Thanks, Sher. The decks will be about $6-$7 for the basic ones, and shipping is calculated at handling from each of the fulfillment partners plus actual cost by 'bouncing' the weight off the USPS (or UPS or FedEx depending upon who's fulfilling) for "Express" shipping, if you chose. Lake Michigan Mailers already send everything up to 4 decks (13 ounces max) first class mail and anything more by Priority Mail 2-to-3 day, and will offer UPS "overnight" express - if you want it. Kings Wild does not do express shipment, and Gambler's Warehouse also offers your choice of UPS or FedEx for Express shipment, FedEx overnight and UPS 2-to-3 day delivery. Average cost will be $10-$11 for a single deck, and that's the worst case example, because 4 decks costs the same for shipping, meaning 4 decks would be around $28-$32 for standard shipping and "Express" is whatever you wish to pay for - and depends upon who the project manager picks for the rewards fulfillment process. So, four decks will cost you $7-$8 each delivered. All of them are basically a handling charge plus actual shipping, and "handling" includes packing materials. The one gotcha is uncut sheets, because CL insists that they be shipped separately and that's adding about $8-$10 depending on which partner is picked. We're just as passionate about playing cards as everyone else, and it's not going to be a "let's doodle on a piece of paper and run a KS campaign and take $20,000". It's impossible to run a fraudulent campaign on our system due to the required escrow of funds for both production and fulfillment, and even those few that do self-fulfillment which we strongly discourage but allow for proven groups like Uusi, Jackson, Paul Carpenter, Chris Chelko ("Whispering Imps"), Shane Tyree and the like. I single project fulfilled is not a "track record" of successful fulfillment, and we will not allow anyone to go outside the escrow system without one. They also will not be able to display or trademarked "Guaranteed Rewards Delivery" logo either. We simply cannot guarantee delivery for self-fulfilled campaigns, and that is quite clearly spelled out for both backers and clients (artists, designers or campaign managers that hire the artists & designers to do the artwork). As we increase the volume, the partners will have to offer us even better rates, and that will make the costs for the backers go down as well. The 'cart' model - nothing like anything you've ever seen from any CrowdFunding site - will allow you to pick multiples of any items that is allowed more than 1 up to the number set by the client, and add a single "Early Bird" or Limited tier as well, then the actual weight will be used to compute the shipping, which will be presented (if offered) both for standard and express methods. You get what you pay for, as always. That means that if the client picks LMM for fulfillment and you order a brick (or even 5 decks or more), it's automatically shipped Priority Mail inside the US (actually anything with a 5-digit ZIP code, so that includes Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas, etc). Canada/Mexico is "Zone 2" and costs a little more, Zone 3 and beyond (up to Zone 19) are calculated precisely by destination if allowed by the fulfillment center or "homogenized" using a moving weighted average of all campaigns to date if not. We look up the actual costs on USPS.com, UPS.com and FedEx.com using the weight plus packing materials and add 5% to insure that we don't shortchange the fulfillment partners, or the backers either. The seller/client receives absolutely not one cent of the shipping costs, but because it has been traditionally calculated as part of the project funding goal, it still will be for us although we at first didn't want to do so. We listened to the artists and designers that said it just wouldn't work because people are used to seeing it in that number and agreed they were correct.
Those prices are for the standard decks you are used to on KS, and can of course be higher for Limited Edition (we consider that 2500 decks or less, although in my mind a LE is 1000 or less, it's just not practical to do so any more) and certain things like artist signed items have to be self-fulfilled regardless of who does their normal fulfillment. Of course if the artist is in the US, they could choose to sign these items and have the fulfillment center delivery them as well, but I feel it's unlikely to happen that way. Anything beyond playing card decks and uncuts is not guaranteed, so coins, t-shirts, artwork, wooden display items, poker chips and cow chips for all we care are all self-fulfilled and not the companies main goal: "We're passionate about playing cards!".
