I want to give @RipCityGamer a tip of the hat for being the only retailer discussed here that has come on and is willing to make changes based on the feedback given.
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Oh man, I swore off Newegg as well. They went downhill fast when they started to allow shitty resellers use their platform to sell stuff…
I wasn’t going to say anything but honestly, that’s a really shitty thing to say if you ask me… Businesses are adhering to state and government guidelines. They’re not making excuses, they’re just following rules to protect people. People’s health is way more important than comics, which are not a necessity.
We (Maryland) just stepped back to phase 2 and in some cases phase 1. Not an excuse but very much a reality.
I’ve been pretty lucky with orders so far. No horror stories, but I’m sure my time will come. Both issues I had were from TFAW, but both were resolved with no drama. Their pricing, website and customer service are the difference makers for me. I hate the shipping lag, but I’m more than willing to cut them slack on that during a pandemic.
I also just think it’s pretty unrealistic to expect 9.8s shipped to you. I went to my LCS today and bought 5 new books. All are so minty and wonderful. Had I got those online, there’s zero chance they all show up this nice, from any retailer.
MN just really tightened social restrictions (for good reason - cases are out of control here), so it might be unwise to hit the LCS in person soon.
I’m in Florida, everyone here thinks Corona is a hoax. RIP me
I’m in Missouri. The Saint Louis region has strict rules but once you enter rural Missouri basically nobody wears a mask or engages in social distancing. We need a vaccine ASAP or people will keep dying.
I also want to tell @RipCityGamer his presence here is appreciated. I had stopped using TFAW a long time ago due to finding the website clumsy, but from him being here I heard about the updated site that is a joy to use and have ordered some stuff. Nothing has arrived yet, but I’ll report on it!
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It’s always good to see retailers be not only open to feedback but to implement suggestions.
Yes, we’d all like the mailers to go away, but for the most part they’ve been open to our suggestions and trying to improve things. That says a lot on my end.
I’ve had my own fair share of issues with other companies service, I’m sure we all have, so it’s refreshing.
But yes, nothing is perfect and there are definitely flaws. Making steps to correct things is a great move.
I like ordering comics from TFAW because of the ability to pre-order and change up to FOC and especially because of their not charging you until they process and ship them. My problem or suggestion you might call it is to not just stack 66 comics in the middle of a box with packing peanuts around the outside and on top of them and expect the comics to not shift some and cause some damage to the spine or corners from the peanuts themselves. The books were all just placed in the box loose without any kind of wrapping, not even any paper wrapping. I keep hearing on here about some of the people’s orders being wrapped with some kind of paper but two out of the last three orders from them have been packed this way. Just my suggestion would be to put no more than 20 comics at a time in plastic bags with alternating spines before stacking them on top of each other. Just about all of the comics had a curve in the board but hopefully will straighten out after I put them on a shelf in stacks of about 20 and alternating the spines with a decent weight book on them. Also I had about 7 incentive books included in the stack of 66 including two that cost 19.99 which looked pretty good but one of the cheaper ones was damaged. I just wish they would hurry and implement some of the changes that they keep saying they will because my next order from them is over 100 books and 500.00 and if they stack these in the box like they have 2 out of my last 3 orders without any plastic or paper wrap to help keep them from shifting I’m done with them. People have complained about the shipping here and I like their customer service and some other things but this is just my experience and they should get this problem with packing that many issues loose in a box with just packing peanuts straightened out as I can say it does not do the job when you send something 2 to 3 thousand miles.This is the same type of problem I had with Midtown Comics and is the reason I stopped buying from them because of all the shipping damages,but as least they put them into some brown paper bags in smaller stacks that helped some. I do appreciate Brendon being here and listening to suggestions as I think they are still one of the best places to order from online if only they would improve their shipping practices.
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The issue is big & small orders are both packaged poorly. It doesn’t matter how many you order when they stack 50 books together, wrap it in paper and think that’s going to be sufficient to hold it together. Or they throw a book in a pos envelope which not only allows it to shift around freely but if it’s dropped it will be damaged.
I don’t need to hear mycomicshop horror stories as I have several of my own. The thing is they heard enough complaints about both their packaging and customer service that they changed. I’m still awaiting to see some of these changes take place at TFAW.
Don’t get me wrong I’m still giving them a chance in hopes they have this packaging debacle resolved by the time my second order ships. My first one includes only one book and is on the way. Well that and I’m locked into most.
If COVID restrictions are causing problems you get more space or figure out some way to package properly. I’m sure most would be happy with delays if they know their books are going to arrive safely.
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I had a comic off eBay sent in a plastic grocery bag today completely destroyed cover torn off. It can always be worse…
Not a fan of jacked up prices on day of release so I’ll pass. You realize people here literally hate that, right?
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I am sorry to hear that. I definitely understand where you are coming from though. While we do raise some of the prices of our new releases, we always try to keep them below Ebay prices and we only raise prices on books that we have less than 3 remaining copies of. We upload all of our books on Tuesday after we receive our shipments, so by Wednesday we are usually out of or really low on hot books. Our pre-orders are always 25% off though, regardless of the book. We are a very small business and have only been around for about a year, so raising prices on hot books that are very low stock is actually very important to keeping the business open right now. It is not something we plan on maintaining over the long term though.
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You lost them man. This is a spec forum that strives to buy at cover or below. Raising it .05 or $1 above cover and you loose the crowd. Especially when they can go to your competition (tfaw in this case) and still get it for under cover on day of release.
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@PCKComics I’ll give you all a look. Thanks for posting as I’ll take all the resources/possibilities I can get.
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I purchased a really rare horror magazine. When it came in it was wrapped in a brown grocery bag (ok no problem) inside the magazine was not bagged and boarded. Instead the idiot taped a fruity pebbles box directly to the cover. Tape pulls were unavoidable and the value of the book was destroyed. It’s a great reader copy now, but the seller had to refund the full purchase price. I have yet to be able to replace the copy.
A fruity pebbles box? That was a Yabba Dabba Don’t.
Please don’t ban me.
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I had to put down the phone to clap for that one!
Easier said than done. I don’t think any shops are using COVID as an excuse other than you might see delays in getting your packages, from order -> process -> ship -> transit time -> delivery. If the retailer is slowed down to take precautions, everyone in the middle after it leaves their hands are also abiding by rules to make it as safe as possible.
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Well played sir
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