Warning: I may post your answer on our city's PFS facebook page.
I think you should.
It's likely it's just a mistake - I've never met a disgruntled Paizo employee. Their computer seems decidedly temperamental though..
If the item is large, there are times when the only way to ship it is via the expensive options. (Core Rulebooks and PACG base sets cost me more in freight charges than the product's price, to Australia). :(
Customer Service Representative
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WTF! $21 postage on a $31 order? Do you get a kickback from the post office for sending 1/10 of the order by priority mail? Or is this the work of a disgruntled employee who is deliberately sabotaging Paizo? Warning: I may post your answer on our city's PFS facebook page.
Hello Whew,
I'm sorry for the confusion! It looks like for this order, USPS Priority is in fact the cheapest shipping option. There are certain shipping restrictions which prevent us from shipping this order via Standard Post. If a domestic shipment is over 1lb, it must be at least 50% bound, printed matter in order to qualify for Standard Post.
Since this order weighs a total of 7lbs, and maps/map folios don't count as bound, printed matter, this order has to be sent out via a different method. There are a couple of different options for shipping, but they are all a bit more expensive than Priority. The next option would be UPS Ground, which is $23.70 but would fit all of the contents from the order into one box.
Again, I'm sorry for the confusion with this. If you'd like me to change the shipping method or make any other changes to the order, please don't hesitate to let me know and I will be sure to take care of it. For the time being, I have temporarily suspended the order so that it won't automatically send out before we hear back from you. Just let me know how you would like to proceed, and I'll be more than happy to help. Likewise, I'll be glad to assist you with any further questions or concerns that you may have in the meantime.
Thanks for your understanding, and have a great weekend!
-Katina
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Chief Technical Officer
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WTF! $21 postage on a $31 order?
That sounds bad... but everything in your order is on clearance. If you were to phrase your question based on retail value rather than sale price, $21 postage on a $172 order seems much more reasonable, doesn't it?
But shipping costs aren't based on retail value *or* sale price: they're based on size, weight, destination, and the chosen shipping method. You've got more than 6 pounds of stuff, including a board game that weighs 2.5 pounds by itself.
If you go to the USPS website and ask for a quote to ship a 6-pound package from our zip code (98052) to yours, the cheapest shipping option you'll get is USPS Retail Ground for $22.98 (the smallest single box everything would fit in is 13x10x6, so it won't fit in any Flat Rate Box, and the contents don't qualify for Media Mail). By breaking it into two packages, we can charge you a bit less than that and get you Priority service.
Our shipping charges are designed to cover our costs, not make a profit; we spend a lot of effort keeping our costs as low as we can without losing money—including breaking your order into multiple packages when it saves *you* money.
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WTF! $21 postage on a $31 order?
I'd just like to take a (not at all) brief moment to reply to this. It's something that gets brought up from time to time and reflects a certain way of looking at things that might benefit from perspective.
If I agree to manufacture and sell you a concrete sphere that is a meter (three feet) in diameter, a reasonable price for that might be... oh... $10. Concrete isn't terribly expensive and once I have a nice mold made, the job should be easy.
So I'm selling you a cement ball for $10.
Only you live on the other side of the planet. It seems obvious that the price you're paying for the concrete ball has zero bearing on what it's going to cost to get the ball to you. I can't fit it in an envelope. I can't stick it in a tiny box. No matter who I use (USPS, UPS, FedEx, Purolator, DHL, or some other courier), the sheer cumbersomeness and weight of the ball makes it clear that it's going to be expensive to ship.
Well. Books aren't balls of concrete. But they're also not single sheets of paper. Shipping companies have complex tables involving dim-weight, the dimensions and weight of a shipment.
But the important take-home here is never link the price of an object to its shipping cost. The price of the item is the price of the item. The price of shipping is something else. Add them together and you've got your total cost of ownership. There's NO reason for either component to be smaller than the other.
Just trying to help you (and anyone else who actually reads this) have perspective.