lupacexi wrote:Why is shipping price on books extremly high in the Palladium book store for shipping outside US ? The cheapest shipping price was $54 dollar. Thats twice the cost of the book!?! I see other stores that have much cheaper shipping prices. Over half that price.
I want to buy books, but not with these shipping prices. Clearly you could get someone else to ship these books for far less price.
Is there other stores that have better shipping prices where I can buy Palladium books ? Please give me a tip.
It doesn't surprise me. Any shipping outside of the continental US is bound to be high. $54 isn't the highest I've seen. Personally I've seen $98 USD for shipping a paperback novel. Sure, it might be shipping to Australia, but that's still ridiculous.
I have personally shipped books to Australia and Europe. It is very expensive to do so, yes Amazon can do it cheaper but they also have the clout to make arrangements with shipping companies. They are also willing to take a loss on the cost of shipping that can made up by volume.
I just did a check for the lowest USPS price with a flat rate box.
Priority Mail International® Large Video Flat Rate priced box USPS-Produced Box: 9-1/4" x 6-1/4" x 2" Maximum weight 4 pounds. Normal Delivery Time 6 - 10 business days to many major markets $36.25
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another thought, if you have an FLGS you can probably get them to order stuff from a distributor, which likely got a bulk rate for shipping tons of books from the US in the first place. obviously, the cost of the book will in some way incorporate shipping, so you'll probably pay more for the book itself than you would in the US, but that's how i generally get hardcopy palladium stuff in canada. it does depend on what the distributor has in stock though. i know my FLGS has at least one distributor that carries some variety of palladium stuff (i've gotten a rifter, splicers, several nightbane books... come to think of it, i don't think i've ever ordered rifts stuff through my FLGS, but the point i'm trying to make here is that it isn't only the big sellers).
i don't think that would work as well if you were ordering a coffee mug or something, but for books it might. though again, it really depends on the distributor. and, i suppose, on the willingness of the FLGS near you to actually place orders (they really *should* be willing, considering they should still make money on it, but i've heard some people say that their FLGS won't).
the other thing i've heard is that if you can get in on the christmas surprise packages, the savings on the stuff you get may be enough to compensate for the cost of the shipping, which generally doesn't go up *that* much more when you're getting a few books than it does for single books, as i understand it. i haven't used that method myself yet though.
If you’re overseas buy from a LGS and you’ll not have to pay the shipping costs. Palladium sells a lot of books through the distribution system (wholesaler to retailer to customer) and wholesalers purchase a lot of books and then the shipping o an per unit basis isn’t so bad. But yeah...it can suck. Shipping even to Canada is expensive.
I am guessing palladium just does not have high enough international volume to get really good rates for overseas shipping. Big players like amazon can have such high volume they can throw their weight around to get good prices but small players shipping stuff overseas is nuts for price. I have to deal with this at work and it makes me wince a bit every time we do it.
I got a book from a friend that she bought directly from Palladium Games. The packing was not better than that you get from Amazon or other shops. So I decided to never try this with other books. It just felt like a scam or ripoff as other RPG companies i bought books from never charged more than $20-22 for 1st class international package.
TOo bad, some books i really wanted to Rifts was almost impossibleto get, but luckliy i found most of them on Amazon. So my sugestion is to use Amazon, the feel safer and cheeper
I'm not sure what's up with Palladium and shipping, but it's absolutely NOT the cheapest it could be.
I have shipped larger stuff from England, the Czech republic, Russia, China, and Australia for a fraction of the price of what palladium charges internationally. I very seriously have no clue how they factor in their shipping prices the way they do.
As for Amazon. Palladium doesn't sell on amazon. Any books you get on Amazon is from 3rd party vendors (Local stores that are selling 'on' amazon)
I'm not going to post end runs for a company's shipping on their very forums, but no. Shipping books isn't that expensive, even across oceans. It's not dirt cheap but it's less than half what Palladium charges. Only think I can figure is that there's a "Hassle fee" Added in.
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