Up Your Game with Custom Dice!

Update #23: International Shipping Revisited and how our BackerKit Stretch Goals work
over 4 years ago – Sun, May 03, 2020 at 02:33:51 AM

Hi, all. 

There are two topics that I'm seeing a ton of questions about: Stretch Goals, and concerns over high International Shipping charges. Please bear in mind that the shipping fees on BackerKit are NOT final (they'll never go up even if pandemic issues make my shipping costs increase further), but they may well go down. I don't like those prices either, which is why I promised to revisit them. I was planning on doing that later (since we aren't charging anyone's cards for a long time anyway), but I will restart that today after hearing what our international backers think about my proposition, below.

I want you all to know that I'm not ignoring any concerns or questions, but I'm only one person, so it will take me a bit to tackle all of this. I actually didn't go to bed last night, but stayed up all night to be there for you guys and answer questions and concerns (if I missed an email/PM or comment somewhere, I'm sorry. I'm slowly making the rounds, but will need to slow down further still for a bit, as I dive back into shipping. I managed to snag 3 hours of sleep this morning to clear my head so I could address your concerns today.

The Shipping Charge on BackerKit is only an Estimate because I promised to go over the shipping options and pricing all over again. I was going to start that later, but I'm starting today, instead. Please be patient with me as I do just that, and try not to worry any more than you have to about shipping. I can't be 100% accurate in some cases without actually having your addresses (many of which I still don't have access to - our shipper needs to review the full list of backer addresses to see if there are any corners he can cut), but regardless, I'll be looking at some new options. 

If you'll be patient with me, I'll see what I can do! I've worked hard at being transparent and will continue to be. I've been very respectful and civil, and ask that you treat me the same way, as I wade back into the international shipping options to see what can be done. Big stuff about that, further below.

Stretch Goals: As it turns out, the method BackerKit needs to use to track the Stretch Goals and at the same time allow each discounted reward tier (and the pre-order store to boot) get their proper discounted prices winds up making the Stretch Goal Progress numbers wildly inaccurate. I had to make 5 identical Stretch Goals for the Overkill Orange D20, for example (one for each level of dice discounts I've offered, including the pre-order store.) None of them can be synced, which means that your tier might show only 30 Overkill D20 oranges were pledged for (and some might then yank that die out of their cart, which could cause a Stretch Goal to fail), but I'll be regularly adding up all 5 of the Stretch Goals for that one die and if the total of all 5 copies of that Stretch Goal reach the requirement, I will manually go in and unlock all 5 versions of that one die. And if the Apocalypse Rising Set unlocks, I'll manually go in and unlock all of the dice within that set. Make sense? I wish it was easier and could sync up, but we really pushed their Stretch Goal system beyond its limits to offer you so many options. 

After the Lock Down date I will personally remove any locked dice from your cart and if you haven't already PMd me or emailed me what you want to do about it (like what die you want to substitute for the locked die), expect me to contact you. I won't be charging anyone's cards for shipping or extra dice until well after the Lock Down date, so please don't dump Stretch Goal dice you think won't reach their goal because that would likely help ensure that they won't get unlocked. I hope that makes sense. I also discuss it in the Backerkit Project FAQ for our project and would happy to go over any questions or concerns you have, as I know it's not as straight forward as I was hoping it was going to be.

International Shipping Option: If you jumped down to this without reading the introduction, there's some really important stuff up there, but let's roll . . .

There has been a lot of confusion about the charges and comparisons have been made to courier prices that aren't really apples to apples. I'm not saying it isn't possible to lower shipping prices, just that you aren't always comparing the same things in the comments. DDU shipping, which is the system most stores and Kickstarters use, is traditional and you pay a smaller amount up front and then later (and many forget about the "later" part), you pay more money for the same product when you are hit with various customs fees and taxes (the amount varies by country and even by customs officer sometimes.) I promised you all that I would combine those two amounts and charge up front so that you wouldn't be contacted by customs or be asked at the door to pay more money, but I know that's not traditional. 

The thing is, I can't offer DDU shipping options (which are sometimes cheaper and sometimes more costly depending on loads of factors) unless you say I can. I made a promise to you to offer Friendly Shipping and I've stood by that promise. Some love Friendly shipping and it's getting more popular, but is less understood and apparently it can get expensive from what you are telling me. Others have never heard of it. Most of my research was all about finding you the lowest prices for Friendly Shipping (DDP shipping where all the charges are paid up front so you don't have to deal with customs later. Many couriers like USPS aren't set up for DDP shipping, so all those couriers were outside of my research. I took the lowest pricing I was able to negotiate among all of the couriers and fulfillment centers I contacted (one of the things fulfillment centers do is give you discounts on shipping, but they have other fees.) The prices were even higher at the other shipping options I researched—really high at some—so while the prices were still high, I assumed since I'd done the DDP research that we must be on the right track. Still, I didn't finalize shipping for your benefit. That's why it says on BackerKit and in my last update "Estimated." But enough about that.

Do you want to release me from my promise to offer DDP shipping? I can expand my research to include all those other couriers that were closed off to me because they didn't offer DDP, and we can do this thing DDU, or at least offer it as an option for you as it sounds like somehow it must be cheaper, despite what I was told. It's your choice, not mine. My research into shipping methods told me that after you combine the upfront fee with the back end fee of DDU shipping, you get close to the same price I was offering, but maybe my sources weren't correct. Several sources told me DDU shipping was more expensive because it was typically air freight instead of ocean freight like I was set up to use, and customs clearance fees and courier handling fees can sometimes get ugly. But maybe they exaggerated, or I misunderstood them. Let's start over, shall we?

As many of you aren't happy about the international shipping fees any more than I am, I'll open a vote to decide whether to release me from my promise to provide Friendly Shipping, and I'll expand my research to DDU carriers to see about lowering the cost of shipping while I wait for your answer. If you asked for a refund and still want one after this, well I'll be happy to provide it, as I want happy campers! I will create a private Vote Update just for backers in a few minutes. (I left this open to the public to maintain transparency. 

Thanks for your patience!    --Bob

Update #24: International Shipping Vote Link
over 4 years ago – Sat, May 02, 2020 at 10:29:43 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Update #22: BackerKit Launch! Also Pre-Order Store and More!
over 4 years ago – Sat, May 02, 2020 at 02:24:40 PM

Hi, gang.

You guys have been so patient and I really appreciate it. It's been an exhausting ride getting to this point, but I am grateful! As I mentioned in my last Update, it was my goal that our next Update would offer up some really good news, and this one definitely does! It's long and meaty, so I guess you can just read the parts you care most about, but there's some important stuff throughout. Up to you. It's time to celebrate!

BackerKit has launched, and the Pre-Order store is ready to roll! Double Yay! (I'll send surveys out around 6 pm PST, tonight! Last night I sent out a "Smoke Test" - a survey to 5% of the backers randomly, as required by BackerKit, and they say to wait about a day before sending the rest to make sure everything works well. We've had a handful of backers go in to finalize their dice and none have reported errors yet (If you see one, please let me know and I'll try to fix it asap!) Unfortunately, I didn't realize I could include a personal note in the Smoke Test survey email BackerKit generated - kinda forgot it was even an option, so the first 5% got more of a form letter of sorts from BackerKit, but I've added a message and both the surveys and the pre-order store are all ready to roll (again, please let me know if something isn't functioning properly when you check it out.)

More Good news: Lower Prices! Those of you who were part of the random Smoke Test see that I lowered the prices on several of the dice (The Harbinger D12 and some of the other smaller dice.) That's in addition to the bulk discounts you already get for both your pledge level dice that I also passed on to any Add-ons you want! (Those who use the pre-order store - that's non-backers and I suppose if any backers later decided to order again as non-backers), those orders are not part of the Kickstarter so they are not Friendly Shipping and they won't get dice discounts built into the backer Add-Ons like you get (though they'll still get lower prices for some of the dice. They can also pick up bulk bundles similar to what you did, but their orders won't be shipped until after yours.)

Even More Good News! I also discounted everyone's shipping and I mean everyone. Straight out of my pocket, because I didn't like how much the shipper and couriers charge. Oh, it's not a huge discount. It helps International Backers more than US backers (because their prices are so much higher), but everyone got a discount. I was already leaving you all out of the mix for paying a big chunk of my Kickstarter and shipping expenses, but I cut the prices even further. You might think the shipping prices are still too high, but they'd be even higher, trust me, and ultimately I decided to put on BackerKit "Estimated Shipping" prices, because I'm going to pour over all of the fees again with our shipper. More on that in a bit, but don't worry, your shipping price won't go up. There's just a slight chance some of them might go down. See the BackerKit FAQ for our project for more on Estimated Shipping, how our new BackerKit Stretch Goals work (not the same as Kickstarter's) and other useful FAQs. 

The Shipping Fiasco: I've talked more about shipping issues than anything else for quite awhile now, sadly. Frankly, it was so painful to deal with, especially DDP shipping factors, that it made me want to curl into a ball and rock myself back and forth, as I promise myself to never ship anything ever again. No Kickstarter, nothing. Yeah, it's been that frustrating. I have so many exciting creative projects to work on, including fiction, cartoon ideas and all my board games (including Zone Racer, Freeze Or Burn, and others!) and instead I'm negotiating and crunching numbers for well into the night 7 days a week for months. Don't get me wrong - I've loved getting to know many of you a little better and I love the dice. Many things have gone right! Thankfully, I'm done with shipping for now. I'll dive back into it later to crunch the numbers all over again once I have all the backer's addresses, instead of just countries. (Kickstarter wouldn't release the addresses because we didn't charge for shipping during the campaign.

The shipper said they would spend some time going over it all again, too, just in case there's a price here or there we can trim down. I'll just update your shopping carts later if I find a slightly lower price than what I've already discounted you to, when I go in late May to make sure you are only charged for dice that end up getting unlocked and update your carts with any replacement dice you tell me you want, or when I go in to charge the cards when we get closer to the shipping date. This has been the most frustrating scenario I've ever dealt with, so I won't be running another Friendly Shipping Kickstarter anytime soon no matter how well the dice sell. Fiasco is definitely the nicer way of referring to that shipping situation I was in. Just trying to be transparent here. 

I was able to negotiate the removal of that huge fee I mentioned earlier that our shipper added at the last minute that was the reason I parted ways with them originally. They won't bring it back unless I wind up with fewer than 501 backers, not counting pre-order customers. Several backers were dropped from the campaign after it ended when their expired credit cards weren't updated, however. BackerKit will contact those backers to see if they can get back in the mix. That means that unless those backers update their cards, we're down below 500 backers, so there's that hefty fee if I don't close that gap ($1250 for under 500.) I talked with some folks and brought on a couple more as backers, so we might end up being okay. Maybe. 

Every Kickstarter loses backers after it funds and the campaign is over. I walked away with closer to $7,000 after losing those backers and paying both Kickstarter and Skype. And there's also a chance our shipper won't count every backer due to where they are located, but I remain hopeful I'll be able to avoid that fee. Either way, I won't pass that $1250 fee on to you guys.

Just yesterday they handed me another new fee for $275 to put your dice into bags so they aren't swimming around in the bubble mailers with a chance of some falling out if the mailer happens to get damaged enroute. Those dice can't be lose. It's unprofessional. I had no idea that fee wasn't already part of the quote they gave me earlier! That's a big enough pill to swallow without trying to find an extra $1250 somewhere. Wait, why am I using them again? Because I was able to negotiate better shipping charges with them. Not way better, but close enough if I don't have to pay $1250, and they are well respected, so they should be able to handle most of our needs. and do a good job overall.

Know Someone Who Wants Cool Dice? Have them contact me and I'll see if I can get them in as a late backer to help shore up the backer count. I'm hoping they are in the US as the price just keeps going up for all these international shipments. I might even run a contest to add a backer or two if some of your friends want in, to make sure we are ultimately at 501+. Not sure yet. I will not offer this for long. We need to wrap things up. In fact, we're on a very tight time schedule now.

Lock Down Date: May 27th! Since I'm a month behind with all the shipping headaches, that means 1 month less for you to finalize your dice and for newcomers in the pre-order store to place orders and help unlock the new Stretch Goals (yes, they can help!) Shortly after May 27th, I'll be placing an order with Q Workshop. It's not that I can't order from them again later, but the prices would almost certainly be much higher, since I would have already processed backer orders, so we need to wrap it up by May 27th. Don't know if I'll keep the store open beyond that or not. We'll see how the store does!

What About Friendly Shipping? Regardless of the fees, we'll keep rolling with Friendly shipping. Our shipper will be using ocean freight and both US and overseas fulfillment centers to lower the shipping costs (already reflected in your shopping carts on BackerKit.) As I said, the BackerKit FAQ has a lot more to say on shipping, so be sure to check that out. 

98% of the World! Turns out around a dozen of you live outside our shipper's "98% of the World" shipping regions, so I'll probably be shipping to you personally and paying all of the VAT, customs, etc. out of pocket so those of you in the remaining 2% can have DDP shipping. I'm happy to have you all on board and am grateful for your interest and enthusiasm for our dice. Not sure if the shipper will count these last 2% as backers for waiving the fee, since they probably aren't going to be shipping, since they can't do it "Friendly" - it will likely be me, as I said. I'll try to persuade them if they give me a hard time. Still, it would be a good idea to pad that number with a few late backers. The Pre-order store isn't open yet, but it will be shortly, and they are handled differently. I'd rather offer to your friends first anyway.

Why Didn't You Just go with Shipping From Home? I wanted to. I really did - and I will be shipping a few of your orders from home as I said, and all of the pre-order customers (they have very different shipping needs and are all DDU.) I considered every option, talked with numerous fulfillment centers and shippers - went over all the options to death, and in the end returned to the original shipper. It just made the most sense. It was a little cheaper (at least if I can dump that $1250 charge.) They can get great shipping discounts not available to me, because they do bulk shipping. And as I said, we'll go over it one more time, in case we can lower a charge here or there.

Enough on shipping (there's a ton I haven't even told you about, like how I have to barcode everything, so the dice have to come to me first anyway), but enough. Eventually shipping, the pandemic, all of this will be behind us and we'll have some amazing dice for our collections!

What about Zone Racer? I mentioned this cool, racing board game a few times. It will be on BackerKit as a free download. It's not ready to yet, but you can still snag it free and put it in your shopping cart to download later. I should be able to get the downloadable print and play file available before the Lock Down! Like Triply, it uses 3 Harbinger D12s. It's possible to play it with only 1, but it they are more fun and faster to play with 3. I'll fancy up the board and components later. Fun stuff!!

I'll send out your survey's in a few minutes, so keep an eye out for your survey email, folks! It's time to finalize your dice! I hope you all have a safe weekend, and that you are able to find something fun to do. A board game, maybe! I know times have been tough. Hang in there, friends, and talk with you soon!

Thanks!   ---Bob

Update #21: Shipping, BackerKit and Zone Racer!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 11:52:02 PM

Hi, gang! 

I wanted to touch base with you guys and give you more insight into what's happening at QT Games in my continued effort to be as transparent as possible. 

I continue to regularly get updates from various postal couriers talking about entire countries being shut down due to postal services due to the coronavirus, and from some of the many Kickstarter campaigns that I have backed telling me of delays, or of finally getting past one coronavirus delay or another. I am comforted that at least in each of the updates I've gotten this far by postal couriers, none of the countries you guys are from have been mentioned for delays or shut downs. You wonderful folks are spread out across 23 countries, and unless you know something I don't, postal services are still reaching you. Further, because we aren't shipping until the dice are manufactured later this year, it only decreases the likelihood that postal services will be greatly hurt in your areas beyond what they have already been. I would not be at all surprised if there were some delays-- I'm certainly hearing from fulfillment centers telling me they are running on a skeleton crew, but nothing directly pertaining to us. Not yet, anyway. And each day that passes without such reports is a good thing. 

Onward . . . it kills me that I don't have that BackerKit store open yet. It has absolutely zero to do with me finding the time or caring. I can't wait to finalize the orders and get those dice made. The number one factor as to why you don't have a BackerKit store to go to yet has everything to do with me wanting you to spend less money on shipping. See, those of you who live outside the U.S. are in areas that can be extremely complicated and expensive to ship to. I've been in talks with more than a dozen fulfillment centers and postal couriers trying to get the least expensive shipping for you. It has been extremely difficult to do that. US shipping is a breeze and I would have already had the store open nearly a month if it were only US customers. 

I love and appreciate you whether you're in the US or across the waves or our neighbors in Canada, and it's because of this reason that I'm working so hard to get the prices down. I've already done my part. It's a waiting game. I continue to contact the companies if they seem slow to answer. I was in heavy negotiations earlier this week. I've been willing to make big changes in the packing and distribution process to keep prices down -- it's not just my prices, but very much yours as well. 

I've negotiated with everyone I can, and now it's a matter of which one of the companies come back with the "right" prices, or at least closer to the right prices. It's just flat out expensive to ship overseas, but if I can cut $5 or $10 USD off your orders, I will. Currently I haven't had much luck, but some have come down in price and I'm waiting to hear back from 3 more. Some quotes have come in for $80 and $100+ for shipping alone to some regions, whether it's 2 dice or 20, and I just can't stomach that! I'm getting high quotes whether I ship from within the EU or not - from all over. I'm even willing to eat a bit of shipping on top of the VAT if I have to, but I'm still not happy with the numbers I'm seeing. We're getting closer, at least.

What would be helpful to those of you who hate to pay high prices but are accustomed to doing so due to your location is to go in with a friend or two on a single order and then split shipping. That would save you a lot right there. But as for my part, I contacted one of the remaining couriers early this morning to remind them to send me that quote and see if they can add more shipping options to try and hopefully wrap this up this week. Oddly, I'm finding very reasonable International shipping, but only if the receiver pays all the customs fees. Since I've promised you I'm paying those out of pocket (and it's a big sum of money), I can't use those services. The services that are offering for me to pay those fees are NOT cheap. At least the ones I've researched thus far are not. I found one service that seems reasonable, but they are not available to me yet. Working on that one! 'Nuff said for now.

BackerKit: Both BackerKit and the BackerKit store are completely ready to roll out, except for adding in International shipping. That I can do in a day or two at most, once these guys get back with me.

So, none of that sounds like good news . . . you're right, it doesn't on the surface perhaps, but it IS in so far as you have someone up to bat in your corner that doesn't want you paying more than you need to.

Okay, so I've done everything I can - everything until I hear back. So, what am I doing? Well, you already have access to Triply: The Dice Game of Epic Combos! - that uses 3 Harbinger D12s. I'll make that game available again in the BackerKit store as a FREE Print & Play download. I'm working on that board game I told you about during the campaign! 

New Board Game!: I am now working on Zone Racer, a lil board game I'll also provide as a free download in the BackerKit store! I say "lil" not because the size of the board fits on an 8  1/2 x 11 sheet of paper so you can print out everything on your home printer. I might release other versions of the game later with varying size boards.

In Zone Racer, you'll pilot a ship in a fast-paced, but deadly "Battle Track" game. It's a racing game with combat using 3 Harbinger D12s and pilots flying virtual craft in an ancient, high-tech amusement park in Toonaria. In your vehicles you'll be able to sideswipe, slam, fight, and collect helpful gear as you navigate deadly battle zones on your way to the finish line! You can decide whether a race is ground-based or air-based. I know you can only get so excited about these games when the dice aren't made yet, but they are something to look forward to! More to come from QT Games!

Okay, that's all for today. Hang in there, gang, and take care! Lord willing, I'll have some more good news very soon!

Cheers --- Bob

P.s. Questions, concerns, comments? I'm all ears! 

Update #20: Life, Stretch Goals and BackerKit!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 08:23:29 AM

Hi, all. 

I hope that you have managed to stay safe and sound during these difficult times. My heart goes out to all of you, as do my prayers, especially to those who have become sick, or know someone who has, or who lost a loved one due to the pandemic. I am grateful that so far, at least, my family and close friends have remained relatively healthy, and have only suffered financially, due to loss of jobs, reduced pay, etc. 

Last night I got very sick and went to the ER. Nothing to worry about near as I can tell. It wasn't the coronavirus, but they still don't know exactly what it is. Fortunately, I feel well enough tonight to post and have been wanting to update you for a few days now. I was waiting so I could tell you I was sending out surveys. I can't do that quite yet because of reasons I go into down below. I'm not going to let being sick slow me down too much. With all the chaos going on in the world right now it is difficult to think about dice right, but I have continued to push forward, working on the post-campaign tasks 7 days a week, because I've made promises that I plan to keep, and because I want to see the dice get made (after all, we're looking forward to the pandemic being behind us!)

As you can see above, I revisited the locked Apocalypse Rising dice and also designed the rest of that set. The skulls have always been particularly tricky because dice with large areas of paint cause problems during manufacturing. I believe it's all straightened out now, but I reworked the D6. Turns out, the revisions I made also resulted in the dice being even more interesting (especially the "1" and "10" faces!) I think the D12 works well as is and the variety of skulls is interesting, so I wasn't planning to revise the D12.

The biggest concern has always been the D6, because there's plenty of space to make the skulls big, but with the earlier design, I couldn't make them any bigger due to manufacturing issues (as mentioned in another Update.) I have redesigned the "1" face (single slash skull) so now the skull is damaged in places that enable us to make all the skulls large and some of them now look even cooler (so I hope you don't mind!) I also introduced another skull face for the D10/D00—a skull with with no slashes but a swirly zero cut pattern on the forehead to represent the 10. All of the designs for the Apocalypse Rising set are done and ready to send to the factory. They will be available as BackerKit Stretch Goals along with the rest of the locked dice (The Apocalypse Rising D20, has already been unlocked.) Instead of a funding amount, BackerKit uses a quantity goal, and I've made those numbers as low as possible.

It was a huge process getting BackerKit and the Pre-order store all up and running (still a bit left to do, but I could finish it all in a day if it weren't for a shipping issue. Once I finish setting up, I can submit for a BackerKit review, which can take up to 2 days. When they approve a small sampling of our backers will receive an early survey (about 5% of you  will be randomly selected by BackerKit.) Then I'll open up surveys to all of the backers (and pre-orders to help unlock more dice) and we can get ahem . . .rolling. 

Note: I changed something on you, but it's not a bad thing. Turns out BackerKit doesn't yet have their interface set up to quickly select more than one of the same die from within a Pledge Level (unless you want to pick it separately, rather than just alter a quantity meter.)  So, to speed things up I got rid of the ability to take multiple Reward Tiers and instead you can get those extra dice by picking them as Add-ons, which does allow for quickly altering quantities—and I managed to set it up so you retain your dice discounts. In fact, I've even lowered the cost of some of the dice.

Once BackerKit is up (hopefully by the end of this week or early next week) you will have approximately a month to finalize your orders (including Stretch Goal dice), and then I'll lock it all down and contact Q Workshop so they can start making the dice. Any Stretch Goal dice you pledge for will be removed from your cart prior to charging your card, if the Stretch Goal quantities aren't met. You can pledge toward both individual dice in the set, or pledge for the entire set. 

Unlocking an entire set also unlocks the individual Stretch Goal dice within that set. And unlocking all of the dice individually unlocks the set itself (which is cheaper than buying individually.) If you pledge for a Stretch Goal and it doesn't make it, before we charge your card, we'll remove any locked dice from your order. To ensure you get as many dice as you want, just let me know your alternatives for each locked die in a PM or on BackerKit if they provide you a space (I know the Dice Adepts section provides one.) So, you'll be seeing the Orange Overkill D20, Green Overkill D20, Red Overkill D6 and Red Underkill D6, too.

Although we will open the pre-order store at the same time as the backer section, we will ship our backers' orders before any newcomers. But launching the pre-order store at the same time will help unlock more dice. Unfortunately, shipping negotiations has slowed down my post-campaign work.

I've been pulling my hair out over shipping. If you want to know the latest about our shipping conundrum, read on, otherwise jump to the bottom. Having unlocked several Stretch Goals and funding at 1100% was awesome —you guys are awesome—but it did cause a big ripple in the shipping parameters. With so many more types of dice, I wasn't able to move forward with my replacement shipper I set up shop with during the campaign, after losing another shipper mid-campaign. I've now negotiated with  5 fulfillment centers and postal carriers. Recently, I seriously considered packing and shipping from my home office so as not to go broke, and tried to negotiate reasonable prices for International shipping.

Currently, I'm negotiating with DHL Express to lower their prices because they are through the roof. I know that they can, but I'm not sure if they are willing to. Since I"m paying out of pocket for Int'l VAT/duties/fees, and because I don't want you to have to pay anymore than you have to, I've been spending several hours every night researching to find the right postal services that can handle the campaign. If I can manage to negotiate a more reasonable price, we'll run with them for just International orders and I'll ship the rest myself. 

Because DHL may not lower their prices far enough, I'm also in negotiations with ShipBob. (I've been calling around and emailing and talking with shippers for a few months now, but each one has either backed out saying we're not big enough, or they said we had too many dice to charge us reasonable prices to pack them.) ShipBob is not a carrier like DHL, but a fulfillment company, like I had planned to go with in the beginning. With them, I will need to bag up all of the dice and put skus on them. There are no ideal options here. International shipping is very challenging. I'm not complaining—just saying that it takes a lot longer to set up and has numerous factors. 

ShipBob actually use DHL Express for some of their orders, and they have negotiated a way better shipping price because of high volume, but would want to do all of our orders, which again drives the price up (hence the ongoing conundrum.) You would probably be surprised at all of the fees—(the packing slip fee alone is huge at ShipBob, for example. Who knew putting a packing slip in a bubble mailer could cost several dollars per mailer? I intentionally kept the dice prices low and was planning on charging you the packing and shipping combined. The thing is, I wasn't being charged a dime for packing slips at other companies. ShipBob has much lower packing fees, fortunately. I could write a novel about my shipping experiences thus far. Madness, but I'm hoping in the next few days to have everything nailed down with better prices, so I can send out surveys. It's killing me that I haven't been able to send out your surveys yet. 

Also, because of several factors, including the number of unique dice we're manufacturing, Q Workshop tells me it will take a little longer to make them all. It's still roughly within the timeframe I was planning on, but it means less time to order before the Lockdown date in May. It will be tight, especially if I have to add skus to all of the lil dice bags and reship the dice to ShipBob rather than just sending the dice straight to them or shipping myself. I'm really hoping I can drive down DHL's price. Won't know for a few days. 

I know not all of the news has been good news in this update, but I look forward to launching BackerKit and finally placing an order with Q Workshop so we can get these cool dice into your hands! 

Because of the coronavirus, some postal restrictions have been put in place, but we won't be shipping for a few months anyway. The restrictions I've seen so far shouldn't affect us much since many of them are in countries we aren't shipping to. Even so, it is impossible to know what impact, if any, there will be on our shipping over the next few months due to the pandemic. If you're like me, you're washing your hands very often, maybe even too often, and I know the gang at the Poland factory is taking extra precautions as well, which no doubt slows them down a little. I would expect some delays on shipping, though I've not been told of any thus far, which is good. I know that factories in other locations of the world have had difficulties and shut downs. Q Workshop remains open for business, as does QT Games. We aren't operating at 100% (I'm still sick, for one), but we are not relaxing. As we said in our last update, we're still moving forward!

Stay safe, my friends, and healthy! My next update should announce the launching of BackerKit! to finalize your orders. Take care!

Bob