I was kind and considerate to Spencer with my recent shipment that had a bunch of damaged books. They definitely do get crapped on and they have nothing to do with the shipment.
In the end he helped me, but could not replace a bunch of the books that got damaged. So whereas Spencer did all he could, ultimately TFAW is not seemingly improving and that is really concerning and aggravating. I read the posts on here and it is not just me and in some cases folks on here have just cut TFAW out altogether.
If a company is willing to accept the multiple damages because it makes financial sense for them, and have a great customer service rep - bravo. But the “unable to replace” thing is really not a good look. It really isn’t.
I can’t lay the total blame on them (or any retailer) for replacements. If they can’t order more, then that’s out of their hands more than likely if the distributor is out.
Yup - agreed.
I just wish they’d pay more attention to packaging and the entire root cause / blame thing goes away.
They do have a bit of control here over their quality of delivered product and although it may cost them more - it is their choice to employ or not employ it.
I see why tfaw shipping costs are so high. They are adding in the cost to insure everyone’s package. This way, any refunds for damages are actually coming out of our pockets.
Let’s keep the TFAW New Variants to just Variant talk they have available. Anything else about a retailer should go here, in the online comic store report topic.
I applaud this. As long as they replace or refund, it’s just adding protection to those heavy orders. I insure all comics over $100 myself when I sell them. I don’t want to get stuck with the loss if something happens. I also make the buyer pay for such insurance most of the time.
My latest TFAW order, which I THINK included books from this past Weds, processed on Thursday and shipped today. I’m not great at math, but I think that’s an eleventy-billion percent improvement in fulfillment speed.
Well, if I use priority envelope, up to $100 is already in the cost. If it’s just a buck or two when the value goes over $100, I normally eat those costs if I didn’t already calculate it. Most listings though if it’s a big boy dollar book, I add the extra cost in the overall costs, so they know exactly how much shipping is. I also do my super duper Poyo packaging on expensive books. $0.01 - $100 get super packaging, anything higher gets the super duper…
In college for one of my theses I did a report on logging in the Pacific Northwest. It involved basically working and staying with them for weeks and going to different camps and stuff and seeing different ways they did things, how older ones worked vs newer ones, how some companies used more technology, different safety protocols, etc. It was really eye opening how serious they all took safety but how dangerous it still is, and it’s made me always appreciate the work they do and how hard and dangerous it is.
This is why I preorder almost $1000/mo from @faele at Villain Gaming. It’s practically packaging porn. I’ve yet to have a book I would consider damaged. 99.9% are better than anything you could pull of the shelf at any LCS.
BEEDA’S ships almost identical to that. They bubble wrap 10-20 comic stacks, put inside a sturdy box, and add thick corner support things like Diamond did to the packages. Been pretty impressed with BEEDA’S shipping.
Beedas is fine. I’d rate their packaging 8/10, which is still really good in my opinion. I’ve had a few mishaps with Beedas though with missing books (some that hurt due to having to buy them at elevated prices on the secondary market) but I was refunded without hassle. Villain’s looks like a 10/10. I’ve actually been impressed with Lonestar’s packaging too, 9/10. Can’t go wrong with any of these vendors.
Kudos to TFAW for apparently catching up on packing & shipping… placed an order on Friday for their 75% off sale and got notification this morning it’s shipped… woohoo!
I’ve recently ordered twice from Newkadia through eBay. Both times the books weren’t as described. The first order was for one book which had an inch long tear on the front cover. They apologized and refunded me promptly. The second order was for two ASM newsstands. They were described as VF and between them had 36 color breaking spine tics. Along with a half inch tear on both front and back covers of one of them and fingerprints all over the other. I opened a return and was automatically refunded for the purchases. They must have their eBay account set to auto refund under certain dollar amounts. Packaging was decent though the first book had room to shift around.
