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Post by Pinwig on Mar 2, 2019 11:07:35 GMT
Interesting this. It feels like there's a change happening. Star are moving into Transformers, but it also seems like Forbidden Planet are gaining exclusives they didn't used to get. We're used to them selling the regular waves at a slightly inflated price a while after they usually come out - that's standard, but they're now offering Ectotron, Red Swoop/Ricochet and the new MP figures. Which is also what Hasbro Pulse are doing.
The discussions last year about Hasbro working more directly with smaller sellers in the wake of TRU's demise seem to be more visible now. Kapow and ID are also differentiating between import and Hasbro UK stock. The UK stuff is flagged as being available a month after the Import stuff and is marginally cheaper, but the important thing is that it *is* coming now whereas in the past it never did. I'm also wondering if this is why companies like TFSExpress are also now claiming to be be getting into Star Wars and Marvel Legends - because a new and better relationship directly with Hasbro UK means these things are now easier for smaller sellers to obtain and sell.
I don't know what the difference between the mechanics of Hasbro's old online store and the new Hasbro Pulse are, but behind it the supply mechanism seems to have improved significantly for overseas sellers. Must be Hasbro being much more proactive about selling their own goods instead of just relying on big retailers to do it for them.
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 2, 2019 13:03:20 GMT
Whereas it seems harder and harder to find Transformers in physical shops. I'd rather see more in shops. Ordering online is not convenient.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Mar 2, 2019 13:05:41 GMT
This is true. The supermarkets seem to have given up again after the run we had when the TRU exclusivity on Generations stopped. I loved being able to walk into Smyths on Monday and buy a Hound toy. Buying online never feels like you're 'collecting' because you tend to buy in batches to make the postage economical.
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Post by drmick on Mar 2, 2019 17:27:04 GMT
Whereas it seems harder and harder to find Transformers in physical shops. I'd rather see more in shops. Ordering online is not convenient. -Ralph Why not? Isn't buying stuff online the pinnacle of convenience? |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 2, 2019 17:38:02 GMT
Ralph has had much difficulty with the postal service and couriers over the years, as posts passim testify.
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Post by Pinwig on Mar 2, 2019 19:21:22 GMT
Isn't buying stuff online the pinnacle of convenience? No, it's a pain the arse when you're never in to receive parcels and have to rearrange deliveries, wait all week to go and get them from the post office, or work out where the next delivery service you've never heard of takes stuff when they can't give it to you. I've had some absolute nightmares trying to obtain packages. |
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 2, 2019 19:23:48 GMT
Whereas it seems harder and harder to find Transformers in physical shops. I'd rather see more in shops. Ordering online is not convenient. -Ralph Why not? Isn't buying stuff online the pinnacle of convenience? Nope, because they don't fit through the letterbox so they go to a sorting office four miles away. I work full-time so toys can sit there for a week or two before I can get out there to collect them. That's if they are bought from somewhere that uses Royal Mail. If it's a courier service I literally cannot receive them as they deliver when I am at work and their depots are beyond city limits and I don't have a car so can't get to them to pick them up. Walking into a shop is infinitely more convenient. I can also physically check the toys for paint blemishes and other issues. Less availability of Transformers in shops means I buy far fewer than I used to! I therefore buy more Lego instead as it is easy to find. -Ralph |
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Post by drmick on Mar 2, 2019 19:58:44 GMT
Increasingly a lot of my ebay sales are going to the likes of Sainsburys and Argos stores so I'm guessing there is some sort of delivery/storage service those places are offering?
Ralph lives in Edinburgh or thereabouts? This likely means those non-Royal Mail couriers have their depots within a short commute. I take it none of them are in walking distance? Don't all the Royal Mail ones have a day where they open late? And all do Saturday mornings.
I think the big issue is the lack of a car. Without a car it would absolutely be an absolute pain to get parcels. But it is a rare situation to be in I guess: to be in full time employment and not have easy access to personal transport.
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Post by blueshift on Mar 2, 2019 20:02:02 GMT
Increasingly a lot of my ebay sales are going to the likes of Sainsburys and Argos stores so I'm guessing there is some sort of delivery/storage service those places are offering? Ralph lives in Edinburgh or thereabouts? This likely means those non-Royal Mail couriers have their depots within a short commute. I take it none of them are in walking distance? Don't all the Royal Mail ones have a day where they open late? And all do Saturday mornings. I think the big issue is the lack of a car. Without a car it would absolutely be an absolute pain to get parcels. But it is a rare situation to be in I guess: to be in full time employment and not have easy access to personal transport. Yeah, the sellers that offer Argos Click and Collect are a godsend, otherwise I have to wait in all day for a redelivery! |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 2, 2019 20:05:01 GMT
Not so rare. I passed my test at school but never bought a car. Prefer to walk and use public transport, it saves money and it's better for me and the environment. And I buy things in shops wherever possible. Too much stuff gets damaged in the post or is damaged to start with, particularly books, DVDs, etc. And you have the thing straight away that way.
Martin
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Post by drmick on Mar 2, 2019 20:12:15 GMT
Increasingly a lot of my ebay sales are going to the likes of Sainsburys and Argos stores so I'm guessing there is some sort of delivery/storage service those places are offering? Ralph lives in Edinburgh or thereabouts? This likely means those non-Royal Mail couriers have their depots within a short commute. I take it none of them are in walking distance? Don't all the Royal Mail ones have a day where they open late? And all do Saturday mornings. I think the big issue is the lack of a car. Without a car it would absolutely be an absolute pain to get parcels. But it is a rare situation to be in I guess: to be in full time employment and not have easy access to personal transport. Yeah, the sellers that offer Argos Click and Collect are a godsend, otherwise I have to wait in all day for a redelivery! It's not that something I offer though, as in I'm doing anything different. It just comes up as the delivery address on the PayPal invoice. |
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Post by drmick on Mar 2, 2019 20:14:19 GMT
Not so rare. I passed my test at school but never bought a car. Prefer to walk and use public transport, it saves money and it's better for me and the environment. And I buy things in shops wherever possible. Too much stuff gets damaged in the post or is damaged to start with, particularly books, DVDs, etc. And you have the thing straight away that way. Martin I'd love to have a job where I could just use public transport. I'd be able to read so much more, and nowadays play games on the Switch. |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Mar 2, 2019 20:21:07 GMT
Not so rare. I passed my test at school but never bought a car. Prefer to walk and use public transport, it saves money and it's better for me and the environment. And I buy things in shops wherever possible. Too much stuff gets damaged in the post or is damaged to start with, particularly books, DVDs, etc. And you have the thing straight away that way. Martin Likewise. Never finished learning to drive and never really needed to. I'm just lucky I live very close to a Royal Mail sorting office for collecting parcels. |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 2, 2019 20:42:52 GMT
Yeah, the sellers that offer Argos Click and Collect are a godsend, otherwise I have to wait in all day for a redelivery! It's not that something I offer though, as in I'm doing anything different. It just comes up as the delivery address on the PayPal invoice. I think it's an opt-out thing, as some don't |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Mar 2, 2019 20:49:12 GMT
Increasingly a lot of my ebay sales are going to the likes of Sainsburys and Argos stores so I'm guessing there is some sort of delivery/storage service those places are offering? Ralph lives in Edinburgh or thereabouts? This likely means those non-Royal Mail couriers have their depots within a short commute. I take it none of them are in walking distance? Don't all the Royal Mail ones have a day where they open late? And all do Saturday mornings. I think the big issue is the lack of a car. Without a car it would absolutely be an absolute pain to get parcels. But it is a rare situation to be in I guess: to be in full time employment and not have easy access to personal transport. Not that rare. I have never learnt to drive and always been working full time. |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 2, 2019 20:54:11 GMT
I can drive but don't have a car. I am travelling a fair bit for work now, but work does pay my train travel (it's as per my contract, but I worked it out and it actually costs less than if I were claiming mileage so I don't feel guilty!)
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 2, 2019 21:54:42 GMT
Ralph lives in Edinburgh or thereabouts? This likely means those non-Royal Mail couriers have their depots within a short commute. I take it none of them are in walking distance? As I said: "If it's a courier service I literally cannot receive them as they deliver when I am at work and their depots are beyond city limits". -Ralph |
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 2, 2019 21:59:17 GMT
But it is a rare situation to be in I guess: to be in full time employment and not have easy access to personal transport. Not that rare. For me it is a lifestyle choice and most of the staff I have known in my industry don't drive either. I should add that even if it wasn't a personal choice I wouldn't be able to afford to run a car anyway. Permanent salaries in Social Care (which is what I do) are actually lower than they were 13 years ago or have been replaced by minimum wage or zero hour contracts. I myself haven't had a pay rise in 7 years. Austerity has hit the sector pretty hard. -Ralph |
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Post by The Huff on Mar 2, 2019 23:13:05 GMT
Buying online V Buying in a shop?
It's much mote satisfying discovering a new range of toys in a shop and paying for one and having it then and there.
Sometimes the novelty wears off when you gave to wait for it.
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Post by drmick on Mar 3, 2019 0:21:20 GMT
A colleague at work has nearly every parcel delivered to him at his work address. Long ago the bosses cracked down on staff sending mail using the organisation's mail contracts, but they've never went the other way to stop mail coming in. One of the admin staff reckons some of the parcels are Smurfs figures so I'm guessing she has had a peak somewhere!
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Mar 3, 2019 8:44:45 GMT
I had a bunch of driving lessons but never took the test due to going to University, then being in London made the idea of owning a car almost laughable between parking opportunities, traffic and the general cost of living. If I'd stayed where I grew up living in little suburban midlands towns it'd have been much more important to me. Now that I'm in Berlin, driving is much more practical and I'm considering taking lessons again.
I prefer buying in a shop too, anyway - as someone else mentioned you can have a look at the paint job beforehand (with Siege you can choose the one whose battle damage you like most!), and for me it also comes with a bit of a nostalgic thrill of going to the toy shop/department with your pocket money.
There was a time, before late 2007 or so, when I only vaguely kept up with online fandom so sometimes I could walk into a shop and see stuff I had no idea was coming. That was nice, but it's also nice to have the community.
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Post by Llama God on Mar 3, 2019 11:14:37 GMT
Since this seems to be a two-pronged discussion now...
Yeah, the whole missing parcels thing is a pain. Even with a car, it's a pain in the arse at the moment since they'll get sent back to the depot which... is only open during working hours. Which is far from convenient. Or get up early and go on a Saturday morning. (Though I don't wanna.) Royal Mail do still need to work on making this more accessible, really.
On the plus side, if you get DPD delivery through Kapow then on the day before delivery they'll get in touch and give you the option of delivering to you then, another day, or to deliver to a nearby "safe location" - in my case it's one of the local convenience stores. Which is convenient, because then I go there after work and pick it up. The only wrinkle is that this seems to be how they operate for pre-orders, or you have to pay a little extra to get DPD (it's not their default postage).
All that said, I also much prefer finding toys in the shops to ordering online. I'm not entirely sure why - there's just an aspect of "the thrill of the hunt" about it, and the uncertainty of knowing what you'll see when you get to the stores, I guess. As opposed to buying online, where the whole thing is guaranteed and stress free.
That said, as others have said, it has nevertheless become difficult again to get stuff in physical stuff. Whilst I'm fortunate that my local Forbidden Planet International seem to have started getting stuff in, it's only been in limited quantities. A1 Toys also, but at the moment they're wiped out of Siege and don't know when their next delivery is. The local Asdas, meanwhile, have decided that all anyone wants is 1-step changers and Rescue Bots. Which is fair enough for those that want them, but that's a pathetically small range. And then you have the issue that not all the stores carry a complete line - see Smyths and it not carrying anything smaller than deluxes.
So whereas in the past I'd have been happy to see what I'd chance upon, and to wait for shops to have some offers on and pray that they all line up (ah, that happy day driving back to Glasgow from Portsmouth where I stopped at a couple of Smyths on the way, and managed to get the second wave of TR figures all reduced...) now I am actually more likely to buy online rather than risk missing out all together...
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Post by Pinwig on Mar 3, 2019 11:24:40 GMT
On the plus side, if you get DPD delivery through Kapow then on the day before delivery they'll get in touch and give you the option of delivering to you then, another day, or to deliver to a nearby "safe location" - in my case it's one of the local convenience stores. Even this is oddly hit and miss depending on where in the system the parcel has got to. When I get those "we're delivering your parcel tomorrow" emails from DPD and I try to reassign the delivery to a parcel shop I get 1. No option to use a parcel shop at all, 2. An option to use *some* of the parcel shops I know they use locally, but not the really convenient one, or 3. the jackpot - the one place I can easily swing by on the way home from work to pick up from. Which of those options I get seems to depend on where the parcel is in their network, and the best one is usually only available when the parcel is about to be delivered, which results in a day delay being able to pick it up because it goes back to the depot then back out again the next day to be delivered to the parcel shop. It's a really weird system. |
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Mar 3, 2019 11:47:59 GMT
Regarding physical deliveries, there's a neat thing Deutsche Post / DHL do over here called Packstations - they're basically Amazon lockers but for anything that would be delivered by normal post, and there are loads of them, and it's completely free.
Obviously DHL, Hermes, et al can't deliver to them, but lots of online shops including Amazon are integrated with the system to make it easy. (you can also send parcels from them, but I haven't done so yet)
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Post by Bogatan on Mar 3, 2019 16:59:44 GMT
I can and do drive but dont own a car. Even then working nights means the royal mail collection office is a hassle to get to. And as I discovered over Christmas the street its on only has about 10 parking spaces, but 3 or 4 times that number were attempting to park up to get post. Heaven for Traffic Wardens. People were not happy.
And dont get me started on the fact Royal mail will charge you to have packages sent to your local post office. Or parcelforce charging for Saturday delivery. Recently had a few things sent by UPS which went great, a local newsagent is a drop of centre for them.
Ebays click and collect (or whatever its called) is great as long as it works right. As mentioned elsewhere I had a nightmare trying to get post sent to one place and then nearly as much hassle collecting something from the same place. Argos on the other hand handle it incredibly professionally.
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Post by Shockprowl on Mar 3, 2019 18:59:54 GMT
Well I can drive REALLY FUCKING FAST-
But I'd much rather go into a shop to buy my toys. See them all there... enjoy the moment...
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Post by Llama God on Mar 3, 2019 23:03:59 GMT
Also, since other people are saying it, yes I can and do drive, but I much prefer not to. If I do need to pick stuff up from the office I do tend to take my bike - and pray that it's something that can fit in my paniers. The one time it turned out I was picking up a leader class figure was interesting...
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Post by Llama God on Mar 3, 2019 23:04:59 GMT
Also also, following on from that, I also much prefer going hunting for toys if I'm cycling. That way it feels like I'm rewarding myself if I do find something. And if not, I've had a good cycle.
Now all I need to do is convince the conjunx to learn to ride a bike...
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Post by Shockprowl on Mar 4, 2019 7:23:53 GMT
I do dislike driving day to day immensely. Despise it. Although it does give a certain measure of freedom. Door to door kinda thing, parking non withstanding.
Driving's only fun when I've my woo woos on.
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Post by drmick on Mar 4, 2019 18:56:26 GMT
I'm only realising that my chances of getting near a toy shop, or indeed a large supermarket, without a car are ridiculously tiny. So yet again, I am reverting to my opinion that ordering online is easier than buying in shops, regardless of access to a car!
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