The Secret Shop is an online merchandise store that opens its doors every year before the start of Valve"s high-profile Dota 2 tournament - The International.
Earlier this week, as it has been in previous years, Valve announced the Secret Shop to be open, offering various Dota 2 themed merchandise in the form of shirts, mugs and other thingamabobs to anyone residing "almost anywhere in the world".
However, when interested parties went onto purchase these products, a problem quickly arose in the form of abnormally high shipping costs to regions outside of the US.
With rising complaints on social media, Valve announced today that it is temporarily shutting down the Secret Shop until the company can find a better solution for global distribution of items. Valve went onto say the following on its announcement:
Providing merchandise for Dota has never been a profit focused endeavor for us. Our goal has been to give easy access to the greatest number of Dota fans possible so they can show their affiliation with the game we all love. The way it is currently set up makes it really hard for fans to do that, and until we can fix it, we shouldn’t have such an offer on the table.
Valve also said that all purchases that were already placed in the store while it was open would continue to be shipped, while customers may also ask for a refund. Sadly, the company did not provide a time frame for when will the shop open its doors again.
Source: Dota 2