What do you desire in deck creation?

Winterchild

Zombie Apolcalypse

Today I received a huge white box.... inside was another box and lots of brown paper, and inside that was a tarot deck in a plastic bag and a thin flimsy plasticy red bag. I have attached a photo. I really cannot understand why this happens. The two other decks I was forced to order separately to save on shipping could easily all have fitted the inner box!

Maybe TGC you could show this to your creators? Such waste just does not make me feel good at all. Not only in paper and boxes, but airplane space which costs the planet, extra mail room soace, extra postage!

Now I can see for boardgames you would need these large boxes, I think this may be where things started. Tarot decks and crad games need to be treated totally differently. I am glad you are addressing this... just encouraging you!

Oh and while we are at it..... the red bag I got with my deck is hideous.....if you could fins something a bit less chinese and plasticy??? TBH brown paper would be preferable. I know the customers choose these but if you don't offer them that choice they cant!!!

Love my deck btw...wish the cardstock was a teeny bit thicker, amd maybe smaller but it is very nice... Thanks :) Also rounded corners are a bonus!!
 

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Le Fanu

This is such a wonderful thread to see and I am all ready to eat my hat and order from GameCrafter again once all the things mentioned are officially changed.

I know that as an organization you cannot do anything about Customs in Europe (and I have had to pay excessive customs charges on your decks) but I always suspected it was because of the very "attention-grabbing" large boxes that caught the beady eyes of Customs. Other smaller packages may well pass through.

In terms of quality, I have been pleased with the decks I have received. I ordered a deck that came off-centre but not massively and it hasn't really affected my readings, though I was a bit miffed about it but I know you know which deck I'm talking about. :D. Another deck I ordered (that Etteilla one) had lovely cardstock and was very well produced. I knew about the boxes before it arrived as gregory warned me so it was less of a shock.

But as others have said, change the boxes and the postal rates will change. I would also add, change the boxes and maybe customs charges become less frequent.
 

The Game Crafter

I shall do my best to respond to each of your concerns.

Today I received a huge white box.... inside was another box and lots of brown paper, and inside that was a tarot deck in a plastic bag and a thin flimsy plasticy red bag. I have attached a photo. I really cannot understand why this happens. The two other decks I was forced to order separately to save on shipping could easily all have fitted the inner box!

This stuff is all packaged up by computer and it does it at checkout time, not when the order is shipped. It has to do this in order to quote you a shipping price. Therefore it cannot insert one game inside of another in order to give you a better shipping price.

Maybe TGC you could show this to your creators? Such waste just does not make me feel good at all. Not only in paper and boxes, but airplane space which costs the planet, extra mail room soace, extra postage!

We have and we do show it to people. However, I think I'm going to make a video about it because I think people may respond better to video than to written words. Basically the video will demonstrate how saving a few cents on packaging by choosing a large box is actually costing their customers money in shipping.

Now I can see for boardgames you would need these large boxes, I think this may be where things started. Tarot decks and crad games need to be treated totally differently. I am glad you are addressing this... just encouraging you!

We have tarot sized tuck boxes, so I'm not sure why the designer decided to use the large game box in this case. You'd have to ask him/her.

Oh and while we are at it..... the red bag I got with my deck is hideous.....if you could fins something a bit less chinese and plasticy??? TBH brown paper would be preferable. I know the customers choose these but if you don't offer them that choice they cant!!!

We looked into nice cloth bags made right here in Wisconsin. However, we'd have to charge $10 per bag, and as a rule we don't stock items that are that costly, simply because they don't sell. We'd need to find some that we could sell for under $5 to make it worth while.

Love my deck btw...wish the cardstock was a teeny bit thicker, amd maybe smaller but it is very nice... Thanks :) Also rounded corners are a bonus!!

I'm glad you like your deck.
 

The Game Crafter

But as others have said, change the boxes and the postal rates will change. I would also add, change the boxes and maybe customs charges become less frequent.

This coming week the large TGC box will no longer be defaultly added to a game/deck. The designer will have to decide which box to add themselves. However, this will have no impact on any games / decks already in the system. Designers have all along had the choice to remove the large box and put in a more appropriately sized box.

Please do keep in mind that we are not designing the decks you purchase. The designers of those decks decide which box they'd like to use for their deck. So while we can provide options, we cannot make the final decision about which box the designer chooses for their deck.
 

Le Fanu

when I said boxes, I meant the postal boxes, not the deck boxes. My orders from TGC have come in little plastic bags and I'm fine with that. I choose my own bag/box at this end!
 

HudsonGray

Addidng more 'human' in the proccess of packaging would make a diffrence, yes. It can't all be done by robotics. When someone sees a 4x2x3" deck being dropped into a box big enough to ship a puppy in, they should be pulling it and repackaging it into something more appropriate.

Wholesale buying of drawstring bags can be done cheaper, the wedding industry has the right sizes for cheap, when they can resell them for $3 retail at Michaels, their supplier can give you a deal just as good. OR you can contract locally with independent sewers, those kinds of bags are not difficult to make enmasse.

My sister's daughter had her wedding in Sept., she ordered the organza bags off the Uline site (they have an excellent selection of color, all drawstring) which totaled 37 cents each in the size that would hold a tarot deck. They also offer gold mettalic bags that are drawstring, for 44 cents each. They're on page 167 of their online catalog here---
http://catalog.uline.com/WebProject.asp?CodeId=7.7.1.23&BookCode=dqq12flx&Language=enu
Uline ships next day, the drawstring bags come in bundles of 100 and 120 for the above choices, so even if you only get one bundle, that would be cheap enough to cover tarot deck sales at your end.
 

gregory

Actually - minority view here ? I am QUITE happy to get my deck in a plastic bag (as opposed to tuck box or "velvet" bag) as long as it is MAILED in a sensible sized box. I can see that adding bags to the equation would up costs, however cheap they are.

I buy pretty bags from the Dollar Store in bulk anyway, as quite a few self-published ones from elsewhere arrive bagless ! - and I am happy to bag my own. Just saying :D
 

GryffinSong

I agree with gregory. I don't care what the cards themselves are wrapped in, as long as the shipping box is appropriately sized, and carefully packed so that the cards arrive undamaged. I always take the cards out of whatever they're sent in and make a bag specially for it, so tuck boxes are completely irrelevant to me.
 

gregory

TGC - do creators have the option of JUST a ziploc bag - and if not, why not ?
 

VGimlet

I do have a comment about card size. I know that this is up to the individual artist, but it would be excellent if there were a slightly larger card size available - for example a 4 3/4" X 2 1/2 " size would be a nice option.

I am very glad to see you are fixing the box size used for shipping issue, as much as possible.

I like tuck boxes, but also don't mind the plastic bags either.

Thanks for coming here and listening to us. :D