Shipping Cost from the UK

The recent commentary about buying from the UK vs. buying Stateside had me go
and look at pricing. Yowie! As a further continuation, what do the shipping
costs generally run (I'm the Chicago area myself)?

Thanks!

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, David Rodemaker wrote:

> The recent commentary about buying from the UK vs. buying Stateside

Shipping from the UK to North America runs between 30-50% of your order,
although some of my orders to GZG have fallen into the 'Small Packet' category
and shipped for much less.

As an aside, I've usually gotten considerablly faster service on orders to the
UK compared to orders from North American companies! My record is a
two-week turnaround on an order from Irregular! It makes the steeper S&H

> On 11-Jun-01 at 14:20, Brian Burger (yh728@victoria.tc.ca) wrote:

> As an aside, I've usually gotten considerablly faster service on

Or you get people like that bozo who is the importer for WRG stuff. He refuses
to do any of their fantasy stuff and treats you like trash if you ask.

That's OK, I can take my business elsewhere (Canada in this case as WRG won't
ship to the US because of their agreement with said bozo.)

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Brian Burger wrote:

> As an aside, I've usually gotten considerablly faster service on
*snicker* I've gotten a week turnaround from Tony at Brigade. My local store
can't order -Mage Knight- in under 2 weeks.

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Mike Stanczyk wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Brian Burger wrote:

Was yours an email & credit card order?

Mine was a money-order & snail mail - the 2-week turnaround is from the
day I *mailed* the letter here in Canada, to when I got the full order back
from Irreg! Irreg must have recieved, filled & mailed my order nearly on the
same day, given the shipping distance involved...

My best turnaround on North American orders is maybe 3-4 weeks, and
that's with credit cards & email... OTOH, my local store is pretty small and
(understandably) reluctant to order stuff from odd companies who aren't on
their regular wholesale lists.

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, David Rodemaker wrote:

When people order by credit card, we work out the postage charge based on the
weight of the final package (plus a small surcharge for packing costs); if
you're ordering just metal, then often it runs to only between 10% and 20% of
the order value, only a little more than internal UK postage. It's resin
models and other heavy stuff that push the postage charges up, for
such orders you can be looking at the 30-50% mark.
For example we despatched a small order to Canada today worth about 25 UKP,
and the post/packing charge was only 3 UKP.
For those few people who can only pay by money order or similar, we have to
quote the higher rates to ensure we get sent enough to cover the cost if the
order turns out to be a heavy one.
> As an aside, I've usually gotten considerablly faster service on orders

I think we've sometimes had orders arrive at destinations in the US within
about 3 to 4 days of them being posted over here - and as we can often
turn round an emailed order within 24 hours that means you shouldn't have to
wait much more than a week in many cases.

Thank you very much for all the *prompt* replies. I think that I can say
without a doubt that my next purchase will be direct to GZG with these costs
and turn-around times...

Having worked on the retail side for a number of years (but no more and now
sadly without the discount :-( ) I can state for the record that many of
the retailers are just as frustrated with the situation. Many suppliers within
the states are very difficult to work with (though I will have to say that
KR was among the easiest and most pleasant BTW) and the turn-around time
is generally pretty bad, no matter if you were buying $100 or $1000 worth of
product. What I am curious is if there is a similar situation in the UK of
middle-tier distributors in between the shop and the company? Is there
more
direct purchase via email/snailmail by consumers?

Just curious.

Thanks again!

David Rodemaker

<<SNIP>>
> When people order by credit card, we work out the postage charge based
It's
> resin models and other heavy stuff that push the postage charges up,
<<SNIP>>
> I think we've sometimes had orders arrive at destinations in the US

> Thank you very much for all the *prompt* replies. I think that I can

The UK situation is generally very different from the US one. Though we have a
few distributors for things like RPG books and larger lines, most of the small
companies like ourselves sell either direct to retailers, or simply direct to
customers via mailorder and conventions. Bear in mind that almost any weekend
there is a convention on somewhere that is reachable with only a few hours
driving, if you really want to buy stuff over the
counter. There are also now very few independant (ie: non-GW) games
stores over here, and those that do exist usually only carry a few figure
lines from the larger compaines. By far the majority of UK figure sales are
direct from the manufacturer to the consumer, and thus most small UK
companies are probably more mailorder-orientated than many US ones.

Jon (GZG)
> Just curious.
It's
> resin models and other heavy stuff that push the postage charges up,

In message <Pine.SOL.4.05.10106111308110.26791-100000@babu.pcisys.net>,
Mike St
> anczyk writes:

I can't believe there have been two threads on good mail order and nobody's
mentioned Eureka in Australia. They *rock*, I've ordered several times from
them and got almost all my orders back within about
a week-- the one that wasn't was for some 15mm Jap Corp Mercs, and Nic
stated up front that he didn't have the molds made and there would be a delay.
Still, it only took two weeks.

Speaking of which, I've been cataloging my experiences with mail order

Hiya folks,

> As an aside, I've usually gotten considerablly faster service on

Free plug for Jon here. One of my last orders to him was for several hundred
dollars (Canadian) worth of figures. The order went in on a Tuesday or
Wednesday. The package arrived at my house the following Monday, here in
Toronto. So, order packing, shipping and arrival
cross-Atlantic was about 5 days, including a weekend.

That is good service...

I ordered a whole bunch of stuff recently (piles of the new Gurkha SG figs)
from Nic at Eureka in Australia. The shipping time from there was about 2 or 3
weeks. Not as fast as the UK, but still good given the quantity and the
distance. And the currency exchange rates with Australia make taking a look at
them also worth the time. Shipping costs were very reasonable.

For those of us in North America, looking at the UK and Australian suppliers
is worth the effort. I would generally only order Resin kits from KR at
GeoHex, though, because the shipping costs of the resin stuff from the UK are
high, but for figures, comparison shop.

And having ordered from all three suppliers more than once, I can happily say
that they are *all* good to deal with.

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> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca wrote:

> I ordered a whole bunch of stuff recently (piles of the new Gurkha SG

Good! Now, you did also sign up for the new ghurka's on the "100 club",
right? There's some way cool ghurka's-to-be, like a prone sniper with
spotter, prone GMS/P 'gunner', kneeling SAW gunner etc :) And we NEED
people to show interest to get them made...

Also, I've currently painted my first 6 ghurka's, and got another 6 to do
this/next week. I'm hoping to make some pictures and put them up on the
web real soon. They're really nice to paint, and didn't turn out half bad, if
I dare say so.

Cheers,

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> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca wrote:

> Free plug for Jon here. One of my last orders to him was for several

I sent an email to order some figs last thursday, got confirmation from Jon
that they were sent, on friday, and a delivery attempt was made today.
Unfortunately I wasn't home, I'll be at the post office tomorrow. Impressive.

Cheers,

Andy, Thanks this is most helpful I also passed this on to others in my
 games group, thanks again for all the leg-work on this one!