I have received shipping costs and applied them to your orders. You will note in your survey on Backerkit that this includes your Shipping Total, then your Taxes/VAT/Tarrifs and taxes on those as well. They will all display separately so you can see what is costing what, and then you can see the added total for your total pending shipping charge. Please bear in mind, I am not responsible for your country's VAT/Taxes/Tariffs. I am as unhappy with those extra costs as you are.
Additionally, Canadian and USA packages are all coming to the US first, then shipping. That means Canadian orders are paying for a share of the tariffs to have their items received in the US first. This was the best shipping option we had, as shipping to Canada from China directly was apparently worse.
Our fulfillment team has worked really hard to consolidate shipping for EU countries and the UK, looked to combine chests with other items to lower the chest shipping, and reduced costs for multiple chests heading into the EU and UK especially. But as you will see, chests require whole additional shipping charges due to needing their own packaging. I warned people during the campaign that chests will certainly add a good amount to your shipping costs, and they have.
For the ten or so folks who had shipping charges of over $130, I have rounded you down, saving a combined $200 for those people at the highest costs.
What Next?
You now have until Friday to check your shipping costs and let me know if something is wrong. It being high is not necessarily something wrong, but if it seems anomalously high, let me know. These are dense little sets, so they are heavy, thus the higher shipping. Friday the 3rd of July, I will be charging these shipping costs.
If your card declines for any reason, you'll have the weekend to take a look at that and get it taken care of. Tuesday the 7th, I will be forwarding orders to the fulfillment company. This will only include people who got their shipping charges handled.
What's the Timeline?
You'll find that we are on a similar, but just barely delayed timeline akin to the tarot projects. So long as your order's shipping charges okay (and you did your survey on time to get shipping charges at all), your orders will be packed in the coming weeks, US+Canadian orders will go in a container to get overseas, while International orders will ship direct from China.
This will look like US+Canadian orders getting to people's hands around mid to late August, and international orders arriving as early as the end of July and into/through August as well.
Moved or Moving?
Contact me and I can update your address in your surveys still. You should also be able to do that freely on your end, unless you're changing countries. Then you will need to contact me.
Who to Contact
Me! My email is on all the projects, but here it is again: [email protected]
I got into my pledge and it says it's already Shipped/Fulfilled! What's the deal? No worries, that is just because you asked to have your order merged with your other Oracle Dice order. So we closed this one out for you and moved you there.
Thanks for sticking in y'all. We're about to begin shipping-- and then things will wrap up beautifully.
If you were a backer on the tarot decks (Misery Tarot, Hot Housewives Tarot), you'll be seeing today that their shipping charges are now assigned to their orders. (Currently happening.) You'll also know we had a really weird, like, month+ delay in getting shipping charge info to us.
That is 100% why we are not on time on this project as well, as the fulfillment company handling that is handling this as well. I have been told, promised really, that I will get shipping charge info from them today for the Oracle Dice projects. The issues that were at hand are largely put away now, and they were extensive issues, let me tell you.
That means I will be processing the charge info they get me today when it arrives, figuring out fees, taxes, tariffs, etc. The ocean freight for getting US and Canadian orders to the US, the warehousing fees, the shipping from the port to the warehouse-- all of that has to be figured and molded into the shipping costs for the US+Canadian backers. (We thought shipping Canadian packages direct from China would be cheaper, but it's not.)
What to Expect
Ideally, I will be able to get this stuff figured out today if I receive the shipping charge info today as expected, but if it comes in at the end of day, I will have to handle all that tomorrow. Then I have to have a Backerkit employee import the spreadsheet of charges to your order-- I can't do that on my own. Luckily I have a good helper who is on top of that fairly quickly.
So ideally, we will have shipping charges on your pledges sometime Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I will update when they go live. I will then give you until next Friday to get that looked at, when we will charge your orders for shipping costs.
What Is Still Pending
So the delays on everything are lasting a bit longer for the dice than the tarot. Our manufacturer apparently missed out on some red-tape stuff they should have done, and now our fulfillment team is trying to take care of it before they get in trouble for shipping the items.
The short of it is this: 1) Any printer who produces a book, newspaper, thing like that, is supposed to get Pre-Authorization from their province to print that kind of material. It's basically a certification that they are printing... uhh? Something that can spread information? I worked with a boardgame printer who doesn't typically need to do this, and they didn't seem to know it was the law. So technically our guidebooks and journals are illegally printed. However, they've done books for me in the past, so it's super unclear how important or enforced this actually is, because they didn't get pre-authorization for that stuff either.
Fulfillment is trying to figure out how to get it authorized now that it's already printed, or if we can just.... ship anyways?
2) If US customs so desires, they can open a package and look at a product with suspecting eyes, then ask the shipper to provide proof that the items imported are tested. Tested for what you ask-- well, there is a massive freaking list of imported items and what the materials may need tested for. Right now, if customs asks, the manufacturer can get the items tested and then provide results. However, starting July 8th, items that are so asked after need to provide testing results IMMEDIATELY. In fact, it seems the results need to be provided with the shipment more or less.
Our manufacturer didn't know about this change, and so they didn't test anything. This means our fulfilment team is handling that right now, and the test results for all dice items will be back on (or about) the 28th of June.
Once that's taken care of, we can start shipping. Well-- so long as the pre-authorization element is solved. Either by finding a way to get authorization after printing (which is not how it's supposed to work), or by simply shipping. I also read the articles on the rules/laws/regulations myself and think there seems to be an opening for overseas printing, as it's not clarified that overseas shipping must be pre-authorized, so the timeline for overseas printing/publication may be different. Worst case scenario, uhhh-- our guidebooks and journals are seized and destroyed and we have to reprint those and then they have to get repackaged into the dice sets. But even in that worst case scenario, the books are the fastest and cheapest part of everything to get made again, it would likely delay things 3 weeks-- 1 week to remanufacture, then 2 to transport and repackage. So no one start doomposting here, even the worst case scenario just, frankly, doesn't do all that much to our timeline.
Will let you all know what happens with that shortly, but also there will be shipping charges.
Alright friends, talk very soon about shipping charges,
Previous timeline still roughly stands, though probably delayed by a couple weeks. I was hoping that our fulfillment team would have your items a little earlier, but they have arrived as of yesterday. So now I need to get your addresses over to the fulfillment squad to figure out your order costs for shipping. Doing that now! (if you need to update your address, now is the your last moment to email me with it [email protected]!)
That means:
By June 20th, god willing, shipping charges are added to your orders. I will update to let you know it has happened and give 2 days before we charge them, in case anyone needs to reach out before I charge for any reason.
June 25th-July 10th or so, we will see international packages start going out straight from China.
July 20th-August 10th or so, we will see North American orders arrive to the US over the ocean. Orders will then enter the USPS system directly, already packed and labeled.
So by end of August, we should see all items in people's hands. Pushing this back from August 15th I shared last update.
Talk again shortly when I have shipping on your pledges.
As you might imagine, our original timeline had international packages starting to ship as soon as in one week. I also said I was going to lock addresses by now, almost a month ago. But as some of you might have noticed, I have done no such thing.
We've been waiting to see when the oracle dice items would be finished, and they have let us know as of a week ago or so that we will not have all dice items finished and ready to ship to our fulfillment team until the end of May. The reason given for the delays (they originally said it would take 45 days for manufacturing to happen, and we supposedly started in March!) is that the dice engraving is taking a longer time than they imagined. So we don't have molds it seems, they are just engraving the dice individually. If they had told me it would take longer, or that they were doing it at all, I would have advised making molds instead, especially since I plan to remanufacture again someday. But, as you might be able to imagine, engraving thousands and thousands of dice is taking some time.
On the left was the previous sample. Look how much THICKER it is compared to the new ones to the right of it! We shaved off a full inch of depth to it.
The 10 glow in the dark dice in normal lighting.
The black dice after being hit with a black light and on their own in the dark.
All 10 glow in the dark dice together in the dark after being hit with a black light. Note that the above photo was taken in the same moment, just with the brighter dice removed. So weird how they glow differently!
That said, I did get the final round of samples and things are looking fantastic! The dice are great, the guides are great, the oracle decks are good-- I'm very happy with what we're getting into your hands. I was also surprised to get the neoprene mats in-- they look awesome. I'm waiting on the reading journals to arrive end of day tomorrow it sounds like, but otherwise all the items are in production.
The Updated Timeline
First off, the dice manufacturer never got me a proper timeline. Our timeline 2 updates ago was based on my knowledge that they were supposed to have started early March, and that our production timeline was 45 days at maximum. So mid-April we'd have it all done, shipped over to our fulfillment team, and begin shipping right away as able, matching the timeline I'd suggested two updates back.
So, new timeline based on them telling us items will be ready end of May:
I am going to LOCK ADDRESSES on the 20th of May. The goal is to make sure our shipping numbers and addresses are correct, and so we can begin shipping ASAP as items are received at the fulfillment center.
June 10th - June 30th, we'll see International (non-North American) shipping starting to go out.
July 20-30th, we'll see the container with the North American orders arrive to the USA. Orders for the USA will go out asap when the container arrives.
August 15th, all orders should have been shipped out and, hopefully, in-hand already.
This plants the oracle dice shipping timeline as clearly being later than the tarot decks, which I am trying to get up to date info on right now so I can share in updates on those projects soon. This will likely delay the Goblin's Tarot project, but I'll play it by ear.
We also could see this push sooner, and I'll let you all know by update here if it does! I'm anxious to get these out there, but soon! Soon!!
7DA your publishing goblin
ps,
46 folks still haven't gotten their surveys done on this project! I'm emailing them directly from [email protected] now! So check your inbox if you haven't done it. You can always log in to backerkit to check your surveys or check here if you're unsure: https://the-goblin-s-oracle-dice.backerkit.com/
We are rapidly approaching the day I lock people's addresses, March 27th, so I can get shipping charges onto your orders and we can get moving on with getting these items in your hands in June!
In this project, there are still 51 folks who haven't filled out a survey at all. A reminder that you need to fill out your survey, have a shipping address, and then pay your shipping charges before you'll get any items from this project.
So check your spam folder and your email to see if you got a reminder to fill out the survey just now, as I just pinged those final 51 once more.
Otherwise, sit back, relax, and we'll get shipping figured out soon!
