My last two orders (Miles 38 variants and Mandalorian Variants) came back nice. One exception was GIJoe 295 1:10 (Snow Barroness) which had spine ticks. I paid less than cover for it though.
Typical of IDW books from TFAW…most do.
Well, I opened my last order from TFAW. Every comic was damaged. There was zero packing protection. No bubble wrap, no peanuts just the comics wrapped in one piece of brown paper. $180 order down the drain. I think it is time to just get a refund with this and cut TFAW loose.
I shouldn’t have to cross my fingers hoping that each order I place gets to me well packed and un-damaged. I receive far too many damaged comics from them each year. Ridiculously more than any other place I regularly order from. How many chances can I give them? I order from them in good faith, and they can’t even securely pack the books like any other store who sells comics as a profession. Just very annoyed with them…again.
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I havent ordered a single book from TFAW this year for the same reason you are in. Plus they where always sending me the wrong cover or they wouldn’t have the variant in stock any more even though I had pre-ordered it way back when.
Yeah, the convenience is there with TFAW but it is overshadowed big-time by low quality packing. I don’t have these constant packing issues with Mycomicshop, Newkadia or Miliehigh. The only thing I can think of is they really don’t care. If a certain percentage of comics is damaged each month, they just write it off. Seems they are more concerned on saving money on shipping supplies. No idea, but I can only give so many chances.
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I wonder if certain parts of the country are assigned to certain people or something. It is wild that I have been ordering $200-500 worth of comics, shipped twice a month for almost 2 years and have not had to request a single refund on a single book. Not one bit of damage, always packed well with tons of peanuts. So weird.
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Could be. They really need to up their game. My shipment before this one also had a damaged book. Not from shipping but there was a cut in on the front cover. Someone was too heavy handed with the blade when they opened the box of comics. It is two inches and goes into other pages. Very hard to miss, but they did…or just didn’t care. This is the first time I have had damages with back-to-back orders. Over the past two years? probably six times I’ve had damages. I would have to look that up.
I have no clue why they think this is acceptable?. It was known by the QC/Pre Screen person but they obviously didn’t care and shipped all of them. Damage was not from transit 100%. I had 13-17 books ($192) damaged in my last order I opened yesterday. Shipping books they damn well know are damaged is just wrong?. And now I am out all those ratios…Think I am done with TFAW been like this for over a year now…
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Wow, that sucks. I wonder if the guys at TFAW have meetings, bring stuff like this up and just laugh.
tfaw’s chat has been turned off and they don’t answer the phone anymore
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Yeah, I sent my first e-mail regarding damaged comics a few days ago and have yet to have anyone reach out to me. I sent another e-mail today. If they blow me off, I will have to open a dispute. I really hope that doesn’t happen. Too much of my time has already been wasted. They sure love taking my money though.
They’ve taken weeks to get back to me before and they claimed it was because I sent a second email a week later and it moved me to the bottom of the queue lol
Please take this thread to the TFAW status thread.
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had 2 pre ordered variants show up 2 weeks ago, sent picks
a week later they ask for more picks of the book laying flat (in wich you cant see the damage as badly)
they turn around and say all books are sold as vf
the comic mailer got bent a little at the point of damage but they left as nm but they dont understand that i guess (my money is on dhl)
To say you only guarantee VF on new comics is dumb as hell. They’ve increased all their prices 10-150% in the last year and now want to sell damaged books they won’t stick around much longer.
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Which sites do you guys order from besides TFAW? I just might change so I don’t have to deal with this nonsense.
I’ve been really pleased with the service on my FOC orders from @DarkDominionComics - check out their thread here on the board.
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I’ve pulled back almost entirely on online new book orders. One of my shops added League of Comic Geeks, and it is incredible. I just choose which books I want on that app, and my shop pulls them for me. The shop loves it as it helps them order more accurately. Even if I add things post-FOC, if the shop has an extra, I get it.
Why more shops aren’t doing this is beyond me.
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The issue with the third party FOC platforms is that the shop still has to take all of those orders and transfer them to 3 different distributors. Sure, as a small retailer it’s a little easier, but as you start gaining customers, sorting through all the ISBN’s and trying to make sure everything is correct is quite the headache.
I am not sure if they have made improvements when I was looking for a different option than Pullbox, but when I started to research implementing it, we were going to end up in the same situation.
The only process I’ve found that works somewhat effectively is creating it yourself within your website. I would consider myself slightly more tech savvy than most, so I know a lot of times this just isn’t a possibility for most stores. Even through Shopify, creating a process, doing some very slight backend modifications and then adding apps where needed is mind blowing for most owners…and they simply don’t have the funds to invest in a new system.
Anyways, just wanted to point out that even though it might be good for the everyday comic book reader, it is a headache and not worth the time or money (oftentimes they charge the retailer to use the service) for the retailer.
I would love to hear if they have made some improvements to their system to integrate with the ordering process within each distributor.
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I appreciate the insight from an insider. Thanks @faele. My only experience comes from chatting with this shop owner. He says he’s got several customers using it now, and it’s a big help. I’m sure it’s extra work as you say, but it’s also extra revenue. I used to spend 75% of my monthly new title money online. Nearly all of that goes to the shop now. At least for them, that extra revenue must make the extra effort worth it. As a buyer, I absolutely love it.
I like my LCS. He just knows I want all the Star Wars books and variants available. Rarely do I have a certain variant absolutely guaranteed, but the times I don’t get a ratio up through 1:25 is exceedingly rare. 1:50s are even common for me to get in my pull box.
I think my TFAW preorder list is two pages long and the second page is entirely stuff that is over 3 months past release date and will never come.
Having said that, I’ve never had the horror stories others are reporting so I guess I’m lucky.
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