DX Chogokin VF-171 Cannon Fodder

[Lupin The Third]

Up at Yesasia

http://www.yesasia.c...-0-en/info.html

though even more then NYs price.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Lupin The Third

[Valkyrie2008]

I had a feeling HLJ was gonna open the preorder tonight, but I didn't expect to be this soon either. I had to go out and pickup something, came back just to find out the bad news.

Edit: YesAsia price is too much, pass.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Valkyrie2008

[ff95gj]

Last time I ordered YF-29 30th anni from yesasia, they cancelled my order.

Not going to order from them again.

[Negotiator]

does NY flex the final price according to the exchange rate at the time?

[neoexcaliber]

does NY flex the final price according to the exchange rate at the time?

It does seem so. I was eyeing the YF-29 Alto and when I wanted to buy it a few days later, the price went up by 2000 yen. And the only reason I decided to get it was because of the weakening Yen.

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Missed HLJ's preorder

[xrentonx]

It would have been nice to cancel on NY but there are still opportunities later...

[funkymonkeyjavajunky]

Missed HLJ's preorder

When was the preorder open? It must have been overnight.

[Lupin The Third]

Here's my response from HLJ.....

Hi,

Thank you for writing in.

The items went up and sold out almost immediately. There is huge demand and low

supply for these items, and as we sell to customers around the world, they can

go fast.

The limit on these items was 10 each, although we sometimes do set lower limits.

Thank you for shopping at HobbyLink Japan! We appreciate your business!

Best Regards,

Brian Keaney

HobbyLink Japan

www.hlj.com

I am stunned. The fact that they sold almost all of their stock to scalpers is reprehensible and I will do my very best to never purchase anything from them again if it is available anywhere else.

[Valkyrie23]

That is horrible. They should be experienced enough with these Bandai Macross valks to know the demand for this. Even the Alto VF-171 EX had a limit of 2 or 3. WTF HLJ.

They should make this right and go cancel any orders >2 or reduce them and put the reallocated stock back up for sale. We should all coordinate and bombard HLJ by email regarding this issue.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Valkyrie23

[raptormesh]

Yeah not going to bother with bandai valks anymore.

[Sandman]

Not to split hairs, but he doesn't really say that they were sold in lots of 10 only that they could have. Unless he releases the sales info (which he won't) we don't know if 100 people bought 100 valks or 10 people bought 10 each or any number in between. I guess it will depend on how many suddenly appear on ebay?

[Knightdramon]

Why's HLJ pro-scalper by allowing up to 10 of them to be purchased? If the stock was adequate their numbers shouldn't be the problem.

See it this way, at these times, how many collectors do you trully believe can spend over 1800 USD on these things in one go?

[Duymon]

How a store sells items is their business. From their perspective whether 100 or 10 people buy 100 valks they sold 100 valks and that's that.

Blame Bandai for not making Macross valks in bigger production runs. Getting a valk at retail is nay impossible unless you're in Japan and buy it from a brick and mortar (got a 171 ex for retail when I was there )

The 2nd-run price at NY which was 187 isn't really that much over retail. Retail is like 166 dollars so it's a $20 dollar markup which I gladly am paying just to get it over with.

Instead of camping a website for hours at night to save 20 bucks on a valk I can just work 1 hour overtime and make up the difference :0

Edited January 11, 2013 by Duymon

[Chronocidal]

That's pretty much why I've given up hunting down anything of Bandai's for pre-orer. I only camped the YF-29 re-release because it happened to go up at a reasonably acessible time (11 pm).

NY may mark things up slightly, but I think if you can get things at maybe $20-$30 over retail, it's worth the peace of mind not having to deal with this stupid bandai preorder circus.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Chronocidal

[OmegaD3k]

The scalpers are having a field day on ebay. I found nothing under 300$:

http://www.ebay.com/...=item4ac0458193

http://www.ebay.com/...=item2c6b2c0dcf

http://www.ebay.com/...=item2326a5fcfc

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Bandai has dropped, and continues to drop the ball on these valks. If they produced much, much more of them, they’d be raking in the dough like crazy. Missing the opportunity, one Frontier valk at a time.

I would have picked up two of these valks…

Don't blame HLJ - blame the ridiculously low supply.

Edited January 11, 2013 by OmegaD3k

[royard]

Here's my response from HLJ.....

I am stunned. The fact that they sold almost all of their stock to scalpers is reprehensible and I will do my very best to never purchase anything from them again if it is available anywhere else.

Thanks for sharing the info. At least HLJ's customer service is still very fast. Now about this 10 per customer thing... Just what exactly were they thinking?

How a store sells items is their business. From their perspective whether 100 or 10 people buy 100 valks they sold 100 valks and that's that.

Blame Bandai for not making Macross valks in bigger production runs. Getting a valk at retail is nay impossible unless you're in Japan and buy it from a brick and mortar (got a 171 ex for retail when I was there )

The 2nd-run price at NY which was 187 isn't really that much over retail. Retail is like 166 dollars so it's a $20 dollar markup which I gladly am paying just to get it over with.

Instead of camping a website for hours at night to save 20 bucks on a valk I can just work 1 hour overtime and make up the difference :0

Problem is, normally when items are in high demand, like sales, shops limit purchases so that more people can get the discount and shop there again. Now they are just getting people disillusioned about this preorder gig.

[Rabidweezil]

What I'm curious about is why can sites like Nippon-Yasan can keep their pre-orders open for a longer time and seemingly fullfill them all. But other sites like HLJ or Ami-Ami can't seem to get more then a few.

[Negotiator]

What I'm curious about is why can sites like Nippon-Yasan can keep their pre-orders open for a longer time and seemingly fullfill them all. But other sites like HLJ or Ami-Ami can't seem to get more then a few.

Lol maybe NY is the one buying out all the vendors.

[Rabidweezil]

Lol maybe NY is the one buying out all the vendors.

you know, you could be onto something there

[typhoon]

I think that there is a degree of scalping going on. While its great to get these Valks at retail, as a fan and a collector I pay the additional mark up from NY. Hell before I knew about them (NY) I was guilty of paying an inflated price for the 25 renewals. I have not snagged a single Bandai release at retail or from any of my usual net shops (Amiami and HLJ).

So my point is, only on sellers would have a problem with the additional mark up as it eats into their potential earnings. That's pure speculation but i think it makes sense. Each new release seems to have more and more online (ebay) attention, with one or two eBay sellers showing quantities of 10 available.

Lastly, both Amiami and HLJ had stock available once the items were on hand. That has to be those retailers protecting themselves and not taking too many pre-orders and failing to deliver.

NY still has stock of the 25g and the 171ex ready to ship while everyone else is sold out. They gradually increase their price, but everyone has the option of grabbing them at pre order stage before the price hikes kick in.

At the end of the day I hope everyone is able to get what they really want.

[Negotiator]

Well I'm not gonna put on a tin hat, but I won't be blind to the one vendor that has excess amounts when everyone else is sold out.

[Lupin The Third]

The suggestion was made a few posts back that HLJ should cancel any of large qty orders and reduce the item count to 2-3 and reopen orders so actual customers can make a purchase. My suggestion is that you guys and gals let them know how infuriated you are with the way they handled this and that they should do exactly that to give everyone a fair chance at purchasing rather than all the stock going directly to scalpers.

products@hlj.com

scott@hlj.com

Even if it makes no difference this time maybe they will reconsider if folks are angry enough regarding how they handle furture release. And certainly NOTHING will change about this fubar system unless you directly let them know your dissatisfaction instead of just posting on a message board.

[Chronocidal]

Actually, I expect that the reason NY is able to offer pre-orders for longer is specifically because they keep their prices slightly higher.

It keeps the scalpers from targeting them as a source, because it eats into the potential profit.

[moose]

This probably has to do with all the previous releases of the Valks which sat and retailers forever, but it has more to do with the products being inferior to what yamato was offering. So this time around the are probably reducing the number they produce

[HG Blows]

I had a feeling HLJ was gonna open the preorder tonight, but I didn't expect to be this soon either. I had to go out and pickup something, came back just to find out the bad news.

Edit: YesAsia price is too much, pass.

I checked hlj around 12 am PST before going to sleep and it wasn't up. I randomly wake up at 3 am, decide to check again, and it was already sold out. Madness...

[Lupin The Third]

Actually, I expect that the reason NY is able to offer pre-orders for longer is specifically because they keep their prices slightly higher.

It keeps the scalpers from targeting them as a source, because it eats into the potential profit.

Agreed. NY's current prices are almost close to the max for what these will sell for even after release (notice that there are no shortage of VF-25S available, and NONE of them sell for the prices asked on ebay)

I checked hlj around 12 am PST before going to sleep and it wasn't up. I randomly wake up at 3 am, decide to check again, and it was already sold out. Madness...

I was literally going to bed, suddenly had a vibe that I should check HLJ and a couple other places. Then in a panicked rush got my preorder in on my phone (my laptop was shut down at the time). Seriously....Macross Senses Tingling!

[neoexcaliber]

Agreed. NY's current prices are almost close to the max for what these will sell for even after release (notice that there are no shortage of VF-25S available, and NONE of them sell for the prices asked on ebay)

I was literally going to bed, suddenly had a vibe that I should check HLJ and a couple other places. Then in a panicked rush got my preorder in on my phone (my laptop was shut down at the time). Seriously....Macross Senses Tingling!

I was about to send some parcels when I suddenly felt the urge to camp in front of my PC. 20 minutes later, preorders opened and closed.

[raziel03]

That's pretty much why I've given up hunting down anything of Bandai's for pre-orer. I only camped the YF-29 re-release because it happened to go up at a reasonably acessible time (11 pm).

NY may mark things up slightly, but I think if you can get things at maybe $20-$30 over retail, it's worth the peace of mind not having to deal with this stupid bandai preorder circus.

Bingo. It was pure luck that I managed to get in a preorder this time around. Had NY open theirs up even 5 minutes later, or had I been on the same schedule that I was on when the Alto came out, I would have missed it. As I said before in this thread, I completely missed the preorder last time around and was still able to get one for a reasonable price despite having to order after the release date. This is why I support NY for my buying needs, despite their markup. Their business model is just way more compatible with what I'm willing to do as a customer.

[mechaninac]

Missed the HLJ preorder as well... too bad; I would have liked to get the better price, but I secured one with N-Y, so if the stars don't line up for getting a "cheap" copy I'll still get a copy.

[Major Focker]

let me state upfront that i am not pro-NY.

i think what they do is to break up their allocations into 3 or 4 batches of preorders, unlike HLJ or amiami which lets them rip in one go.

from NY's perspective, the motivation could be driven by maximizing margins vs. risking non-moving stock. they start with a low price, either retail or discounted, until that batch sells out. then they inch up the price until that next batch sells out. if it doesn't sell out then that means they've gone beyond the price elasticity and are likely to either keep the remaining batches at that price, or perhaps even lower it if they sense that they've overstretched the elasticity, such as the case with the VF-4G.

the side effect is that their preorders comes out multiple times and at different times of the day, allowing more people a better chance at securing preorders. so whether they intended this side-effect, their approach inadvertently becomes pro-collector whilst they make additional margins. seems like a win-win for free market economics.

of course, the ideal case is that they and other retailers proactively breakup their allocations into batches without going beyond retail price. but that has no incentive for the retailer and in turn they assume more risk: why defer some of your preorders and risk some sales to default to other competitors? it's the markup that balances this, in a twisted, but logical kind of way. so long as the markup doesn't approach scalper levels, it seems like a sensible approach. and ultimately, it's the market which will determine what is "scalper price". if no one buys from scalpers for long enough, those will come down too.

[stormshadow0621]

Got money now... but looks like all preorders are gone...

I have a VF-171EX (MISB) that anyone wants to trade straight up for this CF version when it arrives. Locale meet in Bay Area (CA) only.

[Twoducks]

[jvmacross]

Got money now... but looks like all preorders are gone...

I have a VF-171EX (MISB) that anyone wants to trade straight up for this CF version when it arrives. Locale meet in Bay Area (CA) only.

Try YesAsia....think they offer free shipping to US....

[Golden Arms]

I just preorded with NY. HLJ continues to less and less of my business.