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Caudata.org Calendar - Winners and Purchasing Details

hunter

New member
Joined
May 7, 2007
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Location
Houston, Texas
What a beautiful calendar! I have ordered two.
More to come, I am sure.
Great job, John.
Happy Holidays,
happy.gif
 
J

john

Guest
Glad you like it Hunter. Seems cafepress is on the blink again now though... At least the calendar is there to buy when cafepress is working.
 
D

deborah

Guest
Beautiful!!!! I ordered one. Thanks for all the work putting this together. I hope you do a new one every year!
 
J

john

Guest
Well putting the calendar together was the easy part. The hard parts were getting people to come up with the photos when asked, and for the originals to be of high enough resolution and quality.

Next year we're going to only allow submissions to the competition if they are accompanied by the originals at the time of submission.
 
T

travis

Guest
John,

Thanks for the effort....it turned out beautiful. And very clever choice of the P. ruber for December ;-)

Travis
 
J

john

Guest
Yeah it seemed like a festive choice ;). Well done Travis. If it were just up to me I'd have made a "placing" and given you first place!
 

duncan

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May 7, 2007
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It really is a gorgeous calendar! I just received an email saying that mine was on its way, only a one day turnaround from order to shipping. Every year I get a frog calendar and every year I've thought it would be great to have a caudate one to go alongside it in the amphibian room. Thanks for making an early Christmas wish come true John. I hope that once the Christmas hub bub has died down the orders will start to pour in.

Merry Christmas,
Duncan
 
C

coen

Guest
Hi John,

Maybe the sales go slow because you can only buy one if you have a creditcard, which is a real bummer.

Guess I'll have to ask my boss to order one after the holidays!

Merry Christmas!
 
J

jesper

Guest
I am going to buy one I think, but when I looked at the site the price was in dollars, I assumed it had to be shipped from the us etc. It suddenly felt like I could do it later...

That's the answer for you, this is an international forum and people are probably a bit concerned about shipping(time, price, reliability), currency conversion etc.

I'd buy one now if it was a uk site...
Probably buy one in the end anyway, but still.
 
J

john

Guest
Jesper: International shipping cost for a calendar is $7. Additional items incur extra shipping but at a reduced rate. For people in the US, it's $5, and additional items also incur extra shipping but also at a reduced rate.

Shipping time within the US is 5-6 business days after ship date. Shipping time internationally is 8-10 business days after ship date.

I'm trying to see what the big deal is and I'm drawing a blank. There isn't a big American bogey man waiting to take all of your money and then take you to the cleaners again on the shipping costs. Nor will someone shred your calendar just because they're sending it to the UK.

Giving the situation more consideration, I think perhaps it's just the price that's deterring you. Well there's a 17.something percent profit on the calendar's price (cost price is $18.99, I've marked it up to $22.99). There is no profit on the shipping cost.

This is a stonking big calendar with awesome print quality and superb photos. It's not like the flimsy, small, blurry calendar of kittens printed with dodgy ink that you saw in the pound shop last Saturday...

I used to be a stingy European too j/k.
 

michael

2010 Research Grant Donor
Joined
Apr 12, 2003
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I decided to do some shopping and can't get the cafepress link to work.
 
J

john

Guest
I just tried it. It looks like the domain name pointers are wrong - it was working earlier today. I would think they'll sort it out within a few hours.
 
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travis

Guest
John,

I just got my calendar and it exceeded my expectations. The thing is HUGE! The photo quality and colors are nice, as is the matte finish. I want to extend personal thanks to you for getting it together. Lets plan on another one for 2008 ;-)
 
M

mark

Guest
The bogey men do exist…..
My experience of buying a calendar has been thus so far:

Calendar cost: $22.99
International shipping to the UK: $11.00
UK Customs seizing the calendar and wanting an additional: $18
Total cost of 1 calendar: $51.99

Oh – and it’s been 20 days since I ordered but I suspect UK customs has a bit to do with that. Hopefully one day I’ll get it
evil.gif
 
J

john

Guest
Mark,

I just spoke to my father regarding custom's procedures (he worked in European customs and excise for over 40 years). I also have spent some time on HM Customs and Excise site. Here's the skinny:

HM Customs and Excise can only charge you customs duty if the amount of duty is £7 (pounds) and over. That would not be the case for this calendar.

They are entitled to charge you VAT though if the value of the goods is £18 (pounds) and over (if you check the exchange rate on the day they contacted you, it would be worth knowing - $34 is borderline £18). That still doesn't add up to $18 by a long shot.

It sounds to me like you've been screwed by the post office/royal mail because they now charge a fee for having to clear your package through customs (praise be to privatisation - they usually didn't bother charging before RM was privatised a few years ago).

What happened exactly - how did they contact you if you haven't gotten the calendar yet? If they contacted you, demand a full breakdown of that $18. Also demand to know which agency exactly is contacting you. This is something I'm very curious about.

I'm sorry that you ended up having to pay that much. I honestly think you were unlucky because they don't single out every package like that. Whilst I'm no fan of HM Customs, I don't think it's their fault that it cost $18, rather it was the postal agent levying a fee for checking it through customs.

For what it's worth, the VAT should only have been $5.95 and I'm fairly certain the value of the item doesn't cross into the duty-chargeable zone. That would mean that there's $12.05 being charged by RM or their agent(s).
 
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