Chapter 26... Nitty Gritty Weight Info
about 3 years ago
– Thu, May 06, 2021 at 10:07:55 PM
But Weight, there’s more!
Due to popular demand, we’re going to be sharing the actual weights for our main products, as well as the full list of shipping prices. For consistency, we’ve used kilograms (kg) or grams (g) throughout the update, but have provided weight bands for shipping in both kg and ounces.
First off, how do shipping weight bands work?
When we get quotes for shipping, the prices are impacted by the weight of the package we’d be sending - these are provided as weight bands. Although lighter parcels tend to have more granular weight bands (0.1kg, 0.25kg, 0.5kg, 0.75kg), once they start weighing over 1kg, they tend to be by the kilogram.
The weight band you will be charged with will be the nearest weight band, rounded up, as that is how we are charged.
An example of this - if a pledge weighs 2kg exactly, it will be charged at the 2kg weight band for its region. If the pledge weighs 2.01kg, it will be charged at the 3kg weight band for its region.
We have put as much granular information into the pledge manager as we have been able to acquire, regardless of whether the pledge will be sent by a fulfilment partner who specialises in Kickstarter fulfilment, a game shop we know in a country that had especially high postage rates, or sent by us directly via Royal Mail. Since we’ve compiled this from a wide variety of places, the exact weight bands used may differ depending on your location. While something may, for example, weigh 5.5kg, your area may have the next weight band at 7 or 8kg, rather than 6kg.
We are going with the best, most reliable services we can provide from around the world to make sure that you get the best rates possible, without having to worry about your package being lost.
Then how much does each item in my pledge weigh?
In terms of items specifically from the Alba campaign:
This means that the total weight for Morag’s Raft is 1.62kg, putting it in a “less than 2kg” shipping weight band.
The total weight for Gaia’s Radio is 2.68kg, putting it in the “less than 3kg” shipping weight band, and the total weight for Dagger’s Dagger is 3.22kg, putting it in the “less than 4kg” shipping weight band. If you didn’t select any add-ons, these will be your shipping bands!
Got one of our other games or bundles as an add-on? No problem!
What does that mean for shipping prices?
Since you get charged shipping on your whole order, you’ll be charged for the weight of your pledge plus the weight of any add-ons you selected.
If, for example, you pledged at the Morag’s Raft level and got the Deluxe Art Print pack and the Alba Art Card pack as add-ons, that would make your total weight 2.27kg, moving your pledge from the “less than 2kg” weight band into the “less than 3kg” weight band.
If you pledged at Viktor’s Pack, which is a digital level, and decided to also get some recharge packs to upgrade the experience, the total weight of your pledge would be 0.3kg, meaning you’d be charged at the 0.5kg weight band.
If you pledged for Gaia’s Radio and decided to get a Special Edition copy of Alba, as well as a copy of Crypt X, the total weight of your pledge would be 5.53kg, putting it into the “less than 6kg” weight band.
That’s great - but what are the actual shipping prices?
Rather than putting all that information in this update, since there are a lot of countries in the world and a lot of weight bands, here’s a handy google sheet that has all the information we currently have!
In case that hyperlink doesn’t work in the update, here’s the link itself:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cCWkSy00lRxKK4D4h6h8__L0KxYQEbDxatkZ6878UdE/edit?usp=sharing
You can use it to check what weight bands exist for your country, as well as what weight band your pledge in particular falls into!
Helpful & Interesting Things
Preorders
If you have a friend who missed out on the campaign (and all those sweet, sweet extras) but still wants to grab a copy of Alba for less than it'll be at retail, the Alba preorder store is now live.
https://alba.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Questions & Queries
If you're having trouble with anything, please let us know on the email below! Bear in mind, due to the sheer size of this campaign, it may take us a few working days to get back to you - also remember we're in the UK! [email protected]
I want to cancel my pledge
If for any reason you'd prefer not to go ahead with your pledge, we'll be happy to refund you at any time before fulfilment. Just email us at [email protected] with the subject line "Alba Refund (backer number)" and we'll get that sorted for you. Once processed, Refunds normally take 5-10 working days to be returned to your account.
Prizes & Backerkit
If you were one of the lucky prize winners for any of the competitions we ran during the campaign, then you may have noticed that those prizes haven't appeared in your backerkit survey. Don't worry! We'll be processing these manually at a point along the process when we're able to confidently divert attention away from the other parts of the project. These will appear when we do this, but we'll send a notification to you when we do it anyway so you know.
I can't find my survey :(
Lost your backerkit email, or not got one?
Click the link below to resend the email to complete your survey.
https://alba.backerkit.com/
Know a games retailer in any of the following countries who might be interested in helping us deliver Alba locally to reduce shipping fees? If so we're offering a pretty amazing package for them, so hit us up;
(Subject Line: Alba Shipping Partner - [LANGUAGE])
Want to grab a bunch of copies of Alba for your game/comic/book store? Awesome! We're offering some amazing rates for bulk purchases for stores, let us know on the support email!
(Subject Line: Alba Retail & Distribution - [COUNTRY])
Want to help test the Open World Adventure Book Library App, and see it before anyone else?
We'll be selecting a core group of backers to help us with testing the App on as many devices as possible, to ensure that it's bug-free and ready for roll-out. If you'd like to help, sign up here!
Are you a gamebook publisher that wants to bring Alba to your language region? If so, we're looking to establish licensing & translation partners for any of the following languages for Alba and the rest of the OWAB series.
Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Czech, Slovakian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Albanian, Greek, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Afrikaans, Japanese, Korean, Farsi, Filipino, Taiwanese Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, Javanese, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Nepalese.
(Subject Line: Alba Licensing - [LANGUAGE])
Links!
Inside the Box Facebook Page
Inside the Box Twitter
Inside the Box Instagram
Inside the Box YouTube
Open World Adventure Books Facebook Page
Open World Adventure Books Facebook Group
Open World Adventure Books Twitter
Open World Adventure Books Instagram
Inside the Box Website
Alba Preorder Store
Alba Kickstarter Backer Survey Retrieval
Chapter 25: Another Update on Shipping
about 3 years ago
– Sat, May 01, 2021 at 01:24:18 AM
Hello, Adventurers!
Just a quick update today! We’ll be going over the updated files available in backerkit, a bit more information about the updated shipping prices, and how to grab add-ons with any overpayment you’ve made!
Updated files
As a few of you keen-eyed backers have noticed, the last few days you would have had access to multiple different versions of the same files in your digital downloads, because we updated the ebook files. These files, quite conveniently, should say “Update” in the file name!
We kept the old files up for a few days to make sure there were no problems with the new ones, and now that we have, the old files have been removed from distribution. Deeply sorry if this caused any confusion!
Updated shipping prices
As most of you will have noticed, the shipping prices have been changed! If you completed your survey more than a week ago, it’s quite possible you’ll have some credit in your account. The last 3 updates have been largely focused on this, so we won’t go into too much detail here!
Some of you have noticed that your shipping price has actually increased, rather than decreased. There are two potential causes for this!
The first and easiest to remedy is that your address hasn’t been put in yet - for some reason, BackerKit will sometimes display an incorrect price for shipping if it doesn’t have your address in, even if it knows what country and what weight band your order fits into. Why does it do this? Honestly, we don’t know - but we do know that putting in your full address will fix the issue. If you still think the price of shipping is incorrect, feel free to contact us!
The second, and less easy to remedy, is that your shipping price has actually gone up. This will only impact a very small number of you (backers in the UK with pledges that weigh more than 5kg), and it’s because we’ll be fulfilling pledges within the UK ourselves.
Due to popular demand, we’ll be using exclusively Royal Mail services for UK-based fulfilment, rather than a combination of Royal Mail and other options like My Hermes.
While Hermes might be cheaper, it tends to be much less reliable. Since we’re fulfilling this part of the project ourselves, rather than through a fulfilment partner, we aren’t eligible for the same bulk discounts on Royal Mail services as we otherwise would have been.
We will not be changing this service to a less expensive one - we’re deeply sorry to anyone who has been affected by this. We haven’t maliciously increased the prices, as they are the real costs to us to fulfil, we just want to make sure you get the best service possible. We understand how frustrating this is and if you'd prefer not to go ahead with your pledge, we'll be happy to refund you, no questions asked. Just email us at [email protected] with the subject line "Alba Refund" followed by your backer number.
I want to get some add ons with my savings! How do I do it?
Unfortunately, BackerKit’s system only allows backers to make changes to their pledge for the first 48 hours after it’s been completed. If it’s been more than 48 hours since you submitted your pledge, we can manually process any adjustments you’d like made. Just send us an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Alba BackerKit” followed by your backer number.
Team Inside the Box
