OotS-Calendar 2014 - bulk-shipping to Germany - anyone interested?

[Unisus]

Ok, so there are some people in Germany who would like to buy the calendar, but are a little reluctant because of the shipping cost.

I think it would be a good idea to collect those willing to buy in bulk to make a big order - please name your hometown, for it makes sense to make the collective order from a place where most of the participants live.

As everybody involved profits from the shared shipping cost, i think that even the German shipping from the one who places the order at Ookoodook to the people who can not pick up their calendar directly should be divided evenly.

I made some calculations and tested a little with Ookoodook and came to the following numbers (note that in each case there are 19% EUSt to be added):

each calendar costs $17
cheapest shipping complete / per calendar
1 calendar: $15,90 / $15,90
2 calendars: $21,45 / $10,73
3 calendars; $27,00 / $9,00
4 calendars: $32,55 / $8,14
5 calendars: $38,10 / $7,62
6 calendars: $47,80 / $7,97
7 calendars: $50,55 / $7,22
8 calendars: $50,55 / $6,32

from here on the package would get tollable.


Ok, so i start:

I'd like to buy 1 calendar, i'm from 91625 Schnelldorf (Mittelfranken)

[ChristianSt]

Mh, adding the German shipment cost (I talked with Onyavar about it, he said it would be 6,90€ for a package of sufficient size - also one calendar might also be below the threshold to pay import taxes) it doesn't seem worthwhile to me. (But if it turns out to be, I would have no problems to do it)

Only thing what might be good if we find enough people in a given region and maybe even make some meet and greet (maybe play the board game and such :smallwink:). [Onyavar said that the 6,90€ package would carry up to 10kg, so it would be ok to ship say 8 first to town A, and 4 from there to town B]

I'm from Nürnberg, so if you come there from time to time it might be possible to order them together anyway.

[Unisus]

According to the infos i found, the treshold of 22,00 € is for the complete costs, including shipping, so even one calendar would be above it.

As for the German shipment costs, i would think it's only fair to divide them evenly. But it's a good idea to make "area"-shippings, if we get enough people together.

As for me being in Nürnberg - that happens 1 or 2 times a year - but i would have no problem to wait, if i only knew i would get the calendar ;)

Last time i was in Nürnberg was at "Franken spielt", and i'm pretty sure that i will be there next time again (ok, that's a little far into the next year, but it's somthing real *smile*)

[ChristianSt]

According to the infos i found, the treshold of 22,00 € is for the complete costs, including shipping, so even one calendar would be above it.

I don't want to go further into that topic (because I think it might go outside of the forum rules), but while you are right on the 22€ threshold, there is also one additional point saying that fees below 5€ are not collected. So depending on the used currency exchange rate it might be just below that. (I wouldn't bet on it - but as I said it might be)



As for the German shipment costs, i would think it's only fair to divide them evenly. But it's a good idea to make "area"-shippings, if we get enough people together.

Absolutely, I didn't comment on it because I think that is the only really fair way to do it.



As for me being in Nürnberg - that happens 1 or 2 times a year - but i would have no problem to wait, if i only knew i would get the calendar ;)

I hope there will be some others show up here to say something, if not we can still ponder if anyone want to wait that long for it.



Last time i was in Nürnberg was at "Franken spielt", and i'm pretty sure that i will be there next time again (ok, that's a little far into the next year, but it's somthing real *smile*)

This "Franken spielt" looks really awesome - maybe I will show up there :smallbiggrin:. (So at least I have learned about a fun event to visit)

[Joerg]

As soon as I get confirmation that my previous order is cancelled, I'll order four calendars to Ludwigsburg. Anyone who likes to join in is welcome.

[Onyavar]

:smallconfused: I still can't make Ookoodook to calculate the prices correctly :smallconfused: [When I add the calendar in the store, then input any zip and "Germany" the shipping cost is always at 17.75 per calendar.]
, so I will just rely on Unisus calculation.

Well, if we can get the threshold low enough, you can coun't me in. Low enough means, hm, below 30$. Also, I'm not the one who would want to do the ordering myself.

Finally, I don't know if other people beside me would also want to order a book (as long as it doesn't inflate the total shipping price too much.

I can't say anything about the custom office - my last packages from ook were held there for over two months, but I never had to pay additional fees with them.

[ChristianSt]

:smallconfused: I still can't make Ookoodook to calculate the prices correctly :smallconfused: [When I add the calendar in the store, then input any zip and "Germany" the shipping cost is always at 17.75 per calendar.]
, so I will just rely on Unisus calculation.

Mh, same for me (ok, not really the same, basically 17.75$ per calendar up to 4, saving 1$ total with 3/4. With 5 or more it is 78.95$ per order).

I have really no clue what Ookoodook does with the shipping calculation. I think it has changed at least 3 times after the calendar got announced.

EDIT:


Finally, I don't know if other people beside me would also want to order a book (as long as it doesn't inflate the total shipping price too much.
I have no problem if someone gets something else - as long it is not getting overly complicated. And it should be factored in in the shipping cost (I don't think it is fair that someone should pay more for shipping, because other peoples getting more stuff)

[Ischtan]

Just found this thread thanks to ChristianSt.

I also live near Nuremberg and would participate in the shared order!

[Copperdragon]

According to the infos i found, the treshold of 22,00 € is for the complete costs, including shipping, so even one calendar would be above it.

For printmedia the tax is 7% instead of the usual 19%. That you have to pay if the value is between 22 and 150 Euro. Above that you have to pay the tax + Einfuhrumsatzsteuer.
I never paid any taxes on shipping, yet I the only packages I had to get from customs were single books for which the tax-officer did not even wanted to see the receipt but just assumed it was too cheap and sent me my way. I guess they were nice and "did not want to know". For this you should assume the government will want the additional 7%, which again cuts in the savings.

The individual shipping within the country should void all attemps to get it cheaper, and I would not risk uninsured shipping.
Unless you are willing to carry that risk for me? I, sadly, doubt it's worth the saved ~5 Euro.

[Unisus]

7% is even better than 19% *smile*

Ok, if i calculate right, there is interest in 8 calendars, which on my OOkoodook makes $186,55, about €137,26 today shipping included. This would make $22,07 / €17,16 per calendar. With 7% taxes €18,36. If the calendars are ordered from Nürnberg, there would be two additional national shippings for €6,90 each, €13,80 total and €1,73 per calendar. That would make each calendar about €20,09, around €5,80 savings for each of us (only €6,15 for Joerg, though). This is all calculated at the moment with no other stuff in the order.

edit:
Just lookad at dhl.de, according to them a parcel up to 10kg would be €5,90, not €6,90. That would take the calendars under €20,00 each *smile*

edit2:
Ok, this is for online ordering, if i understand it correctly. Does anyone know more about that?

[Copperdragon]

8 calendars are 136 $+ 56,05 $ shipping, that is 141,35 Euro, +7% (includes shipping) which is roughly 151,23 Euro. That is like nearly 19 Euro per person.

Just buying a calendar is like 34 $ with shipping, which is ~25 Euro (no tax applied).

So if you get a calendar for 19 Euro per person from the US and then ship it around here for like roughly 6 Euro, you... get about the same price as if you'd buy it yourself plus have the benefit to have a shorter chain.

Unless you share the shipping with people from the same area (where no shipping applies to redistribute) I fear there's nothing you can save.

[Unisus]

@Copperdragon: Seems we are getting different shipping costs - i have $50,55 for 8 calendars. And with our constellation we seem to save around 5€ each. If you're not interested, ok, but why are you trying so hard to keep us from even thinking about the possibilities?

[Copperdragon]

@Copperdragon: Seems we are getting different shipping costs - i have $50,55 for 8 calendars. And with our constellation we seem to save around 5€ each. If you're not interested, ok, but why are you trying so hard to keep us from even thinking about the possibilities?

I'm not, I'm jut trying to find out what's what to make an informed decision on this.

[Joerg]

8 calendars are 136 $+ 56,05 $ shipping, that is 141,35 Euro, +7% (includes shipping) which is roughly 151,23 Euro. That is like nearly 19 Euro per person.

Just buying a calendar is like 34 $ with shipping, which is ~25 Euro (no tax applied).

That's with "first class mail" which I gather is somewhat inferior (slower, no tracking) than the "priority mail" for a bulk order.

Ookoodook gives me 79 dollars shipping for 8 calendars now.

[ChristianSt]

@Copperdragon: Seems we are getting different shipping costs - i have $50,55 for 8 calendars. And with our constellation we seem to save around 5€ each. If you're not interested, ok, but why are you trying so hard to keep us from even thinking about the possibilities?

I don't know, but I think the Ook shipping is somewhat bugged. Now it only shows me much more expensive shipping for multiple calendars (as stated above), but I think I remember that today at university it showed me different prices :smallconfused: - I will check it tomorrow again, but this is just strange.

Also I'm not sure how you arrive at 2 additional German shippings. Only case I think you assume that it will work to send 3 to Nürnberg, but I'm not sure if Ischtan is ok with that (he only said near Nürnberg, no clue what near is to him) and whether some of us would need to wait for the calendar (since you said you aren't that often in Nürnberg, and I don't think I will visit Schnelldorf anytime soon) (+one to Joerg and one to Onyavar)

[Copperdragon]

I do not want to argue against this idea, but I also find it odd that some shippings are combined, but the total is then reduced for all.
No matter if three or four others can combine their shippings within this country (they can share the 5,90), I still have to pay for my single one (I pay it alone). It only reduces the total sum of money spent, but even if it's 7 vs. 1, if I am the one nothing changes for me.

[Unisus]

Yes, i actually assumed, that we would try to make regional drop points, as someone suggested. And the calculations are with cheapest (and therefore slowest) shipping. After all the main reason for this was to cut the costs down.

@copperdragon: as i mentioned in my first post, national shipping should be divided evenly between all, as everyone profits from the bulk order. While i'm a big fan of complicated maths, i'd rather not calculate the exact percentage everyone should get from the savings.

Ok, why i made this thread was the fact, that there were people asking if it would be possible to order the calender but delay the shipping to save shipping costs. So i went for the cheapest possibilities, not the fastest. I actually don't think that there are possibilities to get the calendar cheap and fast.

[Armitage]

Hi there,

I'm from Berlin and have so far abstained from ordering the calendar as I find shipping costs are quite high.

So I would be interested in participation in a buld order.

[Darth V]

Hello there.

I'm interestet too, so if there is going to happen a bulk order for Germany, you can count me in.

Even if there isn't much saving possible with all that complicated math and stuff, my main problem is that my home town doesn't have its own customs office and the next one is 50 kilometers away. I don't own a car and public transprotation doesn't exist for that particular place, so getting my Kickstarter swag and some other foreign delivery involving customs was always a pain in the butt complicated... Therefore I would appreciate if there is a possibility to get the calender directly send to me via gathering a german bulk shipping and distributing it per national mail.

I'm living in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt).

Since we're all Germans, it is possible to talk about this stuff in this thread in German or is it against the board rules to write in a language that not everybody respectively the mods can understand, even if this topic is specifically for Germans?

[ChristianSt]

Since we're all Germans, it is possible to talk about this stuff in this thread in German or is it against the board rules to write in a language that not everybody respectively the mods can understand, even if this topic is specifically for Germans?

Even if I think not all too many non-German speaking people will venture this far into the thread, the board rules still say: "No language other than English", so unless this thread gets an special exception (which I think it wouldn't, and I wouldn't even ask for one) or we find another channel for communication (which I don't think we need) this still needs to be discussed in English :smallwink:.


As to shipping: Possible that I didn't pay attention, but even at the university the shipping is more expensive. (Basically for up to 4 calendars it is between 17$ and 17.50$ per calendar extra shipping (First Class), with 5 or more the cheapest option available to me is a Priority Box for 78.95$)

Can someone verify that the shipping costs Unisus uses still applies? I'm not sure if Onyavar and me are bugged somehow or if the shipping got changed to scale really badly and some of the calculations uses outdated information, but if shipping scales so badly, a Priority Box doesn't sound that bad compared to single shipping - from customs the maximum numbers of calendars for one shipment should be 7 in this case, making the shipping costs per calendar 11.28$ (saving 6,22$) [total saving compared to 1-off shipment:43.55$]. Which only makes sense if we can do this with as few packages inside of Germany as possible - anything more than perhaps 3 (if even) wouldn't really be worth the additional work/organizing/German postage.

I would love to get it it cheaper (best way would if I could just buy it in my LFGS - but sadly that is not possible :smallfrown:), but I have the feeling that it just doesn't quite work to really save that much with a bulk order. If someone can figure out a way to make it work, I would be happy to to do it, but I don't think it is worth to spent that much time to find a solution to save 5$ (if even).

Assuming the Shipping information I have, the only deal that really saves money would be one shipping to Joerg or Nürnberg, containing 7 calendars. Dividing 4 to Joerg and 3 Nürnberg, with the assumption that one shipping is enough for Unisus, Ischtan and me (and I'm not really sure of that - but if it is, I would really like to just add an Meet and Greet therein to play the board game, I don't really get that much usage out of mine :smallmad:), which excludes a bunch of people who have no one near them.
If my shipping information is wrong (which I sure hope it is, because the nearly linear scaling until the Priority Box is pretty stupid), that might change.
But from my current information I think I will just end up ordering one for me alone :smallfrown:. Then imo the best thing would be that Joerg includes one for Darth V anyway, because he has problems to even order one alone.

[MartectX]

As soon as I get confirmation that my previous order is cancelled, I'll order four calendars to Ludwigsburg. Anyone who likes to join in is welcome.
Put me down for one calendar in Ludwigsburg. :smallcool:

[Joerg]

Ludwigsburg, OotS Hochburg in Germany! :smallbiggrin:

So, including one for Darth V, that's six calendars in the order already. I've got my previous order cancelled, so I'll place the new order on Monday evening. If there's anyone else living in Ludwigsburg or Halle who wants a calendar, contact me before that.

Christian: I think the linear scaling actually makes sense if only one single calendar fits into each envelope.

[ChristianSt]

Christian: I think the linear scaling actually makes sense if only one single calendar fits into each envelope.

I don't know what for kinds of envelopes/packages are used - but a calendar is normally not that thick - so imo it should be possible to stick multiple into one. (Also I think it would be useful to actually state it somewhere on the page that they are multiple shipments for the order.)

[Halaku]

Damn you all!!
I saw the calendar the other day and thought: "it would be nice to get it, but it would be far too expensive..." and now I have no excuse!! xDDD

So I guess I'm in! I'm living in Erlangen, so count me in for the Nürnberg shipping...

(I'm getting lost with all the numbers, so: quick question: I was planning to get soon SoD and OOPC, so would it be possible to order them as well? Maybe count all the calendars and try to add the books at the end. I would gladly pay the overcosts (if they are reasonable), but if it's not viable, it won't be the end of the world!) : )

[ChristianSt]

Mh, with the added books an order to Nürnberg (I'm going to the University in Erlangen, so it might be possible to make it relativle easy to get stuff to Erlangen, too ;) ) might be feasible.

The only real valid shippment choice Ook gives me for multiple items is an International Priority Large Box for $79.95 .

For a Nürnberg shipping so far we have (potentially):


Me: one Calendar
Halaku: one Calendar; SoD; OtOoPCs
? Unisus - not sure if you are ok to maybe wait longer for your calendar
? Ischtan - not sure whether near Nürnberg is still feasible without an additional German shippment.

There should be "space" (money-wise, package is of no concern) for one calendar before hitting the threshold for additional import duties (and not only taxes) - adding those would probably not really save anything on a bulk shipping (unless we get much more interested people because shipping stays the same for quite large orders).

The imo (at least I fought so initially) fairest option (factoring in multiple items for some persons) would to be to divide the shipping costs on a per-item-basis.
This would result in the following shipping costs:

Halakus shipping costs for 1 calendar, SoD, OtOoPCs totaling $39.48, saving a bit more than $0.50 compared to shipping all three alone
The 3 other shippings would cost $13.16 compared to $17.75 (saving $3.50)


After calculating this it would probably fairer to divide the savings equally to all involved people, so that everyone saves around $2.75.
Adding a 4th calender/person to that would make the saving around $6 per person (if I haven't done some error while computing that - also that should be the maximum we could save without hitting import duties [again if I haven't miscalculated]).

Another benefit would be that the combined shipping would be Priority instead of First Class (I don't really even know if that is a real benefit, but I have heard that Priority Mailing is better).

Adding in additional work (like meeting [ok - that part would possible be an added value - especially if we can all meet at one location/date] and/or waiting), I don't really think it is worth to do a bulk shipping (or at least I don't want to organize one to save a meager $3).


-> If no one has any brilliant idea that saves this, I would personally say that a bulk shipping isn't really feasible (or at least doesn't really save an meaningful amount compared to added work). So if no one posts a solution until Tuesday evening I will most likely just order a single one for me. [I really hate International Shipping costs. Without them I would have supported some more nice projects on Kickstarter ... :smallfurious:]

@Halaku: The best way to get the books is possibly to just go to your local FLGS and ask for them, that should make it cheaper (and easier!) for you. [Obviously doesn't work with SSaDT, but you wanted to purchase other books]

[Halaku]

@Halaku: The best way to get the books is possibly to just go to your local FLGS and ask for them, that should make it cheaper (and easier!) for you. [Obviously doesn't work with SSaDT, but you wanted to purchase other books]

That was my initial idea, but then I saw this thread and thought that I might be worth it to get everything together.. (looks like it's not)
Do you know any store in Erlangen where I can order them? (I'm new in the city and don't really know it yet.. I saw one in Nürnberg, but I would like avoit the trip if possible) :smallbiggrin:

[ChristianSt]

That was my initial idea, but then I saw this thread and thought that I might be worth it to get everything together.. (looks like it's not)
Do you know any store in Erlangen where I can order them? (I'm new in the city and don't really know it yet.. I saw one in Nürnberg, but I would like avoit the trip if possible) :smallbiggrin:

You have a new PM :smallwink: [I'm not sure if posting a link to my FLGS would be advertising or not - so better safe than sorry]

[MartectX]

Holding the calendar in my hands! Big thanks to Joerg!

Even if it didn't save that much on €€€ in the end, I rather visited a fellow OotS fan than the customs office. :smallbiggrin:

[Ischtan]

Got a bit lost last weeks. Anything happened with the Nürnberg/Erlangen shipping? I would still be in!

[ChristianSt]

Got a bit lost last weeks. Anything happened with the Nürnberg/Erlangen shipping? I would still be in!

I can't say if there is someone left who would be interested in that, but since I haven't heard anything after setting my personal deadline (two months ago), I ordered a single Calendar for me before the end of the year (and have received it a month ago).