We've heard from a number of EU customers recently who were confused why US and worldwide shipments had resumed but their copies were not yet in transit. So I wanted to try and give a bit more context on the situation:
We stock our books in two different warehouses, one in the United States and one in Europe.
Since the majority of orders originate from the US, we send a larger quantity of newly printed books to that warehouse. The exact split is always a bit of a guess but we're currently in a situation where the US warehouse has enough stock but we're once more out of stock in the EU.
At least there's some good news...
Because we print Soul Arts in Italy and our EU warehouse is in Poland, newly printed books get from the factory to our warehouse in approx. 5 days via truck. This means we're able to restock our EU warehouse much faster than the US one. (US inventory takes 4-5 weeks to arrive at its destination due to the delays of sea freight's long ocean crossing.)
We ordered a fresh Soul Arts printing in mid December, materials arrived to our printer at the end of January, and the print job is already underway. There will be books on the way to our EU warehouse next month!
You might be wondering, why can't we just ship EU books from the US warehouse?
Well, cost is one issue. International shipping rates are 🍌🍌🍌 – between €50 and €60 to ship a single copy of Soul Arts from the US to a place like Spain or Germany. Big yikes 💀
The second thing is that, because the copy shipping from the US warehouse would be arriving to you from outside the EU (despite T&F being based in Ireland), you would be forced to pay customs and import charges before you're able to receive the book. We don't want that, you don't either.
In conclusion
We know this is annoying and – at the end of the day – you just want the book you ordered. We want the same thing, which is why we're glad there will be more stock heading to the EU warehouse next month.
We appreciate your patience and are working hard to get your book to you as soon as we possibly can. If you have any additional questions, reach out to support@tuneandfairweather.com and our support team (either Daniel or Michael) will do their best to get you answers.
Best regards,
Jason
(Founder, Tune & Fairweather)