International Packages Begin Shipping Next Week! 🎉
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 03:19:28 AM
Hi everyone, Anna here! I'm super excited to share the latest news we received from Blackbox (our fulfillment partner) about international orders:
- The UK warehouse (serves UK and Rest of World, including Mexico and New Zealand) will be ready to start shipping at the start of next week!
- Canada is almost ready to start shipping as well -- should be ready by the middle of next week!
- Australia orders should be done shipping; if you're in Australia and haven't received your package, please email us at "[email protected]" and we'll help you out!
Please keep in mind there are still a lot of orders to go out and it seems like orders are being fulfilled from the most simplistic to the most complex and it'll take ~2 weeks before all the orders have left each warehouse, and then the packages will spend some time in transit before arriving (the timing of course varies based on where you are in relation to your warehouse).
Once your order is imported into Blackbox's system and the warehouse folks start putting together the items for your box, you'll receive a confirmation email. That's supposed to happen before this weekend.
If it's August 8th and you haven’t received your package OR an email with package details, please reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll start investigating with you. If you email us and then your package arrives, please update your email to let us know so we can prioritize those who still need assistance!
US SHIPPING STATUS UPDATE
We're allllmost done! There are still ~300 orders at the US warehouse that'll finish shipping out this week as part of the initial wave of order shipments. Next week we'll start the second wave of US fulfillment for folks who requested a shipping delay due to not having a confirmed shipping address at the time of address lockdown.
If you've sent us an email about not having received your shipping confirmation from Blackbox and it arrives before we've responded, please help us out by updating your support email with us so we can move onto the next person who still needs a hand.
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SHIPPING & ORDER SUPPORT
Shipping address is wrong or you won’t be at that address when it’s supposed to arrive
Go ahead and email “[email protected]” -- that’s our fulfillment partner’s support team and they should be able to send some suggestions that might help you successfully receive your package. Feel free to CC "[email protected]" to the email if you’d like us to be able to keep an eye on what's going on as well.
Package status indicates it was delivered but you never received it
Double-check your Blackbox email that it was sent to the correct address and maybe check with your neighbors to make sure it wasn’t accidentally sent there. If that doesn’t turn up anything, contact the carrier or your local post office to report the package as not received and please email “[email protected]” to let them know you didn’t get your order.
The wrong book was delivered (ordered a Kickstarter-exclusive edition but received the standard)
We added a dust jacket to the Kickstarter-exclusive copies that uses the same art as the cover of the standard edition. If you notice your book has a dust jacket, take that off and you should see the fancy black leatherette case with the gold foil lettering within :)
If it doesn't have a dust jacket and you did indeed receive a standard edition, please email "[email protected]" with pictures of the book that was delivered and they can help you out! :D
Package arrived but items are damaged, missing, or incorrect
That's no good! Please send the Blackbox support team an email with pictures of the damage to "[email protected]" and they should be able to put it right. You can also CC our support email on your message so we're aware ("[email protected]").
Book arrived with a bowed/warped cover
We've received reports of this happening to some books being delivered to hot and/or humid places -- with it being summertime in the Northern hemisphere, there may be a higher likelihood of you running into this. Some folks have had luck with putting some heavy objects (like other books) on top of their copy while it rests on a flat surface and that smooths it out. If you give that a go and don't have any luck, please send an email to "[email protected]" with pics of your book!
If there’s anything else that goes wrong, please always feel free to email us at "[email protected]". Please keep in mind we’re a small team and this past month has been pretty busy on the support side so it may take a bit longer for us to get back to you, but if you need help with your order we’ll do everything we can to make sure you get sorted! :)
Address Lockdown Begins Wednesday, June 5th
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Jun 05, 2019 at 02:43:56 AM
Hey everyone! Anna here to let you know that things are moving right along with the US books on track to arrive at their fulfillment warehouse within the next day or so, and that means it’s high time we lock down everyone’s address so we can begin the shipping process. Wow, it feels really good to say that! :D
On Wednesday, June 5th, we’re gonna start the Address Lockdown process for everyone who’s made an order with us thus far through Kickstarter, Backerkit, and the MCDM online store. The pledge manager doesn’t let us stagger lockdowns based on shipping region, so we’ve gotta do it all at once. The good news is that the vast majority of you won’t need to do anything because we already have your current shipping address in Backerkit or on your store preorder. If it turns out that address wrong and you miss the deadline, it’s not the end of the world -- we can still get you sorted, it just takes a few more steps and there may be a little delay in you getting your things.
REVIEWING & UPDATING YOUR SHIPPING ADDRESS
First things first: If you’re going to be moving between July 1st and mid-August, please make sure to read over our last update about shipping timelines! If you’re moving but aren’t sure what your new address is, hit us up and we can put your shipping on hold until you’re settled into your new stronghold -- [email protected]
Kickstarter Backer & Backerkit Preorders
On Wednesday you’ll receive an email from Backerkit alerting you about the lockdown; it'll include your shipping address we have on file. If that address is correct, awesome! You’re done and don’t need to do anything else; your address will be automatically locked in on Friday.
If you notice that the address is wrong, there’ll be a link in the email that you can follow to update your shipping address on your own. Make sure to do this before Friday, June 7th, since that's when all addresses are automatically locked in. If you run into a snag, please email us at “[email protected]” with your updated shipping address (try to include this in your first email to us as it makes things go a lot faster)!
Now, if you notice your address is wrong and you need to update your shipping country, you’ll need to contact us since the pledge manager won’t let you change it on your own. Email us at: [email protected]
If you don’t want to wait until Wednesday and would rather have peace of mind now, click here and put in your email address to receive a link via email to access your pledge. Click on the link in that email, then click “Edit Address” on the Backerkit page and this will take you to the page with a full rundown of your pledge and your shipping address. You can update your shipping address until Friday, June 7th. After this date you’ll need to contact us via email to do it for you.
MCDM Store Preorders
On Wednesday, everyone who’s preordered Strongholds & Followers on the MCDM store will also receive an email (but it'll be from MCDM, not Backerkit). If I can figure out how to put your shipping addresses in there, I totally will, otherwise it’ll just be an update that looks suspiciously similar to this one. The easy part is that you can just respond directly to that email in case you need help.
When you log in using this store account link, it’ll take you to your account page that has a list of your orders. Now, a lot of people will have at least one store order from when they claimed their PDF -- if that’s all you see, then it means you ordered through Kickstarter/Backerkit and you need to check out the instructions above for steps on how to review your shipping address.
If you see an order there for something like $30+ USD, then that’s likely a hardcover preorder. Click on the order number link (MCDM - #####) and that’ll bring up the Order Details page. On the right side is your shipping address. If it’s correct, you’re good! You don’t need to tell us or anything, it’s all logged in the system.
If your shipping address is wrong, you’ll need to email us so we can fix it for you: [email protected]
CHANGES AFTER THE DEADLINE
If your order's in Backerkit, Friday will be the last day you can update your shipping address without our help.
Once the Address Lockdown is complete, we’ll be exporting everyone's shipping info into a report and sending it to our fulfillment partners. After that, on a weekly basis, we’ll be sending them batches of new/updated addresses that we receive from those who missed the deadline. It’ll take the warehouses roughly a week to process and ship out these orders, and that process will repeat until all these orders are shipped out.
Now, for the US orders that means that if you need to make a change to your address after the June 7th deadline, you’re at the highest risk for your shipping being delayed by a week or two after we receive your current shipping address. The US goods are going to be ready to ship from their warehouse the soonest so there isn’t a lot of time to make adjustments.
For non-US orders, the books are still on boats for a bit longer so we have some flexibility to get you taken care of until the books meet up with the other goodies at their warehouses -- then it’ll be the same rolling schedule of: MCDM receives updated addresses, puts them all in a spreadsheet and gives to fulfillment partner once a week, fulfillment partner puts together packages for these addresses and sets aside for the shipment that week, packages are shipped out to recipients.
FAQs
Q: I tried to review my pledge on Backerkit and got this error when I put in my email: “Sorry, we couldn't find a survey for that email. Be sure to use the same email you used to pledge to the project.” -- can you help me?
Absolutely! First try a couple other emails you may have used (even old school emails) and make sure to check your junk/spam folder for the email from Backerkit with the link to your pledge. If you’re still getting that error or not getting an email, please email us with the emails you’ve tried and your first + last name -- having your Backer number doesn’t hurt either! If you log into Kickstarter, you can find your Backer number for Strongholds & Streaming by clicking on your avatar in the upper right, then selecting "View All" under the Backed Projects section. Click the big blue plus symbol next to the Strongholds & Streaming row, then scroll down and your backer number should be in the pop-up window that appears.
Our support email is: [email protected]
Q: It's Thursday and I never got the email from Backerkit about the address lockdown...
This might mean that we don't have the email address you're checking in our system or you may have made your preorder through the MCDM store and not Backerkit. Maybe there was another email you used? Make sure to check ones you were using about a year ago (including any school/work emails) and if you still can't find it, please email us so we can make sure you're all set.
Q: I just checked my shipping address and everything is correct. Do I need to verify this with you or let you know everything’s good?
Nope! If it’s in the system already and looks good to you, that’s good enough for us!
Q: I preordered the book through the MCDM online store and already updated my address in my account. Do I need to do anything else?
Yes! You still need to email us; what you updated was a saved address in your address book -- not your actual shipping address for your order (you can see this by clicking on the link to your order and you’ll see on the right hand side that it’s still the same address). We realize this is confusing and have tried to find ways to make it less so, but Shopify is somewhat limited in this way :( Please email us so we can make sure you receive your book: [email protected]
Q: Somewhat unrelated, but I just realized I’ve never claimed or downloaded my PDF. How do I get it?
Many Backers and preorder customers have said that creating an MCDM store account using the same email as the one tied to their pledge manager, then going through checkout and using the "GIBPDF" discount code has allowed them to successfully get their free Strongholds & Followers PDF. Here's a video that goes through the entire process. If that doesn’t work or you’re getting errors about a password reset when you try create your store account or log in, feel free to email us and we’ll get you sorted out after we take care of the folks with address updates: [email protected]
Shipping Update
over 5 years ago
– Thu, May 23, 2019 at 02:54:03 AM
This is the update wherein we revise our shipping estimate with new details about when you’re going to get your stuff, along with a TON of stuff we’ve learned in the last few weeks about international shipping. There was definitely a gap in our understanding, which I think we’ve sorted out and we’re keen to share what we learned.
We Need Your Correct Address
We’re on the cusp of actually shipping you a big box with all your stuff and that means we need to make sure we have your address. If you’ve moved, if you’re going to move between now and around the end of July, make sure we have your new address. In Mid-June we’re giving the shipping company your address. If your address changes after that, you’ll need to contact us via email (“[email protected]”). If you’ve already emailed us, we’ll get back to you soon to verify your updated shipping address.
If your shipping address in BackerKit or the MCDM shop looks fine, you’re good.
Current Shipping Schedule
aka “when do I get my stuff??”
We are still dealing in windows, ranges of dates, because we’re still in the process of getting everything across the sea, through customs, and to warehouses around the world. We’ll have better, more accurate dates once things actually leave the warehouses on their way to you.
US Shipping
The books for U.S. backers will be arriving at a port in Los Angeles around the 24th of May which is in just a day or two from the time of this update.
Once they arrive in L.A. they have to go through customs which normally takes about two weeks. Because there are so many U.S. backers, our books dominate their shipping container and it’s really easy for the folks on the dock to find our books. For backers in the rest of the world, this process can take longer! Because there were fewer backers in other countries, those shipments are smaller and they get put into a container with tons of other stuff and it can take a while to unpack the whole container just to find OUR books. This is one of the many little details we learned in just the last couple of weeks.
After the books make it through customs, they get put on a truck bound for a U.S. warehouse. The dragons are already there waiting!
Once the books arrive in the U.S. warehouse, they have to all be inspected by our fulfillment partner. This takes a while, but they want to make sure they’re receiving undamaged goods because if something happens to your books after this, it’s the fulfillment company’s responsibility.
Then the books have to be sorted and packed up in boxes with each backer’s specific order. Then...they get shipped to you! (If you’re in the U.S.)
This means that US rewards should start being shipped out to Backers in the last week of June unless anything else unexpected comes up.
So that’s the U.S., that’s relatively straightforward. Now we get into the complex stuff.
Everywhere Else
Regardless of where else in the world you live, your stuff will be shipped to you from a warehouse in either the U.K., Canada, or Australia. Right now, the biggest unknown for us is: how long it will take to get the books through customs in each of those places.
We’ve done everything we can to ensure all the documentation and packaging is clearly labeled, but this is the first time we’re going through this process so it’s difficult for us to gauge how much of an impact this could have on the schedule we’ve received.
Here are the revised estimates for each region. Everything’s broken down based on when books arrive at the port, when they arrive at the warehouse, and when they actually start shipping to you.
Australia (Australian Backers)
Estimated arrival in AUS port: On or around June 8th
Expected arrival at AUS warehouse: June 18th
Rewards begin shipping out to AUS Backers: Last week of June
Notes: We’ve heard that getting through Customs in Australia is really straightforward compared to the other locations, so our freight forwarder is pretty confident about this timeline.
Canada (Canadian Backers)
Estimated arrival in CAN port: On or around June 10th
Expected arrival at CAN warehouse: July 3rd
Rewards begin shipping out to CAN Backers: Mid-July
Notes: Our freight forwarder warned us that the destination port for the Canada shipment is extremely busy, and that our shipment isn’t large enough to warrant its own shipping container so it’ll be sharing one with product from other manufacturers. This means that the time it takes to unload and sort our product at the port for clearance will likely take the longest of all 3 shipments so we’re at the mercy of the dock workers. Fingers crossed that this part of the process doesn’t take very long!
UK (Backers in Europe and Rest of World)
Estimated arrival in UK port: On or around June 28th
Expected arrival at UK warehouse: July 9th-11th
Rewards begin shipping out to UK Backers: Late/Last week of July
Notes: The UK shipment has the longest transit time. We’ve been told that the port is typically well-organized and Customs processing is usually straightforward. The UK shipment is large enough that we get our own shipping container which makes things easier as well, so we’re hoping the schedule our freight forwarder provided is more on the conservative side.
So, the good news is: everything’s happening, everything’s on its way to a warehouse. Everyone’s gonna get their stuff between the end of next month and the end of July. The bad news is: obviously it all took a LOT longer than we thought, and longer than we thought only like two months ago!
What happened?
We Just Learned A WHOLE LOT About International Shipping
I mean, this is our business; we make books and minis and ship them everywhere. So learning this stuff is not only necessary, but also really empowering for us. It makes us look forward to the next Kickstarter where we’ll already have done it all at once and know more about what to expect.
The hero of this whole process is Anna. Lars did a lot too, and is still working with the T-shirt folks to wrangle some stray shirts that haven’t made it to the warehouse yet, but in general Anna handles dealing with the printer and the shipping companies and when we discovered a huge gap in our understanding, it was Anna who spearheaded the process of untangling the very thorny problem we found ourselves in.
The VAT GAP
The big gap in our understanding, one that cost us weeks, was our wrong understanding of VAT, or Value Added Tax. Or rather, our wrong understanding of who pays for it. And also, more subtly, our understanding of who owns the books at each stage of this whole process.
VAT, and another import tax called GST, are taxes you pay when you import a product into another country. Because we’re an American company, this stuff doesn’t affect our American pipeline, which is also why our books are about to arrive in America, but are only now leaving for the rest of the world.
We knew these fees existed. When we originally got a quote from our printer, we asked a lot of questions about how the books got from the printer, to our fulfillment company. The fulfillment company are the folks in charge of getting everything to you.
The Printer had a line-item in their estimate for a service called DTD which meant Door-to-Door. It meant they were in charge of getting the book TO the fulfillment company. And we thought this meant they handled all import duties. That’s what the DTD fee was for.
But those folks are used to handing the books off to a distributor and here’s where we hit the quite large difference between my old job making Star Trek and Dune and Lord of the Rings RPGs, and the way MCDM does things.
Distribution
Most companies like ours, and indeed all the tabletop companies I used to work for, print their books, then the printer sends them to a distributor. The distributor sends them to retail stores, where customers buy them.
When you’re shipping things internationally, someone at the docks in those countries has to accept them. “Thank you, we will take these books now.” This is the distributor, or someone the distributor contracts.
That company is legally the owner of the books at that stage. Once the distributor has the books, the books belong to the distributor. Once the retailer has them, they belong to the retailer. Once you have them, they belong to you.
We don’t use a distributor, we use a fulfillment company. Basically, instead of selling the books to a distributor, at which point the books belong to them, we pay a fulfillment company to serve a similar function. The distributor gets the books to the retailer. The fulfillment company gets the books to you.
But that means, since we don’t use distributors or retailers, WE are the owners of the books the entire time! And...we’re not IN those foreign countries. Our fulfillment company is, but they don’t own the books! They’re still our books! Since there was no owner in Canada, or Australia, or the UK to receive the books...the books couldn’t ship. They couldn’t leave the printer because there was no legal owner to receive them at their destination.
Also...that legal owner pays the VAT and GST! Because THEY are the ones importing the books! I mean, maybe they normally pass that cost on to the publisher, but regardless we suddenly found ourselves in a very sticky wicket.
- The books weren’t going to leave the printer.
- We owed import duties we hadn’t accounted for.
- We didn’t find this out until basically the last minute when the books were done printing and the printer was asking questions we didn’t have answers for.
We got a ton of great advice from our friends in the tabletop industry, but all of them use distributors and retailers! When I’d reach out to folks at other companies and ask “hey do you have a broker for EORI in the UK?” And they’d say “A what for who now?!” And that’s when we knew we were in uncharted territory.
This is when Anna and Lars went into overdrive and suddenly they were spending a lot of time online reading about this stuff.
We had to spend a LOT of time on the phone and in email with different companies figuring out...what is the actual value of the books? What are VAT and GST based on? The cost to manufacture, or the retail cost? And is that answer the same in every territory? What happens when we’ve asked two different companies...and got two different answers?
Also, how do we pay these import duties? We are not registered as importers in those countries? Well, it turns out we can get registered and get all the paperwork and ID numbers we need to pay these duties ourselves...but it takes months! (We’re doing it anyway, we plan to make more books!)
Meanwhile, as we were trying to figure out how much more we owed in import duties, we needed to find someone to take legal ownership of the books in Canada, Australia and the UK!
The Freight Forwarder
So it turns out there’s sort of a one-stop-shop for all these problems and thank God! A Freight Forwarding company is basically what you’d think it is based on the name. We pay them to sign for the books in these international territories, and they are registered importers so they can pay VAT and GST. We pay them the import duties, and a fee to get the books to the fulfillment company, and they handle it. Problem solved! I mean, we think!
Our Freight Forwarder has taken delivery of the books from the printer and are getting ready to send them across the sea so everyone cross your fingers. Because of that step where we finally felt like not only had we found a solution (the freight forwarder) but the solution was actually being implemented (they have the books) did we feel confident writing this update.
A few weeks ago, none of us knew what a Freight Forwarding company was, now we know a LOT!
Import & Export
We were also sort of fooled by how easy the process was getting the Dragons and Shirts and Stickers to our fulfillment company’s warehouse. Those are all made domestically. Made in one state, shipped to another. No import duties, no export process.
We knew getting the books printed in China meant dealing with importing, but we didn’t understand how incredibly tedious this can be. The books, at every stage, have to be inspected, documented, just the process of figuring out where in the shipping container our books are can delay things.
So when someone says to us “once the books arrive at the port, they’ll get put on a truck,” that is broadly true, but there’s a ton of bureaucratic steps in between there that weren’t always well-explained to us at the time.
To Sum Up
There have been a lot of delays in this project, some of them were literally down to me (hey let’s add 80 pages of monsters!) because of things I thought were necessary to meet a certain quality level. But there are definitely other things that took longer than we thought because of our own ignorance, but that’s the process of doing something new. I worked for companies that made books just like this before, but MCDM is a very different company with different challenges.
We are already making major revisions to our production pipeline because of this. Decisions that mean we make less money on each book, but the process of getting the books to you will take less time. And we’re not waiting for the next Kickstarter, we’re already doing this stuff for the next printing of S&F which is pretty soon.
Next update...probably right before we lock everyone’s shipping address. That should be the next big milestone. You’re going to start seeing the Kickstarter Post-mortem video series soon, which should be interesting.
You all have been incredibly patient about this, we know that. It’s been a huge learning experience for us, if it wasn’t for the support of this community we’d never have made it this far. Hopefully, if you’ve read this whole thing, it’s also been interesting? That’s a real part of the value of all this for me; sharing everything we’re learning with you folks.
Next update when the U.S. books are about to ship!
