Friday, October 27, 2006

Updates - October 27th, 2006

Happy Halloween everyone! :-)

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since the last newsletter, and a lot has happened since then. Let me explain..., no there is no time for that, let me sum up... :-)

After closing for part of last week, the final phase of or move was successful and we have begun operations out of our new facility as of Oct 23rd. We all pretty much worked 18-20 hour days right through the weekend to get everything up and running, and aside from a few small glitches we are just about back to a regular shipping schedule. Store updates started again on the 25th,and we should have the store completely updated by early next week. This very necessary move has been in the works for about 1 year and our new facility is just awesome! We finally have room to move around again!

One of the glitches we ran into this week was a problem with the integration between the new shipping terminals and our order status system, which resulted in a few days without e-mailed order confirmations or status updates, even though orders are shipping out on time. I apologize for this, and we should have the problem resolved by Monday. In the mean time, Jamie (bless her heart) is in the process of sending out all the confirmations from this week by hand, so order status's should be completely up to date by close of business on Friday.

The new place is about 3 times larger than our old facility in Ranson, and the move to Winchester VA puts us within 2 miles of a large regional postal facility and a regional FedEx office which means we have much later drop off times for your parcels, and will be able to put them directly into the system which should reduce 'in transit' times to some areas. There are also many more benefits that will help us to serve you even better in the months ahead.

We want to thank all of you for having extra patience with us while this process took place. We are looking forward to being able to provide everyone with even better service from our new location!

OK, back to the Anime...

In the news over the past couple of weeks are several notable items that I thought you'd like to know about. First Funimation let us know last week that the Fullmetal Panic 2nd Raid DVD #1 w/ Limited Art Box is already sold out in pre-order at the wholesale level. We still have some room left in our allocation, but I recommend you order early to ensure one will be available for you when they come in.

Geneon announced a couple of new release delays:

Shana Vol #2 DVD 11-7-06 to 11-14-06
Disgaea Vol #1 DVD 12-19-06 to 1-9-07 (also, the Art Box version has been cancelled)

Central Park Media announced a few discontinued titles this week effective immediately, probably due to license expirations:

Legend of the Dragon Kings
Birdy the Mighty
Virgin Fleet
Harlock Saga (Sold Out)
Agent Aika (Sold Out)
Labyrinth of the Flames
Hyper Speed Grandol

A couple of these have not been repressed for several months, so the 'announcements' are coming a bit late. We've placed all these CPM titles on 'stock left on hand' status. CPM also announced they moved their offices, apparently someone is still alive and kicking over there - a good sign! :-)

Flash Gordon has just completed what has to be one of the most comprehensive reviews I've ever seen on a fan-favorite classic 'mecha' series. Don't miss this one!

The folks at Media Blasters have made a Demo of new Bible Black game available at the Kitty Media site. Remember though, it's strictly an Adults Only affair so no one under 18 is allowed:

Our annual Noemi-O-Lantern Pumpkin Contest is almost over, and we've already gotten several excellent entries. There is still time to get yours in - all you have to do is carve your Noemi-O-Lantern and send us pictures (or video) of it on display. Entries with video posted to You Tube will get special consideration, just include the link with your entry. The winner will be awarded a $100 Anime Corner gift certificate! Full details of the contest can be found here. One enterprising pumpkin carver has already shot a short video of his creation and posted it to You Tube!

This week has been catch up week for posting new releases that have arrived since the Oct 16th update. Getting inbound shipments re-routed to our new location has delayed the arrival of a few titles, but that will clear itselfup in short order. Lots of new DVD's and manga have been posted to the site, including a record 14 new DVD boxed sets! We also have a large shonen-Ai and Yaoi manga update that is currently in progress, and we'll be working on getting all the new items and the rest of the Dec and Jan pre-book items posted over the weekend (I might even have time to update the front page - finally!). We also received a large figure shipment that included Amy from Burst Angel and Carmen99 ('99' for her bust size in cm) from Gun X Sword which is one of my favorites. There was not nearly enough room to highlight all the new arrivals here in the newsletter, so make sure to checkout the Geneon $5 sale is coming to an end shortly, so please make you final selections from whatever we have left in stock:

Finally, I want to thank everyone again for your patience during our move. In return, I've included a sale coupon that should help makeup for any delays or bumps that we might have experienced over the past couple of weeks! Just use one of the following coupon codes when you place your order:

To save 4% off any order over $101, use the following coupon code during checkout:

relocation101

Or, to save 7% off any order over $301, use the following coupon code during checkout:

relocation301

Coupons are valid ONLY for NEW orders, and good through Tuesday, October 31st only, so don't wait!

Now, we're all going to finally be able to get some sleep! Well, at least a little... -_^

Friday, October 20, 2006

Move Update [Updated]

Since I have not posted recently I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on how the move is going. It's been all 14 hours days since Oct 2nd. Now it's 18 hour days.

The new place is going to be great though. :-)

We closed up Wednesday afternoon after shipping out the regular orders for that day. Then the big trucks starting lining up outside. I'm happy to report that we are right on schedule, and all of our primary stock is now at the new location (just not all put out yet). We've moved approx. 14,000 manga volumes, 3,000 figures and just about 870 '30 count' cases of DVD's over the past 48 hours.

We started at 7am on Thursday morning and worked until midnight, and the next 2 days look like it will be more of the same. Our IT cutover is happening on Sunday so we will be ready to start processing orders again first thing Monday morning. Needless to say I will be out of touch until Monday, but send me your e-mail inquires anyway and I'll work through them next week. I expect we should be settled in an caught up again with regular business and store updates by Friday the 27th.

Please see my Oct 6th post for the whole schedule, which has gone off pretty well. I attribute that to all the planning and preparation we did ahead of time. The only SNAFU that we've run into so far has been with Verizon. We won't have phones for another week or two. It's my fault, I didn't order the lines until the end if August.... Verizon is without a doubt the worst run company in the United States. And yeah, I'm taking Central Park Media into consideration there. -_^

Friday morning our entire crew will be getting together for breakfast before we start putting out the DVD's at the new place. If you are getting breakfast in Winchester tomorrow morning and see a bunch of very poorly dressed hoodlums making a lot of noise about Anime, that's probably us. :-)

I'm off to bed. We'll talk next week.

[UPDATE]: Friday Oct 20th, 8:40pm - We started early and made good progress today. We ended up a bit ahead of schedule late in the day, so we broke off about 6:30PM so everyone could go home and have an evening with their families. First time in several days for some of us. I took a few pictures today to share so you can see how things are coming along.

Items from the DVD section at the old warehouse are loaded into '30 count' cartons and tagged for transport.

Boxed DVD's are loaded onto special racks at the new place for off loading.

Racks of DVD cases move through one of the loading docks on their way to their area of the warehouse.


Trading figures as they start to be put out early Friday morning.


Racks of DVD's after they are put out at the new warehouse.


A good shot down one of the DVD isles at the new warehouse (note the GITS SAC special edition boxes to the right AND left). We cartonize or bin a lot of the products for pulling, but we actually hand stack all the DVD's in their designated area so that every DVD gets inspected prior to being put out on the racks. This process really helps us keep defectives to a minimum.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Updates - October 6th, 2006

Our move has commenced, is going very smoothly (so far), and is on schedule (so far). Between October 2nd and October 18th we will be moving into our new warehouse facility in Winchester, VA. During this time orders will continue to be processed and shipped daily from our old facility in Ranson, however, shipping of some orders will be delayed a few days as we begin to increasingly split our inventory up between the two sites, so please allow a little extra time for your order to ship and your e-mails to be answered during this period.

We will be closed from Noon on October 18th through October 22nd for the final phase of the move. Orders placed during this period will resume shipping on October 23rd from our new location in Winchester, VA. We've devised this schedule to cause the least disruption to our daily order processing operations, however, some shipping delays will be inevitable and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding during our move. :-)

The shipping area of the new building being stocked up with supplies in preparation for operations later this month.

Right now here is what the move schedule looks like:

Oct 2nd
Administrative Office Furniture Area

Oct 4th
Art Book section
Apparel Section

Oct 6th
How to Draw Book Section
Plush Section
Urban Gear Section
Import Magazine Section

Oct 10th
Overstock DVD Section
Blank CD & DVD Media Section
Model Kit Section

Oct 12th
PolyResin Statue Section
Wall Scroll & Poster Section
Figure & Toy Pre-Pack Section #1

Oct 13th
Trading Figure Section
Figure & Toy Pre-Pack Section #2

Oct 16th
Snack and Food Section
Character Merchandise Section

Oct 18th-22nd (store closed)
Primary DVD Stock Section (28,000 DVD's)
Primary Manga Section (14,000 Manga Volumes)
Remaining Figure Inventory
All Remaining Racking and Fixtures

Oct 23rd: Orders Begin Shipping from the New Facility

So far, so good. Wish us luck!
This week in the news we got word of a number of release delays from Bandai and Geneon. Bandai sighted ongoing issues with their replicator for this round of delays, and we've been no stranger to those problems over the last couple of months.

Here's the list of delays:

Betterman DVD Complete Collection - 10/10/06 to 10/17/06
Fantastic Children DVD 4 - 10/10/06 to 10/17/06
Geneshaft DVD Complete Collection - 10/10/06 to 10/17/06
IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix DVD 5 - 10/10/06 to 10/17/06
Shakugan no Shana DVD 2 - 11/7/06 to 11/14/06

Due to popular demand, we dropped the pre-order price of the upcoming GITS SAC DVD Boxed Set down to $59.98 (from $69.98), which means we're offering it for pre-order at 40% off the retail price! And no worries, if you already have a pre-order in for it your price will automatically be adjusted down.

It's October and our Third Annual 'Noemi-O-Lantern' pumpkin carving contest is off and running! Everyone has carved a 'Jack O' Lantern', but have any of you ever made a 'Noemi O' Lantern'? Well, here's your chance! Bosatsu has used our logo model Noemi and painstakingly created a comprehensive guide to carving your own personal Anime Corner pumpkin, just in time for Halloween! E-Mail us photo's of your finished Noemi O' Lantern on display and win a $100.00 Anime Corner Store merchandise certificate! We will evaluate each entry and pick the best Anime Corner carved Halloween pumpkin, then we'll announce the winner in an Anime Corner Newsletter in early November. Good Luck!

Jamie begins to put out and organize the art book section at the new warehouse.

This week has been excellent for both new Anime and Manga arrivals. Of note we received Negima Vol #3, of which most people have been ordering the limited edition version and Vol #1 of Full Moon, of which the Box version has been the most popular. After well over a year in the making, we also received the 2nd volume of the Tenchi Ryo-Ohki OVA, and I was very excited to get to see the continuation of that series! On the Manga front we have 26 new volumes from series like Ai Yori Aoshi, Platinum Garden, and one of my favorites Tramps Like Us. We also received a ton of new character goods and some more figures as well including the Revoltech Eva Unit 03's and the first of the new Macross Valkyrie from Toynami.

Finally, I wanted to mention again about the big figure sale that we have going on through the weekend. I decided earlier this week that we could save a lot of effort during the move if we could clear out some of our figure inventory, so I put every figure on the store on sale for 20% the regular price. RACS fans have responded, and we have sold 5 full racks of figures so far, and we've been able to sell out and delete over 20 different figures off the site pre-move. We appreciate the help from everyone that has taken advantage of the sale so far, and I also want to let everyone one else know that there is still time to grab a few at the sale prices before the sale ends and we start moving the figures to the new place on Tuesday the 10th!