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Some of the explanations being offered in FW's defence here are frankly laughable. I am hard pressed to think of any other business that subsidises a free shipping offer by jacking up the price of its shipping and handling charges. Likewise, I am hard pressed to think of any company where I have to group with friends and buy in bulk in order to avoid being stung by shipping costs (there are many good reasons for buying in bulk and as a group but doing so in order to avoid being gouged by shipping costs is not one of them).

The only solid piece of advice being given here is to vote with one's wallet. The only way to stop this sort of practice is to not tacitly agree with it by buying from them. I don't think anyone here is denying that FW should be charging shipping and handling (although many companies these days offer free shipping across the board) rather the issue at hand seems to be why FW feel it is acceptable to profiteer from shipping and handling, as seems to be the case.

I've never paid shipping for Forge World.

It always irked me when I came to the final payment screen.

I'm not really in the position to be dropping 250 squid on resin, so the shipping just became FW tax in my head.



I'm very surprised FW don't offer free shipping considering GW do on orders over £10.

Obviously FW might need to be something like 50 to 100. I think 250 is a tad steep.

Damn right i'm getting free shipping if i'm dropping a quarter of a grand on resin.

If any company offers free shipping across the board....they really aren't.

Trust me, they did not wake up one day and decide "we should no longer charge $10 to deliver something, we should just eat that cost".

They just realized that nobody likes seeing $10 S&H on a bill, but they are okay with paying an extra $1-$2 on every single item they are buying.

I am surprised that people are throwing a fit about this bill:

Item 1 - $10
Item 2 - $10
Item 3 - $10
Item 4 - $10
Item 5 - $10
S&H - $10

But at the same time would not say a word if the bill was

Item 1 - $12
Item 2 - $12
Item 3 - $12
Item 4 - $12
Item 5 - $12
S&H - FREE!!!!!!!!!

Trust me, nobody has free shipping, they just bury the cost somewhere else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mwnciboo wrote: of the number one reasons why friends fall out. I like my friends and I like them for who they are, I don't like souring relationships but I have seen many, many problems with clubbing together. For example, people not paying upfront, or promptly, you foot the bill on the credit card, oh and if they don't you end up paying the interest on their debt. This is both unfair and unjust, you never draw up a contract so it is a verbal agreement. If it goes wrong, what are you going to do? Pursue them through the courts, well if it's thousands fair enough, a hundred or so well it will cost?

1) Not sure about the UK, but I know that in the US as well as in Germany you can use Debit Cards that take the money out of your account. So on the day you take the order, collect all the money, put it in the account, whip out the Debit Card, pay FW, print out the itemized bill and hand it out to your friends. Forgeworld does not ship and ask you to pay later, and neither should you.

2) I don't mean this in a mean way, but Warhammer is a hobby. If you are having to use a Credit Card to pay for it, then you may need to step back and evaluate if it is worth it. Again, not saying this in a mean way. But I have seen people get addicted to a hobby and go bankrupt over it. I always pay cash for anything I buy, if I can't afford it right now, then I don't need it.

I work for a large retail chain at the weekends.

We offer free post and packaging on orders over £30. Most items are already over 30 anyway, but it's a psychological thing. People think they are getting a better deal if they could pay the same price in store as the do online and get it delivered to their house/work.

The company chooses to 'eat the cost' because it will make it up elsewhere.

Story time...

A couple of months ago I made my first FW order - largely out of interest to see what the product was like. My order came to £100 with £12 shipping. Before submitting it, I wanted to check their shipping terms due to the inflated cost. One page on the website said they use Home Delivery Network in the UK and provide tracking information as standard, so I paid up. The order was placed on a Tuesday evening, and I recieved an email to say it had been despatched mid-morning Wednesday (however it did not contain any tracking information). I arranged to work from home on the Thursday so I could be in the house to collect it. Nothing arrived.
I came home on Friday to find a card from Royal Mail telling me the order could be collected from the post office from tomorrow. FW had despatched my £100 order via 2nd class post, with no tracking and charged nearly three times the standard post office rate for it.

I wrote them a letter about it, explaining that despite how impressed I was with the product, I would not be ordering from Forge World again due to blatant price-gouging on shipping charges.

They replied back surprisingly quickly with a 2-page letter. Apparently the part about HDN on their website was a mistake - an old page that had not been updated. They also explained that FW should be using Royal Mail 1st class, and despatching it 2nd class was a mistake on the part of their shipping department. They apologised and refunded the £12 shipping back to my card.
The letter went on to explain how they do not make money on shipping charges (despite the fact I pointed out that if I returned the order to them via Royal Mail it would cost me £4.50). It also suggested that if I want to avoid shipping charges in future I could collect my orders in person... the last page of the letter was spent extolling the virtues of Warhammmer World in Nottingham.

This perfectly sums up GW's attitude to customers. They impressed me by admitting fault and issuing a refund, then before the end of the same page they ensured I would not order from them again with obvious lying and using the situation as an excuse to plug a store they know is 250 miles away from me. If they'd have been honest and said that the 12% policy was in place to encourage larger/bulk orders I would have most likely saved up to buy other products. Instead I'm just going to keep an eye on eBay to buy from people who don't treat customers as idiots.

d-usa wrote:If any company offers free shipping across the board....they really aren't.

Trust me, they did not wake up one day and decide "we should no longer charge $10 to deliver something, we should just eat that cost".

They just realized that nobody likes seeing $10 S&H on a bill, but they are okay with paying an extra $1-$2 on every single item they are buying.

I am surprised that people are throwing a fit about this bill:

Item 1 - $10
Item 2 - $10
Item 3 - $10
Item 4 - $10
Item 5 - $10
S&H - $10

But at the same time would not say a word if the bill was

Item 1 - $12
Item 2 - $12
Item 3 - $12
Item 4 - $12
Item 5 - $12
S&H - FREE!!!!!!!!!

Trust me, nobody has free shipping, they just bury the cost somewhere else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mwnciboo wrote: of the number one reasons why friends fall out. I like my friends and I like them for who they are, I don't like souring relationships but I have seen many, many problems with clubbing together. For example, people not paying upfront, or promptly, you foot the bill on the credit card, oh and if they don't you end up paying the interest on their debt. This is both unfair and unjust, you never draw up a contract so it is a verbal agreement. If it goes wrong, what are you going to do? Pursue them through the courts, well if it's thousands fair enough, a hundred or so well it will cost?

1) Not sure about the UK, but I know that in the US as well as in Germany you can use Debit Cards that take the money out of your account. So on the day you take the order, collect all the money, put it in the account, whip out the Debit Card, pay FW, print out the itemized bill and hand it out to your friends. Forgeworld does not ship and ask you to pay later, and neither should you.

2) I don't mean this in a mean way, but Warhammer is a hobby. If you are having to use a Credit Card to pay for it, then you may need to step back and evaluate if it is worth it. Again, not saying this in a mean way. But I have seen people get addicted to a hobby and go bankrupt over it. I always pay cash for anything I buy, if I can't afford it right now, then I don't need it.

You are correct with your assertion for costs of shipping being absorbed. This is an overhead that can incorporated into the product price, thousands of companies do this.

On the DEBIT CARDS yes you can pay in the UK on a debit card. A massive issue with this is that the online purchase is not insured. My Barclaycard, offers free insurance on all internet purchases. So if i get ripped off, or the item never arrives, one quick phone call and the item is refund against the insurance. This is not the case for DEBIT cards, and is the priciple reason why i use a CC. I also get Airmiles and £1 back for every £100 I spend. I usually clear the card monthly (unless I have an exceptional purchase e.g. Car) and many cards offer 0% balance transfers or 0% on the lifetime of your balance. This is great if you have a AAA Credit rating as you can buy a Car outright on your credit card, transfer it on another card e.g. £10000 with 0% on lifetime of balance. You can then pay it off (£1000 pcm) and you have a car bought outright, you own it debt paid after 10months, and you've paid 0% interest and you also got back £100, and 10,000 Airmiles. It also allows you a bargining tool at the Car dealership e.g I'll take that car in black, with all the extras, for £2000 less than the list price, if you give me that I will complete the sale now with my CC. A damn good bar ginning tool.

I don't use a CC because i have no money, it's actually the exact opposite. I find CC convient and has benefits, I wouldn't recommend a CC for anyone who has a low income. If you are a Professional with a decent income, and job security, then debt is fine. Infact debt is healthy, without debt or more accurately credit, no businesses would flourish. The problem in recent times is that Credit has been far to easy for those who could not afford it.

You can play it very smart with modern finance, because they always want customers with good credit ratings. See this website if you are in the UK and want to maximise your money (e.g. more money for models ).

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest?gclid=CNqZhpnvvawCFc8Z4Qod61mDCQ

Back OT, maybe it is worth me writing a polite and considered letter to the Company (FW) to ask if they would ever consider ordering and delivering through the GW retail arm?

why is this all in bold? It makes in incredibly hard for me to read.

My friends and I make 2 FW orders a year. Our next one will be made on December 1 so that we get our gak before Christmas (I take that week off and like to hobby. And drink. But mainly hobby).

Anyway, we do this because with 4-6 people ordering, hitting 250 quid is easy, and gets us around the high shipping costs. We usually take turns placing the order.

Work out well for us.

I have made one order with people from the FLGS.

I collect money right away, and put into the bank once I have enough to ensure free shipping. There was a set deadline to pay by. Once I have the money and hit the deadline, I order. If we don't hit free shipping, we don't order (or we pick up a few more kits if we are close)

All the stuff gets shipped to my work (ensures it will actually be delivered when someone is around). I go through everything and if anything is horribly wrong, I deal with FW to get it replaced. Once everything is in order, stuff is handed out.

It is the same way I will be doing it in a couple of weeks when I place the next one.

Scipio Africanus wrote:why is this all in bold? It makes in incredibly hard for me to read.

not sure where you are coming from? Have you got google Chrome and got it zoomed in slightly?

The way I look at it is that the total cost is what it is. I order stuff from overseas all the time and the delivery cost is often substantial (more than the goods sometimes).

Either the total price is okay or it's not - doesn't really matter whether it's rolled into the price of the goods or shown separately.

Aerethan wrote:Keep in mind that in USD every pound is about $1.5 so we're looking at 50% more per dollar of shipping.

So your £28.8 comes out to over $45 US which is a hell of a lot for shipping anything short of a computer case.

Add to that the extra 3% on shipping AND the VAT that we still have to pay, and us Americans have it much harder off than anyone in the UK.

Well it could be worse...you could live in Canada where you pay the VAT, get it shipped here, then get dinged for Canadian sales tax (for me 12%) plus $5 for Canada Post/Customs to hang onto your item for ages before telling you it has arrived (this is their charge for collecting the customs fee from you).

I really enjoy the high shipping prices, because it ensures that almost anything from FW, new in packaging, can be sold stateside at profit if you buy in bulk. I would always buy some extra <insert currently popular FW model here> when I ordered from FW, get the free shipping, and eBay the extra stuff at frequently 10% or more profit. (And charge shipping!)

I see that it hasn't been pointed out or I am blind...

Forge World does not use Royal Mail, they use UPS.

I order at least once a month from FW and I always order over $250GBP for the free express shipping and ALWAYS order extra items as another poster has pointed out. Almost any FW item you can make your money you paid + a little on it via ebay or other means. Sure, there are the laughable guys here on Dakka and Btown who will offer you below the value; but any smart consumer of the product knows it costs a lot more to order one or two items usually.

I'll use an example, my last order came up to just over $500CDN.

I received it within 4 days. I was charged Sales Tax for my province + the other applicable customs fees and had to pay a $90 extra charge to UPS for all of this. I imagine if you had to pay shipping on top of the above, it would be even worse; but that's why ordering over $250GBP pays off.

Forge World also does call it Shipping AND Handling. Many of you are forgetting about the second part. This is a big problem on eBay to, as someone buys an item and then expects to pay nothing for shipping.

Let's take a quick look at what it takes to ship an item in general:

#1. Purchase Packing Materials (Generally done in advance)
#2. Prepare item for shipping.
#3. Fill out paperwork to ship item.
#4. If going overseas, fill out customs forms.
#5. Drive item to post office and/or have it picked up for delivery
#6. Often, contact the buyer.

Assuming that the postage for the item, costs exactly $5. It's truly, unreasonable, for anyone to expect to pay exact postage costs given the time involved in preparing an item. I'll be brutally honest here, when it comes to eBay and small sales, I really lose on shipping because if someone pays $10 for something and it costs me $7 to ship exactly, not including my time and materials... it would make the buyer not want the item. On eBay, I never pay the extra to upgrade shipping, unless it's a few dollars extra.

Now, on a larger item, I will most definitely make sure to charge a bit extra for the shipping, then I know it will cost; due to the extra packaging and time involved in this and the fact that on a higher ticket item; you can afford to charge that money for handling.

Now, compare this to FW or any other company. On many of the small items, with their flat rate postage, is in fact, where they are making up for the loss of shipping on many of the larger items. While they may make $10 on one order with 5 small things, they may also foot another $50 in shipping on a larger order. Should they offer free shipping? Definitely, GW does. Will they? Unlikely, as FW is a specialist operation and if they offer free shipping, they will be on a regular basis having to send out $50 orders that cost them $20-$30 to ship to different countries in the world.

Given that FW costs are lower than GW for many of us or close to the same (Those not in UK), I don't have issues with the shipping.

(As a note to my above comments about shipping, when dealing with outside of an eBay/business situation, i.e. Dakka, I almost always end up paying $5-$10 more then I charge to ship so the person gets it faster and tracked).

As for high shipping costs, it cost me $66 to send a tracked parcel to England for a trade with Elspedo, which was rather small. I'd have killed to pay FW shipping prices in that situation.

TLR - The S&H costs are fine and if you consider it, not unreasonable.

I think their method of determining the cost of delivery is more akin to the fact of the varying weight to price ratio of several of their figures. The model is akin to someone who doesn't want to lose money on any 1 transaction rather than "making" money on all the transactions. Ordering from Armorcast has very similar shipping costs IIRC. I ordered a number of decals from the company (totaling $60 USD) and got a shipping bill for almost $20 USD. When I called to discuss the issue they explained their pricing was a percentage of order cost but did promptly ship my decals in an envelope for under $4 USD.

Of note: I do place orders for our group. If someone doesn't pay up the item ends up on ebay but it is very rare indeed. I can understand if you don't want to take that role.

My last order consisted of the new WH Forge book, orge on rhinox, a warhound titan, carmine dragon, tomb stalker and a couple other smallish items. Every item in the large box was backed in their own individual boxes. Each with appropriate packaging materials and an obvious amount of care taken with the order. While my shipping was free...FW certainly strives to ensure that everything arrives to its destination in good order.

Sometime you are paying for service, this seems like one of them to me.

Their packaging is no better than any other good internet retailer out there.

I don't really mind their shipping and handling fee, it's a little on the high side sure, but as was said it's one of those things that just comes with buying FW and has been that way since the very first FW model I bought going on a decade ago (a Leman Russ conversion kit). Paying the VAT however, is something that bothers me. If I were to make a trip to the UK, I'm quite certain that I'd be getting a refund for the VAT when I left, I don't see them exporting something to me as any different.