I believe in treating all people equally. Everyone should have the same access to board games from any place in the world. However, life proves that there are a lot of things making that impossible. One is the shipping!
The business plan for running a publishing company and Kickstarter projects is to make a profit. No one is working hard on their projects just to lose cash! Whether you are traditional publisher sending games to your customers or when it's time to send your KS campaign rewards to your backers, the last thing you would expect is losing your games in delivery! A lost parcel can kill your profit or even cause a loss. I know it's horrible, but the reality is that it is much better for you to avoid customers from some countries or charge them extra for shipping than taking the risk. I feel very sorry for fans living in those countries, but unfortunately, we can't help!
I spoke with Andrew from GamesQuest to discuss the subject. GamesQuest is a fast growing company. Very reliable fulfilling shipping partner. They fulfilled many Kickstarter campaigns. Let see how the whole thing looks from their experience:
Russia
- 25% parcels missing
- Tracking is not available (it is available for business only)
- Weeks or months of delay at customs
- It is highly recommended to avoid sending parcels to this country
Brazil
The terrifying thing about shipping to Brazil is flat import tax of 60%.
- 5% parcels missing without tracking
- 60% flat import tax
- Tracking is very expensive
- Can be six months of delay at customs
- It is highly recommended to avoid sending parcels to this country
United Emirates, Argentina, Brunei, Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Urgugwai
- 2-5% parcels missing without tracking
- Couple weeks of delay
- Quite expensive
- It might be a good idea to avoid
Greece, Hongkong, Malaysia. Taiwan, Indonesia
- Standard 1-2% parcels missing without tracking
- Can be a week delay
- Can be expensive
- If your customer is happy to pay a little bit more for shipping and ready to wait a bit longer I don't see a problem to send a parcel there.
***
Thank you, Andrew, for your insights and useful data! That is very kind.
And a little bit from me
Italy
I heard some problems about Italy. One lady was very curious why her grandmother's parcels always are delivered on time and are never missing while she so often had some problems. She discovered that her grandmother always had a baby Jesus on her parcel. She said she have no more missing parcels since she started doing that. Did anyone try that method?
Africa
There are not many parcels sent to this region! GamesQuest sent couple items to Africa, and they didn't have any issues however I heard that some people had some problems. Did anyone have customers from Africa and what is your experience?
Do you know any good tips or any other country where you had any problems?
