I thought I'd share a little email exchange with you all I've had with the Forgeworld Customer Services Manager (I'll remove all names, just leave titles). I recently ordered some stuff, to which the P&P cost came to 14.65 or 12% of my Order. In the box where you can enter the '1 Forgeworld Model to be made' request, I put in "Free P&P, because lets be honest, to post what I've bought isn't going to cost 14.65". Surprisingly, I received the following email from Forgeworld............

===========================================
Hi,

Thanks for placing the above order. To explain our shipping costs, an order within the UK is charged 12% of the total value of the order in shipping and handling, as we endeavour to ensure that our orders are packed in such a way as to minimise any potential for damage in transit.
You will not receive your order in a jiffy bag or similar, as many wargames companies use, but instead firmly packed in a sturdy box. Note that resin kits are often heavy, and as you are no doubt aware the weight of a parcel also affects the postage cost.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Customer Service Manager,Forge World

===========================================

So when the box arrived, I took it to the Royal Mail Office, and was quoted 2.41 to post it First Class (the same method as FW) to anywhere in the UK. I emailed the Customer Service Manager back.......

===========================================

Thanks for your reply. I waited until I had recieved my order before replying. I took the parcel to the Post Office and had it weighed and quoted for First Class Post to anywhere in the UK .
2.41 GBP. Quite a large difference to the +14.00 GBP charged by Forgeworld. I can't see how a small box and bubble wrap or even the 2 mins of labour could cost +11.00 GBP, so my original comment still stands. It does not cost 14.00 to send out my Forgeworld Order to me.
A GW mail Order is free shipping over 50GBP. Malestrom Games send out all their items, including resin, P&P is free, and they are in a sturdy box, padded with bubble wrap, just like Forgeworld.
Seeing as I have now proven the Forgeworld have overcharged me for P&P by a factor of +400% on this order, please feel free to refund me or send me some Vouchers. Your email below suggests you feel Forgeworld do not overcharge on P&P, clearly you do.
Thanks

============================================

And surprisingly, I recieved a reply........................

============================================

Thanks for your e-mail.
Here at Forge World we endeavour to provide a quality service that ensures you receive our products in the most effective way. Our team regularly review the prices we charge for shipping, and these are to cover our costs not make a profit. As you may have noticed, we offer free Express shipping on large orders and currently free standard shipping on all orders over £150 – we anticipate this to be a long-term offer that will benefit many of our customers.
You can also visit us at events such as our forthcoming Open Day here in Nottingham on March 28th, at which you can come and pick up almost anything in our range. The Open Day will also allow you to meet our entire staff including our Studio of writers, artists and sculptors, as well as to play some fantastic games and view work-in-progress models, books and artwork. The Open Day is free to attend and is a great way to save on Shipping costs.
We hope to see you there! If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate me to contact me.

=============================================

So I have contacted FW, and I will take the matter higher when I'm at the next shareholders meeting. I've pointed out that the packing box and wrap it part of the cost of the product, as if you buy it direct from GW HQ, it comes in that box without any additinal charges. As a company they can charge whatever they like for P&P, but to blatently lie to a customer and claim their P&P charges are at cost, when I've proven they are out by a factor of +400% in their favour (in this instance), is what rattles me. Quote from the email above "cover our costs not make a profit". Does anyone else think this is a lie, or is it me?

He would have been better not to reply to me, rather than dig this rather large hole for himself. In trying to convince me in the truth of a lie, he's actually made it worse.

TheSecretSquig wrote:The Open Day is free to attend and is a great way to save on Shipping costs.

This bit made me laugh a bit seeing as it would probably cost me 25 quid to even get there!

I agree with you on this , but I hate to say you will probably get squat. I am shocked though I remember times when they misshipped me something and instead of having me send it back to get a new one let me keep it and they shipped me the item I asked for. My how their customer service has changed.

I agree with you too. As far i I can tell, on the larger models there's not much more packaging than if you buy it at a show... and surely they have aditional transport/staff costs on top of normal costs at shows. (obviously, no transport at warhams world).

That response you got is a load of

OP

Was this sent via Royal Mail in the first place or by a courier/PDS?

If it was sent RM then Forgeworld have a lot of explaining to do.

Mr. Burning wrote:OP

Was this sent via Royal Mail in the first place or by a courier/PDS?

If it was sent RM then Forgeworld have a lot of explaining to do.

Unless you actually specifically want Express Delivery or your order is <£250, then yes, they will be using Royal Mail, or Royal Fail as I call it.

Mr. Burning wrote:OP

Was this sent via Royal Mail in the first place or by a courier/PDS?

If it was sent RM then Forgeworld have a lot of explaining to do.

Sent by Royal Mail, not courier. It was weighed at the same Post Office my Partner picked it up from. Its the statement of 'We do not profit from P&P' which has really rattled me, when clearly I've proven they do.

A 'Customer Service Manager' should not lie to a customer.

Valkyrie wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:OP

Was this sent via Royal Mail in the first place or by a courier/PDS?

If it was sent RM then Forgeworld have a lot of explaining to do.

Unless you actually specifically want Express Delivery or your order is <£250, then yes, they will be using Royal Mail, or Royal Fail as I call it.

Er, actually they've STOPPED using Royal Mail because of all the strikes. They're only (supposed to, at least) be using Courier services.

I've actually had a few more email discussions with Forgeworld now since I posted this. I won't go into the details of them as I've posted enough to start the debate on Dakka.

Lets just say I 100% disagree with their explanation of the high P&P costs and can't really afford to play email 'ping pong' with them anymore.

I will be accepting an invitation to meet and discuss further at GW Notts when I'm next on leave and able to get abck to the UK. Its been interesting.

TheSecretSquig wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:OP

Was this sent via Royal Mail in the first place or by a courier/PDS?

If it was sent RM then Forgeworld have a lot of explaining to do.

Sent by Royal Mail, not courier. It was weighed at the same Post Office my Partner picked it up from. Its the statement of 'We do not profit from P&P' which has really rattled me, when clearly I've proven they do.

A 'Customer Service Manager' should not lie to a customer.

I was trying to understand what else they could be charging for, but, frikkin heck!, packaging and labour don't justify that price. It's like a bad ebay seller whacking postage up to recoup some of the fees.

Well that was a nicer reply than the one I got. My one said:

"We owe you nothing."


And nothing more...

Wow... I was considering getting some FW stuff after I was done my Gamezone models, but this really, really puts me off. It's like they try to make GW look like saints.

What always gets me about Forgeworld is that they charge VAT to non-EU residents. I'm a UK resident myself, so I have no personal beef, but it does seem extremely cheeky to charge (say) US and Australian residents a 17.5% tax that they are exempt from! That 17.5% goes straight into Forgeworld's back pocket in a very underhand and sly way.

It's Games Workshop, just wearing a different hat. Like diet Pepsi: same crap, different wrapper.

I was ready to buy a bunch of guard tanks from FW but it wasnt the postage that put me off, it was the crap customer service!

You paid what they told you they were going to charge you? Instead of some rate that you imagined you should pay?

What's the problem, then? The company offers free shipping on large orders, and charges more for smaller orders. They might not have a net profit from shipping, or they might net a small one, as those smaller orders cover the larger, expensive, cray American orders.

Friend of mine did an order fro Weyland Games recently, and it was such a tiny order that he actually checked the Royal Mail shipping on small packages, finding that his package shipping costs should be lower than the minimum £4 that Weyland offers. He contacted Weyland about this and they reduced the shipping cost for him.

I see no reason beyond simple stubborn stupidity why FW couldn't do the same thing.

Valhallan42nd wrote:You paid what they told you they were going to charge you? Instead of some rate that you imagined you should pay?

What's the problem, then? The company offers free shipping on large orders, and charges more for smaller orders. They might not have a net profit from shipping, or they might net a small one, as those smaller orders cover the larger, expensive, cray American orders.

The issue is that a FW CSR stated that they do not profit from shipping and handling fees, when it is clear that they do.

It's a matter of being factually inaccurate with your customers.

Question on this "VAT" that I have been hearing about. Now does british law say they can only charge in country residents this tax, OR does it state all sales they make? I lived in Oregon for a while and when I traveled outside the state even though the law stated when I showed my ID I wasn't to be charged tax people saw different. It didn't reallly matter to me, but 17.5% tax would disuade me in the future from ordering form them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Value_added_tax

As far as I am aware, VAT should only apply to products bought and shipped within the UK, just as if I were to buy a product outside of the UK, technically I am obliged to pay tax to bring it into the country.

Kanluwen wrote:Er, actually they've STOPPED using Royal Mail because of all the strikes. They're only (supposed to, at least) be using Courier services.

That was only during the strikes. Everything I have had since has been RM.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Friend of mine did an order fro Weyland Games recently, and it was such a tiny order that he actually checked the Royal Mail shipping on small packages, finding that his package shipping costs should be lower than the minimum £4 that Weyland offers. He contacted Weyland about this and they reduced the shipping cost for him.

I see no reason beyond simple stubborn stupidity why FW couldn't do the same thing.

Wayland... W A Y L A N D


The RM shipping steps are 20g at those levels.. never did i think a customer from oz would order a single light blister. And i wanted to avoid the effort of adding all the weight steps.




to someone elses point..

Re VAT that someone mentioned..
However VAT is chargeable to all EU nations. Not just the UK

@rich is vat chargable to US residents?

Empchild, no it isnt.

Saldiven wrote:

Valhallan42nd wrote:You paid what they told you they were going to charge you? Instead of some rate that you imagined you should pay?

What's the problem, then? The company offers free shipping on large orders, and charges more for smaller orders. They might not have a net profit from shipping, or they might net a small one, as those smaller orders cover the larger, expensive, cray American orders.

The issue is that a FW CSR stated that they do not profit from shipping and handling fees, when it is clear that they do.

It's a matter of being factually inaccurate with your customers.

So what? If you don't like it don't ing buy from them? gak you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little.

EDIT, meant to say
So what? If you don't like it don't ing buy from them? Gak, you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little.
a comma makes a difference

I don't believe I've ever been charged VAT on an order so not sure how other people in the US are paying the VAT plus the 15% shipping per order? Unless the VAT is included in the 15% shipping in which case it is than I guess I'll live with it. I mean, if I can scrounge up 543GBP for a complete Reaver titan I can scrounge up the extra 81 for shipping. I'm sure it doesn't cost FW $135 to ship it to the US but that's a luxury tax I'll live with.

I've only ever been charged 15%. I always convert the amount to US dollars, add 15% and barring a screwup on my part in rounding to the nearest dollar the amount is spot-on.

TheSecretSquig wrote:============================================

Thanks for your e-mail.
Here at Forge World we endeavour to provide a quality service that ensures you receive our products in the most effective way. Our team regularly review the prices we charge for shipping, and these are to cover our costs not make a profit. As you may have noticed, we offer free Express shipping on large orders and currently free standard shipping on all orders over £150 – we anticipate this to be a long-term offer that will benefit many of our customers.
You can also visit us at events such as our forthcoming Open Day here in Nottingham on March 28th, at which you can come and pick up almost anything in our range. The Open Day will also allow you to meet our entire staff including our Studio of writers, artists and sculptors, as well as to play some fantastic games and view work-in-progress models, books and artwork. The Open Day is free to attend and is a great way to save on Shipping costs.
We hope to see you there! If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate me to contact me.

=============================================

Um... is this a typo or a hidden deal? The website currently says £250.00 or more.

If they were serious about £150.00 or more that makes a huge difference to me personally. I recently placed an order for forgeworld and got hit with the 12% packing simply because I didn't feel like I wanted to save up for a 400$us order. £150 is about 250$us which I could honestly see myself saving up and placing an order that large in order to save the 12% in shipping for which I could get more product.

I think if they had a lower threshold people would place bigger orders as it is more obtainable. Instead of ordering a Big Trakk now and a Megadred 8 months from now I probably would have ordered it all together.

I don;t know if you are going to email this dude back, but ask how does one obtain the free shipping on £150.00 orders?

More on this VAT thing...

Is everyone saying that FW products should in fact be 15% cheaper than they are for US residents?

probably.

Is there a way to 'make this happen' at Forge World then?

Should I phone in the order to make sure it happens?

Frazzled wrote:

Saldiven wrote:It's a matter of being factually inaccurate with your customers.

So what? If you don't like it don't ing buy from them? gak you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little.

Ahem... Rule #1? err...

/goes to put on big girl panties

RiTides wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Saldiven wrote:It's a matter of being factually inaccurate with your customers.

So what? If you don't like it don't ing buy from them? gak you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little.

Ahem... Rule #1? err...

/goes to put on big girl panties

Hey I'm not insulting other posters, i'm saying everyone needs to man up a little bit (meant to say "gak, you people need to..." in case that was misinterpreted).

On the VAT, I thing there is legalities ivolved about charging a VAt when its not applicable. I know there were forms we could fill out for when we went to the Canadias to recoup the VAT. Uk'er international travel help would be appreciated here.

How is saying "gak, you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little" NOT insulting to other posters?

It certainly seems like a contravention of Rule #1 to me, but since you get the [MOD] stamp, I'm sure you can get away with it.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:How is saying "gak, you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little" NOT insulting to other posters?

It certainly seems like a contravention of Rule #1 to me, but since you get the [MOD] stamp, I'm sure you can get away with it.

The same way quit whining is not insulting.

nkelsch wrote:

TheSecretSquig wrote:============================================

Thanks for your e-mail.
Here at Forge World we endeavour to provide a quality service that ensures you receive our products in the most effective way. Our team regularly review the prices we charge for shipping, and these are to cover our costs not make a profit. As you may have noticed, we offer free Express shipping on large orders and currently free standard shipping on all orders over £150 – we anticipate this to be a long-term offer that will benefit many of our customers.
You can also visit us at events such as our forthcoming Open Day here in Nottingham on March 28th, at which you can come and pick up almost anything in our range. The Open Day will also allow you to meet our entire staff including our Studio of writers, artists and sculptors, as well as to play some fantastic games and view work-in-progress models, books and artwork. The Open Day is free to attend and is a great way to save on Shipping costs.
We hope to see you there! If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate me to contact me.

=============================================

Um... is this a typo or a hidden deal? The website currently says £250.00 or more.

If they were serious about £150.00 or more that makes a huge difference to me personally. I recently placed an order for forgeworld and got hit with the 12% packing simply because I didn't feel like I wanted to save up for a 400$us order. £150 is about 250$us which I could honestly see myself saving up and placing an order that large in order to save the 12% in shipping for which I could get more product.

I think if they had a lower threshold people would place bigger orders as it is more obtainable. Instead of ordering a Big Trakk now and a Megadred 8 months from now I probably would have ordered it all together.

I don;t know if you are going to email this dude back, but ask how does one obtain the free shipping on £150.00 orders?

I would love to know the certain amount as well.
The way i see it , FW isnt ripping you off , and certainly isnt over charging.

Like they clearly stated , they give FREE shipping for large order , this is balanced back via charging extra for small orders.
Reinforcing bulk deals are always nice i think.

A USA customer here. Is VAT included in the price, or does forgeworld add it to the order when checking out?

I ask because at Prince August (An Irish minatures company) it is included in the items price, and there is a box that non-eu residents can check to have their orders reduced by 17.5%. It's rather nice as it pretty much negates shipping so you can estimate your costs based on the items cost.

If it was included in the price, I'd definitely be making sure it was removed before paying out for shipping.

Here's another question. For a US buyer, would
(Forgeworld direct + shipping) - VAT
be less or more expensive than
(Forgeworld at GW store) + local tax
?

I've been eyeing a few Leman russ turrets...

VAT is included, but FW doesn't take it out for international customers. It's exra profit for them.

LunaHound- they clearly stated that they don't profit from P&P- matey just proved that they do, so unless they donate it to a charity, that makes them liars. As somebody else wrote- GW just with a different hat. I was considering ordering few bits, but seeing that I will give it a miss.

wardancer wrote:LunaHound- they clearly stated that they don't profit from P&P- matey just proved that they do, so unless they donate it to a charity, that makes them liars. As somebody else wrote- GW just with a different hat. I was considering ordering few bits, but seeing that I will give it a miss.

If you count the loss from the free shippings , how do you gather that it totals to be a profit o_o?

There is no VAT on FW goods to the US. The price on the website is the price you pay - for UK/Euro sales FW it has VAT in it, for others it doesn't it is just a higher price in effect.

So, if the advertise a piece for GBP 115.00 (assuming rate is 15%:

US Sale = 115

UK Sales (GW) = 100
VAT (to Gov) = 15

If you get a sales invoice in the US it will not say VAT included. that is just the price you pay and represent additional profit. The funny thing is the cheeky bastards then charge extra for shipping. Hilarious, no?

If you buy the same thing and you are in the UK I am willing to bet you get a VAT invoice, that states VAT number of the company and the amount of VAT.

So, they don't charge VAT to US customers as that would be illegal if they kept the money. They just charge you the same price.

I have mentioned this about 2 or 3 times on dakka in the past. Reaction is split between "get over it they are making money and its you choice to pay" and "burn them at the stake". I tackled head of FW on this about 2 years ago - after his POS reply I mentioned that although I live in US I am actually British, an accountant with VAT experience.

Personally I think it is incredible dishonest.

Frazzled wrote:On the VAT, I thing there is legalities ivolved about charging a VAt when its not applicable. I know there were forms we could fill out for when we went to the Canadias to recoup the VAT. Uk'er international travel help would be appreciated here.

I believe that the VAT is included in the price of the item at Forgeworld. So as a US customer you pay VAT on the item, plus the 12% shipping (for small orders).

I can't answer for the UK, but when I travel in Argentina (annually), they also have VAT included in their prices. At the store, you have to ask for a VAT form that you then take to a counter at the airport (I think its after customs) that you turn in, with receipts for items purchased, and they send you a check in the mail for the VAT that you were charged (basically, you pay VAT, then you get refunded VAT a couple weeks later).

However, not all stores offer the VAT refund paperwork. Most of those that do are 'mall' stores that tend to be higher end.

I'm sure UK vat is different from Argentina VAT in its execution, but I think Forgeworld gets around it since you don't actually go into their store, they don't issue you customs VAT forms (as if you traveled to the UK), and you don't go through customs.

I'd be much more likely to order forgeworld without the VAT, just on principle.

Cruentus wrote:

Frazzled wrote:On the VAT, I thing there is legalities ivolved about charging a VAt when its not applicable. I know there were forms we could fill out for when we went to the Canadias to recoup the VAT. Uk'er international travel help would be appreciated here.

I believe that the VAT is included in the price of the item at Forgeworld. So as a US customer you pay VAT on the item, plus the 12% shipping (for small orders).

I can't answer for the UK, but when I travel in Argentina (annually), they also have VAT included in their prices. At the store, you have to ask for a VAT form that you then take to a counter at the airport (I think its after customs) that you turn in, with receipts for items purchased, and they send you a check in the mail for the VAT that you were charged (basically, you pay VAT, then you get refunded VAT a couple weeks later).

However, not all stores offer the VAT refund paperwork. Most of those that do are 'mall' stores that tend to be higher end.

I'm sure UK vat is different from Argentina VAT in its execution, but I think Forgeworld gets around it since you don't actually go into their store, they don't issue you customs VAT forms (as if you traveled to the UK), and you don't go through customs.

I'd be much more likely to order forgeworld without the VAT, just on principle.

Like I said they don't charge VAT to US customers. It is the same price to UK or US customers except a portion of the UK sale goes to the government.

The price to the US is GDP 115.00 and to UK the price is GBP 115 (VAT included). Huge difference legally.

TheSecretSquig wrote:You will not receive your order in a jiffy bag or similar, as many wargames companies use, but instead firmly packed in a sturdy box

Wait what? Every time Ive gotten a FW model it has come with all of its parts inside a multitude of zip lock plastic bags... with bubble wrab around the bags (which doesnt help protect them as far as I can see) and in a card board box... Lets add more to the lie shall we? I can totally understand what you are saying so I hope you get refunded or there is some change... I recently started ordering all my stuff at my local GW anyways so I never have to deal with the shipping anyhow >.<

LunaHound- do your maths- guy wrote that he weighted the item at the post office and it came out as 2.40- FW send it by royal mail. Cost of the box and wrapping -make it 2 pounds (unlikely, but lets be generous) then it still leaves about 10 quid. Unless they pay their mailorder trolls like 50 pounds an hour (they dont) or as I mentioned before they donate this money to a charity, then them saying "we nevber profit from P&P" is simply a lie. As far as I am concerned they can stuff themselves, expecially that their prices are already a rip off without those post costs charged on top.

nkelsch wrote:I don;t know if you are going to email this dude back, but ask how does one obtain the free shipping on £150.00 orders?

It's in the latest newsletter.

Forgeworld Newsletter wrote:Starting immediately, all orders with a total product value of £150 and over will automatically qualify for free standard rate shipping anywhere in the world.
As previously, all orders with a total product value of £250 or more will automatically qualify for free Express rate shipping anywhere in the world.
Orders with a product value of less that £150 will be charged our standard rates.

jullevi wrote:

nkelsch wrote:I don;t know if you are going to email this dude back, but ask how does one obtain the free shipping on £150.00 orders?

It's in the latest newsletter.

Forgeworld Newsletter wrote:Starting immediately, all orders with a total product value of £150 and over will automatically qualify for free standard rate shipping anywhere in the world.
As previously, all orders with a total product value of £250 or more will automatically qualify for free Express rate shipping anywhere in the world.
Orders with a product value of less that £150 will be charged our standard rates.

Nice, too bad for me they couldn't be bothered to put that on the website anywhere.

Their loss. I would have coughed up some extra money to make sure 20$ of mine didn't go to the ether which would have resulted in a larger order.

Thanks for the info!

wardancer wrote:LunaHound- do your maths- guy wrote that he weighted the item at the post office and it came out as 2.40- FW send it by royal mail. Cost of the box and wrapping -make it 2 pounds (unlikely, but lets be generous) then it still leaves about 10 quid. Unless they pay their mailorder trolls like 50 pounds an hour (they dont) or as I mentioned before they donate this money to a charity, then them saying "we nevber profit from P&P" is simply a lie. As far as I am concerned they can stuff themselves, expecially that their prices are already a rip off without those post costs charged on top.

This has nothing to do with math , you arnt getting my point.

By all means im not saying that guy didnt get over charged for his small order.
Im saying it evens out for the orders that are supposed to cost like 50 GBP to ship but end up for FREE because the large order advertised.

Wait , sort of like Obama's health care for everyone isnt it?

Do enough orders come in that cost enough to take advantage of the free shipping deal?

ProtoClone wrote:Do enough orders come in that cost enough to take advantage of the free shipping deal?

I wouldnt be surprised that people do take advantage of that deals.
Especially friends or FLGS can place an order together rather easily.

On VAT
I don’t claim to be a VAT expert, but……. I’m a UK citizen, but currently I’ve been posted to Saudi Arabia for a few years as part of my job and now own a full time residency Visa for Saudi. This means, whilst I own a UK Passport, my country of residency is Saudi Arabia. I can buy anything in the UK (I did this with a Lap-Top), then, I present the receipt and the stuff I’ve bought to UK Customs in the Airport on the way out. I fill in a form and sign a declaration that the stuff I’m buying is for use in my permanent country of residence, which for the time being, is Saudi Arabia. I am then refunded my VAT. All foreign Nationals can do this if you are living outside the EU. I don’t know how it works for Mail Orders, but certainly if you hand carry your item out the country, you can claim a VAT refund. I’ve done the same when I’ve bought stuff in South America, claimed the local tax back at the airport on the way out. I’ve mail ordered to the UK from US companies, some have removed tax, some have included it.

On P&P
My beef with FW was not the P&P charge at first. It was the statement of ‘we do not profit from P&P, its at cost’, when clearly I’ve proven it isn’t at cost. The cost of packing is irrelevant, because if you picked this up at GW Notts, the same packaging is present, and they’ve not sent anything, and you still fill in a mail order form, which it still processed by FW. The only additional effort as I see it, is the box is put on a scale, its Royal Mail Franked, and put in a pile for the Royal Mail to pick up.

I feel that overcharging smaller orders by a factor of 400% is morally wrong by a company in order to sub larger orders attracting their free P&P offer. If everyone placed an order over 150GBP or picked it up in store, how does FW recover their P&P costs? Clearly this is wrong as well.

Other Stuff
I’ve placed enough orders with FW, some with free P&P, some without. Its just bad PR for a company to profit from P&P, the profit should be in the cost of the product. On Ebay you can rate a seller’s P&P costs, and on some items you list, the cost of P&P is restricted to prevent sellers from overcharging.

I believe their high P&P charges for smaller orders are there to ‘encourage’ people to spend more to get into the bracket of a higher order and to sub the cost of resending stuff out when they’ve got it wrong.

Think about this. Someone places an order for 500GBP. If, by FW’s statement, it actually costs 12% of that to post out, FW would loose 60GBP. As shrewd as GW is, I doubt they would allow one of their companies, to risk loosing that much money on an order, it would be the worse business model in the world.

Just my two pence worth (or cents for our colonial chums) - most companies that rely heavily on mail and courier services have special deals and arrangements in place because they are bulk users of a service. I'm pretty sure FW would have some sort of agreement in place; they must be heavy and regular users of the Royal Mail and other courier frims. I very much doubt they pay the same postage rates as the rest of us poor schleps and I would highly doubt they get as gouged for sending large parcels as you or I would if we went down to our local post office.

fullheadofhair wrote:There is no VAT on FW goods to the US. The price on the website is the price you pay - for UK/Euro sales FW it has VAT in it, for others it doesn't it is just a higher price in effect.

So, if the advertise a piece for GBP 115.00 (assuming rate is 15%:

US Sale = 115

UK Sales (GW) = 100
VAT (to Gov) = 15

If you get a sales invoice in the US it will not say VAT included. that is just the price you pay and represent additional profit. The funny thing is the cheeky bastards then charge extra for shipping. Hilarious, no?

If you buy the same thing and you are in the UK I am willing to bet you get a VAT invoice, that states VAT number of the company and the amount of VAT.

So, they don't charge VAT to US customers as that would be illegal if they kept the money. They just charge you the same price.

I have mentioned this about 2 or 3 times on dakka in the past. Reaction is split between "get over it they are making money and its you choice to pay" and "burn them at the stake". I tackled head of FW on this about 2 years ago - after his POS reply I mentioned that although I live in US I am actually British, an accountant with VAT experience.

Personally I think it is incredible dishonest.

Agreed. I don't buy Forgeworld.

fullheadofhair wrote:There is no VAT on FW goods to the US. The price on the website is the price you pay - for UK/Euro sales FW it has VAT in it, for others it doesn't it is just a higher price in effect.

So, if the advertise a piece for GBP 115.00 (assuming rate is 15%:

US Sale = 115

UK Sales (GW) = 100
VAT (to Gov) = 15

If you get a sales invoice in the US it will not say VAT included. that is just the price you pay and represent additional profit. The funny thing is the cheeky bastards then charge extra for shipping. Hilarious, no?

If you buy the same thing and you are in the UK I am willing to bet you get a VAT invoice, that states VAT number of the company and the amount of VAT.

So, they don't charge VAT to US customers as that would be illegal if they kept the money. They just charge you the same price.

I have mentioned this about 2 or 3 times on dakka in the past. Reaction is split between "get over it they are making money and its you choice to pay" and "burn them at the stake". I tackled head of FW on this about 2 years ago - after his POS reply I mentioned that although I live in US I am actually British, an accountant with VAT experience.

Personally I think it is incredible dishonest.

I understand what they are doing, it just doesn't seem 'right' or 'legal', but it must be, or we'd have heard about by now.

I guess...

(And I really do want all that upcoming Raven Guard stuff too...)

TheSecretSquig wrote:On VAT
I don’t claim to be a VAT expert, but……. I’m a UK citizen, but currently I’ve been posted to Saudi Arabia for a few years as part of my job and now own a full time residency Visa for Saudi. This means, whilst I own a UK Passport, my country of residency is Saudi Arabia. I can buy anything in the UK (I did this with a Lap-Top), then, I present the receipt and the stuff I’ve bought to UK Customs in the Airport on the way out. I fill in a form and sign a declaration that the stuff I’m buying is for use in my permanent country of residence, which for the time being, is Saudi Arabia. I am then refunded my VAT. All foreign Nationals can do this if you are living outside the EU. I don’t know how it works for Mail Orders, but certainly if you hand carry your item out the country, you can claim a VAT refund. I’ve done the same when I’ve bought stuff in South America, claimed the local tax back at the airport on the way out. I’ve mail ordered to the UK from US companies, some have removed tax, some have included it.

To be able to claim VAT back you have to have been charged it. US customers aren't charged VAT on web sales.

If a US person flies to UK and purchase in the US then they can claim VAT back - cannot remember rules as the have changed since I last worked in UK, but I think there is a minimum but then if you are buying at FW hitting the minimum isn't a problem.

A couple comments and questions.

1. Who here works for Forge World in their Accounting department? Anyone?

If not then you don't know what their shipping cost are. Sure you know what the RM charged, but you don't know how much it cost them to pack it. You have the labor of the guy to pack it, the taxes on his salary, the insurance on him as well. Not to mention the overhead allocated to it as well.

Your one order might not cost that much, but lets say you go and order ten different items. The cost of "handling" just went up a great deal. When they say they don't make a profit on shipping, they mean they take there total revenue form shipping subtract cost allocated to shipping and that nets to either small profit, zero profit, or loss.

2. They told you up front how much it was going to cost to ship the item to you. You agreed to that amount so they did not over charge you. You might feel ripped off, but they charged you what you agreed to pay.

jbunny wrote:A couple comments and questions.

1. Who here works for Forge World in their Accounting department? Anyone?

If not then you don't know what their shipping cost are. Sure you know what the RM charged, but you don't know how much it cost them to pack it. You have the labor of the guy to pack it, the taxes on his salary, the insurance on him as well. Not to mention the overhead allocated to it as well.

Your one order might not cost that much, but lets say you go and order ten different items. The cost of "handling" just went up a great deal. When they say they don't make a profit on shipping, they mean they take there total revenue form shipping subtract cost allocated to shipping and that nets to either small profit, zero profit, or loss.

Sorry I disagree....

The cost to pack is irrelavent, so is the labout cost of the guy who did it. If I buy the same order from GW Notts, as I've done lots of times before, or you place an order over 150, someone still picks and packs, the stuff comes in the same box and packaging, you still fill in a mail order form which is processed by the guy at FW, and you are not charged for this.

Why are you not charged? Because it is included in the cost of the product. If FW did not include all their overheads in the cost of their product, then they would have the worse business model in the world as any sale that didn't attract their P&P cost, would be a lost sale.

I didn't complain over the P&P charge. I put a comment on the Order saying I didn't believe it cost 14.65 to post my order out. The Customer services Manger (who've I've no doubt has been alerted to or read this thread) contacted me and was told that they do not profit from P&P, its at cost, it cost 14.65 to send my order out. My view is I've proved that to be incorrect. I checked with Royal Mail (the same delivery mechanism) who quoted 2.41. I cannot see any additional costs involved in sending this out to me, other than the cost of Postage, 2.41, and the 20 seconds it takes for the item wo be weighed, and the Franking machine to print the label. All the other costs, like packaging, picking, warehousing, everything else MUST be included in the cost of the Product, otherwies they would be losing money everytime and order is either collected, or sent out for free.

I'd just like to say keep it up TheSecretSquig. I think it's about time one of their customers said, 'That's more BS than I can take and I'd at least like some honesty about your profiteering.' So keep at it, I agree with you, and please keep on posting.

jbunny wrote:A couple comments and questions.

1. Who here works for Forge World in their Accounting department? Anyone?

We may not work at FW in any capacity, but we do live in the real world.

Plus, on top of that, someone has already cost this out at the RM (or some such) and it was way, way less.

It is fairly common knowledge that companies that CAN certainly WILL make quite a bit of 'shipping and handling'.

Apparently, FW is one of those companies.

Alpharius wrote:

jbunny wrote:A couple comments and questions.

1. Who here works for Forge World in their Accounting department? Anyone?

We may not work at FW in any capacity, but we do live in the real world.

Plus, on top of that, someone has already cost this out at the RM (or some such) and it was way, way less.

It is fairly common knowledge that companies that CAN certainly WILL make quite a bit of 'shipping and handling'.

Apparently, FW is one of those companies.

I do believe I addressed the cost verses the charge for shipping in my post.


Secret@ You can disagree if you want, but I have been a Cost Accountat for years. When it comes to determining cost of activities they are not as clear as customers like to believe.

It does irritate me, tbh.

If they're gonna gouge me, at least be honest about it. It's the direct lie that gets the goat, not the actual practice itself.

this is not unique to FW either, as Wargames Foundry has a similar policy of charging a "inside UK with VAT" and "outside UK with price strangely the same as with VAT"

On top of that they have seperate prices for USD and Euros so as to to profit from exchange rate swings (always a profit, the prices go up when values decline)

Okay, here is the legal situation regarding VAT which I reseached through my company's Employee Assistance Programme.

Regarding Mail Order from outside the EU, there is no legal obligation to refund the VAT. The selling company needs to have voluntarily joined the scheme by registering with Customs and Excise. This would let them sell the goods to non-EU residents with VAT deducted. If they don't do this, the VAT has to be charged.

It seems Forge World have not joined the scheme so they charge the VAT and pass it on to the UK tax authorities.

I am slightly surprised Forge World haven't joined since as small a company as Baccus 6mm does not charge VAT on overseas orders.

www.baccus6mm.com

Perhaps a campaign by overseas customers would help convince Forge World to register.

Kilkrazy wrote:Okay, here is the legal situation regarding VAT which I reseached through my company's Employee Assistance Programme.

Regarding Mail Order from outside the EU, there is no legal obligation to refund the VAT. The selling company needs to have voluntarily joined the scheme by registering with Customs and Excise. This would let them sell the goods to non-EU residents with VAT deducted. If they don't do this, the VAT has to be charged.

It seems Forge World have not joined the scheme so they charge the VAT and pass it on to the UK tax authorities.

I am slightly surprised Forge World haven't joined since as small a company as Baccus 6mm does not charge VAT on overseas orders.

www.baccus6mm.com

Perhaps a campaign by overseas customers would help convince Forge World to register.

Sounds like a plan to me!

I'll send them an e-mail and post the reply here, if I receive one...

Its part of their business model to create extra margin from shipping. And means their store will get larger orders than they otherwise would wih the free shipping threshold.

Killkrazy..
Voluntarily joined what scheme for mail order.. erm I think you might be confused. It is the normal VAT rules for sales in and out of VAT able areas.. no special scheme required. Just proof of delivery outside of Europe. There might be one for retailers offering VAT reclaim forms at pos or in store which a few larger stores (Harrods for example) has. Or at least did have.

Pfft, securely packed...they're idea of "securely packed" is tossing all of the extremely fragile, worth their weight in gold and then some pieces of resin loosely into a bag, throwing that bag into a box, and then placing exactly one layer of bubblewrap on top of it.

Or at least, that's what it looks like judging from the packages I've gotten from them. Needless to say I thought that was pretty damn annoying when my barracuda showed up like that, which at the time was over $120 just by itself. But oh no, they don't just ship their models out in a plain plastic bag like "other" wargame companies, eh?

rich1231 wrote:Its part of their business model to create extra margin from shipping. And means their store will get larger orders than they otherwise would wih the free shipping threshold.

Killkrazy..
Voluntarily joined what scheme for mail order.. erm I think you might be confused. It is the normal VAT rules for sales in and out of VAT able areas.. no special scheme required. Just proof of delivery outside of Europe. There might be one for retailers offering VAT reclaim forms at pos or in store which a few larger stores (Harrods for example) has. Or at least did have.

According to the legal team on my company's Employee Assistance Programme it is like I posted above.

There is no automatic VAT refund or exemption, the selling company has to join the scheme voluntarily.

Kilkrazy wrote:

rich1231 wrote:Its part of their business model to create extra margin from shipping. And means their store will get larger orders than they otherwise would wih the free shipping threshold.

Killkrazy..
Voluntarily joined what scheme for mail order.. erm I think you might be confused. It is the normal VAT rules for sales in and out of VAT able areas.. no special scheme required. Just proof of delivery outside of Europe. There might be one for retailers offering VAT reclaim forms at pos or in store which a few larger stores (Harrods for example) has. Or at least did have.

According to the legal team on my company's Employee Assistance Programme it is like I posted above.

There is no automatic VAT refund or exemption, the selling company has to join the scheme voluntarily.

This is all irrelevant though, is it not? fullheadofhair has already explained what FW are doing; they arent charging VAT to non EU customers at all - hence why they dont need to declare it or sign opt out forms or whatever. What they are doing is effectively charging more to Non EU customers because the 17.5% portion of the cost that would normally go to the taxman is going into FW's pocket instead.

And really, I can see why Forgeworld doesn't (as much as I don't like it!), but their 'free shipping' threshold ought to be a bit lower too...

Alpharius wrote:And really, I can see why Forgeworld doesn't (as much as I don't like it!), but their 'free shipping' threshold ought to be a bit lower too...

and this is why I don't buy from FW. I mean, not only are they sticking the shaft by having a VERY high margin because of an additional 15% on US sales but the cheeky buggers charge (or used to) a higher shipping %age for being oversea. Man, that is REALLY taking the piss.

It isn't illegal, but it is borderline immoral IMHO

KillKrazy

I would respectfully suggest your employers "legal" team speak to HMRC to clarify.
If VAT has not ben itemised there is nothing to reclaim.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:How is saying "gak, you people need to put your big girl panties on and man up a little" NOT insulting to other posters?

It certainly seems like a contravention of Rule #1 to me, but since you get the [MOD] stamp, I'm sure you can get away with it.

What I have learned from Frazzled is that you can insult someone as long as you think that what they are talking about is complaining. This should cover you for about 50% of all posts in News&Rumors and Discussion.

fullheadofhair wrote:

Alpharius wrote:And really, I can see why Forgeworld doesn't (as much as I don't like it!), but their 'free shipping' threshold ought to be a bit lower too...

and this is why I don't buy from FW. I mean, not only are they sticking the shaft by having a VERY high margin because of an additional 15% on US sales but the cheeky buggers charge (or used to) a higher shipping %age for being oversea. Man, that is REALLY taking the piss.

It isn't illegal, but it is borderline immoral IMHO

Yeah, FW has some pretty shady practices. Overcharging on shipping/VAT charging the US, on top of already not-so-awesome customer service and quality control. I have bought a few FW pieces in my time but I would never consider buying a significant amount of their stuff.

LunaHound wrote:

wardancer wrote:LunaHound- they clearly stated that they don't profit from P&P- matey just proved that they do, so unless they donate it to a charity, that makes them liars. As somebody else wrote- GW just with a different hat. I was considering ordering few bits, but seeing that I will give it a miss.

If you count the loss from the free shippings , how do you gather that it totals to be a profit o_o?

They stated they don't make a profit from shipping. Have you guys considered they were talking about shipping OVERALL? They don't make a profit on shipping because they offer free shipping on all the big stuff. So...from a business persepective, they do NOT make a profit on shipping. They may make extra on the small orders but they are losing big on the big orders.

filbert wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

rich1231 wrote:Its part of their business model to create extra margin from shipping. And means their store will get larger orders than they otherwise would wih the free shipping threshold.

Killkrazy..
Voluntarily joined what scheme for mail order.. erm I think you might be confused. It is the normal VAT rules for sales in and out of VAT able areas.. no special scheme required. Just proof of delivery outside of Europe. There might be one for retailers offering VAT reclaim forms at pos or in store which a few larger stores (Harrods for example) has. Or at least did have.

According to the legal team on my company's Employee Assistance Programme it is like I posted above.

There is no automatic VAT refund or exemption, the selling company has to join the scheme voluntarily.

This is all irrelevant though, is it not? fullheadofhair has already explained what FW are doing; they arent charging VAT to non EU customers at all - hence why they dont need to declare it or sign opt out forms or whatever. What they are doing is effectively charging more to Non EU customers because the 17.5% portion of the cost that would normally go to the taxman is going into FW's pocket instead.

As I understand it they are charging VAT. That is why when VAT went down to 15% they generously knocked 2.5% off the overseas price.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

rich1231 wrote:KillKrazy

I would respectfully suggest your employers "legal" team speak to HMRC to clarify.
If VAT has not ben itemised there is nothing to reclaim.

VAT is not normally itemised within UK retail receipts but shops which have joined the scheme can and will do so on request, in order to facilitate the refund. An example would be Harrods.

FW haven't joined the scheme and do not offer the chance to get a refund.

Retailers are obliged to provide VAT receipts where asked. Its not some special situation.

The reason FW dont show VAT is because they show
Inclusive prices. When a EU customer orders the VAT is itemised (or should be) when its a rest of world customer they dont itemsise the VAT and keep it as extra margin.

It is nothing to do with any scheme whatsoever.

ph34r wrote:What I have learned from Frazzled is that you can insult someone as long as you think that what they are talking about is complaining. This should cover you for about 50% of all posts in News&Rumors and Discussion.

You're just jealous because all the voices talk to me!

Fullheadofhair has helped me understand this VAT issue. It's the same price no matter which way you cut it "BUT" for all euro, and UK sales FW itself has to spill out more of their profits to the GOV'T no different then say a retailer switching from GW to Alliance for GW products. They still get the same product and charge the same price, but just make less profit margine. Ergo I am sure FW takes this into consideration when they create their prices knowing that they loose out on some sales and as such may up the price to insure not a heavy loss. No one is paying more then the other and no one is paying another nations taxes.

jbunny wrote:
2. They told you up front how much it was going to cost to ship the item to you. You agreed to that amount so they did not over charge you. You might feel ripped off, but they charged you what you agreed to pay.

I think opinion plays out here, you may not feel that paying beyond actual cost (when told you were paying COST and nothing more), isn't being overcharge. The OP feels different.

In essence he was overcharged as he was told he would be paying COST, when he very clearly isn't.

TheSecretSquig wrote:I thought I'd share a little email exchange with you all I've had with the Forgeworld Customer Services Manager (I'll remove all names, just leave titles). I recently ordered some stuff, to which the P&P cost came to 14.65 or 12% of my Order. In the box where you can enter the '1 Forgeworld Model to be made' request, I put in "Free P&P, because lets be honest, to post what I've bought isn't going to cost 14.65". Surprisingly, I received the following email from Forgeworld............

===========================================
Hi,

Thanks for placing the above order. To explain our shipping costs, an order within the UK is charged 12% of the total value of the order in shipping and handling, as we endeavour to ensure that our orders are packed in such a way as to minimise any potential for damage in transit.
You will not receive your order in a jiffy bag or similar, as many wargames companies use, but instead firmly packed in a sturdy box. Note that resin kits are often heavy, and as you are no doubt aware the weight of a parcel also affects the postage cost.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Customer Service Manager,Forge World

===========================================

So when the box arrived, I took it to the Royal Mail Office, and was quoted 2.41 to post it First Class (the same method as FW) to anywhere in the UK. I emailed the Customer Service Manager back.......

===========================================

Thanks for your reply. I waited until I had recieved my order before replying. I took the parcel to the Post Office and had it weighed and quoted for First Class Post to anywhere in the UK .
2.41 GBP. Quite a large difference to the +14.00 GBP charged by Forgeworld. I can't see how a small box and bubble wrap or even the 2 mins of labour could cost +11.00 GBP, so my original comment still stands. It does not cost 14.00 to send out my Forgeworld Order to me.
A GW mail Order is free shipping over 50GBP. Malestrom Games send out all their items, including resin, P&P is free, and they are in a sturdy box, padded with bubble wrap, just like Forgeworld.
Seeing as I have now proven the Forgeworld have overcharged me for P&P by a factor of +400% on this order, please feel free to refund me or send me some Vouchers. Your email below suggests you feel Forgeworld do not overcharge on P&P, clearly you do.
Thanks

============================================

And surprisingly, I recieved a reply........................

============================================

Thanks for your e-mail.
Here at Forge World we endeavour to provide a quality service that ensures you receive our products in the most effective way. Our team regularly review the prices we charge for shipping, and these are to cover our costs not make a profit. As you may have noticed, we offer free Express shipping on large orders and currently free standard shipping on all orders over £150 – we anticipate this to be a long-term offer that will benefit many of our customers.
You can also visit us at events such as our forthcoming Open Day here in Nottingham on March 28th, at which you can come and pick up almost anything in our range. The Open Day will also allow you to meet our entire staff including our Studio of writers, artists and sculptors, as well as to play some fantastic games and view work-in-progress models, books and artwork. The Open Day is free to attend and is a great way to save on Shipping costs.
We hope to see you there! If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate me to contact me.

=============================================

So I have contacted FW, and I will take the matter higher when I'm at the next shareholders meeting. I've pointed out that the packing box and wrap it part of the cost of the product, as if you buy it direct from GW HQ, it comes in that box without any additinal charges. As a company they can charge whatever they like for P&P, but to blatently lie to a customer and claim their P&P charges are at cost, when I've proven they are out by a factor of +400% in their favour (in this instance), is what rattles me. Quote from the email above "cover our costs not make a profit". Does anyone else think this is a lie, or is it me?

He would have been better not to reply to me, rather than dig this rather large hole for himself. In trying to convince me in the truth of a lie, he's actually made it worse.

Bravo! I commend you sir! You represent a ray of hope in a world where most the gene pool is about as deep as a spittoon. I whole-heartedly wish more people would challenge things in the manner you did, and you did it with such class and cunning!

That being said... I really hope you win your case, if you are truly a stockholder and are able to attend the next shareholder's meeting I would love to hear the results of you bringing up your experience... if you can't try and sherlock-google to get the Email of a higher-up at gw, make sure to CC the respective Better Buisness Bureau (Or your country's equivalent) to let the Executive know you are serious.

one moment please

As for all the people claiming that the Postage is justified because of the "Large Order". Clearly you have never worked in a retail marketing environment... Take forinstance a GW Employee, lets say you get an Employee discount of 25% (Or the preferred plan corperate discount of 50%). GW is still making a profit off of your sales or else they would not be selling the product off of you. That means every PENNY of a normal sale is THAT much more in profit for the company (Meaning for example, GW could afford to sell Rhinoes at 15$ each, but instead, every 30$ rhino is 15$ more profit then whatever the margin is on the preffered discount). I used to work at bestbuy, and not even looking at the ~90% I got off of certain products (Like HDMI cables that would retail for 110-85$, I would get for around 10$) I was also the Apple Expert. Apple is a consumer based company like GW. What that means is that the profit margin for Apple products is so high, it would make your nose bleed if you put it in Feet (or Meters for you metric folks) and stood on top of it... for example... the iMac 24" model retails for around ~1800$ (for the most high end) and the 20 Inch around ~1200. I had a friend who was buying our old iMacs. Bestbuy cannot change the price of an apple to lower then around a 20% profit margin for apple, as apple has some weird deal with bestbuy in which they are actually 'renting' out retail space and 'sharing' the profit with us. (So Apple techinically still owns the computers in our store until we sell them, and split the profits with BB on like a 30-70 ratio IIRC). So that means, lets say every dollar after 1000 (on the 1800$ model) was profit (80% profit margin) I would not be allowed to sell the computer for 1200. Now, if this were the margin (which is still about 2x that of a high end PC/Laptop that would cost the same price range) I probably would not have a very good example.... so let me tell you what the actual price was... I was able to sell him both iMacs (20 and 24Inch) at a COMBINED price of 900$ (INCLUDING abour 180$ worth of Service plans, which are pure bestbuy profit)... this means that 20% price-profit on a 24 inch Imac is around ~500, and the same on the 20inch is ~300... thats a ton of profit! Kinda puts the whole "Free ipod touch when you buy a 2800 Mac Book pro(Which you don't even want to know the profit margin on that... lets just say I could sell it for LESS then the 24" iMac...)" deal into perspective...

Now, why would I bring this up? Because some companies, especially "consumer based" companies, make astronomical profit margins... especially on their more expensive items. So when you think about it, giving free shipping on any order over 150GBP not only makes sense, but is at least somewhat reasonable. Given the 60GBP shpping example, I don't think GW or FW cares about "sucking the loss" even of an amount that high, when they are making most likely 6-700% profit on the actual order... keep in mind, Profit is NOT revenue, profit is AFTER they factor in the shipping*, labor, parts and other misc costs. Let me state that again, PROFIT is AFTER they factor in SHIPPING, labor, parts, and OTHER MISC COSTS. So realistically, based on the price of the item, ALL FW orders should be free shipping, as a Consumer Based company, they are already making TONS of money on their product itself.

Charging smaller orders to pay for the "free" shipping on larger orders is a terrible buisness plan, especially for a CBC. But then again, thats not what they are doing... what they are doing seems to be terribly more malicious, they are trying to pinch MORE profit out of a market, probably due to the fear of it dying. (Completely Unjustified, as 2009 was GWs best fiscal year in a while IIRC) People like TSS are godsends, especially to hobbiests like us, that more people should learn from example. Because in the end, to be totally honest, these people also HELP the industry and CBCs like GW stay alive, the global economy, especially in the Retail world, is heading towards a Customer-Service industry. Socionomics shows that tools like these messageboards, Facebook, twitter, and just word of mouth are more supportive to a company then any advertisement, or even quality of product. If places like GW/FW don't learn from their mistakes, they WILL be left in the dust by someone who does get it right, or more likely (and much more ironically) when a virtual medium of their product becomes successful (w40k mmo). The same thing almost killed Magic the Gathering and Wizards of the Coast (thus people switching to online versions of that game) when they were hiking up profits (raising booster pack costs, starter and structure deck prices etc) and hopefully GW will go the way of a successful buisness, and not a dying giant.

Sorry for the rant, but hopefully, if nothing else, you have learned something!
-DAR

Kilkrazy wrote:

As I understand it they are charging VAT. That is why when VAT went down to 15% they generously knocked 2.5% off the overseas price.


VAT is not normally itemised within UK retail receipts but shops which have joined the scheme can and will do so on request, in order to facilitate the refund. An example would be Harrods.

FW haven't joined the scheme and do not offer the chance to get a refund.

No, you are wrong - as I said I may live in the US but I am English and I am an accountant with VAT experience which is why I had the email exchange with head of FW. He stated they don't charge VAT on US sales.

If in England you issue and invoice or receipt it has to have the company's VAT number. Here is the very basic theory. The amount you of VAT you pay the gov is the net of inbound (what people charge you) and outbound (what you charge the customer). If you are making a profit, in theory you always end up paying the government because the total inbound costs should be less that you total outbound revenue!

If the invoice you receive doesn't have a VAT number on it you cannot deduct from you inbound VAT. Also, in memory serves me correctly, by law you cannot charge VAT unless you put your company's VAT registration number on the invoice or receipt. FW invoices overseas do not have FW VAT number on the them - I dug out an old number.

As to your comment about the reduction in VAT, you are not right there either - FW charges one price (unlike the old days). By reducing the VAT rate on English sales we in the US also benefited from the drop. But don't think it was alturistic - one, they would have had to change their website to maintain mutliple prices and two, how odd would it have looked if they reduced UK prices becuase of VAT (drop to 15%) but then kept the US prices at the 17.5% included rate.

Don't know how to put, but the points you are raising are wrong factually as well as to how FW operates. I know this because of my knowledge of VAT and the fact I had this very same argument with them already. It caught head of FW by surprise - and as he said they really didn't expect someone with indepth VAT knowledge living in the US to start asking questiosn.

to the OP:

as someone who works in an internet mail order business, it sounds like you are just whining about shipping costs that you could have not paid by simply not ordering.


They have to pay the postal service, they have to pay warehouse workers, they have to pay customer service agents to deal with whiney customers who could have just not purchased something as opposed to wasting time+money on something as small as a few dollars to cover costs.

Games workshop and forgeworld are luxury companies, they do not produce anything that you cannot live without, you paid the price then expected a refund after the fact, this is just ridiculous. its so ridiculous its...

Demogerg wrote: you paid the price then expected a refund after the fact, this is just ridiculous.

No, if you read the entire post, he expected a refund because he was LIED to by that same CSR who "has to deal with whiny customers".

First off, if thats what you think a CSR department is for, then your Internet Mail Order Business probably won't last (or your position isnt in any sort of leadership, as every company knows, the CSR department is the heart of a company), but all that aside, you should at least know (as an employee of an "internet mail order business") is that #1. You should typically be paying LESS then a residential postage amount and #2 The cost of the product itself factors into the Warehouse workers, CSRs, and any Postal Contracts they hold. It wouldn't go into an inflation of the Shipping price.

The CSR said that FW does not try to make ANY (that means 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of ANY Currency) profit off of the shipping, sent the package to the OP, and the OP prooved by price-checking a return trip on postage, that the CSR was LYING. Thus the (deservedly) requested refund.

The thread would be more informative, if people took a moment to take GW/FW off the pedestal and realise that they are being robbed. If they want to claim to be a Luxury Vendor, they should add the price (the 12GBP as it is in this situation) to the price of the model and not overcharge for shipping, what they are doing is called Bait-and-Switch(A form of False Advertising), in the states, that is illegal... I'm not sure how UK law works on that.

Daemon-Archon wrote:

Demogerg wrote: you paid the price then expected a refund after the fact, this is just ridiculous.

No, if you read the entire post, he expected a refund because he was LIED to by that same CSR who "has to deal with whiny customers".

First off, if thats what you think a CSR department is for, then your Internet Mail Order Business probably won't last (or your position isnt in any sort of leadership, as every company knows, the CSR department is the heart of a company), but all that aside, you should at least know (as an employee of an "internet mail order business") is that #1. You should typically be paying LESS then a residential postage amount and #2 The cost of the product itself factors into the Warehouse workers, CSRs, and any Postal Contracts they hold. It wouldn't go into an inflation of the Shipping price.

The CSR said that FW does not try to make ANY (that means 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of ANY Currency) profit off of the shipping, sent the package to the OP, and the OP prooved by price-checking a return trip on postage, that the CSR was LYING. Thus the (deservedly) requested refund.

The thread would be more informative, if people took a moment to take GW/FW off the pedestal and realise that they are being robbed. If they want to claim to be a Luxury Vendor, they should add the price (the 12GBP as it is in this situation) to the price of the model and not overcharge for shipping, what they are doing is called Bait-and-Switch(A form of False Advertising), in the states, that is illegal... I'm not sure how UK law works on that.

The internet mail order business I work for has been operating online since the early 90's and the parent company has been around for over 100 years, doing phone and catalog mail order for who-knows how long.
the reason businesses dont add the cost (12 GBP in this sitatuation) to the item itself is because if you purchase over a certain value of the items, (150 in this case i believe) then they dont charge you shipping at all, and you save a bucket of money, if they added the cost to each individual item, then the number of large order decreases, and the number of small, time consuming order increases. They are rewarding customers who purchase in bulk, not punishing customers who order small.

This also has nothing to do with putting GW/FW on a pedestal, they are operating a standard mailorder business model.

Bait and Switch would be misleading the customer with false information, the customer in this case was fully aware of how much they were being charged for shipping, if they had a problem with that then they should bring that up BEFORE ordering.

So the long and the short of it is...in the UK the Forgeworld prices displayed are inclusive of VAT and you get a receipt that breaks down the cost of the item and the VAT and that adds up to the displayed price on the website. The website price is also charged as a flat raten to US customers, but instead of giving them the cost of the item minus VAT, they bill them the UK price inclusive of VAT but simply don't show this on the bill, the basic price of the item is declared to be the same as the advertised price and the VAT conveniently disappears making the US and UK prices identical.

GW do quite nicely from this then, because they effectively charge the VAT to US customers but don't pass it on to the government, because they don't actually call it VAT on the receipt. They just bill US customers the UK price and keep the difference. They get around it by simply not acknowledging the VAT on the recipt. Correct??

That's a fairly dirty trick if so because the advertised price on the UK site is supposed to include VAT that US citizens shouldn't be paying. I don't know about the legality of it though.

derek wrote:

jbunny wrote:
2. They told you up front how much it was going to cost to ship the item to you. You agreed to that amount so they did not over charge you. You might feel ripped off, but they charged you what you agreed to pay.

I think opinion plays out here, you may not feel that paying beyond actual cost (when told you were paying COST and nothing more), isn't being overcharge. The OP feels different.

In essence he was overcharged as he was told he would be paying COST, when he very clearly isn't.

No it's a matter of people not fully understanding direct and indirect cost of shipping.

Direct cost - The cost RM chrages, the cost of bubble wrap, the labor cost of the guy packing the model.

Indirect cost - Cost of building, power to the building, Cost of insurnace on building.

Now I don't know how they allocate cost to shipping, but I assure you it is not just the cost the RM chrages. So until you can give me a complete break out of all of there charges and then tell me they are over charging, you arejust speculating.

jbunny wrote:

No it's a matter of people not fully understanding direct and indirect cost of shipping.

Direct cost - The cost RM chrages, the cost of bubble wrap, the labor cost of the guy packing the model.

Indirect cost - Cost of building, power to the building, Cost of insurnace on building.

Direct Costs
- The Cost RM charges: in this case, ~3gbp
- The cost of Bubble wrap: for the typical model, probably less the the cost of data to store the transaction txt.file...
- The cost of Labor: Assuming he makes 5GBP and hour, ~0.09GBP

Indirect Costs
Cost of building - Assuming you mean the FW building, again that should be calculated into the price of the Product, not the shipping, if you mean the Shipping building, that should be calculated into the ~3gbp it costs to ship.
Power of building - Same as above. Also to add, FW will required the building regaurdless of your order and does not stay open past normal business hours just to ship your order, so your particular order's shipping being factored into building cost makes 0 sense.
Insurance of building - Same as above.

If anything the only Indirect costs for the SHIPPING would be things like packaging, shipping insurance, etc. However none of these were mentioned nor should they at all be even close to the 14GBP that was charged for the item. If the above were considered in every postage stamp ever then it would cost ~10GBP per promotional mailing/magazine/just about anything, that you ever recieved in the mail... seeing that most promotional mail items are mailed for free (and usually at the dismay of the recipient. aka spam) I don't think FW has much ground to stand on for the 14GBP shipping rate...

Daemon-Archon wrote:

jbunny wrote:

No it's a matter of people not fully understanding direct and indirect cost of shipping.

Direct cost - The cost RM chrages, the cost of bubble wrap, the labor cost of the guy packing the model.

Indirect cost - Cost of building, power to the building, Cost of insurnace on building.

Direct Costs
- The Cost RM charges: in this case, ~3gbp
- The cost of Bubble wrap: for the typical model, probably less the the cost of data to store the transaction txt.file...
- The cost of Labor: Assuming he makes 5GBP and hour, ~0.09GBP

Indirect Costs
Cost of building - Assuming you mean the FW building, again that should be calculated into the price of the Product, not the shipping, if you mean the Shipping building, that should be calculated into the ~3gbp it costs to ship.
Power of building - Same as above. Also to add, FW will required the building regaurdless of your order and does not stay open past normal business hours just to ship your order, so your particular order's shipping being factored into building cost makes 0 sense.
Insurance of building - Same as above.

If anything the only Indirect costs for the SHIPPING would be things like packaging, shipping insurance, etc. However none of these were mentioned nor should they at all be even close to the 14GBP that was charged for the item. If the above were considered in every postage stamp ever then it would cost ~10GBP per promotional mailing/magazine/just about anything, that you ever recieved in the mail... seeing that most promotional mail items are mailed for free (and usually at the dismay of the recipient. aka spam) I don't think FW has much ground to stand on for the 14GBP shipping rate...

I disagree, the indirect cost of running a mail order business remains the same weather you order $1000 worth of product or $10, to increase the cost of the product to cover the static overhead cost of the business would be a foolish move, insted they offer a shipping price based on their cost, and offer FREE shipping if you order over a certain amount, because the profit margin of the product then covers the cost of shipping.

Daemon@

Where did you get your accounting degree from? Just wonderign where your expertise on Cost Accounting comes from. Personally, I graduated from the Number 15 school for accounting according to US News and Reports. I have been doing accounting for several years, most of which as a cost account. While not an expert, I know what I am talking about.

As far as shipping, it is a common practice for manufactoring companies to portion of thier shipping done after normal business hours because it gives the plants time to complete orders. Otherwise you might have shipping just standing around waiting on orders to be completed. I worked 4 years in the shipping /Receiving for a large manufactoring company while in college.

While I do not know how GW allocates cost for shipping, I do know how other companies allocate indirect cost. If shipping is a major (in terms of energy not money) section of the business, then you allocate a portion of indirect and fixed cost to it. I don't think Forge World has to many POS locations where you can walk up and buy direct, so shipping is a major Cost center.

Just to give you another leason, Forge World should have equipment that is only used in the shipping process. Things like Packing Stations, Pick Trucks for reasching items on high shelves*, scales, Tape dispensors. The cost of those items could be broken down on a per package shipped basis,and is therefor a cost to ship.

* Not sure have never been to their warehouse before, but this would be used in a lot of operatings.

Alpharius wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Okay, here is the legal situation regarding VAT which I reseached through my company's Employee Assistance Programme.

Regarding Mail Order from outside the EU, there is no legal obligation to refund the VAT. The selling company needs to have voluntarily joined the scheme by registering with Customs and Excise. This would let them sell the goods to non-EU residents with VAT deducted. If they don't do this, the VAT has to be charged.

It seems Forge World have not joined the scheme so they charge the VAT and pass it on to the UK tax authorities.

I am slightly surprised Forge World haven't joined since as small a company as Baccus 6mm does not charge VAT on overseas orders.

www.baccus6mm.com

Perhaps a campaign by overseas customers would help convince Forge World to register.

Sounds like a plan to me!

I'll send them an e-mail and post the reply here, if I receive one...

I'd love to hear the results of this, if you get a reply back!

RiTides wrote:

Alpharius wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Okay, here is the legal situation regarding VAT which I reseached through my company's Employee Assistance Programme.

Regarding Mail Order from outside the EU, there is no legal obligation to refund the VAT. The selling company needs to have voluntarily joined the scheme by registering with Customs and Excise. This would let them sell the goods to non-EU residents with VAT deducted. If they don't do this, the VAT has to be charged.

It seems Forge World have not joined the scheme so they charge the VAT and pass it on to the UK tax authorities.

I am slightly surprised Forge World haven't joined since as small a company as Baccus 6mm does not charge VAT on overseas orders.

www.baccus6mm.com

Perhaps a campaign by overseas customers would help convince Forge World to register.

Sounds like a plan to me!

I'll send them an e-mail and post the reply here, if I receive one...

I'd love to hear the results of this, if you get a reply back!

Wow, this thread has caught my interest, particularly this part. I have been putting off a Forgeworld order due to the price+ shipping for a bit now. Waiting on my taxes and sneaking it past the wife. Now if only some person would make a website to petition FW with signatures to participate in this. Someone...anyone....do it for us lazy people with no web skills?

A few things to think about. Say if they do charge the "appropriate" price for shipping , where do you suggest they
take the amount to cover for the free shipping on large orders?
Do you want:

a) Everyone pay for appropriate shipping , no more Free Shippings.

b) Keep free shipping on large order , charge appropriate shipping on small order , raise price on product to cover for free shipping.

Im sure FW and like most of companies prefer large batch per order to ship , then having to deal with small $15 purchases.

Demogerg wrote:
I disagree, the indirect cost of running a mail order business remains the same weather you order $1000 worth of product or $10, to increase the cost of the product to cover the static overhead cost of the business would be a foolish move, insted they offer a shipping price based on their cost, and offer FREE shipping if you order over a certain amount, because the profit margin of the product then covers the cost of shipping.

@Demogerg, no I don't think that makes anysense, given the fact that the CRS specifically mentions coming to the "Grand opening" of the FW store to recieve products wihout the 14GBP Cost associated. If the indirect costs are static and they are compensated in the price of shipping, then they are effectively losing money on every purchase made in there upcoming FW Store. Also, thats not calculating at ALL the price of retail space, store associate salary, and all the same "indirect costs" that will be added come this new store...

Also, its the actual SHIPPING cost and not the cost of the product at question. I am saying "They have these indirect costs, these costs ARE ALREADY incorperated into the price of the product and should not be justification for charing more for shipping then the actual act and costs therein of SHIPPING the product." and the opposing arguement is "Clearly FW has no idea how to appropriate revenue properly and therefor should be associating building and labor costs into a corperate shipping environment in the form of an inflated shipping fee."

jbunny wrote:Daemon@

Where did you get your accounting degree from? Just wonderign where your expertise on Cost Accounting comes from. Personally, I graduated from the Number 15 school for accounting according to US News and Reports. I have been doing accounting for several years, most of which as a cost account. While not an expert, I know what I am talking about.

This is a pissing contest you do not want to start, what I will say is that my current position for the DoD requires an SCI for Business Sensitive and Classified Information in the RDA side of the govenment. (Basically, we handle lots and lots of money), and my neighbor/ride into work is the Comptroller (Clearly your experience in accounting tells you of what that position entails)

jbunny wrote:
As far as shipping, it is a common practice for manufactoring companies to portion of thier shipping done after normal business hours because it gives the plants time to complete orders. Otherwise you might have shipping just standing around waiting on orders to be completed. I worked 4 years in the shipping /Receiving for a large manufactoring company while in college.

What?!?! Name one company that does this as a "best practice". The amount of overtime and costs ensued for violation of contract with utility companies as well as labor codes and standards would NEVER be worth the risk of such a petty order of even an amount totaling over 9,000$.... Unless your business is so small scale that the President, Accountant, Legal Team, Laborer, and primary POC for Sales and Marketing is the same person (aka Mom & Pop shop) you would have to be out of your mind to incur such risks for such a small payout...

jbunny wrote:
While I do not know how GW allocates cost for shipping, I do know how other companies allocate indirect cost. If shipping is a major (in terms of energy not money) section of the business, then you allocate a portion of indirect and fixed cost to it. I don't think Forge World has to many POS locations where you can walk up and buy direct, so shipping is a major Cost center.

See the above regarding Cost of Shipping and the CSRs own words and reccomendation on having TSS attending the FW Grand Opening to buy models "shipping free"...

jbunny wrote:
Just to give you another leason, Forge World should have equipment that is only used in the shipping process. Things like Packing Stations, Pick Trucks for reasching items on high shelves*, scales, Tape dispensors. The cost of those items could be broken down on a per package shipped basis,and is therefor a cost to ship.

* Not sure have never been to their warehouse before, but this would be used in a lot of operatings.

Again, now you are just trying to pull a bunny out of a hat (pardon my pun). There is no magic costs associated into shipping thats on a per package basis. The crane costs the same if GW/FW ships one Titan or 1,000,000 Titans. The Stockroom crew gets paid by the hour, not commissioned on how many Medusa kits they sell. To even assume that costs such as these are distributed on a "per order" basis is naive with best of intentions, purposefully ignorant with the worst.

Its a clear case of deception on FWs end, plain and simple.

Daemon-Archon wrote:
Its a clear case of deception on FWs end, plain and simple.

They told you how much it would cost YOU to have their package shipped out to you, you paid that cost.

now you flame and rave about deception, when you agreed to pay the shipping cost they presented to you.

I fail to see how there is any deception at all going on here, just some guy, on the internet, complaining about high shipping costs.

I think we can all move along, nothing to see here.

Well have your neighbor chime in and we can talk.

The company I use to work for had us Shipping/Receiving guys start at 3 in the afternoon and then work an 8 hour day. Not sure how that even comes close to violating labor laws, or contacts with utilites, and it was not for one order. It was for all orders shipped that day. So I don't know what "risk" are being incurred.
Another company I worked for had two shipping shifts, a day crew and a night crew. Both of these companies had Gross sales in the $25-$35 Million range so they were no Mom and Pop stores.

The email said to come to their "Open Day" which is like a Forge World version of Games day. It is not a Grand Opening. But it is a way of buying direct with no shipping cost.

I will give you another quick leason on accounting for indirect cost. Lets say your total fixed cost for shipping is $100. You will then forcast how much in shipping sales you will have and then allocate on that bases. So if you plan to have shipping sales of $1000 then you would allocate 1/10th of the cost to every dollar shipped. So if you shipped $900 you would allocate $90 of cost to that order.

Of course I used simple numbers to show the concept. One thing I would hope is that FW does a very good job of forcasting their cost, as well as the amount they ship. The allocation of shipping cost is only applied to ordered ship, so selling at Games Day does not cause them to lose money.

You are right in that a crane cost the same if they ship 1 item or 1000 items. However, FW should have a good forcast of how much they are going to ship for a given year and allocate based on that projection. Some times they are under and they "lose" money, and sometimes they are over and they make money. By lose I mean they do not fully recoup all cost for shipping.

It is a clear case of you not understanding proper allocation of cost in an industry that focuses on Shipped goods rather than POS. (Point of Sale ie retail stores)

And you never answered my question of where did you get your degree. you might work with lots of money but that does not mean you understand Cost accounting. I have had bosses that did not fully understand my job. Of course they understood cost allocation, but they deferred to me on a lot of issues.

jbunny wrote:
Of course I used simple numbers to show the concept.

The example is too simple to be of use. Determining shipping rates is an art as well as science - and shipping people who understand this are worth their weight in gold.

There is absolutely no way that somewhere around GDP10 represents overhead.


p.s don't be that guy that brags about where you got your degree from. I am met way to many educated idiots in my 21 years as an accountant to put faith in a degree or MBA - Knowledge supported by extensive experience is the only thing I trust. When I employ someone I don't care where the degree comes from as long as it had accounting classes in it and they have several years relevent experience. I am more interested in their thoughts and abilties to tie their experience + education into what I am looking for.

fullheadofhair wrote:

jbunny wrote:
Of course I used simple numbers to show the concept.

The example is too simple to be of use. Determining shipping rates is an art as well as science - and shipping people who understand this are worth their weight in gold.

There is absolutely no way that somewhere around GDP10 represents overhead.


p.s don't be that guy that brags about where you got your degree from. I am met way to many educated idiots in my 21 years as an accountant to put faith in a degree or MBA - Knowledge supported by extensive experience is the only thing I trust. When I employ someone I don't care where the degree comes from as long as it had accounting classes in it and they have several years relevent experience. I am more interested in their thoughts and abilties to tie their experience + education into what I am looking for.

I was not bragging, simply stating I am knowledgeable on the subject matter at hand. I get tired of the "Experts who know everything about running a Multi-national company, yet never took one business course. And tell people with a business degree in accounting that we don't know what we are talking about. I am also aware that it is not easy to estimate shipping cost. I showed the concept of allocating cost since he did not comprehend the idea of it. Thats all.

Daemon-Archon wrote:...would NEVER be worth the risk of such a petty order of even an amount totaling over 9,000$....

I see what you did there!

Demogerg wrote:

Daemon-Archon wrote:
Its a clear case of deception on FWs end, plain and simple.

They told you how much it would cost YOU to have their package shipped out to you, you paid that cost.

now you flame and rave about deception, when you agreed to pay the shipping cost they presented to you.

I fail to see how there is any deception at all going on here, just some guy, on the internet, complaining about high shipping costs.

I think we can all move along, nothing to see here.

Please read my original Post. I initally did not complain about their shipping costs, I sugessted that it doesn't cost the amount FW were charging me. I've since proven this to be correct because.....

Other than the Royal Mail charge, I see no other additional cost to send this parcel out to me in the UK. All the 'other' costs people are banding about here, like packaging, labour, warehousing etc etc etc, MUST be included in the cost of the product, because if its not, then every order picked up in store is loosing money. The only additional cost is someone who picks it up, puts it on the scales, and the Franking machine spits out a postage label. EVERY other cost people have mentioned here, is incurred regardless and therefore cost of product.

FW started this debate with me, they contacted me, not the other way round and then claimed they do not profit from P&P, its at cost. They have yet to convince me otherwise. I have arranged to meet them later in the year to discuss. IF there is anything different or my opinion is changed, I'll post it here.

And no where have i "flamed and raved about deception".

Present your facts and case correctly, or its a case of people see your post, and simply "move along, nothing to see" in it.

And I never meant for this post to become a debate on who has the more qualifications. Lets face it, we could all be 12yr olds pretending to be 'Internet Tough Guys', which is why I don't post my Qualifications or Job on here. But keep up the posting, its an interesting read.

i would just order forgeworld products through a gw store. im gonna order my stuff through baltimore totally worth a 2 hour drive to not pay shipping

So basically this thread boils down to.. forgeworld overcharges for just about everything it does?

This is not very new and honestly it is NOTHING compared to this!!!!!!!! (Not enough exclamation points)

LASGUNS X4

Ref: IA-IAC-A-003.

Price: £5.00

I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

Kirasu wrote:I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

But its FW high quality resin Lasguns though.

Sorry , my point is Warhammer itself is already exuberant in pricing compared to a bag of green plastic soldiers for $1

Woah, I never thought of it that way luna, but your totally right. If they gave free shipping on all models, they would just add it to the cost of the oiginal model anyways so it wouldnt make a difference... makes complaining almost seem pointless, although its also true that overall they probably charge more to cover their already free shiping... Ill just continue to order stuff through stores where its free anyways lol.

LunaHound wrote:A few things to think about. Say if they do charge the "appropriate" price for shipping , where do you suggest they
take the amount to cover for the free shipping on large orders?
Do you want:

a) Everyone pay for appropriate shipping , no more Free Shippings.

b) Keep free shipping on large order , charge appropriate shipping on small order , raise price on product to cover for free shipping.

Im sure FW and like most of companies prefer large batch per order to ship , then having to deal with small $15 purchases.

If shipping was at cost, regardless of order size, I'd have to imagine most people would have no issue with it whatsoever. In the more specific sense of where does the 'free shipping' come from still on larger models? Well free shipping, much like free advice, is seldom free. In short the cost of shipping is already built into their profit margins for whatever I'm being sold, and considering the exorbitant prices of Forge World models I don't see how this isn't the case or the intent.

Kirasu wrote:So basically this thread boils down to.. forgeworld overcharges for just about everything it does?

This is not very new and honestly it is NOTHING compared to this!!!!!!!! (Not enough exclamation points)

LASGUNS X4

Ref: IA-IAC-A-003.

Price: £5.00

I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

Erm, Kirasu--you realize that when those Lasguns came out(ages and ages ago.)--there was no box sets that had spares that could be used to jazz up your Chimeras, or for stowage, right?

The models are ancient, and actually older than my youngest brother.

LunaHound wrote:

Kirasu wrote:I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

But its FW high quality resin Lasguns though.

And the pope is a Catholic.

Kanluwen wrote:

Kirasu wrote:So basically this thread boils down to.. forgeworld overcharges for just about everything it does?

This is not very new and honestly it is NOTHING compared to this!!!!!!!! (Not enough exclamation points)

LASGUNS X4

Ref: IA-IAC-A-003.

Price: £5.00

I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

Erm, Kirasu--you realize that when those Lasguns came out(ages and ages ago.)--there was no box sets that had spares that could be used to jazz up your Chimeras, or for stowage, right?

The models are ancient, and actually older than my youngest brother.

So what youre saying is you want to pay full cost for obsolete products older than your brother? Should have told me this a few years ago, I had a 1987 corolla I could have sold ya!

The accountant death match in this thread would amuse me...if their choice of words didn't trigger Vietnam style flashbacks to the accounting classes I was forced to take. It's accrual world.

However, I do find it amusing that people are referring to FW as a business. My history with them....has left struck me more as a large group of mid 20 year olds working out of their garage.

Kirasu wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Kirasu wrote:So basically this thread boils down to.. forgeworld overcharges for just about everything it does?

This is not very new and honestly it is NOTHING compared to this!!!!!!!! (Not enough exclamation points)

LASGUNS X4

Ref: IA-IAC-A-003.

Price: £5.00

I dont care, nothing will ever top 4 LASGUNS for 5 pounds.. (If you actually paid 5 pounds for them, please flog yourself in private because you get MORE THAN 4 in any IG boxset)

Erm, Kirasu--you realize that when those Lasguns came out(ages and ages ago.)--there was no box sets that had spares that could be used to jazz up your Chimeras, or for stowage, right?

The models are ancient, and actually older than my youngest brother.

So what youre saying is you want to pay full cost for obsolete products older than your brother? Should have told me this a few years ago, I had a 1987 corolla I could have sold ya!

No, smarty-britches, the point was that they're older models that--at one time--had a reason to justify the cost.

And by the by, the 2004 Forge World catalog had them listed as a 10 pack for $10. They weren't always what you were referring to as a "gigantic ripoff".
They had a place and it's over now. The only reason, if I had to guess, they're still for sale is for the people who don't like the crummy lascarbine packaged on the vehicle sprue in addition to having a large backstock of the product since the release of the actual set and wanting to get the most of the mold.

jbunny wrote:

Indirect cost - Cost of building, power to the building, Cost of insurnace on building.

Now I don't know how they allocate cost to shipping, but I assure you it is not just the cost the RM chrages. So until you can give me a complete break out of all of there charges and then tell me they are over charging, you arejust speculating.

So...you guessed at how they allocate cost to shipping, but you're going to tell me that I'm speculating?

Having any of the above reliant on the money they make from the shipping charge seems like a fail of a plan. All of that should be taken into account with the actual cost of the item, as should their other operating expenditures. However, I'm done arguing the point. Your opinion is one thing, mine is another, and honestly I could give a frak what you think. Until you can prove that the OP paid COST as the CSR assured them he was, then my opinion that he was overcharged is just as valid as yours that he wasn't.

I looked through the terms on the Forgeworld website, trying to find information on VAT and other taxes. They refer to a tax addendum that is allegedly available on the website, however I haven't been able to locate it. It just seems shady to charge the price with VAT on orders that aren't subject to it.

OK you go on your uneducated personal opinion, and I will use my personal work experience, my education, and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals, you know the accounting rules that every major company has to follow if they are an audited company. I did not guess how they allocate cost, I assumed how they would do it according to those same accounting principals.

Just because you cannot comprehend a concept please do not assume it's a fail.

FIRST:

STOP the personal attacks.

Here we are at the signpost stage of the thread again.

Next person to ignore this warning gets a PM from a Mod.

SECOND:

How did all of you let this one go unnoticed?

AgeOfEgos wrote:The accountant death match in this thread would amuse me...if their choice of words didn't trigger Vietnam style flashbacks to the accounting classes I was forced to take. It's accrual world.

However, I do find it amusing that people are referring to FW as a business. My history with them....has left struck me more as a large group of mid 20 year olds working out of their garage.

And, I'd have to agree with his assessment of FW's business acumen too...

jbunny wrote:OK you go on your uneducated personal opinion, and I will use my personal work experience, my education, and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals, you know the accounting rules that every major company has to follow if they are an audited company. I did not guess how they allocate cost, I assumed how they would do it according to those same accounting principals.

Just because you cannot comprehend a concept please do not assume it's a fail.

GAAP - there is no GAAP principle for allocating postage costs. That's management accounting, GAAP is geared to how things appear in financial statements not BoM's or pricing structures. Pricing is usually determined by a marketing strategy, and we all know marketeers cannot add 2+2 with a calculator - they do however understand extremely well how to convince people to pay a lot more money for products than an accountant says they cost to build.

Anyhoo, GAAP in a thread about toy soldiers reminds me of the old joke: What do accountants use as a contraceptive - their personality. Shoot that maybe why I haven't managed to knock my wife up yet.

Sorry for the delayed response, I was without Dakka this weekend (it hurt me inside... )

Addressing your points...
((TSS = TheSecretSquig))

jbunny wrote:Well have your neighbor chime in and we can talk.

Personal attack, pardon my ignoring...

jbunny wrote:
The company I use to work for had us Shipping/Receiving guys start at 3 in the afternoon and then work an 8 hour day. Not sure how that even comes close to violating labor laws, or contacts with utilites, and it was not for one order. It was for all orders shipped that day.

Your inital point (correct me if I am mistaken) was that the cost of shipping reflected the cost of extending business hours past that of standard operating hours (and thus, hours that should be allocated by initial capitol and revenue margins from the product itself). If the intended shift of the employee is that past standard business hours, then the costs associated with building maitainence and staff wages would be regardless of any potential additional shipments and as such, seems irrational to assume that such costs should be allocated to the shipping fees therein (again, back to the point of, "The staff gets paid if there is 1 shipment a night or 1000" I take it while you worked there for however long you did, you were paid hourly, not by-the-package)

jbunny wrote:
So I don't know what "risk" are being incurred.
Another company I worked for had two shipping shifts, a day crew and a night crew. Both of these companies had Gross sales in the $25-$35 Million range so they were no Mom and Pop stores.

Again same as above, if the shift was mandated regardless of shipment demand, then the costs should be on the product revenue itself, not the shipping. The risks would be for instance, if you had not premandated overnight shifts and had to have day-shift warehouse crews work 16-20 hour shifts through the night in a facility not normally inclined to work nights, that was assumed when you said there were "additional costs incurred by the demand to create the shipments" giving the illusion of the need for a prompt and urgent deadline. Haste makes risk...

jbunny wrote:
The email said to come to their "Open Day" which is like a Forge World version of Games day. It is not a Grand Opening. But it is a way of buying direct with no shipping cost.

This still does not account for the horrible losses they should be suffering on every purchase made if their 14GBP shipping rate is mitigating cost damages such as Building Insurance and staff wages.... And also ignore where the revenue is comeing from for the physical staff that will be required to run the event (not to mention the actual space)

jbunny wrote:
I will give you another quick leason on accounting for indirect cost. Lets say your total fixed cost for shipping is $100. You will then forcast how much in shipping sales you will have and then allocate on that bases. So if you plan to have shipping sales of $1000 then you would allocate 1/10th of the cost to every dollar shipped. So if you shipped $900 you would allocate $90 of cost to that order.

Of course I used simple numbers to show the concept. One thing I would hope is that FW does a very good job of forcasting their cost, as well as the amount they ship. The allocation of shipping cost is only applied to ordered ship, so selling at Games Day does not cause them to lose money.

The problem with this is that while most industries (especially those who deal heavily with shipping their orders) have contracts with shipping companies, those costs of those contracts are generally speaking meant to be incurred by the product revenue itself, and typically pay for themselves within the first Fiscal Quarter of a FY(If not MUCH sooner). For instance, where I work, I can ship any package under 100$ and not of Confidential or Hazardous material for approximately 10Cents a pound (up to 15 pounds, then 5Cents up to 100) meanig a 10 pound package costs me at work 1$ to ship anywhere in the US, 3.50 is the additional cost for worldwide (to almost any country, at least, any country FW/GW will ship to) so that 10lb package costs 4.50 to ship to FW, due to the contract the Federal Government has with FedEx. (Normally, that package would run me around 7$). Federal Government aside, while working at Bestbuy, it was virtually FREE for us to ship any package anywhere in the US. International rates varied but due to the DHL contract, were also negligible.... now are you honestly going to tell me that a business so reliant on shipping also does not hold any such contracts with shipping companies?

The other issue with the Fixed cost is that what happened if you have 2 orders at 900 dollars? Do you refund the first guy you charged 90$ to make both costs 50? Do you keep the additional 80$ and continue to PROFIT off of future shipping orders? How does this work out exactally? Also, what if the rate for Get fuel skyrockets to such a height that it litreally costs 5X it did at year-end for P-FY... do you raise the shipping without telling? Do you overcharge the current pending transactions? Do you suffer the red and simply hope it levels out from base profit off the product? (Something I am very sure FW could afford to do)? There are too many unknowns to simplify shippin in such a matter that it can be solely budgeted at the beginning of a year...

jbunny wrote:
You are right in that a crane cost the same if they ship 1 item or 1000 items. However, FW should have a good forcast of how much they are going to ship for a given year and allocate based on that projection. Some times they are under and they "lose" money, and sometimes they are over and they make money. By lose I mean they do not fully recoup all cost for shipping.

See above, however I did want to point out that most manufactures lease their equipment as opposed to buying the equipment. Especially with such high standards and the high salaries it would cost to hire a local service techinician for such equipment as opposed to simply haveing a service maintenence agreement with the company that owns it... but again, this cost SHOULD be reflected in the product revenue, not shipping fee.

jbunny wrote:
It is a clear case of you not understanding proper allocation of cost in an industry that focuses on Shipped goods rather than POS. (Point of Sale ie retail stores)

Actually, its a clear case of sorry, couldn't help myself... If by the above you mean that the Shipped Goods insdustry is relying on its Shipping fee's to account for its costs and profit margins then I suggest you reread the initial post. the FW rep openly admitted that the shipping cost is NOT intended to grant any sort of profits and reflects ONLY what FW pays to ship the product. If they are incorperating business costs in their shipping fee of 14GBP (which TSS proved it only would cost around 3GBP to ship) then the statement by the FW CSR was a bold-faced lie!

Also, if you're primary POS is online, then thats where your cost allocation goes to. POS is not only in a retail store, sometimes it isn't even only on a Website Shopping Cart (Thus GWs banning of placing items in a "Shopping Cart Point-of-sale" format at a reduced price as to NOT create competition for their own website... thus sites like The War Store having to operate with such complexicity.) POSs can be in a store, over the phone, online, via normal mail, or basically anywhere you make the Sale. The POINT is the SALE...

jbunny wrote:
And you never answered my question of where did you get your degree. you might work with lots of money but that does not mean you understand Cost accounting.

Again, this should not matter. And seeing how you mentioned that I "work with lots of money" instead of "Balancing UFRs YEBs and Congressional Plus-Ups. YACs, YMCs, QCRs, Quarterly Sweeps, RAR, CBRs, and god knows how many other acronyms* associated with even the most BASIC of the accounting realm, I would be asking for you're resume before you ask me for mine.

*UFR: Unfunded Request
YEB: Year end Budget
YAC: Yearly allocated costs
YMC: Yealy Mainainence Costs
QCR: Quad-Chart Review
RAR: Risk Associated Revenue
CBR: Continuity Budget Review

jbunny wrote: I have had bosses that did not fully understand my job. Of course they understood cost allocation, but they deferred to me on a lot of issues.

And I've had geese that laid golden eggs... just because someone says something, doesn't make it true (Or relevant to the thread in the least bit)

Case and point, to everyone else who may seem confused.

TSS(the OP) said on the first page that he Questioned FW about their price of shipping. Before placing the order, the FW CSR stated that none of the Shipping Fee went towards profit and that whatever it cost them to ship the product to him, was what he would have to pay. TSS then paid the 14GBP to ship his product.

Apon receiving his product, TSS took the box back to the Postal Office and inquired as to the cost it would be to mail the EXACT PACKAGE back to FW (aka, assuming what FW paid to ship it to him) and he was quoted the price of ~3GBP which he quickly responded to the same FW CSR that told him they only charged him what they were charged.

The FW CSR then avoids the allegations that they Misinformed TSS abount the price of his shipment, denied accountability, and went on to mention that not only does the site charge 0$ for any order over 150GBP but that if he made an IDENTICAL order as to the one he was CHARGED 14GBP to ship (in which no part of that 14GBP was reportely profit) during their "Opening Day" event, he would recieve his product completely "Shipping" free.

So the question that was arisen (actually, there was no real "Question" about it at all") was why FW CSRs feel the need to lie to their consumers and that it shouldn't be "okay" for them to get away with it....

Unless someone can legitimately defend the additional ~11GBP I really don't see why a debate is occuring here, as opposed to merely other users responses to TSS's story and if they have had any similar negative experiences with FW or GW... (Which I believe was the OPs initial intention.)

But thats just my take on it...

-DAR

Modquisition on. I am closing this thread. If you let accountant rage can get out of hand, the next thing you know there will be flying ledger books, GAAP duels to the death in the hallway, and they will start impugning each others' mothers' dignity with certain accelerated depreciation methods of lesser repute. At the end of the day it will just lead to an Enronesque meltdown of no controlling legal authority proportions...