Tier prices are not changing, but the fufillment method is being changed to store credit instead of quarterly shipments.
Why? There's several reasons for this change.
~ Quarterly system limited what patrons could receive.
With the way that the tier pricing worked out, Junior Stashbuilders were pretty much stuck at liners. Standards, XLs and heavies only fit into the quarterly value of the Senior Stashbuilders. We could and did make exceptions, but doing that wasn't as smooth as we'd thought it would be, so exceptions stayed rare.
Our goal for this whole thing was to make handmade reusables more accessible by spacing out the costs. The quarters were limiting access, so had to change.
~ The shipping and handling process had become untenable.
Processing the bundles outside of Shopify increased shipping costs, meaning that each bundle cost about $4.50 to ship. For the Jr Stashbuilders, that shipping ate up a full third of what they were paying, so sharply reduced how worthwhile the effort was. Add in determining the sales tax by hand (with that hand belonging to someone with the mathematical acumen of a potato), and that's a full nope.
via GIPHY
~ Curated bundles not a good match for current staffing.
Pre-selection leads directly to overthinking, and overthinking leads to choice paralysis, and paralysis isn't known for getting much of anything done. 2 years has been enough quarters to determine that there is no workaround that is available often enough for this obstacle to be worked around in a timely manner, every time. It had to change.
Each of these 3 separate reasons created pressure that in total, became unworkable with only one of us on board, and part time at that.
Routing the Patreon benefits through Shopify as orders will increase flexibility while cutting down shipping costs, handling time and existential dread. It's not everything that we wanted when we set out on this project, but it's a compromise that preserves the heart of of the effort.
This change should also free up some resources for bringing additional benefits online. Refining the patron-only shop area to include the otherwise-discontinued custom pads is our next stop. I'm really excited to bring back some of the customization that was so important to us when we first started out.