Weekly Store Update: 14 November

We enjoyed the salute to our American heroes last week, though the veterans of this wonderful nation are on our minds throughout the year. We had a busy week here, and brought in some new titles, some restock and more. We drew the winner of our board game giveaway, and have more to share too!

INTRO

Hello there! If this is your first newsletter let me show you around a bit. I'm Eric, and Wendy and I run Stone Valley Games. This top "wordy" part of the newsletter contains news and information from just our shop perspective to gaming news at large. Down at the bottom of the page are the restocks, new items, and preorders we brought into the store throughout last week. That's really it. So, once you return you can check out what's going on with us, or just jump on down and check out the games.

BOARD GAME GIVEAWAY WINNER

We've drawn the winner of our November board game giveaway! The winner is Mathew from Bellingham, Washington. He won the complete version of the fun and entertaining World War II wargame Frontier Wars, and the premier Euro farming game Hallertau. Looks like a lot of fun ahead for you Mathew!

Hey, if you didn't win this time around know that we run a giveaway every month. Wendy and I are already narrowing down what we're going to do in December. Stay tuned to this newsletter to get a sneak peek!

SHIPPING FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Now the holiday season is in full swing. We're noticing quite a few more folks picking up their items extra early this year to avoid any problems. However, if you are looking to get things where they need to go in time for Christmas here are the official suggested ship times.

For UPS Ground, this year instead of a specific day UPS is providing a link to calculate shipping in real time. Check it out here. Like everything else on the UPS website, it's a bit clunky...but effective. As a basic guide most things take 3 to 6 days by UPS in "regular" times, so it'd be best to get things moving about a week ahead of time. 

• UPS 3 Day Select is Tuesday, December 21
• UPS 2nd Day Air is Wednesday, December 22

The Post Office has the following breakout: 

• USPS First Class Package: Ship by December 17th.
• USPS Priority Mail: Ship by December 18th.
• USPS First Class Package International, and USPS Priority Mail International: Ship by November 29th for Africa, Central America, and South America—and by December 6th for the rest of the world. This is a safe timeline for shipping to military overseas as well. 

So, keep in mind this is not a promise by us or the carriers. These are estimates, not guarantees. We highly recommend shipping your packages as early as possible to make sure they get there on time. 

Trust me on this! We pride ourselves in turning orders into packages... but once it hits UPS or USPS it's all on them. We can help find lost things and help you work issues...but we are not the shippers 😀 

PLANS IN HAND

It has been an ongoing story for several months, but the first big step in the pursuit of our larger store is over! I am holding the final plans for our 1500 square foot shop. The next step is to get them approved by our local government. I've researched how all of that works, and I'm 86% sure I have it all figured out.

Really though, it shouldn't be that difficult as the architects we went with have been developing plans for this level of approval for over 35 years.

Of course I'm still a bit nervous, but things are moving!

OBSESSED WITH OBSESSION

I've had so many calls and emails about the highly anticipated restock of Obsession I figured I'd provide everyone an update here. So, we've been working with Dan Hallagan of Kayenta Games on and off for most of the year. We've been following the progression of his reprint and even had the ability to follow the ship his games were on. Once the ship arrived in the US, it was held up outside of Georgia for a long time (things are moving slowly all over, not just the West Coast). However, everything was just unloaded. Like...just unloaded. 

As we had set up our restock order really early we were guaranteed our games. Based on what Dan's telling us we should have them in store around Monday, 22 November...or maybe even a touch earlier. 

As shipping is an absolute bear, we will be selling at MSRP. I may have to turn off discounts for the titles, but we will be shipping $100 and above Contiguous US orders for free. I'm fairly certain we're the only shop crazy enough to even try that. Dan like to make heavy cardboard!

As kind of a public service announcement, Dan is a pleasure to work with. I don't know if you've seen any buzz on him, but if you want to see what kind of person hold up the entire board gaming industry with his will alone...it's probably Dan. I encourage you to find out who's behind Obsession.

THE WRAP UP

Okay, enough news for this week! Below are the Restocks, New Items, and Preorders added to the shop last week. You can click on the item to learn more, and many of the products have review and gameplay videos so you can see the game in action. If you're visiting our page and you'd like to keep up with our giveaways, sales, new products, and articles like this one just create an account here. Once created you will be subscribed to our newsletter and become enrolled in our loyalty system, instantly earning 50 Stones that you can use on your very first order. A Stone? One Stone is equivalent to One Cent. That doesn't sound like much, but you earn 2 Stones for every dollar spent and 5 for each product review, so though it may seem small, those savings add up fast! Redeem your Stones upon checkout, and they can save you up to 10% off your cart total. Loyalty Matters!