Hi Paizo CS people
I just got my August Subscription spawning email and I have a couple of queries. I suspect one of them at least will need Tech team input as an ongoing resolution, but perhaps you can manually finagle things for this month?
Firstly, it shows that my package will ship via UPS International and I just want to query that everything will be fine even though that is going to a post office box? The only dealings I've had with UPS (that I remember) they have refused to deliver to PO Boxes - granted that was with the express/priority service.
The second issue relates to why I am unsure of this order number. I placed Order # 5312144 on the 27th July and marked it as shipping via "standard postal delivery" and asked for it not to ship with my subscriptions but rather for those three traveller items to ship out together, on their own (every time I merge an item you need to get from distribution with my subscriptions, the subscription order gets stuck).
Now that my subscription order has generated, it seems to me it has automatically merged with that previous order and included one of those traveller items (presumably one the computer thinks is in the warehouse) and put the other two in my sidecart for a future month. As mentioned above, it also seems to have overruled my previously selected shipping option.
If possible, I'd like to revert to having the three traveller books sit and wait until they're all available and then have them ship out together (separately from any subscription shipments) via USPS standard shipping and to leave my August shipment to just include Paizo products.
Could you separate this month's order accordingly (and maybe ask the tech team how I can stop a previously placed "not for sidecart" order to ignore the subscription process?)
Thanks, in advance. Please let me know if any of that doesn't make sense!
Cheers
Steve
Just to clarify - I think the computer is being super clever and helpful. That is, I think it's realised that this configuration will be better for me in theory (I'll get the screen earlier and probably save money overall).
However, I've experimented many times with the "order something from somewhere else and merge it with subscriptions via the sidecart" process and it always means I'm calling at the end of the shipping window to hear "Hmmm....not sure why that didn't go..."
Even if everything is working fine - I do sometimes find myself desperate for subscription items A, B and C but happy to wait for out-of-the-ordinary items X, Y and Z. As such I may mark my subscription postal option super quick and expensive but make a separate order cheap and slow for X/Y/Z.
Even if I'm being overly paranoid and anecdotally deceived, I think it would be useful for me to be able to separate a standalone order from the subscription process. (I'm sure the merging of orders is good in theory, so it's a nice option to have - I certainly do so often when I'm picking up additional Paizo published products).
Cheers.
Customer Service Representative
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Hi Steve,
Thanks for letting us know! I wanted to let you know that I *did* start looking into this, but then our system decided to start fighting me. We were having lots of technical issues earlier, and I believe most of the tech team has gone home, so I'm not confident that I can get this resolved today. However, I'll be sure to investigate tomorrow and get things moved around a bit.
From what I could tell, there were 2 traveler books in your sidecart, and 1 in your current pending order. I tried to move the 2 out of the sidecart and that's when the system started getting mad at me, so they probably won't appear on your account at the moment. Once the system has calmed down a bit, I'll keep poking and see what i can do.
Sorry for the hassle! Thanks for your understanding, as always. :)
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Sounds great, Katina. Thanks.
There's no real rush - I can always chop and change things via the CS team. It'd just be nice if I could tweak this aspect of my orders on my own.
Each time I try to achieve something weird on paizo.com via a convoluted ordering process and shortly after discover that the website has gone down. I do get just a teeny tiny bit paranoid and embarrassed...
I can picture a tech team full of grownups scowling and demanding "What did you press that for???"
Hi Katina
Thanks for sorting this out for me.
I have some weirdness which happened on the 30th and 31st August which I assume is related to sorting this out but figured I'd mention it just in case it's more widespread:
I got two almost identical credit card charges (but could be authorisations). I assume that's one for the subscription and another for the reconstituted traveller stuff (it's weird that they're both within a couple of dollars of each other, but exchange rates etcetera might explain that, I guess).
Anyhow - I think there's nothing wrong, but if someone wouldn't mind checking for me as the two charges look a little weird.
Also can you advise if there is any way to achieve what I was trying to do:
1. preorder a bunch of stuff with some kind of selected shipping method.
2. several months go by with subscription orders spawning and shipping, probably with a different shipping method from 1
3. None of those subscription orders sweep up any of the preorder (even if some of them are ready to go and others are still on their way to you).
For me, if I want things to ship out with my subscriptions I'll add them to my sidecart when I order them. If I put it into a preorder it means I'm hoping to isolate those specific books from the subscription process.
Is what I'm trying to do too niche? It seems like "add to my sidecart" is almost redundant if any preorder is going to be swept up anyway by a subscription order.
Let me know if that doesn't make sense - unfortunately my order history no longer preserves the information I'm referring to (the orders keep combining themselves). My confirmation emails for order 5312144 paint a clearer picture, I think.
Enjoy parsing that!
Steve
Hello Steve,
I am going to start with your last post while Katina looks into what's going on with the previous post.
Our system does a thing where it is trying to minimize your shipping costs so when it generates a subscription order if it sees another pending order it tries to merge them by spawning the subscription items into that order. It is supposed to not do that if it sees different shipping methods or payment methods. So if your pending order has a different shipping method than your subs it should ignore that order. I am not sure why it pulled the items from other orders into order 5312144. I am going to ping the tech team so they can take a look.
Hello Steve,
We looked over the orders Katina was working with you on and we do see that there were 2 authorizations for very close amounts. One has finalized into a charge and the other should go away when your bank releases it. If it does not please let us know.
Cool. Thanks, Diego. The charges have both settled now but I also have two packages on the way, so I think everything is as it should be.
The traveller items behaved very oddly this time around, for sure. I've seen orders merge before, but not 'self select' into the sidecart.
It might be worth scrapping this enquiry - perhaps it was all tied up in the mess of the last few weeks (and presumably any logs/records of transactions in the last little while is a pain to dig through for you and the tech team).
I can keep an eye out and see if the problem rears it's head down the track, once things are stable again.
Cheers
Steve