Dear Paizo,
When I checked on my recent order for July, it showed a $25.19 charge for shipping. That seems a bit excessive. I've got three books coming to me this month:
--Adventure Path #157
--Advanced Player's Guide
--Lost Omens: Legends
The subtotal is $89.72. Then $6.06 for the estimated sales tax. So far, so good...
But $25.19 for three books seems a bit high for a shipping cost to Northeast Ohio. Especially since I have Cheapest Option Available selected.
When I went through part of the checkout stage to show me how much shipping would be for each individual book if I ordered all three separately, these were my results:
--Adventure Path #157 = $4.83
--Advanced Player's Guide = $6.81
--Lost Omens: Legends = $12.01
That's a total of $23.65 in shipping. And while that's not quite the $25.19 for the combined order, it's still a lot for three books.
It looks like the biggest culprit is Lost Omens: Legends. $12.01 seems like an incredibly high shipping cost for a book that Amazon lists as having only 128 pages. Compare that to the Advanced Player's Guide, listed on Amazon as having 272 pages, and something seems out of whack for sure.
Per another customer in the July shipping thread, also located in Ohio, the Advanced Player's Guide alone is around that $6-7 mark in shipping. So again, that leaves that $12.01 Lost Omens shipping cost as the one sticking out.
Clearly there is an issue, be it a bug or some other hiccup in the machine. I would really appreciate it if you could look into this matter as soon as possible. It might be that others are being overcharged, too. Hopefully I've given you enough information to share with your tech team that can help make a difference.
I'm also interested in starting a Pathfinder Adventures subscription to be added to my three other book subscriptions. If you can do that with my current month's order, starting with The Slithering, please do so. It will push my $89.72 subtotal above the $100.00 threshold to qualify for the $10.00 Paizo credit for shipping. And by fixing the bug or whatever issue there is with the Lost Omens shipping overcharge (or wherever it stems from), it should make for a much more affordable month of July.
If that's not possible and it's too late to generate such a Subscription this month to be added to my others, fair enough. I'll evaluate that as an option for the month of August as I look to make a more long-term decision on whether or not I continue with my Paizo subscriptions or seek third-party businesses for my purchasing needs.
Thank you all in advance for your time and effort looking into this matter.
Sincerely,
Pigraven
EDIT: UPDATE as of 9 AM Eastern Time/6 AM Pacific Time
Okay, thanks to fellow member Steve Geddes, we were able to discover the issue. At least I think we did...
I went back and added all three items to my cart at once, as if I were buying them w/o the subscription attached. Total shipping was $8.91. Wow, what a difference! ($16.28, to be exact!!)
Upon a second attempt, I discovered that there was a $25.19 shipping option (USPS Priority Mail) that I could choose. So the current guess is that for whatever reason, the order spawn skipped the Cheapest Option selection (Standard Postal Delivery) and went right to the Fastest (USPS Priority Mail) option during generation.
Regardless, I encourage you check out this possibility. Again, on my end it's showing "Cheapest Possible" under Shipping Methods For Subscriptions on the My Subscriptions page. So I'm not sure why it slipped; it might just be some internal bug.
Having said that, I also fiddled around and was finally able to add the Battles Premium Adult Dragons set to my order, ready to ship out with the three books. This pushed my subtotal from $89.72 to $131.71. This is the correct subtotal, accounting for my Legacy and Battles discounts.
Doing this also seems to have force-fixed the shipping issue. It's currently showing Order 30170344 with 4 items (the three books and the premium dragon set), with an estimated package weight of 7 lbs. (up from 5) as $10.68 total in shipping & handling. I don't know if that accounts for the $10.00 Paizo shipping credit for meeting the minimum threshold of $100 on a subtotal. Still, it appears to have at least force-fixed the $25.19 shipping charge.
I'd also like to start that Pathfinder Adventures subscription this month. It's currently sitting in my shopping cart. I haven't purchased it yet because I'm not certain it will go out with this order if I put it in my Sidecart at this time. If there is way to get it to ship with Order 30170344 by all means please add it.
Finally, there is an extra Battles Premium Adult Dragons set in my Sidecart that I'd like removed, Order 24234138. I don't believe it's the one attached to this four-piece order going out for July. I had previously added it to the Sidecart without realizing it wouldn't go out until the August subscriptions ship out.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me through these troubles. Stay safe and well!
Hi Pigraven,
I have processed your order for the Adventures subscription and added The Slithering to your pending subscription order!
Thank you for including this well-detailed documentation of the shipping bug you saw on your order. I have passed along this information to our tech team for further investigation.
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Wow, awesome news! I just checked out the pending order, and everything looks great. Thank you again!
Also, I just want it officially noted that the Customer Service team is literally the only reason I still maintain my subscriptions. I love the game world the designers create for us. And the adventures and other products that go along with it are fantastic and often a step up from other companies. But the distribution of said fantasy world and products hasn't always been smooth sailing. But the customer service team is always there to help fix things. So screenshot this and save it for review time or whatever raise process Paizo employs. Because, again, I can officially confirm the CS team is literally the only reason I'm still shelling out a few extra bucks every month for subscriptions instead of finding slightly cheaper alternatives through third-party options.
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You're so welcome Pigraven! And thank you for the supremely kind words, we all appreciate it :)