@rona: what ace figure did you get at auction? curious I feel like I have opposite luck to you, rona. XD I mystically find things for cheap. All the ace figures I have I bought off other collectors for just a few dollars. Got REALLY lucky with secret ace. For example: There was a pair of shoes I wanted but didn't manage to snag before it sold out, so I put myself on the wait list. Months later, I just got emailed and it's back in stock for 50% less. $120 pair of shoes for $20 LOL!
My friends hate me for stuff like this. I'll try to mentally send you some of my luck!! Feel the lucky waves!! ~~~
EDIT:
Just got this email from the owner of HLJ:
"
Thanks so much for taking the time last week to write us such a thoughtful note about your views of our service and trends in the industry. While we're pretty aware of all of the points you mentioned already, it's still very useful to hear those sorts of thoughts directly from a customer. Let me offer a few thoughts of my own on what you've brought up:
Pricing and discounts: While we've upped our Early Bird discount lately on most items, I remain firm in my belief that's it's in the absolute best interests of my company not to get sucked into a competitive spiral of deep discounting. Discounting is the easiest and most brain-dead way for stores to attempt to compete. It can prove quite easy to build sales volume with discounting, but more often than not, the stores doing that end up shipping more product (i.e., doing more work), and making less money while doing it. Not a formula for success. Many of them go bankrupt in the process. I've seen it happen in our industry many times. I am currently striving to make HLJ the most attractive place for customers to shop even if our prices are not the lowest out there. I'd really like to continue to make my mortgage payments, thanks!
That said, of course consumers are free to choose who they want to buy from, and I fully understand that many people will flock to the lowest-priced merchant, regardless of their reputation, level of service, or whatever. Some people simply shop on price, and only price. But I cannot get that business unless I'm literally the cheapest store in the world. And I cannot start offering 25% off as a matter of course, because I'd have to almost double my sales to make up for the loss of revenue vs. a 15% discount, and that simply won't be possible. Maybe I'm naive, but I think I'll be able to get the price-shoppers back after the super-cheap guys go out of business. :-)
As for pre-orders and fulfillment issues, I'll be the first to admit that our current system is less than ideal. We are currently in the early stages of designing a system which will completely (and I mean completely) overhaul our fulfillment programs to make it very easy for customers to understand whether they're going to get something or not, and to give them complete control over what gets shipped to them, and when. I hope to be able to debut this on our site within the next year. Unfortunately, none of that will give us the ability to conjure more product out of thin air when manufacturers short the market, but at least people will be able to understand whether they're going to be able to get something or not.
Regarding product graphics, yes, we could increase our speed in this area, and just this week we hired two more people for our graphics department to assist in getting things onto our site faster, among other duties.
Again, thanks for your email; your comments are very meaningful to me. I hope you'll continue to stay a loyal customer to HLJ!"