Shipping costs for GB store to overseas

Just an FYI for anyone buying something from the UK: Customs is a bitch. I bought a hoodie from here and had to pay around £15 extra tax. Nothing can be done about it, Just thought I'd say.

Email orders@socialimprints.com and they can look into it! Sorry for the trouble.

So Shipping it to Thailand is 31.27 pretty bummed about this considering at ship my left leg for the same price :( But yeah thanks @rorie for looking into it. The postage cost for the poster wasn't too bad though.

Bought some T-Shirts the last time round, thought about doing it again and it was going to cost $40 to Scotland (for 3 shirts), then tried to do one and it would not let me and the store tells me "Unfortunately there is no Shipping Rate available for your destination and/or weight of your cart."

Sorry but I don't think I will be spending that much on a few T-Shirts.

@killercombo:

@thaijedi said:

So Shipping it to Thailand is 31.27 pretty bummed about this considering at ship my left leg for the same price :( But yeah thanks @rorie for looking into it. The postage cost for the poster wasn't too bad though.

Email orders@socialimprints.com for any Q's on shipping prices. Sometimes they can be a bit funky.

@rorie

I tried to order yesterday and it appears that I can't even get shipping to IRELAND!!

@fattony12000 That's fantastic.

But alas, not even old Danny boy can order t-shirts back home, and he's an honorary Duder.

email orders@socialimprints.com for any shipping questions. There are some issues that they're looking into.

Pretty much the same. Shipping to Sweden ended up being $31.40 which is almost the price of the hoodie. Don't have a screenshot - but I can PM the order confirmation if you want. Shipping costs are usually pretty silly though...

@rorie Here is a comparison of different sellers, each time I have tried to use similar size, weight and price. (In this case, a hoodie and a T-shirt amounting to about $50.)

@hassun: It looks like all of the shipping options aren't showing up properly for you. There should be some cheaper USPS rates displaying but it looks like they're not doing so for some reason. Can you email orders@socialimprints.com with that first image and ask them to look into it? Sorry for the trouble.

@rorie: I just retried it and it seems to be fixed now:

This is undoubtedly a better price although it is still very high. UPS is very expensive in Europe for one reason or another.

There are more sites I could do for T-shirts alone if that would help you.

I'm told that the shipping weight problems should now be fixed, but it looks like people on twitter are still having issues. If you had problems before with the Bombduders shirt, can you try again and let me know?

@rorie Here are some more comparisons and examples. I did not try to match the item price this time, only looking at the shipping cost of 1 T-shirt.

If there are plans to offer different forms of shipping in the near future I would like to know. I sure wouldn't mind not having to pay more for shipping than the actual item...

@hassun: I would ask socialimprints as I have very little control over shipping rates, unfortunately.

@rorie: B-but you must be asking for a reason right?

@hassun: I've asked them before and I'm pretty sure it's something related to Shopify. Social Imprints interfaces with Shopify far more than I do, so they're better at answering these kinds of questions than I am.

To Australia, not cheap...

If you're including VAT and customs duty at point of sale (maybe? doubtful) then it will for sure seem ludicrously expensive, as most places don't do that when shipping to the UK. Standard practice is that it gets worked out by the UK-side delivery company who then add on extortionate 'handling fees' (ie. for the trouble of working out how much tax was owed and passing it through customs) and then hold your parcel to ransom until you pay.

It's worth noting that if the goods are worth / declared as worth <£15 ($~24) then no VAT or customs duty is (supposed to be) charged. So if you just buy 1 GB shirt for instance and nothing else, you shouldn't be liable for any VAT or customs when it enters the country.

Why are GB users being asked to email orders@socialimprints.com directly? If we're in the GB community, and we're having issues buying from the GB store, then shouldn't GB be contacting their vendor on our behalf in order to fix the problem?

@rorie: @hassun: I think I see what's causing some of the disparity in price. The Giant Bomb store sends single t-shirt orders by USPS First-Class Package International Service, while Fright Rags, for example, uses USPS First-Class Large Envelope International Service. Using the USPS price checker shows that a $15 value, 500g package to the UK (being generous to account for big sizes and packaging, I don't know the actual shipping weight) costs $18.60 for a 'package' and $14.47 for the large envelope service. A more reasonable 8oz/226g 'Large Envelope' gets the $8.85 charged by Fright Rags, but would be $12.75 as a 'package'.

When I see something like this come into the support email, the extent of what I'm capable of doing is CCing in Social Imprints and asking them what's going on. I'm happy to do that if you like (feel free to email support@giantbomb.com) but if you'd like to get in touch with them directly, that's their email address. Emailing support is just going to add a step and delay the ultimate response to you from the people who handle our shipping. Again, though, perfectly happy to do it if you'd prefer to email me at the support address.

@rorie: That makes sense. I apologize if I came across a bit mean (I feel bad about everything since reading Patrick's article), reading it back it read like "WTF GB? I GOTTA EMAIL PEEPS NOW? FUUUUUUU".

Thanks for the reply Rorie.

@gs_dan:

Yeah this is a good point. The value of the shirt should be on the value of the contents rather than the subscription cost as you can, as you say, add at least £16 to the cost (post office holding fee, plus VAT).

Oh and this seems like a good place to get some support, @rorie, it would be nice to see some Polo neck shirts on the store in the future.

Time for an update.

My order of the "Bombduders" and "Vinnco Maglift System" T-shirts just arrived and boy did I once again get bent over and cavity searched at the border.

+10.31 EUR import taxes

+12.00 EUR "formalities"

This brings the total cost of buying two T-shirts from Giant Bomb at €55.32 or $76.59 ($38.3 per T-shirt) This includes the $15 discount for being a yearly member, without it the total price would be $91.59 ($45.8 per T-shirt)

@rorie

P.S. I did not manage to evade customs last time I ordered from Giant Bomb either. But this is certainly not the case for all the stuff I have imported from outside of Europe or the USA in particular. Under special instructions I always add to send the package marked as "gift" so the chance of being raped by customs is lower, sadly this has not happened. If possible, I would recommend this being implemented in the future. It can make a major difference. (€22.31 or $30.88 in this case)