Eclectic Tarot Forum

The market for Indy decks is growing so rapidly. The demand for them is great and so is the supply.
A lot of advances have been made in the area of deck printing/publishing which has fuelled the rise of so many amazing Indy decks.

But what about distribution?

Now would be a good time to start looking for some ways to improve the transaction experience for everyone.

I'm interested to hear from sellers and buyers.

By discussing this openly we may find a way to some solutions that will make it easier for everyone to engage in prompt, clear and simple transactions. Get the cards into the hands of the people who want them and at the same time give the creators their due.

Creators: What issues are you facing in trying to get your decks out?

Collectors: What issues are you facing trying to acquire some of the beautiful work you are seeing and hearing about?

What's working? What isn't?

I'm not so much a collector as a prodigious user, and have somewhere around 65 decks. Living in Canada, I find shipping to be a huge problem - particularly shipping from the US. Europe is much better. Also, I'd love to "buy local" but find it really hard to find made in Canada decks - actually, I just tried the other day and got nowhere.

Yes, I bought a rare CD a few months back and the shipping from Italy to England was bad enough, but it made the copy in the US totally out of the question. I remember someone on AT in Brazil always saying how shipping made the decks she wanted unaffordable

I live in the Middle East and shipping is the one crux that makes many things unaffordable. Some sellers ask for simply exorbitant shipping costs. I'm lucky that I have friends in the USA who sometimes ship decks to me that I ordered. Having the decks sent to them first and then to me was still cheaper than ordering them directly...

Nemia wrote: ↑15 Nov 2017, 00:40 I live in the Middle East and shipping is the one crux that makes many things unaffordable. Some sellers ask for simply exorbitant shipping costs. I'm lucky that I have friends in the USA who sometimes ship decks to me that I ordered. Having the decks sent to them first and then to me was still cheaper than ordering them directly...

I guess they could also be classed as gifts, avoiding any possible taxes or import duties. Taxes may also not apply to used items, so if someone's opened them up and given them a good shuffle so much the better .

2dogs wrote: ↑15 Nov 2017, 02:04
I guess they could also be classed as gifts, avoiding any possible taxes or import duties. Taxes may also not apply to used items, so if someone's opened them up and given them a good shuffle so much the better .

Taxes is not the problem. It's the shipping costs. Some of it is people making money on shipping but a goodly part is that shipping abroad from the US is ridiculously expensive, whether you use the postal system or a courier company like UPS (and don't get me started on them.) It's so much that there are quite a few people in Canada who live close to the border actually have an address in the US just for that reason. I have seriously contemplated doing that myself, just for books and tarot. It's bizarre that it can be prohibitively expensive to ship something from 50 miles away when I'll gladly order something from 5,000 miles away.

Shops like Little Red that offer decks without the huge shipping and customs make imported decks so much more affordable and accessible for UK folk. When I bought Tabula Mundi I paid almost £40 on top of the purchase price on postage and import duties. If I hadn't have wanted the deck so much or been so pleased to have it, I would definitely have cried.

I understand that 'gift' is not acceptable on custom forms in some countries - it has to say what the item is, or it will be shipped back. Is this true?

About to ship a temari to Canada - am listing it as 'Christmas ornament'.

tarotbear wrote: ↑15 Nov 2017, 15:25 I understand that 'gift' is not acceptable on custom forms in some countries - it has to say what the item is, or it will be shipped back. Is this true?

About to ship a temari to Canada - am listing it as 'Christmas ornament'.

I'm originally from Germany and have lived in a number of different countries, so have some experience with this. "Gift" seems to work almost all the time - almost. I once had to pay $300 in taxes for a more or less useless wedding gift that probably cost less than that ...

I normally send packages by registered mail so I can track them. It also seems to speed up delivery a bit.

Using registered mail also offers the seller/sender some recourse in the event the package isn't delivered for some reason. However it doesn't help much if the package is damaged which has happened to me a couple of times. I replaced the damaged decks right away but got no restitution from the post office for the damaged ones because their processes are too convoluted, even if the package is insured. My response to that has been to up my packaging game by a lot.

Indy sellers have to work these losses and unexpected costs into their deck prices if they are to be paid fairly for their work.

There is also the percentages taken by paypal, etsy, kickstarter, etc, etc.