Ashlynn d’Elyse needed

Arjay

Arjay

Member
I need the Warmachine miniature - Ashlynn d\'Elyse for a commission. I\'ve ordered it twice now - the 1st shop just couldn\'t get the miniature in and the 2nd supposedly had the miniature in stock but after checking on my order a week later I was told that it wasn\'t in stock after all... :mad: If anyone knows where I can buy the miniature or has one which they\'d be willing to sell me I\'d be very appreciative...

Thanks in advance.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
I\'m not sure if stung is the right word... £7.45 postage for around 4 blisters to Australia. It\'s a shame really because dealing with other UK businesses like Hasslefree, Spyglass and Maelstrom Games has always been really positive - inexpensive shipping charges, quick post times and the people have been great to deal with. I don\'t know how they can justify their postage costs but my guess is that they don\'t get too much international business - maybe that\'s the way they want it.

BTW thanks for the reply anyhow. :D
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
Sounds a lot but to be honest it can cost a heck of a lot more.

example (postage based on 20% of order price- which is what it used to cost)

3 x harbinger mags - order value - £10.50 - postage billed - £2.10 - actual cost to post £7.83 + packaging cost (£1.00) - total £8.83

4 x warmachine blisters - order value £18.00 postage billed £3.60 - actual cost £4.03 + packaging cost (50p) - total £4.53

12 x vallejo game color pots - order value £16.80 - postage billed £3.36 - actual cost £5.17 + packaging costs (50p) - total £5.67

The £7.50 minimum was a balance as it is so easy to get caned by royal mail.

I don\'t actually own GM anymore but I guarantee the postage and packaging invariably used to end up costing me more than I billed.

Gamers Quest postage is actually higher and is by surface mail too... so a 4 week shipping time I guess.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
I always make a habit of checking what postage actually cost on parcels that arrive as against what I\'ve paid and it is often as you\'ve said. However I do still think that £7.50 is too expensive for 3 blisters, other UK based stores undercut that pretty heavily (unfortunately none of these have the particular miniature I want in stock :rolleyes: )...

@Spacemunkie - I\'ve checked out Gamers Quest a few times now and I\'m really impressed. Fantastic range and the guy who runs the show seems like a friendly and helpful chap. I was hoping for a store which accepts Paypal but I may give them a go anyway and see if they have it in stock yet. I\'ll probably pick up a few Illyad miniatures whilst I\'m at it...:D
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
Originally posted by Spacemunkie
The lady who runs GQ - Jean, is extremely sound. Try emailing her and asking her - she\'ll do her best to sort you out!
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Why did I assume it was a guy - very rude of me...

Thanks in advance for e-mailing her on my behalf, I\'ve spent the last 4 weeks trying to get the miniature (who says Illyad are the hardest to get) and I think the customer is beginning to lose patience so any help would be great.
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
I can\'t think of any UK suppliers who do it MUCH cheaper. For instance,

Gamers Quest will cost you (for Airmail) - £11.32

Wargames Workshop will cost you £7.50

I\'m not trying to sell you anything... because gamemart is no longer my concern.... But given that the average mark-up for minis is about 35% and given that most online retailers discount this by a further 10% and taking into account that you have other overheads like card fees and hosting etc. etc. - any overspill from the postage that affects this remaining percentage is pretty painful.

Best thing you can do is persuade Australian games shops to import the stuff.

The difference between mail order companies and companies like spyglass and hasslefree, is that the margins are completely different. I have no idea what the margin is for a manufacturer who sell\'s their own product, but I\'m gussing it is iro 60-75%.... this means that they can probably (or more likely not) afford to swallow some of the cost of postage. Hence the reason you get it at a better rate.

Two entirely different things.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
I just placed a practice order at Gamers Quest and the shipping amounted to £4.12 for 4 blisters sent via airmail.

I do realise that online stores do it very tough, two brilliant US based stores - Broks Armory and Albino Rhino throwing in the towel in quick succession testifies to that. Both of these businesses charged bugger all for postage and that may not have helped them but surely the opposite couldn\'t be a good idea either...
 
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Joshua

Member
i totally agree with belzebrush here, i think 7-8 pounds is actually pretty cheap for that distance.
i paid 6.90 to germany and australia is like ... dont know, 20 times as far away? ^^
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
Arjay... I put that order through their cart and it came to £11.32 to Australia for airmail.

Dunno how you managed to get it cheaper.... did you you do it by email and not through the store shopping cart?

I\'m not sure why this is pissing me off.... I suppose it\'s because it\'s one of the reasons I sold GM... more hassle than it\'s worth....

I\'m not surprised that these guys you mentioned have gone out of business. It\'s completely shortsighted for sellers to offer free or ridiculously low postage. It\'s just as short sighted for punters to expect it. There just isn\'t enough money to be made to make it worthwhile if store owners feel they have to subsidise legitimate business costs like postage just to get a leg up on the \'opposition\'. The outcome will be fewer decent stores - meaning less places to buy your gear from - meaning less distributors and at worse a dying hobby.

I can think of 5 UK online stores that have gone under recently too..... All of which were pretty good and had been around for ages
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
Originally posted by Joshua
i totally agree with belzebrush here, i think 7-8 pounds is actually pretty cheap for that distance.
i paid 6.90 to germany and australia is like ... dont know, 20 times as far away? ^^
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My reaction to the price is just based on my prior experiences with having items sent from the UK. I always thought that shipping cost the same for everyone. Take what ever the mail carrier charges, add packaging and maybe handling fees and that\'s that. I don\'t understand why a business would need to charge more than an individual selling on eBay or Steve selling his own Spyglass miniatures. Is calculating postage prices on an order by order basis so time consuming as to be out of the question?
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
As I said

There is going to be a bigger difference in profit margin for someone like Spyglass who make their stock than a mail order company who has to buy their stock from companies like Spyglass (both of whom have to make a profit on the deal)

This probably means that there is more breathing space for postage.

Orders are worked out automatically with regard to postage. It starts at a figure and rises with the order value to a maximum. There\'s loads of stuff of low value that can exceed the £7.50 to Australia very rapidly.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
So are you saying that postage prices aren\'t necessarily just covering postage, packaging and handling for a mail order company?

BTW I\'m not trying to annoy you, I\'m just curious about how it all works.
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
The postage for most suppliers is based on a percentage of the order value. 30% seems the most common to Aus. The problem with this is that it hikes the price up for things like minis but totally undervalues it for things like magazines, paints, rulebooks, boxed games etc.. basically anything with substantial weight.

Like I said earlier, if you were to buy 3 harbinger magazines... you would pay a percentage of that order as postage.... in this case (at 30%) that would cost about £3.00. The actual cost of posting that order from the UK to Aus including packaging will be closer to £9.00 due to the weight... that means that the store would lose £6.00.

The minimum postage tries to cover this.

Another problem is sending something like a vallejo paint set of 60 colours or a boxed game like Hybrid. These exceed the maximum airmail weight of 2Kg, so therefore have to be sent in two or three separate packages. This means two or three times the postage cost for the store.

The only way around this is to weigh and input every single item\'s weight. This again causes problems for pre-ordering new releases....

At the end of the day.... you\'re buying a product from the other side of the world... £7.50 doesn\'t actually sound that much to me.... and as Jack Dee said... try taking it youself for that price.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
I understand how your automatic postage calculation works now - I guess the postage prices overcharged go some way to making up for those undercharged. Other stores I\'ve dealt with have had a smaller inventory and were able to allocate each item a weight and the calculator charged postage accordingly - more accurate but impractical for a larger store.
 
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Beelzebrush

Active member
Yeah... it\'s swings and roundabouts. After all, nobody\'s going to want to pay £10-15.00 postage for a rulebook that only costs £15.00 becuase that\'s what the ACTUAL postage costs. This way you get the postage for £7.50.... Minis are lighter and higher valued.... however, if you ordered Wolfen figures, the actual postage based on weight would very quickly exceed the £7.50 minimum.
 
Arjay

Arjay

Member
Well I finally got my hands on the miniature (it\'s in the post anyhow)... Thanks for the help...
 
G

GamersQuest

New member
Originally posted by Beelzebrush
I can\'t think of any UK suppliers who do it MUCH cheaper. For instance,

Gamers Quest will cost you (for Airmail) - £11.32

Wargames Workshop will cost you £7.50

I\'m not trying to sell you anything... because gamemart is no longer my concern.... But given that the average mark-up for minis is about 35% and given that most online retailers discount this by a further 10% and taking into account that you have other overheads like card fees and hosting etc. etc. - any overspill from the postage that affects this remaining percentage is pretty painful.

Best thing you can do is persuade Australian games shops to import the stuff.

The difference between mail order companies and companies like spyglass and hasslefree, is that the margins are completely different. I have no idea what the margin is for a manufacturer who sell\'s their own product, but I\'m gussing it is iro 60-75%.... this means that they can probably (or more likely not) afford to swallow some of the cost of postage. Hence the reason you get it at a better rate.

Two entirely different things.
Click to expand...

Mmmm not sure how you managed to get the amount that high - the site works out postage based on weight and postage prices - however mistakes happen - will need to check it out :)

However what I will say in our defense is we do NOT over charge for postage - its always at cost - and if people pay by card and we find the postage was less than we charged they will receive a refund on their card.

Don\'t think you can ask more than that. As for shops going out of business - I think thats also down to the greedy, ill minded and petty people running the shops in the first place - who usually can\'t even spell customer service let alone deliver it.

We make mistakes, we apologise, we communicate and we don\'t take money until we are ready to ship.

Jxx
 
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