly confusing folks who pre-order Paizo items from them with non-sensical date available for some products. However, in general, they seem to have Paizo books in stock from 1~4 weeks after the "street date" for various releases from what I've seen. This is from reports here on the board, as I get my new releases either from Paizo or my FLGS.
Hope this helps.
Sniggevert, thank you, it does help. A 1-4 week lag between Paizo and Amazon releases is not too much. I've noticed that lately Amazon is not putting exact dates Paizo products.
There are a couple products Paizo has just released, that you can buy right now, but they are not yet available on Amazon. As an ongoing subscription member here at Paizo you can bundle your order to save on shipping but you have to wait until the sub order goes out. And the shipping increases even if only a little. I happen to be an Amazon Prime member so all shipping is FREE (and in 2-days). So, I'm always weighing the differences.
In short, it depends on how anxious you are to get the product, how much of the line you want, and if you want the .pdfs.
In long, this is my sense of the differences:
Paizo Subscription: If you subscribe to one of Paizo's lines (which is basically a standing preorder for all upcoming titles in a given line, noting you can cancel at any time), the benefits are thus:
- Free .pdf ($10.00 value)
- You get said .pdf BEFORE the release date--usually whenever your shipment ships. That means you get first look at the product before anyone else.
- Order arrives on or close to release date (barring occasional distributor errors which still often fix faster.
- You can order other items previously published in the same line (or any Paizo product if you're a Path subscriber, I think) for a small discount.
- You can ask them to package shipments together to help cut down somewhat on shipping costs
- You get notified via email when errata and updated printings of the .pdf become available
- In my experience, books are packed better/more safely
The cons follow:
- Your discount is "only" 10-15% depending on the product (and you only get the discount if you subscribe)
- You always have to pay shipping, and shipping costs are higher than Amazon
- More expensive to ship overseas
Amazon, the pros are thus:
- Discount on the product is steeper
- You can often get free or at least much cheaper shipping (and you're a Prime member so it's always free)
(In short, you save more money)
The cons to Amazon:
- Amazon is notoriously unreliable about shipping a newly released Paizo product on time (which is some weird distribution issue). Often they will tell you it will ship on the release date, and then on or near the release date suddenly tell you it's not going to be available for another two or three or four or whatever weeks. A friend of mine was frequently burned by this, where he was told he'd get a book soon and then ended up waiting at least a month for it. He decided to become a Paizo superscriber instead. While if you don't care if you get it on release is one thing, they are weird about telling folks when they'll ship it and then change things. This might be changing since they are now being more vague about release dates.
- If you want the .pdf, you have to buy it separately, and cannot buy it until after the release date. If you say, saved, around $10 by ordering from Amazon, and then buy the .pdf anyway, you've essentially lost that savings (although in fairness, you may save much more than that).
Basically it's about what you order, when you want it, and how much you're willing to spend. Amazon is a cheaper option by far, Paizo is a more reliable option and has a few perks that may be important to some and inconsequential to others.
Paizo is a more reliable option and has a few perks that may be important to some and inconsequential to others.
This is true... if you want ALL of the products of the selected subscription line. For me, and to a lot of other people I imagine, this does not work.
While I agree that it's bloody awesome if you want all the products, it's really better to use book depository/amazon if you don't. Lots of people complained about Bestiary Box publishing date being moved to january or february on those two sites and lots of pitchforks were raised about it, but in the end, Book Depository changed the release date close to the original one.
Ordering from Paizo if you're overseas is equal to burning your money away, because for hardcover books shipping costs as much (or more) as the book.
Thanks for the info, guys. Toadkiller Dog, um, wow...Book Depository looks fantastic. I'd never heard of it so this is an excellent resource!
The quest continues...
Chief Technical Officer
|
Ordering from Paizo if you're overseas is equal to burning your money away, because for hardcover books shipping costs as much (or more) as the book.
That's not always so. The rate for parcels under four pounds is pretty reasonable, but one you hit four pounds, you can only go International Priority, which is much more expensive. However, once you've made the jump to International Priority, you can generally add quite a few books without seeing the shipping costs increase significantly—or, in many cases, at all.
|
I picked up the ARG from Amazon within a week of the release date. It was about about $26 versus $34 from Paizo (with subscriber discount). On the other hand, I priced Blood of Angels and Blood of Fiends at the same time and purchased them from Paizo because Amazon's price was worse on both of those items.
I use to order books from Amazon but not anymore. I never know how they will be packaged. Most of the time they are just put into an envelope and sent. They arrive damaged and I have to send them back. Sometimes they are packaged very well and arrive in perfect condition. I just got tired of the problems. Paizo does a great job at packaging their orders. I have never had any items damaged.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's not always so. The rate for parcels under four pounds is pretty reasonable
Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't call shipping cost of $21 reasonable. That's more than half worth of the book itself. And that's for a less heavy books, like APG, UC, Bestiary etc. It just gets worse with CRB and Bestiary Box.
Add in the fact that Book Depository sells the same book cheaper than the base cost of the book with shipping included, it's clear to me where will I get my books from.
Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Pathfinder and I do buy from your site also (I think I have like 30 purchases of paperbacks and misc items, because price differs just a little bit in those cases) and try to support you whenever I can, but buying hardcovers from your site is like donating a bunch of cash to the postal service that you use.
I really appreciate all that you do, but shipping to Europe is not one of your strengths. If you want to expand your business in Europe, you should look into other shipping methods.
|
Chief Technical Officer
|
The shipping cost for the APG to your country isn't actually $21, it's $18.42—and that's because we're discounting shipping for that particular rate.
Below 4 pounds, it's strictly weight-based; the APG parcel comes to about 3 pounds. Something like an Adventure Path volume, which is just about a pound, costs $6.54 to ship to your country.
We revisit our shipping options all the time, but the bottom line is that there's no cheap way to get stuff overseas anymore, and the price goes up every year like clockwork.
I don't see how Book Depository isn't losing money servicing your order. Do their parcels come with any indication of the shipping method they're using, or the rate they're paying?
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Book Depository is shipping from the UK. So, they're using British shipping rates instead of American ones.
Bestiary Box from Book Depository is 42 EUR with free shipping, while at most UK-based retailers it's [28 GBP] = 35 EUR + shipping costs varying by country. So actually Book Depository's shipping isn't really "free", they're just calculating it into the listed price. Most UK retailers will net me a Bestiary Box actually cheaper than Book Depository does.
Shipping rates for EU-based companies tend to be lower than American ones, because most European national postal services (equivalents of USPS) are heavily subsidized with state and EU money to keep them afloat in the Internet age and with fast delivery companies such as UPS and DHL stepping on their toes. The poor old USPS is soldering on without any luxuries of that kind, hence their overseas rates.
On the top of that, if you order from Paizo anything that's not a book to an EU location, you will likely be hit by VAT and customs fees. EU wants you to spend your money on this side of the big water, and is quite good at that.
How could this change? Well, likely if every EU customer of Paizo's wet dream would come true and Paizo Europe would come to happen, but ... brutal truth is, 70-80% of RPG market money is in the US/Canada, even more so for the traditionally D&D centric American gaming populace (us filthy Euros have all those weird RPGs we cling to, you know). Add to this the painful fact that while dealing with distribution in America means talking to 3-4 companies that cover US and Canada, setting up a network of RPG distribution in Europe means you get to wrangle 20+ companies, some of them being linguistically challenged, permanently half-broke or just plain weird.
tl;dr: chances are slim to none. But hey, Paizo is likely very happy for sales through any channels, it's still making them money (just not as much as direct sales).
Just do an Adventure Path that deals heavily with broke states and corruption, then Paizo Europe could get financed by Germany hahaha.
Of course it would have to be printed in several South European languages.
But seriously, as a student Amazon prime member i get Blood of Angels for 10€ and Ultimate Equipment for 41€, delivered on next thursday if i would order now. Thats really much cheaper and faster, as much as i love the pdf´s.
Anyway some other bookstores sell their stuff on amazon market place from New York, available through amazon prime. Why not do that?
|
|
Just do an Adventure Path that deals heavily with broke states and corruption, then Paizo Europe could get financed by Germany hahaha.
Of course it would have to be printed in several South European languages.But seriously, as a student Amazon prime member i get Blood of Angels for 10€ and Ultimate Equipment for 41€, delivered on next thursday if i would order now. Thats really much cheaper and faster, as much as i love the pdf´s.
Anyway some other bookstores sell their stuff on amazon market place from New York, available through amazon prime. Why not do that?
IIRC Amazon marketplace deals with bookstores, not publishers. Paizo is a publisher.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bestiary Box from Book Depository is 42 EUR with free shipping
No, it's not. I paid it even cheaper than that because I preordered it (21.03e was the price).
And where did I say that shipping is free from BD?
I got the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary about two weeks after release from Amazon for the obscene price of $29.99 with free shipping. My wife gets much less annoyed my the geek habits when I save money doing them.
And where did I say that shipping is free from BD?
You didn't, but their home page does, repeatedly and prominently. :)
They're still cheaper than... all of the rest. Even with shipping calculated into the price of the Bestiary Box it's cheaper than base price at Paizo's site (25 euros being ~32 dollars at the moment).
And I do prefer to get a full price right away and not get shocked when they add in the shipping fee.