psa for R2J-buyers: AmJ no longer offers Economy-Shipping

[treatment]

fyi for the R2J-buyers here:

Amazon-japan states:

International Economy Shipping is no longer available after March, 7, 2007. (http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/help/customer/display.html/503-3590069-0926317?ie=UTF8&nodeId=1039606#international)

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200131260

International Economy Service is no longer available

Amazon.co.jp has been offering International Economy shipping and International Express shipping. To deliver your items safely to you as soon as possible, we have decided to offer only International Express shipping which has tracking ID on every shipment.


This really bites. :( :angry:

[raistlinmajere]

Glad my KOR order just shipped... But this is disappointing indeed. I did use express several times and had great service and was never hit with customs. But I don't want to keep chancing the customs things, and I simply don't want to pay more for shipping. So yeah, disappointing indeed...

[Pelianth]

fyi for the R2J-buyers here:

Amazon-japan states:

International Economy Shipping is no longer available after March, 7, 2007. (http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/help/customer/display.html/503-3590069-0926317?ie=UTF8&nodeId=1039606#international)

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200131260

International Economy Service is no longer available

Amazon.co.jp has been offering International Economy shipping and International Express shipping. To deliver your items safely to you as soon as possible, we have decided to offer only International Express shipping which has tracking ID on every shipment.


This really bites. :( :angry:
Interesting. It looks like the over-all cost of express may have gone down though? Not much, but with their preorder discount it still ends up being cheaper than CD Japan.

[Nork22]

Thankfully all my preorders are still being charged Economy rate despite it being ship Express. :)

[relentlessflame]

Thankfully all my preorders are still being charged Economy rate despite it being ship Express. :)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what it's really about. :sd: They had already phased out Economy shipping in some cases anyway, but their system wasn't sophisticated enough to differentiate by country, so it got handled at packing and they absorbed the loss. Except for those countries where Economy shipping still actually worked, I think this is actually more correcting a computer glitch than anything else.

[relentlessflame]

Interesting. It looks like the over-all cost of express may have gone down though? Not much, but with their preorder discount it still ends up being cheaper than CD Japan.
I'm not sure if they might have adjusted prices differently by region, but it hasn't changed at all for me. Still 2000 Yen for 1 item, 5700 Yen for 10 items, etc.

[slerch666]

Thankfully all my preorders are still being charged Economy rate despite it being ship Express. :)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what it's really about. :sd: They had already phased out Economy shipping in some cases anyway, but their system wasn't sophisticated enough to differentiate by country, so it got handled at packing and they absorbed the loss. Except for those countries where Economy shipping still actually worked, I think this is actually more correcting a computer glitch than anything else.

Actually, for me it seemed that the only orders that shipped Express when I paid economy were the orders that were in their system for several months. Like the Gundam boxes. I had those on order for something like 8-9 months and lo and behold, they were upgraded, while the SakuTai live DVD I ordered only a month in advance actually shipped economy.

[The Great Bear]

Well, I've been planning on cutting back on R2 purchases, and this just gives me another reason. Except for Kanon and finishing out Aria, I don't really have other R2 series that I plan to pick up.

It's going to suck to have to pay higher shipping for just one item in some of the months to come. Only the preorder discount is going to compensate for that. :sigh:

[Teisuu]

Ouch. I mostly order books there, and that change almost doubles the shipping cost for me, as well as raises the chances for customs to join the fun. Time to look for another Japanese manga retailer, I'm afraid.

[Jumbo]

Well, at least we enjoyed it while it lasted. I'm bummed to see this happen but as others have mentioned with the pre-order discount you are still saving money.

I guess I'm so numb from either being forced to pay an outrageous markup at Kinokuniya or the EMS shipping fees I have been paying for stuff through Mangaoh/CDjapan I'm not too upset by this announcement. I'd always wondered why they were willing to ship something so cheap (My latest Asatte no Houkou by itself was only 700 yen for shipping!?) compared to everyone else out there and I guess now we know, they must not have been making money off it after all.

I guess my question is will they be using DHL still for their express delivery or will we see a switch to EMS or something of that nature?

[The Great Bear]

I guess my question is will they be using DHL still for their express delivery or will we see a switch to EMS or something of that nature?

I have doubts that they'll be switching from DHL. Let's just hope that DHL can improve on their service.

:(

[treatment]

What sucks about this policy-change to me is that I can not combine any of my old existing orders right now anymore. Especially if I want them combined with my new orders. :angry:

[Mazinkaizer]

Since i place most of my R2 orders from CD Japan i guess it won't affect me much. To tell you the truth i prefer CDJ's packing more than AMJ's. Especially after the latter screwed me with the Hokuto No Ken Premium Set by not packing it properly thus it got damaged in the shipping :( , But to give them their credit they did refund me back the whole amount of the set (around $800). Too bad, though when i wanted to order another one it was already OOP.

[dejr8bud]

Not a big deal for me since I only order from Amazon Japan a few times a year. But its nice to have the option.

That premium Hokuto No Ken Box set is still up at Amazon JP.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/switch-language/product/B000065EVX/ref=dp_change_lang/503-8274927-1277529?ie=UTF8&language=en%5FJP