Kickstarter

Hi Everyone,

Some questions have been raised about shipping.

First, to arrange shipping you can go to this website, many already have so thank you! http://www.designing-obama.com/products/shipping (*links do not work in the email updates, you can copy and paste this into your web browser)

Many have asked questions with regards to international shipping. In hopes of answering many of your questions I'm attaching a message from a fellow backer below.

As for the electronic version, we will be sending it when people begin receiving the physical books.

Pick-up will be available for people in Chicago! We will let people know when they can start picking up their copy!

Thanks again.

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Marcus on Monday May 24, 10:54am CDT

Scott,

With the greatest respect for you and your project, I'm having problems with the high charge for shipping the book internationally.

In my opinion this appears to be unfair to your supporters in Canada as well as those of us in Europe and further afield. A blanket charge for shipments outside the USA, may seem like the simplest solution to a problem that I feel should have been considered well before asking people to pledge support, however it is not the most satisfactory for those being asked to pay.

I did a simple test on the shipping price with Amazon.com for Shepard Faireys' Supply & Demand, an equally sized publication. This book ships to Dublin from the US, for $11.73. To ship the same book from IL to Dublin from an independent book seller is $10.48. IN both cases this included the shipping & handling

I have two questions; is these any reason why your shipping fee is 3 times that of other book sellers? Why can't you have Amazon fulfill the shipment. They processed all the pledges, so there should be no problem for them to manage all distribution too, as they do for many other sellers?

Again I applaud you for the work you have done on the Obama campaign and for producing what appears to be a fantastic publication, all I ask is that you treat those who made this project possible with the same respect that they afforded you from the outset. I look forward to receiving your response.

Best wishes,

Marcus

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Scott Thomas on Monday May 24, 12:02pm CDT

Hi Marcus,

Let me first explain how Amazon works. Amazon does get reduced shipping because of the volume of books they send around the world. They have businesses set up in each country and distribution centers in various regions. Which allows them to ship books at a reduced fare. Ordering a book on Amazon and ordering a book from an individual doing a "small run" of books is a very different thing.

That said. Amazon fulfillment does not ship internationally for orders placed on other websites, such as Kickstarter. The only way Amazon will ship books internationally is if you sell the book on Amazon.com. With regards to Amazon Payments, the processor for Kickstarter. It is important to note that Amazon Payments is not connected to Amazon.com. I know it seems logical and one would think that the organizations are connected, but Amazon.com is currently not set up to handle fulfillment of products processed with Amazon Payments. They do not do this with any other sellers except for sellers placing product on Amazon.com.

So we then looked into freight service to ship 500 books to the UK and distributing to European backers via Royal Mail. I determined that though there was a cost saving for Royal Mail in comparison to USPS, but after freight fees and custom taxes, as well as, freight forwarding fees to get the books from the shipping dock to Royal Mail the price became higher than using USPS and tripled the amount of work. We then looked into FedEx, UPS, and DHL and found we are not shipping "regularly enough" for there to be a cost savings, to ship to the UK was around $120 for our 4.9 lbs book.

Lastly, what is fair? I decided to use a flat fee for shipping to ease the pain of many supporters. To ship the book to Australia will cost around $50, the UK $40 and to ship the book to Canada will cost around $27 dollars. International shipping via the USPS is based on 2 factors weight and distance, it's that simple. So to determine the price for each country individually would have left some people paying more for shipping than for the amount they pledged for the book which is what I was trying to avoid.

I'm being transparent and telling you the process we went through and the decisions we were forced to make. Unfortunately we are not doing a massive amount of shipping on a reoccurring basis to have shipping prices that can compete with Amazon. We broke new ground with how a book can be self-published this has brought about many challenges and new interesting questions.

Thanks for your message,

Scott Thomas