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Fpn Pen: Store Open To Voters!


Admin

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Dearest Members of the Board,

 

We would like to announce the opening of the FPN Store, right now, for ordering the FPN LE Pens, and first of course to those who voted in the polls or via mail and PM for the specific models of the FPN Pens they would like to order.

 

Last week, before the crash, we received all information we needed from Stipula to set up the final parts of the store, and just before the crash we managed to write the code in order to make it possible to select all voters to get a head start with the purchasing/ordering process, as promised.

 

On Tuesday we finished the testing of this code, and put it in place. Next we managed to change the currency setting from US $ to €, which is great, because when you all pay in Euros you save us and yourself 3 % in conversion fees! The changeover to Euros and putting all in place required us to temporarily open the FPN Store, and amazingly enough, two orders came in right away. Since the prices hadn't been adapted yet, we notified these enthousiastic members to please try again when the store would open for real, with the additional benefit that prices would be approximately 1/3 lower :D.

 

We will also set up a new poll, for the actual text to be used for the FPN Pen inscription. There are quite a few options quite close in the ratings, and we would like to establish a single similar inscription to be used for all pens, before the order is sent off to Stipula. We will set this vote up so that only those who voted so far will have access to this vote, that seems fairest to us.

 

We also created a new price list, corrected for the latest info. What we didn't realize when we started, is the amount of the transactional fees we would have to pay. We have included those partly in the price, and lowered our expectations for funding at least to some degree, so we all share those fees. It does mean that the pricing will be slightly higher than we first anticipated.

 

The new price list can be found here (or in the store of course):

 

FPN LE Pens 2011 - Final Price List

(Note: Updated to reflect June 5, 2011, $ / € exchange rate)

 

Do note that the $ price is an indication only, it is based currently on the Wednesday, June 5, exchange rate (updated!). The euro pricing is the only correct and up-to-date pricing! The list opens in a new tab or window, BTW.

 

Finally, time required to actually manufacture this pen. Stipula indicated that due to the large number of pens we are dealing with here (500-600+), the expected delivery time from down payment for the order until final shipment is in the order of 60 days. This not only because it is such a large order, but also because in August they will be closed for two weeks. In short, if payments come in fast enough, we may be able to receive our pens before the holiday deadline, if not, it will likely only be end of August / beginning of September.

 

So, where is the store, you may ask? Well, you can find it here: FPN Store, or as usual, in the tabs underneath the header, between the Downloads and Members tabs.

 

A few last remarks of note:

- Voters have a 10 day headstart on ordering and paying for those models they voted for.

- In 10 days time we will open the FPN Store to all, with all pens open to order and pay for by all members.

- Payment is set up to be in Euros by default, because we have to pay for the pens in Euros.

- Payments will be approved manually, so there may be a delay between you paying and receiving confirmation. This is due to the PayPal setup we have, which cannot be altered right now.

- If you insist on paying in US $, please add 3% to the total amount, due to conversion fees we will incur. If you don't, we will not accept the payment.

- If a pen is sold out, and we haven't asked Stipula to manufacture any pens yet, contact us backchannel, and we will see what we can do for you.

- VAT will be calculated automatically, based on your residential location (EU legal requirement for e-selling).

- Shipment costs will be calculated automatically too, with VAT added if applicable, and is € 10.49 for USA, Canada and EU countries, and € 20.99 for all other countries, excluding VAT - this is at cost.

 

Anyway, you can now finally go ahead and order your pens.

 

Warm regards,

The FPN Admin Team

52 Comments


Recommended Comments



Wim, I had not voted, is that why i cannot even visit the FPN LE store?

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Thank you for getting this set up!

 

One glitch on my end is that the paypal connection didn't go perfectly and now my invoice list shows two pen orders rather than one. I'm attempting to place a support request but selection of a department from an unpopulated pull-down list is required. If someone could help by removing one of the invoices that would be great!

 

Thank you,

 

Fred

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A small observation: The order confirmation does not mention the nib type (fine, medium, etc.). For example, I chose 18K, Two-Tone, Medium nib and the confirmation only says "18K Nib." Not terribly important as long as the nib choice details go through properly to the shop administrator.

 

Thank you for all the work.

 

Jigesh

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One Passaporto Azzurrite ordered! What a lovely color!

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Ahhh, how did I miss this since this morning???? Money sent!

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Wim, I don't know if you are aware of this but, most American banks charge their customers a foreign transaction fee of 1%-5% and sometimes a flat transaction fee added to that percentage whether using a credit card or debit card.

 

For most banks it doesn't matter whether or not the prices are quoted in US Dollars or another currency. What matters for most banks is that the transaction is originating from a bank/store outside of the USA.

 

What US customers should know is that even if you pay for these pens in US Dollars, you are most likely going to be charged a foreign transaction fee by your bank and Visa or Mastercard or American Express may charge you a percentage beyond that.

 

Capital One is the only US bank that doesn't charge these fees that I know of at the moment.

 

US customers should call their banks/credit card companies to find out what additional fees they may be paying for processing a foreign transaction.

 

So, even if you are a US customer using a US bank paying in this store in US Dollars you most likely will face a foreign transaction fee from your bank beyond the extra 3% this store is charging to allow you to pay in US Dollars.

 

If you are a US customer using a US bank that does charge foreign transaction fees and you are asking to process a transaction through a bank or store located outside of the United States, you are better off paying in Euros in this store. If this is the case for you and you choose to pay in US Dollars, this store will charge you a 3% fee. Then your bank will charge you foreign transaction fees on top of the 3% that this store will charge you.

 

I just thought that US customers should be aware of the implications of choosing under which currency they make this purchase.

 

For example, my bank charges me a 1% foreign transaction fee if I use my debit card. If I use my credit card with the same bank, my bank charges me a 2% foreign transaction fee. If I pay in Euros, this store will not charge me an extra 3%. But if I choose to pay in US Dollars, this store will charge me an extra 3% to cover their transaction costs and my bank will charge the applicable foreign transaction fee on the total purchase price including the 3% that this store charges to pay in US Dollars. Therefore, I will be paying in Euros to save myself 3%.

 

Have fun! :bunny01:

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Wim, as another poster wrote, when you put the Passaporto into the shopping cart even after specifying a nib size, it still reads "M or F nib."

 

Just in case my choice didn't go through I ordered the Passaporto with the chrome trim and I wanted a stainless steel medium nib.

 

Thanks,

Simcha

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Wim, I had not voted, is that why i cannot even visit the FPN LE store?

Please do check my PM :D.

 

Warm regards, Wim

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Thank you for getting this set up!

 

One glitch on my end is that the paypal connection didn't go perfectly and now my invoice list shows two pen orders rather than one. I'm attempting to place a support request but selection of a department from an unpopulated pull-down list is required. If someone could help by removing one of the invoices that would be great!

 

Thank you,

 

Fred

Hi fred,

 

We have set PayPal up to disallow double orders for the same thing, so it should really be alright in the end. Please do contact me backchannel to make sure.

 

TIA, warm regards, Wim

Link to comment

A small observation: The order confirmation does not mention the nib type (fine, medium, etc.). For example, I chose 18K, Two-Tone, Medium nib and the confirmation only says "18K Nib." Not terribly important as long as the nib choice details go through properly to the shop administrator.

 

Thank you for all the work.

 

Jigesh

The Invoice itself actually does list your choice - I checked that.

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

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By what time will we receive our pens?

Well, it depends on how quickly we get 93% of pens to be ordered fulfilled. After that about 60 days, as indicated in the blog post. We'll try to speed things up, but that may prove hard to do, with Ferie d'Agosto coming up soon in Italy (August holiday).

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Link to comment

Wim, I don't know if you are aware of this but, most American banks charge their customers a foreign transaction fee of 1%-5% and sometimes a flat transaction fee added to that percentage whether using a credit card or debit card.

 

For most banks it doesn't matter whether or not the prices are quoted in US Dollars or another currency. What matters for most banks is that the transaction is originating from a bank/store outside of the USA.

 

What US customers should know is that even if you pay for these pens in US Dollars, you are most likely going to be charged a foreign transaction fee by your bank and Visa or Mastercard or American Express may charge you a percentage beyond that.

 

Capital One is the only US bank that doesn't charge these fees that I know of at the moment.

 

US customers should call their banks/credit card companies to find out what additional fees they may be paying for processing a foreign transaction.

 

So, even if you are a US customer using a US bank paying in this store in US Dollars you most likely will face a foreign transaction fee from your bank beyond the extra 3% this store is charging to allow you to pay in US Dollars.

 

If you are a US customer using a US bank that does charge foreign transaction fees and you are asking to process a transaction through a bank or store located outside of the United States, you are better off paying in Euros in this store. If this is the case for you and you choose to pay in US Dollars, this store will charge you a 3% fee. Then your bank will charge you foreign transaction fees on top of the 3% that this store will charge you.

 

I just thought that US customers should be aware of the implications of choosing under which currency they make this purchase.

 

For example, my bank charges me a 1% foreign transaction fee if I use my debit card. If I use my credit card with the same bank, my bank charges me a 2% foreign transaction fee. If I pay in Euros, this store will not charge me an extra 3%. But if I choose to pay in US Dollars, this store will charge me an extra 3% to cover their transaction costs and my bank will charge the applicable foreign transaction fee on the total purchase price including the 3% that this store charges to pay in US Dollars. Therefore, I will be paying in Euros to save myself 3%.

 

Have fun! :bunny01:

 

Hi simcha,

 

Thank you for this extra information.

 

Just as an explanation: the reason for choosing to be paid in euros is because of costs involved. We are actually registered in the US, but having funds converted from $ to euro, will cost us 3 % on top of all other transaction charges, as we will have to transfer money to Stipula's bank account. Effectively, we are giving everybody here a discount for paying in euros. If you do want to pay in USD, that's possible, but you will have to change the currency yourself when using PayPal to pay us, and add 3% to the total amount, and please let us know asap, so we can mitigate any currency losses. We will try to update USD prices in the store per item on a daily basis to make this process easier, but this takes a lot of time to do, so today, with making sure all works fine adn openign the store, we didn't do this yet.

 

As to transaction costs: we were appalled by how much the transaction costs add up to, which is why we indicated that we shared the difference. We felt we couldn't charge this completely to our members, so looked for the best way to save money on all sides, and decided to go for less funding than anticipated originally. Where we first thought we had to pay a 2.9 % fee in total, plus a small amount per transaction, we found it all amounted to more than 8 % plus several (!) times a small transaction amount!

 

Somehow it looks like the people really gaining from all this, are the banks. However, because we, as in, all members here, are spread over the entire world, and we have to pay Stipula in euros, the solution we chose worked out to be the cheapest solution. For being paid in $ and having to convert this to euros, we would have to pay 11.5 % in transaction fees in total, approximately. For being paid in euros, this amounts to a little over 8 %, of which we eat half.

 

Furthermore, we are also protected against exchange rate fluctuations this way.

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Link to comment

Wim, as another poster wrote, when you put the Passaporto into the shopping cart even after specifying a nib size, it still reads "M or F nib."

 

Just in case my choice didn't go through I ordered the Passaporto with the chrome trim and I wanted a stainless steel medium nib.

 

Thanks,

Simcha

Yes, we are aware of this. However, the invoice does store which nib you actually chose.

 

I'll let Invision know that this is something they really should change in their software - been talking to them anyway about some other interesting details (parts of countries with different general VAT rates than the main part of the country, and how to implement that - currently that's impossible).

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Link to comment

Thank you for getting this set up!

 

One glitch on my end is that the paypal connection didn't go perfectly and now my invoice list shows two pen orders rather than one. I'm attempting to place a support request but selection of a department from an unpopulated pull-down list is required. If someone could help by removing one of the invoices that would be great!

 

Thank you,

 

Fred

Hi fred,

 

We have set PayPal up to disallow double orders for the same thing, so it should really be alright in the end. Please do contact me backchannel to make sure.

 

TIA, warm regards, Wim

Actually found it, and marked it cancelled. It wasn't paid yet.

 

Warm regards, Wim

Link to comment

Somehow it looks like the people really gaining from all this, are the banks. However, because we, as in, all members here, are spread over the entire world, and we have to pay Stipula in euros, the solution we chose worked out to be the cheapest solution. For being paid in $ and having to convert this to euros, we would have to pay 11.5 % in transaction fees in total, approximately. For being paid in euros, this amounts to a little over 8 %, of which we eat half.Furthermore, we are also protected against exchange rate fluctuations this way.HTH, warm regards, Wim

 

Yes, and I was just trying to help you and the US customers out in pointing out why it's beneficial for both parties if US customers pay in Euros rather than US Dollars. Most likely we US Customers will still be charged foreign transaction fees whether or not we pay in US Dollars. So, why not pay in Euros to save money for both the customer and the store?

 

And yes, we all know that the banks are the only ones who win this game. Unfortunately.

 

Simcha

Link to comment

Somehow it looks like the people really gaining from all this, are the banks. However, because we, as in, all members here, are spread over the entire world, and we have to pay Stipula in euros, the solution we chose worked out to be the cheapest solution. For being paid in $ and having to convert this to euros, we would have to pay 11.5 % in transaction fees in total, approximately. For being paid in euros, this amounts to a little over 8 %, of which we eat half.Furthermore, we are also protected against exchange rate fluctuations this way.HTH, warm regards, Wim

 

Yes, and I was just trying to help you and the US customers out in pointing out why it's beneficial for both parties if US customers pay in Euros rather than US Dollars. Most likely we US Customers will still be charged foreign transaction fees whether or not we pay in US Dollars. So, why not pay in Euros to save money for both the customer and the store?

 

And yes, we all know that the banks are the only ones who win this game. Unfortunately.

 

Simcha

Yes, and thank you very much for that. I just added our reasoning behind the euro invoicing :D.

 

Warm regards, Wim

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I ordered my Model T just now, what a painless process for checkout. I'm sure that wasn't easy to implement, and I'd like to take the chance to commend the mods. You guys must have been busy with the planned (and unplanned) happenings around here recently.

 

I have to say that before buying the pen, even in the voting phase, I didn't know much of anything about Stipula or the Model T. I simply thought that the idea of a LE pen seemed neat. After putting down the money, I decided to take a quick poke around the internet for details. The first thing that I found is that this pen is quite the fantastic deal. It seems that all the US sellers have it priced quite a bit higher, and that's for the plain jane gloss black model. I MUCH prefer the deep blue that we settled on. I also took a look at some writing samples and reviews. It seems that those who own the pen are quite happy with it, but for one reason or another the brand doesn't get a ton of publicity.

 

Anyway, I'm excited to get my hands on this pen. I simply hope we can reach the deposit required ASAP. Waiting until fall for this pen might kill me. :ltcapd:

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Ooo! I have even better news for US customers. Apparently Paypal does the conversion to US Dollars and charges our banks in dollars even when we pay FPN in Euros. My transaction has finished processing by my bank. My bank lists the transaction as coming from Paypal in US Dollars and I chose to pay in Euros. I was not charged any foreign transaction fees! :eureka:

 

This means that we US customers won't be charged foreign transaction fees for our purchases in Euros here. So, if you pay FPN in Euros, you will save the entire 3% and your bank won't charge you any fees to process the transaction because Paypal does the conversion before charging your bank and may be using a US bank to process the transaction!

 

That means we can buy more pens!!! :bunny01: :bunny01: :bunny01:

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Hello

 

Thank You so much for the Shop. Made my order just a minute ago.

 

However, there is a minor issue. The price list indicates that S&H to EU-area would be 10.49 euros. When I made my order the actual S&H was 12.90 euros. Still, I did not let this to stop me.

 

Otherwise, counting days to get my new pen.

 

:puddle:

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