Freight is Beginning, Sort of
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Sep 18, 2021 at 01:11:27 AM
Hi Agents!
I have been waiting to find out as much information as I possibly can before I sent you this update. I don't have all of the information yet, but I want you to have something going into the weekend. So here we go...
It has been an absolute nightmare dealing with freight over the last month. As I have been updating you with the state of the global logistics industry over the last few months, I can tell you that things have only gotten worse. Costs haven risen even further and the supply chain/logistics are completely out of whack. It's been taking extra long to book freight and the prices are out of this world. If you would like to learn more about the state of global logistics, I would recommend these incredibly detailed articles:
Forbes: No End In Sight For The COVID-Led Global Supply Chain Disruption
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Ports See Shipping Logjams Likely Extending Far Into 2022
This is all to say that your games are on their way. *phew* The following list will tell you where and when (if I have the information). I will update this list each time I get news about your region's shipment. One of the most unfortunate parts about all of this is that different regions are going to get their games at different times. I promise you that this is not in my control. But I do want to get them out to you as quickly as I possibly can.
US/Canada
Your games are loaded into a container already and are headed to the Shenzhen port. They are scheduled to set sail on September 25th, and land on October 25th. Knowing what I know about the US port situation, I can't see the games leaving the US port for at least another 2-3 weeks. This brings us to the middle of November. Once they land at PSI (our fulfilment partner), the games will be counted and fulfilment will begin promptly. PSI is very good at this, so this process takes another couple of weeks. For US backers, you will likely receive your games by the beginning to mid-December. And just so you know, I am putting a lot of padding on these dates.
For Canadian backers, your games have another leg to travel before we can even consider fulfilment. So my guess is late December for your games.
Australia/New Zealand
Aetherworks is taking care of the freight to Australia and as quickly as possible. They have yet to get me a shipping or arrival date. But I have been on them. So, when I know, you'll know.
UK
Shipquest is working on getting your games to the UK. We have the dates as follows: set sail September 28th and land October 26th. The UK is having some of the same problems at their ports as the rest of the world. So when your games will arrive at your doorsteps is a mystery at this point.
EU and the Rest of Europe
Surfin' Meeple is taking care of your freight. We are using their containers, so I am unsure about lead time. I am waiting to hear from them regarding dates.
Asia and RoW
Your games are going to leave the warehouse very soon to ship to VFI. VFI has been our fulfilment partner for a very long time. We don't have a date that your games will arrive at your doorstep, because you are all over the world. However, most of the games that ship straight from China will arrive well before anyone else's games. We will let you know when the games have shipped.
Shipping Addresses Lock Next Week
In order to get your info to the correct place, we are locking addresses one week from today (Friday, September 24th at 8pm EST. This will give me enough time to make sure that we get a complete list to our fulfilment partners in good time. So, if you need to change your address, now is a good time. Once addresses are locked it is unlikely that I will be able to change them.
Freight Prices, and VAT/Tax
Agents, when we ran this campaign, two things were clear: 1. we were happy to pay VAT for you based on the manufacturing price, and 2. worldwide logistic prices were stable and predictable. No one knew what would happen throughout the world over the last year. With our previous campaigns, we paid for the VAT based on the manufacturing cost. And that is how we set our prices for the In Too Deep campaign. With all of the VAT changes over the last while, we will now be paying based on the price that you the consumer paid for your game. This means that the charge for VAT has risen 5x for us. We knew this was going to be the case very early post campaign, and we were going to swallow the cost, because we could never dream of charging you money after a campaign has ended. However, mix into this worldwide freight going from $7000US to over $30000US post campaign, and now we're way over and above what our company can bear.
Here is How You Can Help (if you so choose)
This information is not an introduction to announcing an extra mandatory charge for your game. It is merely illustrating what us indie publishers are going through right now. I would not, under any circumstances, charge you more to get your game to you. It is not in my nature, or in the nature of Burnt Island Games.
Many of you have suggested that you would like to voluntarily pitch in to help us mitigate all of these costs, and for that, we very much thank you! Sending even $1 helps us move forward with all of these costs and helps us stay afloat. If you would like to pitch in a few dollars extra to help us out, you can PayPal money to us through our [email protected] account. Or, if you have a Veem account, you can send money that way. To learn how to send a payment through Veem, watch this video. Please use our KTBG Inc. account, with the [email protected] email address.
A Heads-Up About Our International Partners
Our Czech and Spanish partners are in the midst of putting together freight for their retail games. If you happen to see some on the shelves in game stores in Spain or Czech Republic before you get your games, I can explain why. Typically on a print run where we have International partners, we do not allow them to sell their games until the majority of backers have their KS deluxe versions. This is how we control the flow of Kickstarter vs. retail sales. At this time, we know that these companies rely on their retails sales at Christmas time to help get them through the year. We have chosen, this time around only, to allow these companies to sell the games even though you do not yet have yours. We want to continue our relationship with our partners, and we don't want to see anyone go out of business because we didn't allow them to sell at their busiest time of year. That being said, the English games headed to the UK, Canada, the US, and around the world, won't hit retail stores until you all have your games (or at least as many of you as we can make happen). This might mean missing Christmas for ourselves. But it is what it is, and we will take that hit.
That is enough for today! Thank you so much for sticking with us throughout this wild time in KS game history. We're going to survive because of you lovely people. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being so awesome.
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If you have any questions or want to talk to us about anything, please don't hesitate to contact us by commenting on this update or in the main comments section, or even sending us a DM. We're here for you!
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Until next time Agents ...
Helaina and The In Too Deep team
