Was looking at member e-jumps site via Otaku.fm and saw this squashed parcel that arrived with a figure inside. The figure seemed undamaged and there was a ton of polystyrene inside but raises an interesting question - have you bought figures/gundams/other Japan related stuff which has arrived damaged/missing due to poor packaging?
:( I have had plenty of packages which looked like someone squashed it by stomping on it (yes you see shoe mark) or look like it was sat on :( The worst ever is when they open the package, don't put it back properly and keep your package for a long time at custom then slap a hefty fee on it and make you collect it at the post office Grrrr!!!
Oh god, tell me about it. Last place I ordered from however had a nice delivery guy come buy from some third company shipper. Sure, it took a bit long (especiallly since anything that ships to canada via US, usually takes an extra week...oddly), but the guy was cheery and the parcel was delivered safely. The safe carrying of parcels is a big fear for many, that or getting something from China (usually Hong Kong) that is a cheap rip off/imitation... Kinda like this Sader figure. I feel sorry for whoever bought this :( http://skyplate.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/sader01.jpg
OMFG!! THAT SABER ALMOST MADE ME BLIND! Actually... It probably was painted by a blind person... Let's be nice... I mean, the colors don't even match...
DAMN!!!! THATS NO SABER!!!! BLASPHEMY!!!! BLASPHEMY I TELL YOU!!!!
*Grin* I see Sader fans here, showing her picture to everyone from time to time...
OMG even though I've seen that one before it still scares the crap outta me.... It's like a crappy Saber/Near combo figure... the eyes are like that of a demon....
I had a bad parcel once. The product was undamaged at least. So I was happy. If it came damaged.....I'll had returned it...
Actually its quite normal for parcel from Play-Asia to arrived in that condition.That parcel are sent using normal air mail (Play-Asia free delivery is using that method). Most probably the box are damaged due to handling by local custom
I ordered a game and the case was smashed up, but the game was fine. I was going to send it back to get a new case, but I forgot to.
I had a figure come slightly damaged once. My Naru figure from Love Hina, came with her glasses broken off (she was supposed to be holding them in her hand). I had to glue it back to together.
the limited edition DVD that i've bought before has a minor damage like small cracks on the CD case. that's one of the risks for sending your stuff through the common airmail. it may be a bit costly to send your items through postal services like FedEX, UPS or DHL but you'll have an ease of mind of not having your goods damaged
I'd second that, when sending stuff to Manila, use only express courier service like FedEx, UPS or DHL. I once had a package that never arrived. I'd have to presume that it was stolen. thank God the company on the other end decided to send the replacement via FedEx.
FedEx sucks so bad here! (CA, US) They delivered some of my packages to wrong addresses twice and i only use their service twice. One was pronounced missing cause they couldn't get it back... I only trust UPS for my orders.
I bought a huge Katana (it is 6'2" long, and the blade is 3/4" by 3 1/4" across) It weighs 25lbs and it was shipped in a huge tube with NO PROTECTION... and as big as this sword is it was BENT!!! I shipped it back and got another BENT SWORD in return. After the third time, with a bend at the tip, I decided to repair it myself and just forget about it. You would think after they paid for shipping TWICE they would wise up. Durrrr.
Bought some Bleach limited edition posters. Didn't recieve them for a month when the shipping est was 1-3 days. The next following month (End of Jan) saw it in my mail box... Beyond damage. Rips. Bent. And even worse someone tried to tape the thing together. Best 40 bucks I ever spent.
Normally I only buy stuff from HLJ when I import but the boxes always come undamaged, although there was one figure that came with her ponytail broke so I think that she already had her ponytail broken before she left the warehouse.
Second that. No damaged goods for me, and I usually order from HLJ. Apparently HLJ and Portugal have a nice relationship. LoL.
Out of all the figures and stuff I've purchased and shipped from Japan, the one that came back most damaged was the one I brought back myself. Shipping's been pretty good to me EMS is pricey but I always use it!
Great guys I opted for normal shipping for my Front Mission 5, Votoms ps2 games and Sengoku Basara Heroes artbook and now I'm abit concerned.
Happened to me this one time I ordered DDR mats from the now extinct Lik-Sang. Luckly, they were dance mats... so despite the boxes coming almost completely destroyed, there were no damages to the mats themselves. Also, 1 week ago my stuff came to my new place (I just moved)... I'm glad I packed everything nicely, because the boxes came like they were just through a hurricane or something. Some of my books were wet, but still useable. Some unfortunate crap you have to deal with when you live in a third world country... services are so f*cking unreliable. They don't give a damn about the stuff they are moving. At least I was smart enough to carry my figures on my personal luggage.
The worst parcel that I've ever received contained my Shunya Yamashita's CoCoNa PVC and was from HLJ. The box was alittle disproportioned and had numerous cuts and tears. Albeit, it was shipped via SAL during the holidays. CoCoNa's right leg had actually popped out of its groove and would not slip back into place. I dont know if this was due to the poor handling of the package or poor craftsmanship. On top of all this, her ahoge was not inlcluded, which pissed me off most of all.
i've had some bad experiences with UPS shipping and normal airmail. some of the boxes were squashed even though it had a giant fragile glass sticker on the side, other times i got boxes that were soaked in water. once, my gunpla box was opened by stupid canadian customes and they even opened the plastic packaging to look at the runners. speaking of canadian customes, those guys have no souls. they like to add random fees to random things and open random packages. sure i can understand the need to examine goods for safety reasons, but why charge me an extra 90 dollars on a 80 dollar item? that's just retarded. one of my friends that worked at UPS shipping told me that the workers just chuck the boxes into the trucks without looking at them, and some of them even open things up and take whats inside. but so far i've had no trouble with fedex though.
At least they don't steal your stuff, but hell...? That is why I don't shop online, except for something I'm still waiting for. -_-;
got a couple of slightly squashed parcel. one with the figurine box slightly dented. but thanks god, so far all my figures are safe. let pray it stays that way
Yeah, my PA packages almost always arrive dented and a little squashed. Luckily, all my figures were still in pristine quality. Guess this is the risk one takes when opting for free shipping.
Gee, thanks Danny :) Well, As E_G mentioned, its kind of expected when you choose PA's free shipping service. Maybe I already got immuned to dented parcels ;__; Besides that, I never expect Tamaki's box to be so HUEG!! Oh, here are some pics of past damage experience =__= So far no broken figures yet, but my Zecty already got lost in the mail ;__; Karen in ealy 2007: http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1773/xxx002jn9.jpg http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6829/xxx004xs1.jpg Rider: http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/9964/imgp0179aon5.jpg http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8446/imgp0180art4.jpg
I think I know the problem. The boxes say "Handle with care" on TINY printing around the labels. Maybe Playasia should get boxes with bigger warnings.
I make sure I pack my anime items so they don't look like that but as everyone else is saying, customs sure can mess things up. I sent a customer order to Italy from New York in early December and it took until late January for it to arrive in at its destination! This item reached Italy in 3 days but some weirdos in customs love to scam people and businesses. Canadian customs too. I live and run the business from New York and sometimes shipments to Canada will take 3 weeks to get to their location even though they reach the city of destination in 2 days 0_o. Damn customs.
Chuck, thank you for this piece of info. *Mumbles to self* Gotta be patient, gotta be patient, Freeloader going to come soon...
One time I ordered some doujinshi from Japan and turned out that due to poor packaging, box came loose open and some of the doujinshi came out and gone missing. So instead of 10 doujinshis, I ended up getting like 3 only T_T That raised a question though, I wonder if the box opened up while some postal worker was taking care of it and then he/she maybe took whatever fell thru...?
it's not so bad if you don't collect the box since the figure is usually protected by plastic foil.
But for those who collect MISB items, they'd cry tears of blood. Well, dont get me wrong about PA services. I believe the one at fault is probably the local post service. They dont give a damn because they're only 3rd party deliverer.
recently i bought a painted resin figure from a seller on ebay. here's the parcel he mailed me from hong kong. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/gordon008/blog/parcel02.jpg as you can see, he is very thoughtful and wrote "GLASS THX!" so that whoever is handling the parcel will be careful with it. ('~')
Looks like there are some considerate people left in this planet.
I bought some gundam models off ebay once that were packaged in printer paper.
My Perfect Grade Strike Rouge went through an Ocean. Apparently it didn't come on a boat or plane because the kit box was underly destroyed (and drenched) to the point where it looks like it met a hurricane. Runners were fine, but they smell weird...Anyway, it turned out to be free, lucky me.
I recently got my Reiko and Cathrine figures from the Gundam Card Builder game in the mail and the parcel has a couple gashes in it but the actual boxes the figures were in along with the figures were perfectly fine. My moms a mail person and I've gone with her on runs before and I can say it happens due to there being a lot of mail and parcels in the truck.
Haven't had the luck to have a squashed parcel yet - have only made 2 online orders so far each order sent by EMS.. ^^
I had dealed with Play-asia 3 Times and with Hobbysearch(1999.co.jp)once. All of my Parcels were arrived in good shape so I have nothing to complain :)
I never order a figurine before, but I ordered a very expensive computer case and fed-ex made a huge dent on it.
the shuraki shall i order ain't here yet after 2-3 weeks ... guess u can call it a squashed pascal or a missing pascal ...
Wait, people out there still use regular ground mail for things they care about? heh Thats kinda funny.
I make one or two orders from play-asia and 1999 a month, and 99% of the time there's no damage to the packages. Once or twice ever the boxes have had crush damage or a small hole but i've never had anything damaged before.
Luckly, i never got a squashed package from play-asia yet.
Not anime goods related but my mum sent me my Christmas presents way back in November (middlish) from England to me here in Japan, and they only got here last week!!!!!! To be fair, they came by boat, but they were only meant to take 6 weeks and they took 2 months!!
still ranting to Royal Mail about my Char figure! Turns out that they sent it off to a local post office and now have to get it back. Note that I said "a" local post office, not "my" local. And i didn't even ask them to send it to my post office either!! So yeah, I'm getting my Char over a week late, but at least I should be getting it, I hope...
I made the mistake and chose air bubble envelope once for shipping. As a result the DVD Box was broken and the disc got some scratches. But I had the worst incident when a friend of mine sent me the Saturn version of Grandia in a air bubble envelope... When I received the game it looked like this: http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=damagedlw2.jpg Never user air bubble envelopes for shipping!
Gah... Hope the discs were all right.
Yeah! I have Danny lots of stuff from that specific company, most recently i got young hip cover gal 2 and the packaging was bashed up badly had to bin it. Thank fully the fig was ok
I often order stuff from Japan, and usually get everything undamaged. So, I've been really happy, because Japanese take a lot of care that customers get everything in fine condition. But there has been one bad experience too. I ordered books (anime and idol), and when I received them, there was water(!) inside the box and even the plastic bag where the books were. I thought, that "oh no", but couldn't believe, when I found out, that despite all the water all the books were fine. I had a lucky day back then.
the idol books were bukkake-proof i reckon :D
sometimes the post office is so bad, they didn't really care about the condition of your package luckily, the item is in good condition. I was lucky to order Mirei from PA in perfect condition. here in indonesia, they always open each package and just seal it recklessly and make you pay for "re-packaging". Thank God the amount is not so bad.
vice versa? My parcel from HLJ was in perfect condition but when I opened it, the plastic wrapper around the fig box was torned. (as long as fig is fine, it's alright X3)
Play-asia and some other stores I buy from always have good packaging within the box. Lots of room and cushion for the merchandise not to get damaged. Boxes do arrive squashed though (curse the local post office) but the insides are perfectly ok. ^^
pretty much almost everything i get comes in pretty good condition except for books the boxes almost always come damaged unless its from amazon but good thing its just books and not figures. it would be horrifying to get a figure squished.
Most of my parcels from Play-Asia will have dented box but the figures are in good condition. I never have such problem with parcels from HLJ with SAL, just it happened once that my toys box was badly shaped due to HLJ bad packaging. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/matfongzai/toys/misc/DSC01164-1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/matfongzai/toys/misc/DSC01166_1.jpg
