Merchants Cove
Core Game
Retail Pre-Order Edition

The Game Steward makes every effort to provide the best quality of shipping to you and all customers.  As part of that effort, we provided (below) a list of helpful answers to many shipping questions.

1. Free Shipping means The Game Steward will offer to ship your order to you for free.  This offer is generally for orders over $99 US Dollars within the 48 contiguousUnited States. Free shipping will use US Priority Mail, Fedex Ground, Fedex Smartpost, UPS Ground, or other major courier services.  We can not guarantee your order will arrive in 5 days or less, but most packages arrive in 5 business days or less.  If time is a factor for you, please consider selecting an expedited shipping option at checkout.
2. Orders which include multiple items will be shipped in a single box where possible.  If the order is too large to fit in a single box, we will ship your order in multiple boxes (at our discretion), at no additional charge.
3. When an order includes pre-order items and in-stock items, the in-stock items will be held in reserve until all items are present in our warehouse, and can be shipped together.  This may result in your in-stock games being held for several months.  
4. If a combined order of in-stock items and pre-order items is expected to be delayed by more than 1 month, The Game Steward may (at our discretion) offer customers the option to have in-stock items shipped right away for an additional shipping fee.
5. Order responsibility after delivery.  The Game Steward is responsible for delivery of your order to your requested delivery address.  The games we sell are typically limited edition items that are non-replaceable.  By placing your order you agree to accept responsibility for the care and storage of your order after delivery is completed to your shipping address. In other words, once the package is documented as delivered by the shipping service, your contract for products and services with The Game Steward is complete.
6. If you have any concerns that your package may be stolen after it is delivered, we highly recommend that you request special handling instructions at the time you place your order, such as a signature requirement, a hold at the local courier facility, or have the package delivered to your office address.  These services may incur an additional charge to you.  Finally, we cannot guarantee that changes to the delivery instructions will be possible after we've receive your order and tendered it to the shipping service.
7. On rare occasions, the publisher of a Kickstarter game will split fulfillment of a game, resulting in multiple shipping waves.  This often results in the delay of delivery for a portion of the Kickstarter contents offered for sale.  When this occurs, The Game Steward will hold your order until all items are shipped to us by the publisher.  The Game Steward, at its discretion, may offer you the option to have each wave of contents shipped to you as they arrive for an additional fee.
8. If a Kickstarter game arrives to our warehouse 30 days or more after you place your pre-order, The Game Steward will require confirmation of your current mailing address.  We will not ship an order more than 30 days old without affirmative confirmation of your current mailing address. Please make sure to notify us when you move, so that we can update your address in our records, and avoid any delays in shipping your game.  We will attempt to contact you by e-mail and/or phone at least three times.  If we do not receive a confirmation within 72 hours of our third attempt, we reserve the right to cancel your order and release the item(s) to make them available on our store for sale again. If the pre-order is less than 180 days old, we will issue a full refund via the same payment method used to place the order (i.e. credit card, PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc.). For orders placed 180 days or more prior to cancellation, we will issue store credit. Customers, with pre-orders cancelled in this manner, may still receive a full refund in lieu of store credit upon written request and confirmation that the payment method on record is still valid.
9. The Game Steward affirms that it will only ship an order to the address we have on record for your order.  If the address provided by you is old, incomplete, or incorrect, The Game Steward will not accept responsibility for lost package(s).  If the package is returned to us, you will be responsible for any additional shipping charges.
10. The Game Steward takes great care to ship each package with appropriate packing material to avoid damage while in transit.  However, accidents do happen, and packages can receive rough treatment.  if you receive an item that has been damaged in any way, please contact us right away.  We may ask for photos of the damage to help determine the appropriate course of action.  At our discretion, this may include (but is not limited to) accepting returns for a full refund, offering a partial refund if you decide to keep the game, or offering a replacement copy.  
11. For International orders, buyers are responsible for all taxes, fees, customs, and/or tariffs that may apply.  The Game Steward is a small business, and we have no knowledge or expertise of taxes or fees imposed by (or in) other countries.  It is the buyer's responsibility to understand the appropriate laws and shipper policies that may apply, and what taxes or fees may be incurred by purchasing an item from The Game Steward.
12. For International orders, The Game Steward will fill out the customs form with accurate information regarding the sale price of game(s) sold.  No deviations from the accurate amount and no exceptions.  
    
13. The Game Steward ships all orders with online tracking numbers.  Our e-commerce system automatically sends an e-mail with tracking information when a package ships as a courtesy to you.  However, The Game Steward takes no responsibility if you do not receive a tracking #.  If you don't receive a tracking #, and you are concerned about when your package will be delivered, it is your responsibility to contact us and request one.  This is especially true for International Orders.  If a package is returned to us because you do not pick it up at your local post office/customs office/etc., we will charge the actual cost of postage to ship it again.
14. The Game Steward makes every effort to ship a game in a timely manner.  Our commitment to you is to ship an in-stock game within three business days of receiving your order.  However, there may be occasions when we are unable to meet this goal due to heavy workload or other circumstances.  We do not accept any liability for a delay in shipping your order.  For orders in which the customer selects an expedited shipping option at checkout, we will make every effort to ship the game the same day, or within one business day.
15. The Game Steward makes every effort to fulfill pre-ordered Kickstarter games as timely as possible.  However, we cannot control when a publisher will fulfill our order.  As a matter of experience, we have learned that our orders tend to ship toward the end of the Kickstarter fulfillment period.  If the knowledge that your friends who backed a Kickstarter campaign may receive their game several days or weeks before you do, you may want to reconsider ordering from The Game Steward.
16. Once a game arrives in our warehouse, it takes some time for us to process the order and prepare pre-orders to ship out.  This may take anywhere from 1 business day to 2 weeks, depending on the size of our order, the number of components needed to be shipped, and the number of pre-orders to fulfill.   Accordingly, we cannot make any guarantees about how soon your order will ship once a game arrives in our warehouse.

Other Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Does The Game Steward offer Free Shipping?
1. Yes (see above)
2. Does TheGameSteward sell games in languages other than English?
1. No, currently TheGameSteward sells games only in English.
3. What is a pre-order vs a regular or in-stock order?
1. A pre-order is when you order your game prior to the publisher releasing the game.  A pre-order will be fulfilled and shipped once the game publisher has shipped the game to us, TheGameSteward.  Then we will ship game to you.  A regular order is a game already physically in-stock at TheGameSteward.
4. Why purchase a pre-order?  Why not wait until the game is in-stock.
1. Purchasing a game on pre-order is useful if the game is popular and likely to sell out prior to arriving in-stock.  (This happens quite frequently.)  At TheGameSteward, we often have customers looking to purchase a game after it is in stock only to find out there are none available for sale.  When you purchase a game pre-order, TheGameSteward reserves units in your name that no one else can buy.
5. How does TheGameSteward 'ship for value'?
1. To save you money, if you order multiple games where some or all of the items are pre-order, TheGameSteward will bundle your items until they are all available in-stock and ship them together.  This saves you money on shipping.
2. If, however, you wish to receive some or all your items individually as they arrive in-stock, simply fill out separate orders/checkout payments for each - or let us know where you'd like to have and order broken up and pay for separate shipping.  In this way, each  will have its own computed shipping and will be shipped as soon as it arrives.
6. Are TheGameSteward prices discounted?
1. All pre-order games on TheGameSteward are early bird special discount prices.  TheGameSteward does not mark games at regular price until they arrive in-stock.
2. TheGameSteward also has items on-sale or discounted off manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) where MSRP is available.  Note: MSRP is not always available, such as on the Kickstarter versions of games.
7. What are Kickstarter board games vs retail board games?
1. Kickstarter is a funding site where people post projects for crowds to fund (aka 'to back') the creation of a new item or project.  Asking the public to fund/back projects in this way is known as crowdfunding.  One subcategory of Kickstarter is the crowdfunding of board games.  These board games are referred to as Kickstarter Board Games.  
2. The Kickstarter version of board games often include extra game items to thank and incentivize people to fund/back a Kickstarter project and help it become a completed physical game.  These extras include: Stretch Goals - additional items for the board games' backers, and sometimes Kickstarter Exclusives - additional items for the board games' backers that will not go into the standard retail board games.  
3. TheGameSteward is a very different kind of game store.  TheGameSteward helps actually bring games to market that might not otherwise get funded.  TheGameSteward pays/funds/backs Kickstarter Board Game projects months and/or years before the actual game exists physically and ships for sale in-stock.  (In comparison, many other game shops standard model is not to pay for games until a month after they already receive the game in-stock.)  In this way and with your help as customers, TheGameSteward has helped insure the successful funding of hundreds of Kickstarter Games coming to market and will continue to do so.
8. Order responsibility after delivery. 
1. The Game Steward is responsible for delivery of your order at your requested delivery address.  Games sold by The Game Steward are typically limited edition items that are non-replaceable.  Once delivery of your order at your shipping address is documented / completed by the shipping company employed by The Game Steward, you accept full responsibility for securing your order.