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One of my UK suppliers of hobby stuff is doing free shipping until the end of September.

I first found out about them when I needed 2mm thick laser cut MDF bases. They were on eBay and had like 70,000+ feedback at 100%, so I figured why not try them out. The ones I got were perfect. I've since purchased both historical figures and paint brushes from them. They carry some of the newer plastic stuff like Fireforge and Perry and whatnot, though I primarily use them for my 1:32/54mm figures.

The other thing they have that I like are decent low end paint brushes. The Javis sable brushes are the equal of mid-rangey hobby brushes like P3, GW, Vallejo, Reaper or Army Painted. They're not quite as good as EM4's brushes, Rosemary & Co or the often praised W&N series 7. I use the Javis brushes as my work horse brush and then pull out my nice Rosemary & Co Kolinsky for highlighting and detail work.

I like these guys because they only sell what they have in stock. They don't really discount per se, but I find that the free shipping + no delays to be worth it. I've put in a couple orders when they haven't had free shipping and it was still reasonable.

I put this in the historical section because most of the figures they carry are historical, in a few different scales. This time I'm going to be grabbing a few brushes and some 1/100 Zvezda tanks for 15mm WW2 gaming.

http://arcanesceneryandmodels.co.uk/

Hm... is that worldwide free shipping?

They shipped to Canada for free, that's all i can say for sure. When i first placed an order, I wasy like, hmmm... I figured there'd be some extra charge for my location. Then I figured "maybe I'll get an email apologizing that they just can't eat the shipping charges." Then I got the normal confirmation and shipping notices and then got the package 10 days later.

I figured the worse case scenario is they'd contact me about it, but they didn't. I'm guessing since they don't discount and don't remove VAT from foreign orders, there's some subsidy of shipping going on for foreign orders.

Well, free worldwide shipping from UK retailers isn't that unusual. My gaming standbys do it - they use the "VAT" 20% and I assume make a small profit or eat the difference, depending on the items in the order. And they offer 10% on top of it.

Even Warlord and Foundry do it for large enough orders with a reasonable threshold - which is going to result in a bunch of orders from/for both of them. (and sadly, none directly from the Perrys or Mantic...)

For me it's about the model kits. I can't find too many places I can get 1:32 or 1:72 scale figures with free shipping.

Canada also has this strange issue where if your order is over a certain amount, then the post office will collect 13% taxes + a $10 fee. So places with free shipping at certain levels often end up meaning paying a charge greater than the savings, and worse than that, packages that get assessed for such fees go through another process and take longer and delays the package.

Small orders at MSRP + free shipping is better than a 10% discount if you're going to get hit with 13% in taxes and custom fees (and the $10 handling fee and delay on top of that).