Thanks to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, the US postal service has been pouring tons of money into pre-funding pensions and health-care obligations out to 75 years.

So what? You ask.

Higher prices, I say.

A few more pennies per letter? You ask.

Yes, and international shipping has doubled. DOUBLED. DOUBLED!

I used to be able to send a lightweight package to the UK or Continent for around $6 or $7. Same package is now $12.75.

Domestic delivery confirmation is no longer a "thing", and the postal staff was uncertain if standard priority includes it or not. Without that I'm not going to ship domestic.

All done, thanks toy biz, you were pleasant while you lasted.

Edit for clarification - yes, delivery confirmation is now built into priority mail.

But wait, there's more! Now the postal clerks have to enter five minutes' information per international package. In the past it was just scan scan, stamp stamp, all done. Now I have to stand at the counter looking like a fool while the clerk asks me things like "Is Orgaanistranand 7 a business"? and "is lead-space a company name"?

I understand your grief Todderman - this is something I'm wrestling with myself trying to start Onslaught. Shipping Costs are making it very expensive for our friends over-seas to purchase our creations. But we should still provide the option - they may see the costs as justified if they like the work enough.

What we need to find is an entrepreneur in these other countries that would like to make a few coins acting as a distributor - buying US made minis at a significant discount and reselling them to customers to keep international shipping costs down...

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ONSLAUGHT MINIATURES onslaughtmini.com

And the vice versa. Perhaps there are British or Italian designers somewhere that need NA distribution services?

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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I'd be willing to act as a NA distributor...

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ONSLAUGHT MINIATURES onslaughtmini.com

An interesting proposal, although i would have no idea how to go about it.

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Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

I think you should just jack up the prices you charge for your products, that way people won't be bothered by the fact that shipping costs more than the parts they ordered.

Anyway, just pass the cost of shipping onto the consumer. It's not that big a deal.

That said, having to wait while the clerk types in the address was a pain when I mailed something last Saturday. I can't image what would have happened if it would have been one of those 7-line addresses that some of you weirdos in the UK have. I don't think the USPO provides that many lines in their customs forms, so I wonder if their computerized form can handle more than 6.

I feel your pain Todderman. The typing in of the info has been going on for a few months now, it drives me batshit insane. It also pisses the clerks off every time I go in. The shipping cost increases are also heinous, especially considering 70% of my customers are overseas. I am definitely going to have to increase my shipping costs. It takes a lot of fun out of running the business.

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For all your Dark Realm, 6mm scifi and 6mm fantasy needs: http://www.microworldgames.com/

We tend to include too much info in our addresses. In reality you only need 3 bits of information:

Number, Roadname (or Buildingname)
Post Code
UK


We tend to add County, City, Town, Area of Town etc. when we write our addresses out, but in reality the Post Code covers all that information already. I think it's a cultural relic of having the first postal system in the world - we still include all the info you had to use back then, but we also include the modern Post Code info too. Odd.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

It is not so odd when you consider all the nuances in addressing. And I suspect Moscovian might be able to give a 'proffesional' critique on international addressing standards (if you paid a lot of money to his favourite charity )

But to the topic, until matter transporters and teleporting becomes commonplace, I agree that people will have to pay the shipping costs on top of the cost of the goods. Indeed, the relative costs are always going to diverge as fewer items are shipped by post (driving up shipping costs) at the same time as new technologies reduce the cost of manufacture.

There are possible work-arounds that might be considered which basically revolve around shipping in bulk (as we did in the Uk, distributing E:A suplements via the tournament circuit), but these are usually impractical, costly or both.

OTOH I suspect that most of the regular customers will be more than willing to pay for shipping the high quality merchandise that our friendly water mamal supplies, albeit through fewer bulk orders.

I've pretty much always done bulk orders and grouped orders together with friends, which has always rendered shipping costs next to negligible, an increase in this would not bother me one bit as long as the goods are desirable

the faff at the post office is less simple to dismiss, I find the post office in the UK to be good when you actually get to the effing counter but to do so, you need to navigate lines of people buying birthday cards, exchanging currency, taxing their cars, paying their water bills and generally farting around with the umpteen services offered by UK post offices

is there no option to set up an account with your local PO to take some of the ballache out of it? I've now got a stash of customs labels, fragile stickers and other stuff I can fill in ahead of shipping to save precious time, I know there are people who have accounts, so they just get a bill at the end of the payment period.....

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Yup it sucks. But as said, I for one would be ready to pay the extra costs anyway. I have a company infact and could act as a supplier in scandinavia if there would be enough demand. I had a miniature webstore a couple of years but it got too time consuming vetus the profit

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Shapeways store: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/tinywares

Blogging about 6-15mm wargaming: http://www.lead-space.net

Sweden has abandoned POs, and I now use a local Tesco equivalent. However, the staff prefers postal duties over their other work, so they are quite professional and customer friendly.

@Todderman: As being guilty of owning the company of Oragaaanistgaaraand, I can assure you that I will happily pay any increased postage fees, and I suspect many Europeans will. The price of no-longer-in-production models as well as present (Exodus Wards, DRM) and upcoming model ranges (eg Onslaught)) merely regulates the amount I get, not the total sum. 6mm figures have never looked this good, and I am willing to pay a fair price for them, including postage fees.

/Fredmans

Hahaha!
I share your pain!

Before I moved to the UK I thought it can't get any worse then German post employes asking me if I am interested in a bank account after I gave them my letters! Hehe

PS: On my last trip home i had to realise that they are now catching up -.-
Still cheap and reliable though.

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Nah, forget about it. It's a gift. I'm not going to ask someone for $13 in postage for $4 in obelisk corners; I have some pride.