Delivery costs changed - Hugely!
Hi I ordered a book last week to be shipped to the UK, and delivery via UPS standard was about £9.17. I’ve now just gone to order the same book again, but I’m now being told the same delivery method is £21.92. What is going on?
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I believe Blurb still has to sort out major issues with their European print an ddelivery service. My first European order with them was less than exemplary I’m really sorry to say. Although Blurb claims European orders are now printed in the Netherlands they still charge 21+ euros for shipping and this is not even express delivery. My order took a week to arrive – tracking showed it went to Paris first, returned and then sent to Vienna finally. When it got here there was a big fold on the cover – no plastic bubble wrap, as was the case in my previsous US order. I ship items contantly all over Europe due to ebay using DHL one day express. I seldom pay more than 14 euros for even bulky items and they get there the next day, and I am a private individual. Blurb is a company with much more business to offer couriers’ So why can’t Blurb at least offer something similar? I’ll probably hold off ordering any more books from Blurb for now.
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Well this is horrendous I’ve wasted 2 days of my life compositing a book page for page, only to be able to order one of them, and then the price go up exponentially. My book also was not covered in bubble wrap, and there was a tiny dent on the bottom corner of the book. I passed this off as just about acceptable though. Is blurb in danger of taking the route that Apple have for so many years. Blinkers on for anything outside of the US?
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I love the idea of custom books. It’s easy to want more of this. But, every dollar I have to spend on freight is a dollar I am not going to spend on books. My budget is limited. So, Blurb must change their approach to this outside the States. It’s all well and good Blurb not making a profit on freight, but the truth is they are losing on freight. And I’m surprised this hasn’t really got their attention yet. Until the freight options are wider (read cheaper) and I see consistent evidence of reliable book binding from other customers I am sorry to say I won’t be ordering any more books. I’d love to love Blurb, but I have trust issues.
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When I ordered 6 month ago in Holland a book of 400 pages, the price for the shipment was almost as high as the price for the book. Now it’s a lot better. Out of interest: even if you have to pay 21 pounds, is there a company where you can get books with so many pages for this price? I can’t find anything that comes near Blurb.
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What is going on? I just got my first order of 6 books from blurb on friday and I’m very happy with it. For my first order I paid a 30 euro postage fee which is ok for 6 books (destination: Europe).
No I was about to submit an order of the exact same size and it says the postage would be 70 euros for the same adress. HOW COULD IT BE MORE THAN DOUBLE NOW??!!
I thought my books were printed in the US. but I found out it’s coming from the Netherlands. 70 euros is way too much for that…
Please tell me it’s just a mistake!
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I’ve just finished my book as well and of course, nothing works until I’ve ordered a copy or two. Here’s the shock for me: I placed an order for 1 hardcover and 1 softcover to be shipped to Singapore. Only one delivery option showed up: UPS Express Saver at US$153.14 for shipping alone. The website, software and ease of use are all wonderful. The shipping cost is ridiculous.
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Hello 21goodlife; THANK YOU for posting this… This is OUTRAGEOUS! I just ran a check, and my shipping charges have also increased by the same quantum! £9+ to £22 – and my printing also came from Holland… In my case the shipping charge represents an add-on cost of almost 90% of the cost of the book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blurb need to review this a.s.a.p…. Currently, the shipping costs are not published. Here’s what the page says; Blurb does not list fixed shipping prices because we calculate shipping costs on a per order basis. We base shipping prices on the number of pages you print, how many books you order, whether you choose hardcover or softcover, the size of your book, your postal code, and what shipping option you choose. All of these factors impact the shipping price. That’s why we don’t calculate it until you’ve uploaded your book and go through the ordering process. This actually helps us keep prices relevant and competitive. This is not acceptable if shipping is to become a MAJOR factor. It’s not rocket science to build a simple "Look-up" table based on; book size, # pages, volume ordered, type & destination… At this time, the user has no way of knowing what his end-cost is going to be until the project is complete, uploaded and ordered; at which time they have you by the **s! BLURB – on top of the software problems – you add this! Not a clever move under the circumstances! Lee
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For Greece, for a 7&7 cm book: 80 euros. No, thanks, my book can wait until they turn reasonable…
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Hello The same thing happened to me. The answer I got from customer service was that they had estimated the price UPS would give them when they announced that the postage price was going down due to a new printer in Holland. Unfortunately they over estimated the price drop which caused the yo-yo effect in the postage price. There is a post here compling about the postage prices. One answer from a staff member : norcaljhawk states that : "We are actively pursuing a USPS solution prior to the holiday frenzy…stay tuned to the forums and the blog for more information" So there seems to be a soloution in the works – I will belive it when I see it but my fingers are crossed. As for Blurb not being able to indicate shipping costs I can understand the problem and other POD’s do the same – LuLu for example. A shipping calculator would be great but I would prefer they got the other problems sorted out first. Thats my 2 francs (swiss) worth.
Regards
Paul
Switzerland
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Please allow to send book via ordinary mail… It is impossible to buy books with shipping price that is the 300% of the book’s cost. I think that Blurb it is one of the best service for publishing books, but impossible to buy anything if it will remain in this way. The same for the revenue program outside US… Incredible that we users push the company to help blurb to make money…
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Hi Paul; "We are actively pursuing a USPS solution prior to the holiday frenzy…stay tuned to the forums and the blog for more information" That’s all well & good, but USPS is only good for the USA! It won’t work in Europe (although there is a Europe wide service (I think) called EMS)! I agree totally about getting the software sorted, but at the rates now published for book delivery, I certainly won’t be back in a hurry, and I would guess that many others will also feel the same… And, with respect, I don’t for one moment believe that a simple look-up table is out of reach of Blurb’s software gurus. They will know what they’ve contracted for, so it’s a fairly simple question of keeping the rates current! Cheers; Lee
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Wow, what’s going on??? :O I think I’m just gonna switch to Lulu.com
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it appears a bug has surfaced with UPS…we are researching this issue.
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>>> it appears a bug has surfaced with UPS…we are researching this issue Oh, oh!! What do mean by "bug"???? ....that some people already got ripped-off in delivery charges (who knows how many!), but… OK it’s just a "bug" that will be resolved in the future?!! And all these "current" clients? To the hell with them and what happened?
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ATTN BLUB USE USPS!!! You can send FLAT RATE EXPRESS MAIL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD comes with $100 Insurance and TRACKING for $25. Thats how I send books from US to Brazil. They get there in 5-7 days..to Europe probably even faster. I dont understand why Blurb doesnt allow the cuistomer to decide the risk of shipping! Offer FLAT RATE with Insurance and even 1st class and leave the risk to the client if they choose the cheap[est method. Thats what I do and all my clients pay $25 for the shipping.
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Hello Lee When they say USPS I really, really, really hope they mean that they are going to use the "normal" postal service to send the book. When I order from BHPhoto and chose USPS it comes via good old parcel post. Regards
Paul
Switzerland
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Hi Paul; It looks to me as if Blurb are groping in the dark about this… As far as I understand, all printing for Europe & the East / Orient is now done in Holland so USPS is not an option anyway… I believe they could offer EMS as an option; most Post Services are signed up to EMS so that might work… But, I think for the moment we have to wait & see what Blurb discover about a "bug" in their connection to UPS! I hope they sort it soon… and the software… and the printing !!! Cheers; Lee
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They seem to have a major problem with the UPS shipping prices.
My book which used to cost $56.33 to ship to Switzerland (twice the price of the book) now has shipping listed at $148.26 !
I know fuel prices are going up but unless Switzerland has just fallen of the edge of the world (I hope the elephants catch us, or at least we land on the turtle) there might be a small, tiny, itsy-bitsy problem with the Blurb-UPS link…...
Untill this problem is corrected, it might be a good idea that Blurb inform its clients or put the information on their website. The best thing to do to avoid annoyed customers would be to stop people ordering books untill the problem has been solved… Regards
Paul
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UPDATE still strange things going on! today I rechecked the projected standard ups shipping charges to Athens in july I had paid 13 euros until yesterday it was going to charge 70.25 for an identical order today the number is 30 euros the issue still needs to be worked on amazon shipping from the us is comparable to the 13 euro figure above HOPE THIS IS RESOLVED SOON! Alexander
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To Blurb Staff; THANK YOU for posting up the warning notice "sticky" about the UPS charging… Can I suggest that you consider making these "Hot News" items feature of the initial log-in/home pages. That way users WILL see theses important notices… I would bet that a great many of your users never look at the forum! Cheers; Lee
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Book HardCove of 32 pages, price = 32 Euros, Cost of sending(parcel) to Spain = 45,57 Euros.
It(He) seems to me to be really excessive, and does that it(he,she) questions to use more this program.
A greeting
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Hi all I got the following from Blurb last night: ######################################################################## Hi Tim
This was due to a technical problem with UPS that caused shipping rates to appear incorrectly. UPS is aware of the problem and promised us that they are addressing this issue. We will post an update as soon as one is available. In the meantime, try again tomorrow and see if it has reverted to the original (and lower) rates.
Cheers,
Michael
###################################################################### I’ve just logged on to order a new book, and the Standard service is back to where it should be, i.e. just over £9 (still expensive – but tolerable considering the cost of the books in the first place). So I’ve ordered one. The other two shipping methods were still like £45 and £54!!!. At least I got my £9 delivery. Tim
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I am not buying any book form Blurb till they drop their shipping prices and get more transparent about delivery costs. I am really thinking about switching to Lulu.com as I didn’t get any answer from the Blurb team itself to my questions. Herve (Switzerland)
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Item Name Quantity Price
====================================================
Carteles republicanos de la Guerra Civil Española 1 €16,95
Carteles republicanos de la Guerra Civil Española 1 €16,95
Carteles republicanos de la Guerra Civil Española 1 €16,95
Carteles republicanos de la Guerra Civil Española 1 €16,95
====================================================
Subtotal: €67,80
Tax: €4,06
Shipping: €45,97
====================================================
Total: €117,83
Shipping UPS standar 45,97 € !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really an exaggerated price.
This makes reframe doing to me more orders of books to Blurb.
It is a robbery
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Why is it that shipping to Singapore (Southeast Asia) only comes in UPS Express Saver? The book, 108 pages with soft cover, costed US$29.95, and the shipping costs US64.86?
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Silvester,
Best thing to do for you to contact Blurb Customer Service, by submitting contact form. To do this, go from here:
http://www.blurb.com/help/order_support
Please understand that once customer service rep at Blurb receive the receipt of your email online, it takes one business day for them to get this back to you.
Hope that helps.
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Not sure that will help, my postage to Australia has shot up so much I won’t make a cent from my current book and my next one as I have fixed prices on them to my customers. I have 2 issues logged through the support system and it now 5 days since I have had a response. I’m a bit disappointed, I have to say.
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This is total rubbish, I now go to order them and it’s $200 to send to Aus from $150 3 days ago, I’m pissed off with this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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As mentioned on a previous post on the same topic that many of your are tracking…we are in the middle of testing the integration with a new carrier and close to wrapping this up.
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I wanted everyone to know we’ve launched with our new carrier—Swiss Post. This will impact all orders shipped in Europe, Asia, New Zealand, and Australia. I think you’ll be happy, or at least happier, with the updated prices.
To verify yourself, simply place any item from the bookstore in your cart and progress to the Delivery Option page of the check-out process. Also, check out the Pricing and Shipping page for additional information.
Note: neither Swiss Post Priority nor Swiss Post Economy are trackable options. Meaning, you will not have the ability to track the progress of an order shipped via the Swiss Post as you can with UPS. The community has expressed, on a number of occasions, that they would give up the ability to track and order as so long as more cost effective alternative is available. Now you have both options
We’ll continue to work on optimizing our shipping costs to ensure you are getting the best price possible. This includes pushing UPS to lower their costs; giving those users who want tracking capabilities a more affordable alternative.
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