pedantic shopping

purchasing from multiple stores online on a Friday evening! this is probably of no interest to anyone but myself, and I wanted to track this information for my own understanding, as I would sometimes order a book and forget about it before it arrived in the mail

here is how I rank them,

in terms of delivery time, from best to worst:
Spear Witch
Monkey's Paw Games
Exalted Funeral - Tuesday Knight Games
Indie Press Revolution

in terms of pdf delivery, from best to worst:
Indie Press Revolution - Exalted Funeral - Tuesday Knight Games
Monkey's Paw Games
Spear Witch

downloads are ready upon receipt of transaction from Exalted Funeral, Indie Press Revolution, and Tuesday Knight Games, obviously an automated process, only Exalted Funeral and Tuesday Knight Games offer access to your digital content from the order confirmation page

Spear Witch and Monkey's Paw have the same layout on their stores, which implies that these are truly independent sellers operating out of a storefront or home, the other stores all had unique layouts

Spear Witch gave me a tracking number within hours, but this was merely for a label that had been created. I don't know if this was done manually, but either way they are already one step ahead of everyone else.

The next day I get a message from Sean at Tuesday Knight Games thanking me for being a repeat customer. This appears automated since there is an unsubscribe button.

On Monday, TKG, EF, and IPR all sent me tracking numbers for my orders, but these are all for labels that were created. Monkey's Paw is shipping from Canada (I'm in the US), but also appears to be in the same situation.
Only the package from Spear Witch is listed as departed and on it's way.

Spear Witch arrived first, on Saturday exactly one week after ordering. On the same day I emailed both Spear Witch and Monkey's Paw to ask about getting digital copies. Spear Witch instructed me to contact the authors of the books, since they didn't provide digital copies to Spear Witch, and Monkey's Paw sent digital copies, further explaining that they should have a digital copy attached to invoices soon.

On the following Tuesday, the order from Monkey's Paw arrived.

On the next Thursday, both Tuesday Knight Games and Exalted Funeral arrived.

The absolute worst delivery time turnaround was Indie Press Revolution. Arriving more than three weeks after being ordered, 23 days total.

almost perfectly balanced on good and bad points, but I'm inclined to favor fast delivery over pdf availability as I'm purchasing from them for the physical books, my final rankings for each:

Spear Witch ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Exalted Funeral ⭐⭐⭐
Tuesday Night Games ⭐⭐⭐
Monkey's Paw Games ⭐⭐⭐
Indie Press Revolution ⭐⭐