Dark's manga collection. Updated 9/10

[Darks sister]

HEY I'm back again! I ain't dead yet!
Got another issue of Yen+, Vampire Knight 5 and Dazzle 10. heart

*Curses Tokyopop for not listing the release of Dazzle 11*

 

[Darks sister]

Yay! My dad was nice and got me Trinity Blood volume 3 at Barnes and Noble today~ heart

(Wow, I made two updates in one day, new record for moi? XD)

 

[Darks sister]

From AnimeNation I ordered: Black Cat volume 4(Pre-Owned), and Asuka November-December 08.
I was so mad when I saw the shipping price-- Nine friggin' dollars to ship something SEVEN miles. Not only that but Economy shipping was more expensive than UPS ground.
I don't get why AnimeNation just can't have some sort of ORDER PICK-UP so my mom could just stop by the warehouse after work and pick up my order. That makes so much more sense! Especially because she works so close to where the warehouse actually is!

*HeadxDesk*

Oh yes and I bought the first part (Episodes 1-13) of Ouran High School Host club on DVD at Best Buy today. Best Buy was having a sale on anime and I wanted to see the OHSHC anime sooo it worked out well for me~ XD

 

[Kyousouka]

Handling order pick ups requires additional staff labour. If they hire a separate staff person for the task, they'll waste money because that person will be sitting with nothing to do most of the time. If they have a staff do pick-up handling only when its needed, it messes with the organization and scheduling. It takes a lot more effort to deal with a pick-up than it might seem.

I've had similar things happen a few times where I worked, we'd have to ship something to someone who lives in the next town. It's annoying, but in the end it's not worth the trouble to deliver it outselves or allow for a pick-up.

As for the cost, you can view most of the cost associated with shipping as actually handling for the parcel service rather than something based on distance. The trucks will run regardless of your package being there or not, but the fact that the UPS/whoever guy has to go pick it up and drop it off at your house and that it still has to sit in a station (that is, even if the origin was next to your house, the package would still be taken away to a hub and then shipped out from there, unless the shipping service was some sort of express service). So, the reason costs do seem to increase with distance is because that's more trucks and stations they have to visit xP

It is hella annoying though ;_; I had something shipped from a place about 5 miles from me and literally down the street >>; Took two days and cost me way more than the gas it would've taken to go there.


Is the sale at BestBuy still on?  

[Darks sister]

Kyousouka

Handling order pick ups requires additional staff labour. If they hire a separate staff person for the task, they'll waste money because that person will be sitting with nothing to do most of the time. If they have a staff do pick-up handling only when its needed, it messes with the organization and scheduling. It takes a lot more effort to deal with a pick-up than it might seem.

I've had similar things happen a few times where I worked, we'd have to ship something to someone who lives in the next town. It's annoying, but in the end it's not worth the trouble to deliver it outselves or allow for a pick-up.

As for the cost, you can view most of the cost associated with shipping as actually handling for the parcel service rather than something based on distance. The trucks will run regardless of your package being there or not, but the fact that the UPS/whoever guy has to go pick it up and drop it off at your house and that it still has to sit in a station (that is, even if the origin was next to your house, the package would still be taken away to a hub and then shipped out from there, unless the shipping service was some sort of express service). So, the reason costs do seem to increase with distance is because that's more trucks and stations they have to visit xP

It is hella annoying though ;_; I had something shipped from a place about 5 miles from me and literally down the street >>; Took two days and cost me way more than the gas it would've taken to go there.


Is the sale at BestBuy still on?

Ah, that makes sense. I can see why they wouldn't do that.

I'm thinking that the bigger cost was due to the fact that I have a heavier order than I usually do. Those Asuka magazines aren't exactly the lightest things in the world and since I usually only order one at a time, I've never had to pay such an outrageous shipping charge.

I'm not sure if the sale is still going on or not. Or even if it was just one store doing it. But it wouldn't hurt to check it out-- 50% off all Anime DVDs is nothing to sneeze at. XD

 

[Kyousouka]

Yeah, manga magazines aren't very nice when it comes to shipping ~_~; I'm not sure how UPS ground shipping scales with weight, but it's still due to the difficulties in handling than anything else really. And perhaps a slight bit of that is for the extra gas you need xP  

[Darks sister]

I got my package today~!
And even though I can't read much Japanese, the Furoku I got with the magazines is so awesome!! heart

In November I got: Kyo Kara Maoh! Stickers, note pad and a couple of bookmarks? XD

In December I got: A DNAngel Cell phone strap and a postcard. *Ties the cell phone strap to her PSP* heart

On top of that there was a chapter of DNAngel in December!!! EEEEE~~~!! <-- *fangirl squeal*
Too bad that was the last chapter for a while. *Sob*

Anyways I'll probably update my pictures pretty soon. I keep getting new stuff and I re-organized my bookshelf.

 

[Kyousouka]

There aren't enough manga I read in Asuka to buy it ._.; Trinity Blood is the only one, wah.
I wish I could get a subscription to a magazine, but those things end up really expensive because they charge shipping per-issue ;_;  

[Darks sister]

Kyousouka

There aren't enough manga I read in Asuka to buy it ._.; Trinity Blood is the only one, wah.
I wish I could get a subscription to a magazine, but those things end up really expensive because they charge shipping per-issue ;_;

I read it for: Trinity Blood, Kyo Kara Maoh!, DNAngel, Lagoon Engine and the Code Geass manga. Technically though, I don't read those in the magazine considering my Japanese is pretty bad.
But it's always nice to get a chance to look at a new chapter of a series before most people(In the US) do. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. XD

And yes, subscription is expensive. It's just so much cheaper to buy the issues you want rather than putting down a good 200-300 dollars for a subscription and getting like, 6 out of the 12 issues you don't care about.
But then you run the risk of missing a really good issue because of money issues or the store just fails to get that specific issue in. ...The latter has happened to me many times before. x_x;;;

 

[Kyousouka]

Yaaah. Mostly I just don't buy magazines at all unless it's a particularly awesome issue. I'm planning to buy the May Dragon Age since it's a double-issue. And I'm sad that I missed the issue if Young King OURS where Hellsing ended ._.; A friend and I are thinking of buying a bunch of Zero-Sum and splitting them.  

[Darks sister]

Kyousouka

Yaaah. Mostly I just don't buy magazines at all unless it's a particularly awesome issue. I'm planning to buy the May Dragon Age since it's a double-issue. And I'm sad that I missed the issue if Young King OURS where Hellsing ended ._.; A friend and I are thinking of buying a bunch of Zero-Sum and splitting them.

Forgive me for going a bit off topic but I was a little curious.
Where do you get your manga/magazines? Do you get them off the internet or do you have a real life store that you go to?

I usually use AnimeNation for my Asukas and YesAsia for the actual manga volumes but it would be nice to expand my horizon of places to shop. XD

 

[Kyousouka]

I very rarely go to Bookoff and Kinokuniya in NYC for tankoubon and magazines, but mostly I buy from amazon jp. It's more expensive than most other places, but they also carry things that most other places don't have, so in the end it's cheaper than having to pay shipping for 3-4 different importers.
I don't buy a lot of magazines, but most of the ones I have are from stores. But the physical stores don't carry the ones I like so I get them from amazon jp these days.
If I could get all the series I want from anywhere else, I probably would. The overseas handling charge on amazon is outrageous (300 yen per book/magazine in addition to the shipping).  

[Darks sister]

Kyousouka

I very rarely go to Bookoff and Kinokuniya in NYC for tankoubon and magazines, but mostly I buy from amazon jp. It's more expensive than most other places, but they also carry things that most other places don't have, so in the end it's cheaper than having to pay shipping for 3-4 different importers.
I don't buy a lot of magazines, but most of the ones I have are from stores. But the physical stores don't carry the ones I like so I get them from amazon jp these days.
If I could get all the series I want from anywhere else, I probably would. The overseas handling charge on amazon is outrageous (300 yen per book/magazine in addition to the shipping).

I wish we had bookstores like that around here. All we have is the big book retailers, which is good in it's own right but not having to pay shipping charges for Japanese imports would be nice.

I tried using Amazon Japan, but it was a bit too expensive for me. (Though, I may consider using it in the future if I start to get serious about my Japanese manga collection.)
I'd rather wait 3-4 weeks on an order that didn't even cost me shipping(YesAsia usually has this deal where, if you spend over 25$ on manga, "Super Saver" shipping is free) than pay 20 bucks + other charges. I can't get magazines from YesAsia though, which is a little bit of a bummer.

 

[Kyousouka]

Depending on how much you buy at once, amazon can be cheaper than yesasia, particularly for seinen. And, as I said, much larger selection and new books are available as soon as they're out, unlike yesasia, which has delays on all but the most popular series.

Just for kicks, I did an availability and price comparison between yesasia and amazon jp for my next order, assuming that yesasia's pricing among series remains constant and that they will have their new releases out by the time of my next order ("will have" is based on whether they carry current vols of the series already):

Books I want: 18 (not including my usual cart-padding and a new series I'd like to start)
Amazon has/will have: 18
Yesasia has/will have: 6
Yesasia Prices: 6.99 + 9.99 + 8.49 + 9.49 + 10.49 + 9.49
Average price per book for those 6 books on yesasia, assuming free shipping: $9.17
Amazon jp prices, in yen, for the same 6 books: 410 + 580 + 550 + 651 + 609 + 600
Average price per book including 2700 yen shipping and 1800 handling: $13.60
Average price for those 6 if I order all 18 books I want: $10.50
Average price for those 6 if I order my usual amount (25): $10.07
And finally, what really makes it worth it, the actual price I'll pay since I'll be splitting the shipping with my mom this time: $9.51
34 cents higher per-book than yesasia. Note that my actual price per book will be lower in the end since a few more cheap books will be averaged in and I'll get a 5% deduction on the pre-shipping cost since I don't have to pay the sales tax.
But even ignoring that, I think 34 cents per book is worth paying to be able to get all of my books in one place.

And for the sake of completion, the total amazon cost of just the 18 books I want:
(100/105)(410*7 + 550 + 600 + 580 + 2*651 + 609 + 440 + 2*460 + 578 + 630 + )+18*300+2700 = $174, $9.50 per book. Or, $160, $8.83 per book if I split the shipping with my mom (she wants to buy some magazines~). But of course, this won't be all I'll be getting. As I said, my plan is 25 books, and I'll probably be paying less than $9 per book even without the shipping split, unless the dollar falls against the yen again.


But while the numbers might seem nice, remember that to get the low per-book average costs, you have to order a lot (20+) at once. If you want to get small batches instead, then yesasia is a much better option. Amazon is good for saving money by buying in batches and being able to get the things yesasia and most other importers don't carry. If you try to order 5-6 books at a time from amazon, you'll end up paying a good $12+ per book, which isn't fun.

But hopefully that mountain of text and numbers clears up my reasoning behind sticking to amazon.