Online TF shopping - where is the best place to spend your bucks?

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

My biggest problem with RK is the inconsistency of service. NEVER EVER place an order with in in stock items and pre-order items... They often mess up orders and sometimes don't reimburse postage, despite their mess up.

I do hate the way the main page of an item says Available now, but the item is actually a pre-order. That's what I hate the most. PLus they don't have a postage calculator so you can't see how much the postage is until after they email you.

Having said that, the last couple of orders I have done with them have been pretty smooth.

BBTS is a good one I think, but postage can sometimes be high. And they will put prices up on a shortpacked item (as do RK)

Ebay, is well ebay. you take your chances there. I have never used TF source as I have little interest in 3rd party stuff and their postage seems very high.

[GoktimusPrime]

TFSource's prices seem rip offy too, if their ridiculous Artfire prices are anything to go by!
I rarely do online shopping, but I use HLJ.com when I do. Amiami.co.jp is also good and cheaper than HLJ.

[ILikeSoundwave]

TFSource's prices seem rip offy too, if their ridiculous Artfire prices are anything to go by!
I rarely do online shopping, but I use HLJ.com when I do. Amiami.co.jp is also good and cheaper than HLJ.

AmiAmi is a very good place to buy Takara figures but also popular, you have to be quick, I'm currently waiting for MP Swave to be instock but I doubt I'll get it in time, like Am Breakdown which I had to purchased on eBay since I missed it on Amiami but otherwise I highly recommend it.

[BigTransformerTrev]

TFSource's prices seem rip offy too, if their ridiculous Artfire prices are anything to go by!
I rarely do online shopping, but I use HLJ.com when I do. Amiami.co.jp is also good and cheaper than HLJ.

I had a look at HLJ.com. Not bad for Japanese exclusive figures (or if I wanted statuettes of anime girls, not sure the wife would approve though ). Sadly they taught Indonesian instead of Japanese in high school, so amiami is indecipherable to me

[kurdt_the_goat]

My biggest problem with RK is the inconsistency of service. NEVER EVER place an order with in in stock items and pre-order items... They often mess up orders and sometimes don't reimburse postage, despite their mess up.

I do hate the way the main page of an item says Available now, but the item is actually a pre-order. That's what I hate the most. PLus they don't have a postage calculator so you can't see how much the postage is until after they email you.

They do have a postage calculator... you add to cart and proceed to the last step before confirming and it'll tell you... actually i've never had an email from them about postage either, so i don't know what you're smoking there

[GoktimusPrime]

AmiAmi is a very good place to buy Takara figures but also popular, you have to be quick, I'm currently waiting for MP Swave to be instock but I doubt I'll get it in time, like Am Breakdown which I had to purchased on eBay since I missed it on Amiami but otherwise I highly recommend it.

Gah! I thought you meant MP Swerve* and got myself all excited until I realised you meant Soundwave. (>O<) But yeah, I usually pre-order stuff if I shop online, get earlybird discounts. Sometimes you see shelfwarmers going on sale.

(*cos in Japanese "a" approximates the same as "er" so I thought it might have been a mistransliteration)

I had a look at HLJ.com. Not bad for Japanese exclusive figures (or if I wanted statuettes of anime girls, not sure the wife would approve though ).

Heh. I use HLJ to preorder Japanese toys like reissues (currently have Encore Fortress Maximus on preorder from them).

Sadly they taught Indonesian instead of Japanese in high school, so amiami is indecipherable to me

Amiami is also available in Bahasa Inggeris dude. I wouldn't recommend online stores here that were exclusively non-English. I also sometimes us Amazon Japan, but I wouldn't openly recommend it as it's entirely in Japanese and you need a Japanese shipping address. But Amiami is also available in English.

http://www.amiami.jp/　<---their regular address
http://www.amiami.com/ <---their mirror site in English

HLJ is entirely in English as it's run by a Canadian dude and they exclusively service overseas collectors... which may explain why they're a bit more expensive than Amiami who are able to service collectors in and out of Japan. By expensive I mean that HLJ usually charges RRP whereas Amiami often offer discounts below RRP -- but both sites offer discounts with pre-orders. Almost all my online shopping is done through pre-orders. I can probably count the number of times I've purchased something online that wasn't a preorder on one hand.

[Kazza]

I hawk ebay looking for fair listings everyday, alternatively i would buy from RK and ehobbybaseshop.

[griffin]

Best sources for me, in approximate order - Ehobbybaseshop (nothing to do with Ehobby), Amazon US, Hasbro US (through a shipping agent), BBTS, Ebay.
Those 5 sites account for about 70% of my toys in the last year.... compared to 5.5% I bought in Australian stores. (and 24% is from US and SG retail stores bought in person)

(I never use RK now, because of bad service and being unreliable.)

[Paulbot]

Mandarake came up in the awards as a favourite online store but I'd not heard of it before. I checked out their site and they have some items I want, but it's not apparent how you work out postage? There's a page of postage estimates based on weight, but the indivdual items' pages don't tell you their weight. It looks like you have to order and pay and then they give you a postage quote. Bit reluctant to try this without hearing from others first.

[Tober]

Mandarake came up in the awards as a favourite online store but I'd not heard of it before. I checked out their site and they have some items I want, but it's not apparent how you work out postage? There's a page of postage estimates based on weight, but the indivdual items' pages don't tell you their weight. It looks like you have to order and pay and then they give you a postage quote. Bit reluctant to try this without hearing from others first.

Mandrake are a second-hand store. A lot of their stock in in unopened condition, otherwise MIB. I've bought from them many times with no problems. Once you place an order they send you the postage cost and whether you want to go with SAL or EMS. If you don't like the shipping charge you can cancel.

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I'm a big fan of anime-export.com and 1999.co.jp/eng/ (Hobbysearch). Their pre-order prices can sometimes be better than amiami.com (whose English storefront is amiami.com, as opposed to their Japanese storefront amiami.jp )