GW raises free shipping minimum

[codiddy]

has anyone else noticed this? the price for free shipping in the US just almost doubled, going from 30 to 50 dollars. No warning, no notice, just changed. meanwhile the UK site still lists 10 pounds as the minimum. last time i checked that was about 16 dollars US. What gives? About to call and give them a piece of my mind, I encourage you to all do the same

[celestialatc]

There are probably several factors. I am sure exchange rates have changed and maybe there are new tariffs that are in place. Also I am sure oil costs for shipping have hit them. Also I think the main distributor is in England so that is why it's probably cheaper in England. Also I bet being a smaller country with a better post service help with shipping costs. US post service might be charging them more.

[under]

In the touchy topic of GW prices this is one I just don't understand. What motivates you to buy directly from GW at a higher cost (pre-shipping) then from the numberous and standing alternative on-line stores?

[wittdooley]

has anyone else noticed this? the price for free shipping in the US just almost doubled, going from 30 to 50 dollars. No warning, no notice, just changed. meanwhile the UK site still lists 10 pounds as the minimum. last time i checked that was about 16 dollars US. What gives? About to call and give them a piece of my mind, I encourage you to all do the same

Oh, Boo-Freaking-Hoo.

First, their $30 free shipping threshold was ridiculously low. The only company I can think of that was even close to that was Amazon, and Amazon is gigantic with a much broader customer base.

Second, the price of petrol in the US is expected to be over $4.00 a gallon this summer in the midwest, where only threeyears ago it was less than $2.00.

Third:
US Total Area - 9,826,675 sq km
England Total Area - 130,395 sq km

Get over it.

[Wildeybeast]

Not to mention that the US has it's own manufacturing plant, so everything you buy over there is made and dsitribued over there, it has nothing to do with the UK manufacturing and distribution network so comparing the two is pointless.

[Chuck777]

50 dollars to get free shipping? That's like one finecast model now-a-days! :p

[codiddy]

In the touchy topic of GW prices this is one I just don't understand. What motivates you to buy directly from GW at a higher cost (pre-shipping) then from the numberous and standing alternative on-line stores?

well it had been out of a sense of loyalty and convenience. I knew if I had a problem with my order, that I was guaranteed to get help from GW customer service, as they would be able to see the order had come from them. I generally took the stance that if i wasn't buying it at the FLGS i would just get it from GW. However I will most likely be moving now to a 3rd party online vendor

[gendoikari87]

Oh, Boo-Freaking-Hoo.

First, their $30 free shipping threshold was ridiculously low. The only company I can think of that was even close to that was Amazon, and Amazon is gigantic with a much broader customer base.

Second, the price of petrol in the US is expected to be over $4.00 a gallon this summer in the midwest, where only threeyears ago it was less than $2.00.

Third:
US Total Area - 9,826,675 sq km
England Total Area - 130,395 sq km

Get over it.

Tone, bring it down.

[codiddy]

edit

[scadugenga]

Over $4/gallon by summer?

I paid $4.53/gallon last week.

Argh...

That being said, $50 threshold is nothing. Shipping isn't exactly cheap in the US these days.

I need to spend $100 for free shipping at MM. But the discount makes it worth it... :)

Edit: why'd you remove your post, codiddy?

[codiddy]

Over $4/gallon by summer?

I paid $4.53/gallon last week.

Argh...

That being said, $50 threshold is nothing. Shipping isn't exactly cheap in the US these days.

I need to spend $100 for free shipping at MM. But the discount makes it worth it... :)

Edit: why'd you remove your post, codiddy?

Because it was mean and I thought better of it.

[Suffokate]

50 dollars to get free shipping? That's like one finecast model now-a-days! :p

Thats a Biovore and a lone copy of White Dwarf, just let your mind settle on that for a few.

[Chuck777]

Thats a Biovore and a lone copy of White Dwarf, just let your mind settle on that for a few.

I had to do a double take. I bought my Metal Biovore for 20 bucks three years ago. Hard to believe its now 41 bucks! We live in a topsy turvy world! :confused:

[wittdooley]

Tone, bring it down.

No.

It's a really juvenile complaint. I'll take your poorly argued response on the other pricing thread over this 8 days a week.

Particularly since you don't pay tax online unless it is in-state in the US. Complaining about not getting free shipping when you don't to pay tax on an item is ridiculous.

@scad - $4.53. Yikes. Glad I'm only paying a portion of the gas costs for Adepticon next month.

[gendoikari87]

No.

It's a really juvenile complaint. I'll take your poorly argued response on the other pricing thread over this 8 days a week.

Particularly since you don't pay tax online unless it is in-state in the US. Complaining about not getting free shipping when you don't to pay tax on an item is ridiculous.

@scad - $4.53. Yikes. Glad I'm only paying a portion of the gas costs for Adepticon next month.

when did this change? because as of four months ago you did. Also, your was the one that was poorly argued, not mine. Feel free to disagree. You have your opinion, I have mine.

[scadugenga]

@scad - $4.53. Yikes. Glad I'm only paying a portion of the gas costs for Adepticon next month.

Welcome to Dupage County, IL. Be prepared for that on your way back from Adepticon. :) I recommmend highly that you budget your fill-ups to avoid Cook County prices. They're worse by far.

Fortunately, I only live about 15 minutes from the con, so it won't affect me too badly.

[wittdooley]

when did this change? because as of four months ago you did. Also, your was the one that was poorly argued, not mine. Feel free to disagree. You have your opinion, I have mine.

Sigh.


Cart Items SKU Qty Item Price Item Total
Circular Miniature Bases: 50 mm
(Material: 3mm Plywood, Pack Size: 25)
GMB325-25 1 $5.49 USD $5.49 USD
Reanimation Dials (2)
TS302 2 $7.99 USD $15.98 USD
Subtotal: $21.47 USD
Shipping: $6.50 USD
Grand Total: $27.97 USD
LITKO Game Accessories
http://www.litko.net/

Purchase from Litko last week.


Products
2*x Armadillo Beast with Rider Squad Pack $60.00
1*x NuCoal Special Infantry Pack $14.00
2*x NuCoal Special Infantry C $3.00
1*x Espion Two Pack $20.75
2*x NuCoal Special Infantry D $3.00
Sub-Total (CAD): $100.75
Zone Based Shipping Rates (US Post Office Priority Mail): $0.00
Total (CAD): $100.75

Purchase from DP9 about a month ago.

Two examples from more recent than your 4 month window. I'm sure I can find some online receipts from more than 4 months ago too, to further provide exemplars for your wrongness.

I implore you to know what you're talking about at least once when you enter a conversation. If there's ever a thread discussing Evangelion, well by darn, it may be your time to shine!

[Mr. Furious]

It is frustrating when free shipping limits get changed or the offer gets removed entirely but it's something that happens fairly frequently with the increasing cost of doing business in the US.

Here is how I deal with the free shipping threshold:

1. Figure out if free shipping will save me more than another item will cost. If I can add a paintbrush or a couple pots of paint to an order to get it to the free shipping threshold and it winds up being a better deal than buying the 1 or 2 minsi and paying shipping I do so. I get more stuff and GW pays the shipping.

2. My friend and I pool our orders so we can reach the free shipping threshold. 2 people ordering 1 or 2 things each gets you to $50 pretty darn quick. I'm sure just about anyone can find someone to make a combined order with to save you both a little money.

3. Take advantage of the "ship to store" option. I don't have an official GW store but the FLGS in my area is a GW direct retailer so I can order it at the store or online and pick it up when it comes in. I have to pay sales tax, of course, (but I have to do that on GW direct orders too) but 6% is still cheaper than the shipping costs and 6% that I pay when mail ordering from GW.

[Necron2.0]

Eh. No skin off my nose, because GW doesn't take credit card points, and I absolutely refuse to pay real money for this game.

[gendoikari87]

I'm sure I can find some online receipts from more than 4 months ago too, to further provide exemplars for your wrongness. You sir are an arrogant *******, but i'm 100% sure I was charged for tax the last time I bought directly from GW online. Are either of the stores you bought from GW? No, so put your misplaced arrogance away, i'm sick and tired of your stupidity. Was it a fluke in the system? maybe, I don't know. What do know is i'm done talking to arrogant know it alls like you who think because they make one or two good points it means their right all the time. Well guess what? most of your points are ****. Good bye and never respond to me again and we'll get along just nicely, and I won't point out every stupid little thing you do. so GTFO troll.

As you can see, two can play at this name calling jerkedness business, but in normal situations I'd much prefer to be civil, but when I come across people like you who feel the need to belittle everyone else, yeah i'm going to give it back ten fold. DIAL IT DOWN NOW.

[wittdooley]

If arrogant means informed and not woefully ignorant about topics I try and insert myself in, then sure. And by the way, if I REALLY wanted to be an "arrogant know-it-all," I'd point out your consistent inability to use the correct form of "their/there/they're" in your posts. But I wont.

First:


In a 1992 decision, Quill v. North Dakota, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retailers are exempt from collecting sales taxes in states where they have no physical presence, such as a store, office, or warehouse. (The legal term for this physical presence is "nexus.") Although the case dealt with a catalog mail-order company, the ruling has subsequently been applied to all remote sellers, including online retailers. The Court said that requiring these companies to comply with the varied sales tax rules and regulations of 45 states and some 7,500 different local taxing jurisdictions would burden interstate commerce

This is the precedent set in 1992. Surprisingly, it has taken nearly 20 years (10 of which e-commerce has been thriving) for anyone in the US to be like, "hey, that doesn't seem right."

Where comes into play the Main Street Fairness Act:


Sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin and introduced in August 2011, the Main Street Fairness Act would allow states, provided they have met certain conditions, to require large internet and mail-order retailers to collect state and local sales taxes.

There 24 states that have since begun implementation of portions of this bill (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.) As such, if you live in one of the preceding states and have a GW Brick and Mortar somewhere in the state, you're most likely paying tax on your online orders. Consequently, we just got a GW in Ohio and as of the end of January 2012, we are paying taxes on GW online orders (as we are one of the listed 24 states and we now have a physical GW presense within the state).

Again, following correctly everything I previously stated.

Condescension to follow: All the information regarding online sales tax in the US can be found very easily via a Google search. The website for Google is www.google.com. In the event you haven't used an online search system before, you simply type your question or topic into the only box that appears when you enter the site and click on the "Search" button when you're finished.

But seriously, here's the deal bro: read a bit about what you're posting about before you post. It doesn't take that long to inform yourself so you can intelligently add to a conversation.

@Necron -- I believe you can make a payment via PayPal now on GW.com, so you could always sell some stuff on eBay and then do that :D

[codiddy]

If arrogant means informed and not woefully ignorant about topics I try and insert myself in, then sure. And by the way, if I REALLY wanted to be an "arrogant know-it-all," I'd point out your consistent inability to use the correct form of "their/there/they're" in your posts. But I wont.

First:



This is the precedent set in 1992. Surprisingly, it has taken nearly 20 years (10 of which e-commerce has been thriving) for anyone in the US to be like, "hey, that doesn't seem right."

Where comes into play the Main Street Fairness Act:



There 24 states that have since begun implementation of portions of this bill (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.) As such, if you live in one of the preceding states and have a GW Brick and Mortar somewhere in the state, you're most likely paying tax on your online orders. Consequently, we just got a GW in Ohio and as of the end of January 2012, we are paying taxes on GW online orders (as we are one of the listed 24 states and we now have a physical GW presense within the state).

Again, following correctly everything I previously stated.



Umm, I live in California (not one of the states you mentioned) and DO get charged sales tax on my purchases. I suggest you practice what you preach. You assumed to know where I live and whether or not I was paying paying sales tax. If you think my complaint was unwarranted then that's fine, but you don't need to act like a jerk to get your point across.

[wittdooley]

Umm, I live in California (not one of the states you mentioned) and DO get charged sales tax on my purchases. I suggest you practice what you preach. You assumed to know where I live and whether or not I was paying paying sales tax. If you think my complaint was unwarranted then that's fine, but you don't need to act like a jerk to get your point across.

California was the first state to implement the practice in full, I believe before the Main Street Fairness act was even introduced.

And with a simple Google search, I have confirmed it:


In 2001, California became the first state to issue an administrative ruling against the practice of entity isolation when its Board of Equalization ruled that Borders.com was not a separate entity, but the online extension of the chain Borders Books & Music and therefore must collect sales taxes on sales to California residents.


Here, the instance at play is "entity isolation."

So, in summation: California has been ahead of the internet sales tax curve. In fact, nearly 10 years more ahead of the curve than the majority of the rest of the country.

I don't know how long GW has had a brick and mortar GW store, but I presume it's been for at least a while. Under this entity isolation clause, it seems like they'd be justified to tax GW online also because the products were sold in non-GW B&Ms, effectively an extension of GWs online presence.

[darthslowe]

Ummm...at risk of inserting myself into something I really want no part of (or, for old fashioned grammar nuts that still believe English is supposed to follow Latin construction "...of which I want no part."). I live in Utah, one of the "Fair Commerce" states. I don't pay sales tax on GW orders because we don't have an actual GW store in state. I also have a receipt for an order from less than a month ago, if anyone cares to dispute.

Additionally, I think that the major belligerents of this argument (wittdooley and gendoikari87) should both be nice. Yes, maybe the argument about free shipping and tax is annoying and wrong, and maybe you were insulted first, but I really doubt either of you would be this rude in person. I have confidence that you are both wonderful people, and that it is just the anonymity of the internet fueling the rage.

[codiddy]

California was the first state to implement the practice in full, I believe before the Main Street Fairness act was even introduced.

And with a simple Google search, I have confirmed it:



Here, the instance at play is "entity isolation."

So, in summation: California has been ahead of the internet sales tax curve. In fact, nearly 10 years more ahead of the curve than the majority of the rest of the country.

I don't know how long GW has had a brick and mortar GW store, but I presume it's been for at least a while. Under this entity isolation clause, it seems like they'd be justified to tax GW online also because the products were sold in non-GW B&Ms, effectively an extension of GWs online presence.

Interesting and makes sense, because I've been paying tax for online orders since before 2011. I didn't even realize that other states had only recently implemented this.

Edit: Thank you darthslowe! There's no reason we can't have civil discourse, even if we don't all agree.

[wittdooley]

Interesting and makes sense, because I've been paying tax for online orders since before 2011. I didn't even realize that other states had only recently implemented this.

Edit: Thank you darthslowe! There's no reason we can't have civil discourse, even if we don't all agree.

Agreed. Let me just say to codiddy I didn't really mean any affront to you; hopefully you recognize that complaints about GW pricing are just so common that one, and perhaps my initial response was too aggressively reactionary as a result.

The whole internet tax issue is really interesting, though. I found, addtionally, that it seems that the Main Street Fairness act only provides provisions for "large" online retailers, and not "small" ones. I have no idea where that line is drawn (presumably in the $$ amount they push every year?) but it would seem to a relatively layman like me to create a very sticky situation.

[codiddy]

Agreed. Let me just say to codiddy I didn't really mean any affront to you; hopefully you recognize that complaints about GW pricing are just so common that one, and perhaps my initial response was too aggressively reactionary as a result.

The whole internet tax issue is really interesting, though. I found, addtionally, that it seems that the Main Street Fairness act only provides provisions for "large" online retailers, and not "small" ones. I have no idea where that line is drawn (presumably in the $$ amount they push every year?) but it would seem to a relatively layman like me to create a very sticky situation.


Why thank you sir, no affront taken. My complaint had more to do with the way the shipping minimum was handled, as a long term GW customer and newsletter subscriber I would have appreciated a warning at the very least.

[Deadlift]

Budget day here in the UK and as expected the fuel duty (tax) has been increased again. It won't be just GW putting up shipping costs I think. If you think fuel is expensive in the US, you would crap yourself at the pumps here.
It's the nature of our economy at the moment and it's just something we have to live with.

[doogansquest]

I love how the Google/Wikipedia experts always arrive when pricing, taxation, and law come up in a gaming thread; yet they try to pass it off as their own knowledge...:rolleyes:

[The Ghost]

Well if you raised your prices on anything without changing the quality would you make a point of letting your customers know?

[wittdooley]

I love how the Google/Wikipedia experts always arrive when pricing, taxation, and law come up in a gaming thread; yet they try to pass it off as their own knowledge...:rolleyes:

It wasn't from Wikipedia. I knew there was a law in place that allowed for online stores to be tax exempt. Wasn't sure what it was, so i looked it up. I never hid that fact. You know, hence the quote boxes.... If more people did that we'd have better discussions.

@ghost - they didn't raise any prices. Simply their free shipping threshold. I personally don't think they owe me any notice because theyre under no onus to offer free shipping in the first place.

[billytwix]

Oh those GW guys, raising the incentives to shop at spikey bits...

[spagunk]

I am sad to hear the increase in free shipping minimum. But it does make sense given who we are talking about.

[sorienor]

First, it's hard not to spend $50 on this stuff. :eek:

Second, who buys direct?!?! :confused:

[Dameon01]

just diggin in that wallet a little more, cause they know youll pay it

[codiddy]

Oh those GW guys, raising the incentives to shop at spikey bits...

I wouldn't ever buy from spikeybits, just on principal. Ugly conversions with shameless plugs aren't my thing.

[wittdooley]

I wouldn't ever buy from spikeybits, just on principal. Ugly conversions with shameless plugs aren't my thing.

Amen to that. I've actually avoided buying from them because of it.

[gendoikari87]

But seriously, here's the deal bro: read a bit about what you're posting about before you post. It doesn't take that long to inform yourself so you can intelligently add to a conversation.I did ***, it's called I looked at my order and it had a non zero sales tax line. Again, this may have been an error, but it was there, reguardless of what the laws were. So, yeah, stop being an internet know it all. Besides I never even said I lived in the states. Again, just another instance of your stupidity, and assumptions.

[wittdooley]

I did ***, it's called I looked at my order and it had a non zero sales tax line. Again, this may have been an error, but it was there, reguardless of what the laws were. So, yeah, stop being an internet know it all. Besides I never even said I lived in the states. Again, just another instance of your stupidity, and assumptions.

No. That isn't "reading about it." That's using an isolated anecdote with no context. In the likely event you don't know what "anecdote" means, a simple synonym would be "example" or "story."

The OP referred to $50. This indicated to me that he was referring to the US. Clearly my examples were in regards to the US. If you didn't live in the US, why the hell would your input even matter or have any context in said conversation?

So I'll reiterate: inform yourself about a topic before you ignorantly comment on it. Otherwise all you add is petulant, redundancy in your unsupported arguments.

[xxvaderxx]

Dont really care, have not ordered from GW in years, dont know why anybody would.