Troll Lord Games

Why are shipping costs so high? Just for the PHB to PA is almost $11! I was going to pre-order, but I think I'll see if my only LGS can get the books instead. Also, are Society Member discounts not applied to Paypal orders?? Thanks in advance!

Oh yeah, one more thing! Have the shark's stats been added back into the M&T 3rd printing yet? Thanks!

DaveyB wrote:
Why are shipping costs so high?

Ask the USPS.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

The softcover M&Ts had the errata for shark but to the best of my knowledge, all of the available hardcovers have the mistake. I dont know about the discounts, sorry. Maybe Steve will come in and answer your questions.

Yeah, they have been seriously jacking prices over the last 6 months to a year, and unfortunately only the postage stamp needs congressional approval.

The only way I will buy directly from the Trolls is when its a sale price, only then does it make it worthwhile to order direct. Conventions they attend are also good.

Hopefully they will be listing the HC's with Amazon or some other similar discounter.

I dread seeing what the shipping on my house ruled PH's are going to be. Probably be cheapest to use one of their fixed price boxes.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

The shipping prices are fixed via paypal. We set that up on the fixed rate boxes offered by the post office. I'm not sure I would consider it jacked up, but they are high.

We found we were losing money on every shipment we sent out, this started to hurt our bottom line, especially on big shipments. This was when we used media mail, but the charges varied dramatically.

So, we polled here to see if everyone wanted us to keep it as is or change it. It was pretty sharply for changing it to priority mail. So we did, but we can't use weight of item so we have to use amount of purchase to set the shipping rates.

The problem is a little messy because if we don't use the fix rate boxes, then we don't know what to set the shipping at (via paypal) because we don't know what the shipping is going to be. With fix rate boxes we know exactly.

The problem is manifold, but it mostly derives from TLG's paypal account. When we set up paypal it was back in, well, before paypal was very popular. The account we have, according to tech support at paypal is old and the 'fix' that they have given both me and Brian (webmaster) wouldn't take. This means our ability to manipulate the charges is limited.

All that said I haven't seen in one book priority shipments advance beyond 8.50, so I coiuld probably safely recalibrate the shipping charges to 8.50 for one book.

I wish there was a way to fix this, but postage continues to go up. Its a growing problem.

I would almost rather go back to media mail.

ALL THAT Said: brian is hard at work on an actual basket systemt hat will allow us to step away from paypal and do shipping geared toward weight and not cost...which will be nice.

Steve
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The High Lord, Coburg the Undying

He who sits on the elephants back

Castle and Crusade Society
troll@trolllord.com

Troll Lord wrote:
We found we were losing money on every shipment we sent out...

Hey, even if you are losing money on each sale, you can make it up with volume.

Flat rate priority mail is your buddy. Also, submit a list of 200+ addresses to the Post Office and qualify for bulk rate shipping to those addresses. I believe you have to send small stuff, like Crusaders, but it might help...
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If it matters, leave a message at the beep.
Serl's Corner

Troll Lord wrote:
ALL THAT Said: brian is hard at work on an actual basket systemt hat will allow us to step away from paypal and do shipping geared toward weight and not cost...which will be nice.

Steve

That would be most excellent!
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

U.S. to Canada shipping is always crazy. Sometimes you get dinged, at the border, with customs charges sometimes you don't. Sometimes custom charges are idiotic, sometimes they are OK. (I do hate having to pay custom charges- once the custom charge was equal to the book I bought.)

I will say that TLG was very good at helping out with shipping to Canada with their $10 sale. I know they are busy but it only took them a couple of days to get back to me.

Thanks TLG.
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That is SIR! to you!

Its a BOOK, you should get Media rate, which is way cheaper. Should NOT be $11.

Bloodaxe, we used to use media rate. And we still can, however the books were taking between 2 days and 3 weeks, about a 10% loss rate. We polled the community about going up to priority shipping and it was overwhelming for doing so.

Now if ANYONE calls me on the phone and requests lower shipping rates, and the order is just a book (can't include the Crusader as its a magazine and has advertisements in it) then we'll happily ship media.

Interestingly, the postal clerk told me (last year) that they are no longer allowed to offer 1st class or regular post. It is still available but when you go into ship it they are only supposed to quote you the priority rates unless you specifically ask for other options.

Shipping is not as easy as I would like it to be, because teh rates are all messed up six ways of Sunday.

Hopefully the new basket system will address some of these problems and cut down on the cost of shipping a single book, or at least make it more organized.

Steve
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The High Lord, Coburg the Undying

He who sits on the elephants back

Castle and Crusade Society
troll@trolllord.com

Ok, thanks Steve, that clears things up then. I obviously see why it's more now. I wasn't privy to how they charged for shipping. I see it goes by cost and not weight which makes more sense. Thanks for the quick replies! It's little things like the transparency between customer and business with Troll Lords that keeps me supporting them instead of bigger named companies who shall go un-named.

I thought the shark was invincible.
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!