flemmings | (no subject)

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manga,
rl_07

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The weekend's bk1 order is sitting happily on the front porch when I come home. No 'we called and you weren't here come to outer suburbia tonight to get your books,' no 'call our toll-free number and negotiate five automated answering menues to rebook a dropoff', no 'we have a box for you but you owe the gov't GST and us a chunk of change for doing the paperwork.' Just the books, ma'am: 4 GnS, 1 Phantom Moon Tower. Total cost of shipping five manga by courier is 3000 yen, the place where amazon.jp starts.

Inside the door is a bill from Fedex for, yes, an additional $23 for my last amazon.jp shipment because the $7 they charged me then was not enough.

Sayonara, amazon.jp. Rot in peace. Thank you

mikeneko for recommending bk1.

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Keen. :D Does this mean it arrived by the regular-post equivalent there?

Bk1 also flings out coupons by email to entice you back to their site. Every few months, they'll send out a code for, say, 500-yen off the next order.

So. More Amazon.jp-free lifestyle . . .

Another place you could look at would be YesAsia.com (http://us.yesasia.com/en/Japanese/Comics.aspx:). The "tanbi" section is where they keep most of the BL/BLish manga (for example (http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/section-comics/code-j/version-all/did-9943/pid-1004960092/)). They're a bit more expensive, but offer free shipping to the U.S. and Canada (if the full order tops the required amount). Searching for things there can be a bit tricky; they carry both Japanese and Chinese versions of manga, so you have to be careful which version you're ordering. Also, items listed on the site may turn out not to be in stock (which you'd need to keep in mind if you've barely topped the free-shipping line). I've gotten a few things from them in the past, such as my DWJ DVDs, but I can't recall how they arrived -- I think it was just postal delivery, but I can't swear to that.

I used their delivery service, whatever it's called- it's won awards here in Canuckistan, it's fast, and it seems to pass under the Customs radar. Also the waybill on the front gives absolutely no information at all except 'online books' once they've dropped it off. Not my name not my phone number not my anything. In this neighbourhood I don't worry, but still. Next time I may use what Emily calls the 'will you have it on a goat, will you have it by a boat?' option ie SAL, which has never (touch wood) taken the 3-6 weeks they say it will when it comes from Tokyo.

Getting precise shipping info out of yesasia is impossible- they only want to tell me how much, never the 'how' I need to know. Mail? the PO's out-sourced courier service? another delivery service? what?? This alone makes me a little leery of them. But I notice the NA sector is based in the US which strongly suggests that they ship through you and not direct to us, which of course is no way.

Also, don't they wait for not in stock items to come in before shipping? or do they just cancel those items and ship the rest- and charge you for it? Can't see me ordering $100 worth of manga ever, and especially not if it's likely to turn out to be $90 worth and I'm stuck for the delivery.

what Emily calls the 'will you have it on a goat, will you have it by a boat?'

LOL!

But, aaaa, I know -- SAL can be such a crap shoot. Sometimes it's freakily fast, but around here, more commonly not. I mean, at the lower end of the weight spectrum, you may only save about $5 but in exchange for a serious ramp in time and uncertainty. My own thinking has been that it's only worthwhile for heavier packages.

I personally consider Bk1 a safe option. YesAsia isn't my own go-to for manga; but I've gotten a few region 0/2 DVDs from them ('cause they've a wide/weird selection :), and in that respect they've been just fine.

As I'd said, I can't recall who delivers YA packages on my end, but that wouldn't help you anyway. Different country, special problems. I have NO IDEA who'd be shelling for the GST if it came up. Lacking another Canadian brain to pick, you'd just have to conduct your own experiments.

Also, don't they wait for not in stock items to come in before shipping? or do they just cancel those items and ship the rest- and charge you for it?

I've used a few stray manga to nudge a DVD order into their free shipping zone (USD25/CanD39). In one of those cases, one of the manga turned out to be unavailable. They canceled that manga on the order, shipped anyway, and I paid for the shipping. No biggie as far as I was concerned (not a heavy package, and the DVD was the goal), but worth noting in terms of their SOP.

So. If you were well over the CanD39 mark, one or two dropped manga wouldn't effect the free/not-free shipping; if you were barely squeaking over the line (as I was), it would.

thank you for adding me! how are you? as you can see I finally started an LJ. I am still kinda new at this so I hope I was not being rude by adding you. YOu must have thought "who the hell is this???"

As for books. Well if you can wait a while, you can give me a list and I can just give them to you know who in December. I 'll hunt them at Book offs so that you will have to pay even less( if they are there).

Hi back. I saw various people mentioning you in their ljs and figured, by a process of elimination, who you were. As for friending- some people ask if it's OK to friend, but I never saw the point of it. ljs are open and online: friending just means someone's bookmarked your lj to read; one needn't ask permission to bookmark.

If I ever need an older series I'll take you up on that Book-off offer; but Fearless Leader may not remember to send them to me in all her copious free time. And it's not like I don't have enough manga lying around the house already; just, somehow, I never seem to want to read what I have. ^^;;

>by a process of elimination
it's like a mystery! I like that

and I had a kick out of "Fearless Leader" bit.

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