Bandai DX VF-31

[F360]

Iirc for the other main stores amiami , cdjapan , and hobby search , all them does not allow changes or additions after payment is sent . What cdjapan will do is cancel your paid order , refund you , and you can make a new order.  

[Sheky]

Is there a reason why amazon.co.jp doesn't carry any of this?  All the macross chogokins there are from 3rd party sellers.

Is quite annoying having to check multiple sites daily only to find no stock.   Why create this kind of artificial scarcity?

[seti88]

Artificial scarcity(?) or typical macross fanbase acting out their deculture...
Either way i dont thk bandai loses any sleep over us scrambling for their valks...  if only a certain "company" were to rescind their distribution hold on the global macross license, that may be a different story altogether...

Edited January 14, 2017 by seti88

[ArchieNov]

11 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Was thinking about buying a second super parts set and asked NY if I could just add it to my existing order. 

Their response:

"We cannot modify your existing order."

What kind of idiocy is that? Of course they can modify it. They just don't want to. Profiteering from inflated shipping costs. 

What kind of business says no to an additional sale? 

Sorry, but this has always been the policy of N-Y ever since they added the feature to combine/split preorders. They even provided a tutorial of it on their webpage (which most other retailers don't even bother to do).

Just go to your Order History, you'll see 2 very big buttons telling you that you can only combine or split unpaid preorders. The links to the tutorials are found below.

If you weren't aware of it, then that's not the fault of N-Y. They've always made themselves pretty clear on it.

Edited January 14, 2017 by ArchieNov

[Duymon]

1 hour ago, Sheky said:

Is there a reason why amazon.co.jp doesn't carry any of this?  All the macross chogokins there are from 3rd party sellers.

Is quite annoying having to check multiple sites daily only to find no stock.   Why create this kind of artificial scarcity?

maybe it's just too niche of a product for them to carry officially and they don't appear to be lacking in product to sell thru their fulfillment partners.

even if Amazon.co.jp had these officially it would be a pain to order for internationals who by a large majority would have to use a middleman.

 

 

 

[seti88]

There is also the discussion of pre-allocation ratio's of DXes only for retailer's who are able to carry a high percentage of other bandai stock. Not many on-line retailers are able to fullfill that other stock requirement i suspect.

Edited January 14, 2017 by seti88

[Lolicon]

27 minutes ago, ArchieNov said:

Sorry, but this has always been the policy of N-Y ever since they added the feature to combine/split preorders. They even provided a tutorial of it on their webpage (which most other retailers don't even bother to do).

Just go to your Order History, you'll see 2 very big buttons telling you that you can only combine or split unpaid preorders. The links to the tutorials are found below.

If you weren't aware of it, then that's not the fault of N-Y. They've always made themselves pretty clear on it.

Okay, now I'm aware of it. It's still a shitty policy and they're still a 5th rate retailer for me. How does this change that?

The defense of NY seems to be "You should have known about their shitty policy. By knowing about it, it's no longer a shitty policy."

It's not like I'm canceling my existing orders with them, and I never did the "order something as a backup then stiff them when I find it cheaper elsewhere." Frankly, I hardly ever order from them because of their inflated shipping costs, so excuse me if I'm not 100% aware of every single policy of every single web retailer in existence.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Lolicon

[Duymon]

5 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Okay, now I'm aware of it. It's still a shitty policy and they're still a 5th rate retailer for me. How does this change that?

every store has their quirks amd weird rules.

maybe having another CS guy would eat into their profits so they make rules like that to cut down on their backend support tickets

if their 5th rate grab a refund and order the parts from Anime export so you don't have to support them

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Duymon

[spanner]

15 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

^ And gone.

Spanner... was it you? 

sadly no.. congrats to who ever scored one though! 

[Lolicon]

2 minutes ago, Duymon said:

every store has their quirks amd weird rules.

maybe having another CS guy would eat into their profits so they make rules like that to cut down on their backend support tickets

if their 5th rate grab a refund and order the parts from Anime export so you don't have to support them

 

AE carries them too? I wasn't aware of that. Definitely will keep them in mind when Messer's super parts are available for preorder.

[Eslim109]

Does AE have good shipping rates? I have never ordered from them and I'm curious about their shipping costs as I'm looking at purchasing some items they have

[neoexcaliber]

53 minutes ago, Eslim109 said:

Does AE have good shipping rates? I have never ordered from them and I'm curious about their shipping costs as I'm looking at purchasing some items they have

Their shipping rates are comparable to Amiami and Hobby-search most of the time.

[Duymon]

AE's shipping rates are pretty good. They also have a private warehouse function much like HLJ.

You always pay for the item first and they store it for you until you make shipping requests.

[Lolicon]

Just noticed there was a paint chip on one of the front red sensors. Not sure when it happened. Most likely happened while going to and from battroid. I was able to touch it up with a bit of Tamiya clear red paint.

In any case, that's another potential area of paint scraping you'll want to be aware of. 

[Duymon]

29 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Just noticed there was a paint chip on one of the front red sensors. Not sure when it happened. Most likely happened while going to and from battroid. I was able to touch it up with a bit of Tamiya clear red paint.

In any case, that's another potential area of paint scraping you'll want to be aware of. 

See? this is why Spanner just buys 3+ of each so he gets less paint chips since he won't ever need to transform anything

[funkymonkeyjavajunky]

Can someone post HLJ shipping rates for these toys?

[F360]

12 minutes ago, funkymonkeyjavajunky said:

Can someone post HLJ shipping rates for these toys?

It's all about private warehouse with HLJ, even if you add in a heavy SOC voltron and and 3 figmas , the shipping rate is just 5000 yen with fedex.

[spanner]

58 minutes ago, Duymon said:

See? this is why Spanner just buys 3+ of each so he gets less paint chips since he won't ever need to transform anything

yep exactly! LOL!  

[F360]

19 hours ago, Sheky said:

Is there a reason why amazon.co.jp doesn't carry any of this?  All the macross chogokins there are from 3rd party sellers.

Is quite annoying having to check multiple sites daily only to find no stock.   Why create this kind of artificial scarcity?

IIRC they do carry it, but its also limited and gets sold out too.  Once it's sold out, all you will see is the 3rd party sellers.

If you want it, you have to be ready to jump on it, not causally checking and expecting the store to carry it.

it's really best to be here on preorder night if you really want it.  

of course more opening normally appear closer to release date too.

 

Edited January 15, 2017 by F360

[in2seconds]

7 hours ago, F360 said:

It's all about private warehouse with HLJ, even if you add in a heavy SOC voltron and and 3 figmas , the shipping rate is just 5000 yen with fedex.

 

Wow! How the heck did Amiami got the 4500Y shipping fee from?

[spanner]

31 minutes ago, in2seconds said:

Wow! How the heck did Amiami got the 4500Y shipping fee from?

im use to getting charged those amounts for shipping to Australia..

[F360]

1 hour ago, in2seconds said:

Wow! How the heck did Amiami got the 4500Y shipping fee from?

 

The total shipping weight of a Amiami box with the VF-31J inside that is bubble wrapped and paper filled is at 1920g

Base on that weight at the japanpost , the cost for ems is 4500 yen.   which is what they will charge you if you select EMS.

Amiami boxes are normally heavier , they also use more packaging material 

All this doesn't matter as much because HLJ offers you a small discount on the shipping from their discount rate.

Edited January 15, 2017 by F360

[no3Ljm]

1 hour ago, in2seconds said:

Wow! How the heck did Amiami got the 4500Y shipping fee from?

This is why I always say the total price difference including shipping cost (using EMS) from each individual stores are like $10-18. Here's why. And this is just based on what I've paid for what I've noticed regarding boxes. We're going to use AmiAmi, HLJ, and Nippon-Yasan as an example.

AmiAmi & Nippon-Yasan sells the item cheaper than HLJ during PO period.

HLJ offers cheaper shipping cost than AmiAmi & Nippon-Yasan.

AmiAmi & Nippon-Yasan, as far as I know uses thicker boxes than HLJ. And they padded more against HLJ shrinkwrap method. It's probably the reason why you notice that AmiAmi charge more. And probably because they rounded off the weight to the nearest next amount. (This is based on my personal experience from all of them.)

With HLJ, yes, the shipping price is probably accurate based on the JapanPost table because it's cheaper. But do note that they don't padded your item securely compared to AmiAmi & Nippon-Yasan. Which means, good padding materials added more weight.

 

[dero]

All this debate about cost of shipping for an effective $250'ish (AUD) product... Whether the shipping is $25 or $50, it doesn't ultimately matter.

Cost of shipping for me is always relative to the overall cost of the product.  Shipping costs also include insurance and tracking of product.  That's important if it's an expensive item.

[Lolicon]

I would never ship an Arcadia or current DX valkyrie with anything below EMS or FedEx, because USPS is incredibly incompetent and they've lost SAL packages several times before and damaged a bunch of others. 

You might fair better if you live in a country with a more competent postal service. 

I'm thinking HLJ has some kind of bulk discount deal with Japan post, so they can offer better shipping rates. Though that makes me wonder why a large retailer like Amiami doesn't have a similar deal. 

[Depthcharge]

Sorry for asking but I only recently decided to jump back into Macross collecting and took the plunge on some DX figures.  Do we know 100% yet what is going to be released for the remainder of the Delta series and/or what is coming next after Keith and Messer?

[F360]

7 minutes ago, Depthcharge said:

Sorry for asking but I only recently decided to jump back into Macross collecting and took the plunge on some DX figures.  Do we know 100% yet what is going to be released for the remainder of the Delta series and/or what is coming next after Keith and Messer?

not at 100%.  But pretty much they will release all Valkyries in standard release or web exclusives.  There's also no rush to find out what comes next , since you will see the news weeks ahead of the pre order.  

[cinello]

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOGDS-220503

Only 1 initially supplied quantity left.

 

[Sildani]

Hey, Bullet_Sponge, what did your guy say?

[ridgebacks]

 

Received the package on Friday. Only had a chance to open it on Sunday night. Got a quick photo before I have to put it into the shelf and head to bed. Gonna do transformation next weekend (or never, I hate to chip the paint :x ).

[spanner]

7 minutes ago, ridgebacks said:

Received the package on Friday. Only had a chance to open it on Sunday night. Got a quick photo before I have to put it into the shelf and head to bed. Gonna do transformation next weekend (or never, I hate to chip the paint :x ).

looks fantastic! congrats! 

and careful with that chippy paint!  

[sh9000]

[mickyg]

Hang on a second, is it my just my eyes or do the forearm shields magically change places during transformation, from the bottom of the wings, directly under the boosters, to the arm cover/shields?  I never noticed that before in the anime...

[Lolicon]

5 minutes ago, mickyg said:

Hang on a second, is it my just my eyes or do the forearm shields magically change places during transformation, from the bottom of the wings, directly under the boosters, to the arm cover/shields?  I never noticed that before in the anime...

Whoever set up the display stuck the shields on the wrong hard point in fighter mode. 

[Saburo]

Those super parts have to get released sooner as well as the VF-31F! I can't wait...