Something for publishers/creators to consider when shipping abroad:
Make sure the name of the sender is clearly marked on your parcel, and logged with the postal/delivery/fulfilment service. I’ve had some trouble with the customs here in Finland where I’ve had to declare a parcel (a rpg book) to pay VAT, but either it has no sender name, or the sender name is not the same as your name / public name of your shop / company.
Sometimes the tracking info reveals the US state it was processed, which helps identify the parcel, but it’s still sketchy sometimes.
This leaves me in an awkward situation where I’m having to guess what parcel it is (i have backed lots of kickstarters, so i’m not always sure which product it is this time), by going through Kickstarter status emails.
This is not a problem with RPGs alone, but I thought i’d let folks know this can happen. Especially now that EU law forces tax (Finnish VAT, in my case) to always be collected from online purchases, parcels get stuck in customs more often.
Anyone else had this problem?