Received two orders from TFAW - not preorders. The books were in great condition and packed well.
The odd thing though is that one package was shipped USPS and the other DHL-USPS. The one that qualified for free shipping was shipped USPS Media Mail, and the other (for which I was charged shipping) was charged USPS Printed Bound Matter. Not sure what this is about, but dont understand why these options could not be extended to preorders to save on postage.
The other odd thing is that a variant that I ordered (and received with the orders above), is still being processed (preordered earlier also), and has yet to be shipped. Go figure.
For me DHL was always handing off to USPS at certain point. Here one package was sent the DHL-USPS way, the other directly with USPS. Just weird !
Also the use of USPS Media Mail is still puzzling to me, and I never knew there was a ‘printed bound matter’ rate. I have to look into the latter and see if this is a cheaper alternative.
Wish TFAW would apply this to their preorders too.
So DHL is a middle man per se. They get a cut of the shipping costs paid but likely sit on packages as they probably wait until they fill up the truck or plane, to be more efficient in shipping needs is what I think is happening. So instead of them sending a truck 3/4 filled so they have to turn around and do the same each week or so, they wait to fill it entirely.
Imagine moving across town and you fill the truck up 1/2 up, making 2 trips to move everything instead of waiting to fill the entire truck up… I think that’s the concept of DHL and why they cut the costs down to get it from point B to C when between points A and D.
Tfaw has actually listed all my orders for this week as processing. That’s the fastest it’s been done in months. Ironically, this order will probably take months to ship.
They are pretty much current for me also, including this week. However, I still have 43 books pre-ordered from every month since 10/21 that have not shipped. That is the discouraging and frustrating aspect. I could have ordered those books from other places. I can likely get majority of them still from my other sources, but then these 43 books could still be sprinkled into my next how many orders from TFAW. I have greatly decreased my Pre-orders with them since this year. The inconsistency has become a huge deterrent.
Once in a while I see incentive ratios listed at TFAW pre-FOC for the full ratio price (i.e. 1:100 variant listed for $99.99) Is this just an error and they will adjust them down to the normal 80% of ratio price (for the 1:100 that would be $79.99) or do they sometimes let them fly at full price?
For the most part it’s an error but it doesn’t get fixed byanybody and you will pay full price. Some are actually full price like sandman 1:100 was no discount.