Anyone from Europe (well, not the UK anymore, sadly) will know the pain of buying anything from America. Though I love my Team Fortress 2 t-shirts, the amount of money I had to pay for shipping/customs was ridiculous. Since this dark time, Valve have upgraded their store in many different ways (including changing the way shipping works!) and today one of the biggest changes comes from their partnership with WeLoveFine.
WeLoveFine.com have been making gaming apparel and plushies for quite a long time now. The company have been partnered with Valve for a few years, and now Valve have taken this relationship to another level. You can now find Valve’s new store hosted at WeLoveFine.com. As a result of this partnership, Valve will no longer be dealing with any of the production or distribution of their merchandise, instead WeLoveFine will take control of it.
“After over a decade of shipping Black Mesa hoodies, Pyro posters, Dota 2 Microplush, and loads more merchandise to a massive community of dedicated fans, the Valve Store is closing our old shop down and heading to a new home at valvestore.welovefine.com, where it will operate under the curation of our long-time merchandise partners at WeLoveFine,” says Valve on their new merchandise store.
“Offering an updated shopping experience and an improved selection of Valve merchandise, the new Valve Store is powered by WeLoveFine’s established production and distribution infrastructure, which provides better support for an increased volume of customer demand, and drastically expands our ability to deliver fan merchandise to nearly every country around the world where Valve games are played.”
In addition to this news, Valve now offer (they’ve probably offered this for ages now) European outlets to buy their merchandise from. Why spend £40 on shipping when you can spend £20? Now there is a cheaper way to buy a giant companion cube, assuming you are from the UK or anywhere else in Europe.
