From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:53:50 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 14939 invoked from network); 25 Sep 1997 10:53:06 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 25 Sep 1997 10:53:06 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <5.683E783A@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 25 Sep 1997 12:52:55 +0100 Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 06:51:14 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: international book orders (and postage costs) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 6125 Lines: 107 Message-ID: <3X9BPjbE9DL.A.Ik.-10kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Yes we are seeking international orders for the book, and I apologize profusely that we have to charge such a large amount for the shipping and handling. Unfortunately, the idea of shipping several copies to one person for remailing is not looking especially fruitful, except perhaps for Australia. We are still interested in this if we can make it work, but the savings to people who order right now look like they would be only a (US) dollar or two at most. I will break down the costs, so that people will see what the situation is. Packing the books for shipment - in a box or padded envelope, will cost approximately US$1 per book, in my estimate, it may be higher or lower - I have not actually bought the packing materials, but that is a good guess. I estimate that the book will weigh approximately 3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) with the packing. If it is slightly over 3 pounds, we get charged for 3 1/2 or 4 pounds depending on whetherit is air mail or not. I cannot say till I actually pack a book in its shipping whether it will be over or under this boundary, so I have to estimate assuming the high side. US surface postage is $6.38 if the book is under 3 pounds, $8.38 if over 3 pounds. Rounding up, we end up with a cost of $7-$10 for surface mail, and we are charging $10 for surfacemail shipping and handling. Bulk shipping via surface mail helps. The price is $.72 per pound for most countries, so a 3 pound shipment would cost only $2.16, and 4 pounds would cost $2.88. Adding in the packing materials, we can thus bulk ship the books for around $4 per book, provided that there are 3 or 4 or more books being ordered. Unfortunately, the books then need to be remailed in your country. So far I have reports from the UK and from Italy that this would cost another $3-$4 in US equivalent, so the net cost turns out to be around $8 provided that no repacking is necessary. Thus you could save $2/book plus the $4 saved by the person actually receiving the books for each copy they are keeping. However, this is not insured shipping, and insurance costs $4.50 for up to $100 insurance. We cannot afford to include insurance, and will therefore have to trust the mail systems at least for the major countries. So we are not including insurance unless you specifically ask for and pay for it (but if there are too many reported losses in shipping, we will have to start adding this in). The bad part of surface mail is time. amazon.com, which does a lot of international shipping of books, reports that surface mail can take from 3 weeks to 3 months depending on how far you are from the USA. Air mail is more complicated, and if anything I underestimated the postage. Rates vary by region. I will give the detailed information for Europe and for Australia, which covers most of our international orders. For Europe, the bulk shipment rate is $4 per pound., and thus we can figure that a bulk shipment would cost us around $12-16 plus the $1 for packing costs. Individual pieces will cost us $19.09 for 3 1/2 pounds, so with the packing materials, we will be paying more than $20. Thus a bulk mail shipment will save us less than $5 in postage. Still, this might be worthwhile to some of you IF you all agree to pay for the higher air mail rate. So far most orders have been for surface mail, though thi sis less than 10 orders so far,a s it appears that many overseas people have been waiting to see how the bulk shipping arrangemenbts turn out. For Australia, the bulk shipment rate is $5.76 per pound, so that we can estimate $17-$22 for bulk shipping or $26.61 for 3 1/2 pounds individual pieces, plus the packing materials. Clearly our $22 shipping and handling charge isn't going to cover this full cost, so we have to hope the book weighs less than 3 pounds. Even bulk shipping will not necessarily allow us to charge less. Air mail times apparently are around 1-2 weeks. amazon.com has another option - apparently they have a bulk airmail shipper on contract. These shippers in effect do the local remailing for you, and we have used one of them for JL subscriptions overseas (but the one we use is not very competitive for shipping the books). Shipping time apparently runs 2-4 weeks. If we could make similar arrangements, the costs would probably be intermediate between the $10 and $22 shipping charges we list in the announcement. We will of course let you know if this becomes an option. Because we have to self-insure, we have to charge a little more for shipping and handling than we actually pay in postage, because there will be losses, and for Visa/Master Card orders (which we expect most overseas purchases to be) wemay be required to make good on the order if it is lost, or refund the money - we plan to do this in any case). Every book lost in the mail is $35-$48 lost to us when we ship a new copy. When we actually get the books, and know how much it will cost, we will negotiate a fair price to anyone who has ordered at the standard shipping costs, and credit you with the difference, if a suitable bulk mailing approach works out for your country (so far, we have offers only from the UK, Italy, and Australia along with enough likely orders to make bulk shipping work out - Argentina is also a poosibility if we get more orders and the cost savings would be a bit greater for bulk airmail to that country). Feel free to ask any questions about the above, either privately or on the list as appropriate. But please let us know your ordering plans including the kind of shipping you will prefer, or we will not be able to consider any bulk-shipping reduction even if we figure out a way to do it. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.