International buyers would like a sale too.

TashaLlama · **Posted:** Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:52 pm

I try not to complain or feel entitled. And for the most part, I'm ridiculously empathetic to the needs of businesses.
However this nice CyberMonday sale is exasperating a fairly recent sticking point for me and some other intn'l folks who are aware of what's up.

Even with this awesome sale, it just serves to equalize the discrimination towards intn'l buyers. Domestic folks get a wicked discount, and I get the privillege of being treated almost like a regular domestic buyer. Almost. Because there's some more other additional shipping costs & taxes that weren't covered in that "New shipping to Canada- we'll just recalculate your retail value to reflect the exchange rate and shipping and stuff" markup precurser. Hurray!

It's also feeling totally useless- I sent an e-mail to CS awhile ago plainly laying out my response to the website marking up changes. We've had more than one thread on the boards discussing it. I have alternatives available; I can go down to my local comic shop and buy an extremely limited selection of already-imported MicroMunny for 10$ea. I can ask a USA friend on the boards to help buy&ship to me and we deal with all the liability/import stuff sneakily ourselves. Or shop at a 3rd party online store and pay actual RETAIL costs; pay my 7.12$CDN or whatever for a 6.95$USD toy converted without exploitative malice through Paypal.

So I don't imagine anything really changing; which is lame, because I don't want to just complain with no way of making things better. And Canada's not nearly as bad as the UK/AU, so I feel doubly guilty complaining. But seeing folks enjoy an awesome sale, a very kind non-obligatory company gesture, does instill in me some wishfulness that a Sale was a Sale across the borders too.

arjybarjy · **Posted:** Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:34 pm

I feel your pain. Products magically inflating in price (by not insignificant amounts) when you change your country and currency for check out, effectively negates the discounts of the sale. Even with the incredibly generous discounts that Kidrobot offer in their sales, the inflation of RRP before discount hardly makes sales worth bothering with.

Just as an example, the Kronk Dweezil Dragon which retails for US$350 is 'converted' to AUS$497.10. This is nowhere near a true conversion given that the Australian dollar is worth more than the US dollar. This initial price conversion means that I as an international purchaser would be paying around $73 more for Dweezil than a domestic purchaser if we both used the 50% discount. It's exasperating that international customers are charged inflated prices based on conversion rates that are not reflective of true exchange rates. I too am wishful that one day we may see a sale that is 'a sale across the borders.'

DigiboyT · **Joined:** Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:26 am **Posts:** 638

I'm with you totally. The last KR sale I had to get a US boardie to buy a case of Fatcaps for me, get them delivered to him and then have him ship it to me. I saved $50 - a considerable amount given that the US price of the case in the sale was $70. So it's actually cheaper for me to have something shipped to one place and then to me than it is to get it direct from KR online.

The fact that the price is inflated to 'cover' shipping but then extra shipping is also added is a MASSIVE joke.

You'll also notice another pretty questionable tactic in that if the shipping price goes up (if you select a more expensive shipping method) the import duty goes up. Pretty sure I've NEVER seen a company in the UK charge VAT on shipping. Likewise, when I've had to pay import duty in the UK it is always based on the value of the item NOT the value of the item PLUS shipping. You shouldn't be charging import duty on shipping to the UK. I don't know about other countries but I'm almost certain for the UK you shouldn't be.

TashaLlama · **Posted:** Wed Nov 28, 2012 9:06 pm

DigiboyT wrote:

You'll also notice another pretty questionable tactic in that if the shipping price goes up (if you select a more expensive shipping method) the import duty goes up... I don't know about other countries but I'm almost certain for the UK you shouldn't be.

Yeah, no, that's just... wow. C'Mon guys.

Canada has a reasonably lax 100-200 base exemption on import duty fees depending on how customs feels that day. I know, because I work with a USA fulfillmet center of whom ships to Canada almost daily- and it's really only 150/200+$-ish shipments that Clients get stuck with import fees. So any brokerage I've paid up front that isn't required by customs from KR has never been returned back to me, go figure.

I'm only frustrated because I want to keep shopping direct with KR! :lol:

I really, really like Kidrobot a lot and want to keep feeling good about supporting!

DigiboyT · **Joined:** Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:26 am **Posts:** 638

Yeah, my criticisms come from really liking the product but having awful experiences with quality/service. I want to buy direct from KR but they pretty much force me not to.

The whole including import taxes thing is slippery anyway because in the UK we have a threshold under which you don't have to pay import tax so unless KR has researched every countries' rules, they might be charging people for things they shouldn't have to pay, but doing so as standard.

kat820 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 06, 2012 8:22 pm

I have to say I'm very frustrated with their shipping to international buyers as well.

I placed a very large order during the Cyber Monday sale and I STILL don't have any shipping information available on DHL when I put the tracking number in. I placed an order the weekend before which apparently hasn't even left the States yet.

I ordered one of the items as a gift for next Tuesday (over two weeks seemed reasonable at the time) that will definitely not make it in time. Very frustrated with the lack of customer support as well as I can't seem to get any solid information regarding when this order will finally arrive. Oh and no exchanges or returns for international orders so not only will I need to purchase a new gift I'm stuck with the old one with no way to recoup my losses.

I love KR but I think I'll stick to the local store and other sites from now on, sadly.

Kidrobot Guru · **Posted:** Thu Dec 06, 2012 8:35 pm

So sorry to hear about your troubles... When was the last time you tried contacting
customerservice@kidrobot.com? Perhaps you can try giving 'em a call as well.

Please keep me posted.

TashaLlama · **Posted:** Fri Dec 07, 2012 12:58 am

Thanks for the thought Guru! I e-mailed just general thoughts on it maybe a month or two ago, but made mention I wasn't specifically looking for a response.
I can appreciate some online store platforms/programming can have flawed or inflexible calculator functions. I've got some challenges with a platform I work with, and am switching platforms. But to be complacent with a problematic platform, and content to just gouge the remaining buyers to compensate for lost ones, isn't what I'd want to see happen long-run.

theyellowduck · **Joined:** Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:22 am **Posts:** 257

TashaLlama wrote:

Thanks for the thought Guru! I e-mailed just general thoughts on it maybe a month or two ago, but made mention I wasn't specifically looking for a response.
I can appreciate some online store platforms/programming can have flawed or inflexible calculator functions. I've got some challenges with a platform I work with, and am switching platforms. But to be complacent with a problematic platform, and content to just gouge the remaining buyers to compensate for lost ones, isn't what I'd want to see happen long-run.

I totally feel your frustration. Although I cannot empathize with the currency issues, I can empathize with the cost of purchasing ANYTHING from the KR site. I've ordered a variety of 8"s from each release (Ironclad, Gold King, Shadow Friend, etc)...and it cost nearly $43 in shipping just to ship ONE 8" to me! I ordered from KRNY and it cost about the same as well! Thankfully KRSF is the only location that offers a reasonable shipping rate! KRLA doesn't ship and I never really enquired with KRMIA.

I wish there would be other options for shipping from KR as I end up having to attempt to shop at other retailers. While I am devoted KR head and have been for quite sometime, I remember the days when we'd get a discounted rate for shipping to Hawaii during larger sale events (Apparel sales, etc). Sadly, this hasn't continued.

Not upset, just frustrated here =\

lamuna · **Joined:** Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:29 am **Posts:** 452

Totally weird. I just tested on Kidrobot.com.

For 2 eight deadly sins labbits, the price in USD is $19.9.
In Korean won, it converts to KRW32,158 which is equivalent to $29.96...

Ok, so the price goes up 50%. Not only that, there is also a shipping charge of KRW28,253, or equivalent to $26.32.

So for two labbits, the grand total price is $56.27.

WTH? LOL. The funniest part is that if I change the buying quantity to 4 labbits, the shipping charge actually decreases tiny bit. :lol:

Kidrobot Guru · **Posted:** Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:19 pm

I do hope some more accommodating options can be found.
Many apologies for the inconvenience.

theyellowduck · **Joined:** Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:22 am **Posts:** 257

Kidrobot Guru wrote:

I do hope some more accommodating options can be found.
Many apologies for the inconvenience.

I definitely hope so. It's frustrating that not all the KR stores offer shipping to Hawaii, if KRNYC, KRMiami and KRLondon can ship to me in Hawaii - I don't understand why KRLA cannot ship to Hawaii? This one baffles me. I wish you could provide some insight to this puzzle

Also, I understand the incentive to spend over $100 and you would qualify for free shipping (within the Continental US).

But can you explain (the shipping charges to Hawaii) as it pertains to purchasing one Higher, Faster, Stronger BOT. The shipping charges for one Bot are $40.21, the same shipping charge as a Mega Munny ($40.21)?

theyellowduck · **Joined:** Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:22 am **Posts:** 257

Kidrobot Guru wrote:

I do hope some more accommodating options can be found.
Many apologies for the inconvenience.

and on a side note, it's frustrating because I've flown to LA twice in the past three months just to pick up some special releases. (I know this is a shameless rant)

It'd be more feasible to have the stores ship directly to me!

I'm asking nicely, please

I hate flying!

TashaLlama · **Posted:** Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:14 pm

That's pretty strange. The fulfillment company I work with ships orders to Alaska and Hawaii every once in awhile, and we've been able to ship Priority for the same costs as the rest of the US. 6-10$ to ship a print to Hawaii.

Thanks for the sympathy Guru! It's definitely not something we're unhappy towards you about. I can appreciate the KR team is relatively small and are constantly kept busy with projects and releases, so stuff like this is both a Back-Burner kind of concern, as well as somewhat negligible when probably all of 25 Canadians order with regularity. Maybe that's why that, for a company that really goes above and beyond in other different respects, it's such a bummer to be so hung out to dry on this end of it.

Rmetz27 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 20, 2012 9:42 pm

It might be because they go through UPS. I know USPS doesn't have a difference in price but UPS and FEDEX probably do.

DigiboyT · **Joined:** Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:26 am **Posts:** 638

lamuna wrote:

Totally weird. I just tested on Kidrobot.com.

For 2 eight deadly sins labbits, the price in USD is $19.9.
In Korean won, it converts to KRW32,158 which is equivalent to $29.96...

Ok, so the price goes up 50%. Not only that, there is also a shipping charge of KRW28,253, or equivalent to $26.32.

So for two labbits, the grand total price is $56.27.

WTH? LOL. The funniest part is that if I change the buying quantity to 4 labbits, the shipping charge actually decreases tiny bit. :lol:

LMAO

The maths is strong with KR.

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