Well, the holiday shopping season is now in full swing, and we have started working late into the evening to keep up with order volume. This is our 10th holiday season supporting Anime fans, so we know what to do. :-)We have been working through the typical new release delays and shipment SNAFU's that seem to always occur right around the Thanksgiving holiday. Many studios close that entire week, and problems tend to become 'acute' faster than during other times, but as of right now we're in great shape. We have most of the titles for the first half of December in stock now (though ADV's stuff came...ummm...all at once), and we're well stocked for the coming onslaught over the next two weeks.
Speaking of ADV, we did receive a limited number of the Evangelion and Nadia perfect collection tins, but not enough to fill pre-orders. They ended up getting allocated as there were not enough to go around, and ADV has promised us more around the middle of December, though they could not be more specific. We've kept both tins on pre-order and we'll be filling the rest of those orders once more stock arrives.
We had a little glitch on 'Cyber Monday' in that Yahoo's backend that supports the cart was overwhelmed with traffic and ended up going down for a few hours. We worked with their engineering dept pretty much all day to get the site back up and running, and since then they have added several new transaction servers to the store system to accommodate the extra traffic, and now everything seems to be running even better than before. I apologize if this caused you guys any problems, and I appreciate the patience everyone showed on Monday as we worked to get the checkout system back up.
If there wasn't enough new stuff for you to buy this week, Ron just shot me a message from the receiving area to let me know that three more new DVD's just hit the dock over there and are being unpacked now - Witchblade 3, Musashi 4, and Paprika (BlueRay).
We've noticed the usual increase in delivery days for mail parcels as holiday volume ramps up, so we changed the default shipping method from Economy (standard mail) to Priority Mail on the checkout pages, though all options are still available in the little pull down menu. It's getting closer to crunch time and we're encouraging customers to take the safe road on those gift orders and select a faster delivery option.... hint...hint... -_^ I see a lot of stores emphasizing 'free shipping' this year over 'total value', but guys don't be fooled by all the hype - the ketchup and mustard packets are built into the price of the hot dog, always have been, and always will be. Just a little 'food' for thought. :-)
Our Holiday Madness sale continues through midnight tonight, though I am sympathetic to all the folks that e-mailed in this week asking us to extend the sale into next week. I have not decided on that yet, and while I normally would be happy to honor those requests, next week is the absolute busiest week of the year for us and honestly I'm not sure that it's a good idea that we do much to encourage extra orders as we'll already have our hands full.
Oh to heck with it, you guys talked me into it - we'll extend the sale until Tuesday. I'm such a sucker for what you guys want! :-) Damn the torpedos - full speed ahead!
I wanted to mention that our 2008 domestic calendars are selling out quickly, but the first shipment of imports is due to arrive from Japan early next week. We'll post them to the calendar section as soon as they arrive.
We've teamed up with some of the major studios and created a select list of holiday gift ideas that we've slashed up to 70% off the retail price - in fact, we've priced some of these items way below our regular cost. The catch is that we only have a certain number of units of each featured item available at these prices, so grab them before they run out.
Our partner sale with Adult Source Media (Adults only please!) ends tonight at Midnight so this will be your last chance to save at least 40% off on all of their titles.
We have about a months worth of new arrivals for you this week, way too many to try to feature here. Check below for the scoop on everything that's come in, or check our updates page for the complete story!
That's it for this week. Have a great weekend - and ENJOY your Anime! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment