I wish we could just consistently get the PDFs in a predictable time frame. I don’t understand why they’re married to the ship date in the first place.
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Because the ship date is when they legally can bill us. There are several ways that releasing the PDFs before shipping/billing could be exploited unfortunately. And charging for them separately to the shipping books runs into the issue that they're advertised as a free bonus. Among other problems I can think of coming up.
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When shipping blues got me down, I just direct my local postman to deliver packages down my chimney, and pretend I live in a world Christmas comes 12 times a year.
Sadly, packages still keep arriving at my doorstep, but the cookies and milk never have any trouble disappearing!
I know unpredictable issues crop up and Paizo does their best when they do, but it is a bit frustrating to see my subscriptions slipping off the end of the predicted ship dates for the second month running. Last month I was on the second to last day of actual shipping just because I was unlucky on the shipping order queue, this month I'm still waiting due to technical issues on the last day before I suspect we'll see still more estimated final ship date revisions.
Same. Hoping we both get first in line for the APG this summer!
My credit card shows an authorization yesterday for the right amount... Baby steps closer!
Customer Service & Community Manager
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The shipping discount field that would allow us to fix the suspended Bestiary Battles Box orders has been fixed and we've been unsuspended and getting those orders into the shipping queue.
There have been some of the suspended orders that I've come across where shipping actually went down, some where it did not change at all, and the rest where the cost went up (which Paizo will cover the difference between what we originally quoted for and what costs are).
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Customer Service & Community Manager
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PDF granting for applicable subscription items occurs when an item is processed for shipping. To my knowledge, there isn't any legal regulation that dictates when we would need to grant access to the PDFs.
This current set up is how it was coded once upon a time when our fulfillment system was being built, and is fundamental to our subscription fulfillment code. For the launch of second edition, we realized there would be some subscribers having books shipped to them 3-4 weeks in advance of the release date. For that occasion, we ended up using a place holder PDF that was updated on the release day. That was a significant amount of headache, so that is an option we would only use in rare circumstances.
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Customer Service & Community Manager
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I think I misread some posts above. While there's not any regulations about when we'd grant PDFs, there are definitely regulations about when we can settle payments for orders.
Any update on expected end of shipping for subscriptions, not including the Bestiary cards? In a quirk, my battle cards shipped quickly and arrived today, but the rest of my subscriptions are still pending.
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Customer Service & Community Manager
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I have been talking with the warehouse and with our tech team. In addition to the issue with the Bestiary Battle Cards, it seems there is another issue where the warehouse can see they have a number of packages ready to put into the shipping queue, but when they click the button to generate the packing list, only a very small fraction kick out.
We've found a way around this while the tech team determines why this is occurring and can repair it. However, given this and the Bestiary Battle Box issues, shipping will extend over the weekend. I'm setting the end of the shipping window to be the release date for now, and will update the thread with the status as soon as possible.
Ugh. Why is there always an issue with my orders?
I wish we could just consistently get the PDFs in a predictable time frame. I don’t understand why they’re married to the ship date in the first place.The other option is street date.
You say that, but that’s went I’ve been getting mine recently.
Thanks for the update, Sara. Really appreciate all the hard work you people are putting into this.
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I have been talking with the warehouse and with our tech team. In addition to the issue with the Bestiary Battle Cards, it seems there is another issue where the warehouse can see they have a number of packages ready to put into the shipping queue, but when they click the button to generate the packing list, only a very small fraction kick out.
We've found a way around this while the tech team determines why this is occurring and can repair it. However, given this and the Bestiary Battle Box issues, shipping will extend over the weekend. I'm setting the end of the shipping window to be the release date for now, and will update the thread with the status as soon as possible.
GREMLINS!!
I have been talking with the warehouse and with our tech team. In addition to the issue with the Bestiary Battle Cards, it seems there is another issue where the warehouse can see they have a number of packages ready to put into the shipping queue, but when they click the button to generate the packing list, only a very small fraction kick out.
We've found a way around this while the tech team determines why this is occurring and can repair it. However, given this and the Bestiary Battle Box issues, shipping will extend over the weekend. I'm setting the end of the shipping window to be the release date for now, and will update the thread with the status as soon as possible.
Thanks for the update!
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I would quote "A. Vulture" on the subject of patience, but I don't want somebody calling the cops on me. :-)
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GREMLINS!!I have been talking with the warehouse and with our tech team. In addition to the issue with the Bestiary Battle Cards, it seems there is another issue where the warehouse can see they have a number of packages ready to put into the shipping queue, but when they click the button to generate the packing list, only a very small fraction kick out.
We've found a way around this while the tech team determines why this is occurring and can repair it. However, given this and the Bestiary Battle Box issues, shipping will extend over the weekend. I'm setting the end of the shipping window to be the release date for now, and will update the thread with the status as soon as possible.
Moi?
Christ, I appreciate getting updated at the very least, but I'm starting to get really tired of hearing "Sorry, we have had ANOTHER technical issue" over and over. At this point I'm starting to wonder why y'all even bother putting up an "end shipping date" entry, if it's this much of a guess.
I wish we could just consistently get the PDFs in a predictable time frame. I don’t understand why they’re married to the ship date in the first place.The other option is street date.
If it came with a free PDF, I'd be seriously considering just going with that.
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Christ, I appreciate getting updated at the very least, but I'm starting to get really tired of hearing "Sorry, we have had ANOTHER technical issue" over and over. At this point I'm starting to wonder why y'all even bother putting up an "end shipping date" entry, if it's this much of a guess.
Issues are thankfully the exception.
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Appreciate all the efforts being made by Sara Marie and others but I am getting quite frustrated by the shipping delays. I am in the UK and so I have little to no expectation of seeing physical products before the release date so i enjoy the PDFs being available on shipping as my preview of what I am going to get. For the last few months these have been becoming available either just (and only just) before the release date or on it and that's pretty disappointing.
I'm a long standing subscriber and a big fan of Paizo but the last few months have not been great. Sorry.
Hmm one day left.. hoping to see that shipping notice soon lol. I planned our first session to be March 1st thinking I would have plenty of time to read the GM guide well before that. Now I am wishing I had pushed it back another weekend.
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I don't care about street dates, I'm just glad to support such an awesome company.
Yes, my order is still pending, no hurry, I trust Paizo's warehouse staff, they're a great group that's been together for quite a while now.
Interesting. I received shipping emails on Saturday for both shipments on this month's order, but the tracking info indicates that both shipments were "tendered" to UPS yesterday. IOW, somebody sat on 'em for two days. :-(
OTOH, I did get the pdfs on Saturday, so that's cool.
Three points, if you count the total collapse of the shopping cart in December.
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Interesting. I received shipping emails on Saturday for both shipments on this month's order, but the tracking info indicates that both shipments were "tendered" to UPS yesterday. IOW, somebody sat on 'em for two days. :-(
OTOH, I did get the pdfs on Saturday, so that's cool.
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that Paizo only ships things out M-F. I suspect that warehouse staff was working overtime generating labels on Saturday so a double batch could be shipped on Monday, and that subscribers could get their PDFs at the label creation date, instead of the actual ship date (which was always going to be Monday).
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that Paizo only ships things out M-F. I suspect that warehouse staff was working overtime generating labels on Saturday so a double batch could be shipped on Monday, and that subscribers could get their PDFs at the label creation date, instead of the actual ship date (which was always going to be Monday).Interesting. I received shipping emails on Saturday for both shipments on this month's order, but the tracking info indicates that both shipments were "tendered" to UPS yesterday. IOW, somebody sat on 'em for two days. :-(
OTOH, I did get the pdfs on Saturday, so that's cool.
My tracking information would back that idea up. Got the notice Saturday (and read the hell out of my PDFs all weekend), but no shipping information appeared before mid-Monday.
Entirely possible. :-)
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An anomaly which repeats itself often becomes a pattern. We're not there yet, but....any two points can make a line.
Product slippages, delays to shipping and massive mixups grinding everything to a halt used to be far more common - at least that's my impression.
A few in a row is always frustrating; the Paizocon through to GenCon period is always grim, for example. But I do think things are much better than they used to be (the most recent few disappointing datapoints come at the end of an ever improving set of 130 or so, in my case).
Long story short, despite the last few months, I think things are markedly better than they used to be in terms of reliability and the CS team's relatively recent practise of these monthly threads has been a fantastic innovation. (Thanks, Sara!)
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I trust Paizo's warehouse staff, they're a great group that's been together for quite a while now.
The warehouse crew are without exception - awesome.
We're lucky to have them shipping out our stuff each month. :)
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I don't care about street dates, I'm just glad to support such an awesome company.
Yes, my order is still pending, no hurry, I trust Paizo's warehouse staff, they're a great group that's been together for quite a while now.
Completely agree that supporting Paizo is a big plus but as a UK subscriber I do need to balance whether I can get products cheaper (in terms of shipping costs at least) by waiting for street date. A big plus of subscribing (among other things) is access to a PDF usually some time before I would have any chance of seeing a physical book (either from Paizo or from someone in the UK). The pros of subscribing still outweigh the cons at the moment but if this becomes the norm then not sure whether that will always be the case.
And whilst I appreciate the working day has a few more hours to run in Seattle, unless I get a shipping email in the next two hours or so I won't even be seeing PDFs on the last day of the (adjusted) shipping window which is very disappointing.
I'm all for patience, but it's honestly kind of ridiculous that we can't even be guaranteed to get *DIGITAL ITEMS* by the day they're released.
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I'm all for patience, but it's honestly kind of ridiculous that we can't even be guaranteed to get *DIGITAL ITEMS* by the day they're released.
They could guarantee that. They don’t, by choice - it was always been an aim that subscribers get their books and PDFs “on or about” streetdate.
Although we may feel like the most important customers, Paizo have to balance many groups with competing demands. When they began their subscription model there was a lot of angst amongst gaming stores - if Paizo were selling the books cheaper AND offering a free PDF AND getting them in the hands of keen customers early then the FLGS that stocks their books run the risk of missing out on the hype sales at release and of always catering to the long tail (at least that’s how the objection ran).
One way to mollify that (at the time) widely held objection was to explicitly NOT aim for early access to PDFs. (The free PDF was seen as key and the subscriber discount was intended to offset paizo’s high shipping costs).
Every customer needs to make whatever choice is right for them. It’s worth understanding the history behind the decision though. If Paizo were to shift to “everyone gets their PDFs at the same time” for example (which is often requested). What would happen is that we’d all get it on release date - in other words, the bulk of subscribers every month would get the PDF later than otherwise and the handful of people who would otherwise miss the shipping window would get it a couple of days earlier.
Not trying to dissuade anyone from making whatever choice works best for them - as an international,customer, subscribing costs me more and is slower than buying in a shop about half the time. But it’s worth remembering that Paizo needs to balance the needs of FLGS owners as well.
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For me, the free PDF is really what seals the deal. Very rarely does the exact delivery date matter. It's not fun to be missing out on the new shiny stuff once we're at or past the release date, but hopefully that doesn't happen too often.
That said, I haven't gotten my shipping notice yet, and it's awfully tempting to ask if I can save a bit on shipping by having my February and March orders combined... :o)
(yes, I'm kidding!)
Time for bed for me here so I, at least, won't even be seeing a PDF of this month's products by the end of the release date. Very disappointed (once again).