[Arm-netbook] Shipping costs

[Wolfram Kahl]

Hi Luke,

  I didn't mean to be confrontational, and even included a smiley in
an attempt to document that. ;-)

I wasn't arguing at all against your choice of the US as shipping hub;
you discussed that before. Instead I was trying to get more attention
the point that Wolfgang had raised, and that I havven't seen really
addressed yet:

> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 02:56:51PM +0200, m016fec3 wrote:
>> I have pledged for more than one item and have the question, others have
>> them too, if the items will be send bundled and if yes, will the
>> shipping costs nevertheless be summed up as if the items would have been
>> sent seperately?

You somewhat anser this by the following:

>  from there, the costs of shipping are known to be more expensive
> outside of the US, due to surcharges which are *totally outside* of
> our control.  this isn't something we can ignore.  more experienced
> people than i have set the shipping costs based on years of direct
> experience.   i don't know what they are - but crowdsupply (and
> thinkpenguin) definitely do.

I can perfectly take that for an answer, but I probably am not alone
in feeling that this is suboptimal. To exaggerate the situation a bit:

>  my experience has been limited to using DHL and Fedex for personal
> shipping of items: the costs for sending a 40 gram Computer Card were
> something mad like $75.

Now if you had had them send you two 40 gram Computer Cards in a single
package, would you have been happy to pay $150 for that,
even though you accepted to pay $75 for the single card?
>From my experience with DHL etc., I would expect the two cards to cost
the same $75, since they fit into the same (rather oversized...) envelope.


Perhaps more directly relevant to the project, I was trying to make
the following argument: If shipping costs for multiple items
can be reduced, then people outside the US will likely order
more of the small items together with the cards and micro-desktops.


Cheers!

Wolfram