Hi all,
I learned some things yesterday about a topic of great importance to some of you:
International shipping and the Flux Deluxe (and upcoming Flix), in the midst of the chaos caused by present worldwide pandemic
In short,
it's kinda of a hot mess at the moment. Please pull up a chair.
I use First Class International Mail to ship internationally, specifically the "First Class Package International" service.
This is the most affordable international shipping method I can find that offers tracking, and while it's not fast, it's typically "fast enough" for most people. A Flux Deluxe sent to the UK, EU, AUS, NZ, etc. via First Class Package International typically cost US$25 to ship and in pre-pandemic times (aka, "the before time"
) would take 10-15 business days to arrive. In contrast, the cheapest Priority Mail option for a package the same size and weight as the Flux Deluxe is US$40, and a package sent via Priority typically reaches its destination in 6-10 business days - a bit quicker, but definitely not overnight. It's still your basic "shorter time = more money" equation, and since the price difference is significant, most people would rather save the extra coin.
The thing about Priority mail, however, is that it IS prioritized for quicker transit, and that prioritization is a big reason why it's faster than First Class mail. This distinction didn't make a huge difference in pre-pandemic times, but oh boy, have things changed!
First Class International Package Service is no longer an attractive option for shipping, at least at present. There's currently a
HUGE international backlog for First Class Package International, in large part because so many countries have closed their borders to international travel.
Packages that use the First Class International Package Service typically travel as extra cargo on commercial passenger airlines, and those planes aren't flying! So a lot of mail is stuck or moving v e r y slowly, and sometimes in weird ways.
The page linked below was posted last week (April 29) on stamps.com, the United States Postal Service's storefront and retail shipping site, detailing the situation and delays getting stuff from the US to virtually every non-North American destination. Take a look to see how service to your country may be impacted:
https://blog.stamps.com/coronavirus-updates/ -- be sure to scroll, as the individual details for each country are listed lower down on the page.
Unfortunately, the situation for this cheaper international mail service doesn't look to get better until countries lift their travel suspensions and international air travel starts back up. At this point it seems to be anyone's guess as to when that will occur.
This leaves international customers with some rather poor choices:
1. Use the First Class Package International service to save money while knowing in advance that it could take a very long time to reach you. The US$25 price still makes this service the cheapest, but the delivery time is completely unknown, and could be 6-8 weeks and perhaps even longer.
2. Pay the extra money to send your Fluxer product via Priority Mail, which will typically be US$40. This is still the cheapest alternate option, but...
damn, that's a lot of money for shipping.
For the sake of completeness, the price for sending a Flux Deluxe via a
true priority service like DHL starts at US$110.
FedEx, UPS, and similar third party services fall somewhere in between these extremes. There doesn't seem to be
any good answer at the moment.
3. Decide to hold your order until the international shipping situation improves. It isn't as fun as ordering, but it may be a lot more fun than spending a bunch of money just to watch the package sit in Brussels for a month. Or to be held in San Francisco waiting for flights to Australia to resume, a situation one customer is presently enduring.
So that's the scoop. I have a few international orders in my current batch, and if you are one of these customers I'll be reaching out to you to ask you what you'd like to do.
As someone who is trying to get a new product ready for market, this is yet another wrinkle to contend with.
I'll have updates on shipping the Flix internationally as we get closer to its actual launch, but this yet another way in which the present situation sucks for all of us.
This too will pass, but it's clearly going to take some time.
Thanks again for your support and interest.
Stay safe!
The finish should be fine if all you are doing is resting the Dynavap on the corner of the FD and lifting the Dynavap back up to use it. The FDs are pretty tough devices in general - about a year ago I accidentally put one in the washing machine with a load of laundry (D'Oh! 
) and it continued to work perfectly after I dried it out - but the finish isn't impervious and will undoubtedly show the effects of use and wear over time.
