Hey hey ~

I've had a few requests for an update about US shipping and the new tariffs and what not, so I just wanted to put out a quick update. 

Unfortunately, for the most part all I can say is 'wait and see', and I know that's not very reassuring.

In short I have no intentions of stopping shipping to the USA, but the shipping costs are going to go up, its inevitable.

The new system requires that sellers pay duties and taxes upfront on US shipments, putting the burden on us to charge you (the customer) at the point of sale, rather than you paying customs directly after your item arrives. If we don't pre pay and have all of the paperwork correct, then you are charged a flat rate fee of $80 when your item arrives. (If this happens to you with one of our packages contact me immediately.) Our UK postal service (Royal Mail) put out an announcement that they will be setting up a service that allows us to do all the prepayments and paperwork online, and they'll handle the rest. This service goes live next week. I won't know exactly how it works, or exactly what the fees are, until it goes live.

The duties/taxes are different depending on the country of origin of your items. All of our items are manufactured in China, therefore that's their country of origin.

For the Midnight Ocean and Mythical Garden campaigns, prepare for your shipping to increase in cost before cards are charged. We don't know how much by yet; and with everything changing there's nothing to say it won't be different again before these projects are ready to ship. We strive to keep our shipping costs as low as possible, and I will continue to do everything I can on that front. I know that the Midnight Ocean has a lot of heavier items, and we might be able to refund just those items to people who need to get back under a weight bracket for cheaper shipping. Bear with us; we'll handle it closer to the time.

For Bunnies and Branchs we are facing a different dilemma. Cards were already charged, because we needed the proceeds from the add-on store to manufacture the store items. If the shipping increase is relatively small, then we will just pay it ourselves; if we don't make a profit on these items then its a loss, but its manageable. And there are fewer backers overall to fulfil, with smaller orders in general. For now, we are just going to wait and see what the real world costs look like.

We may also delay US fulfillment another month or two. Simply put, the new system is going into place just a month before we want to start fulfillment, and there's every chance of serious disruption to the postal services. I don't want you guys losing packages and what not in the chaos. We will keep an eye on how it all goes into effect and if its not necessary then we won't do it. This would be for US backers only.

Although, we still aren't back at home yet, and I'm currently unable to travel, which is a whole different problem. 

Keep an eye out. I'll hopefully have solid news by mid September about how we're going to proceed. Right now I'm still preparing to ship out in October, and everything should be ready... As long as we can get home on time.