Did you guys know I'm also a Swarovski Crystal retailer? Actually, back at the end of 2006, before I thought about selling anime figures and tagging that function to this site, I joined forces with a local wedding products wholesaler who worked with the old eBay consignment place I was employed with back then. It was from this foundation that I actually started my figure selling business, originally calling it "Chuck's E-Store" This was the final chapter in my 2004-2007 hiatus from this site, of which started with me being an Amway dealer (more very interesting news on that connection in a future post). For those who've been with my site since the beginning remember the days of AMV creations and my brief fame on Newgrounds.com way back in 2003. This got halted by me being in college, working for Friendly's Icecream and trying to break free from the job world via Quixtar/Amway ^^;;
With the anime figure business doing well, things are going full circle and I'm planning on bringing ALL aspects of life's little journeys into view. Yes, in due time you will probably see me doing Flash animations again, AMVs, video games and bringing back the long overdue anime sections to the site.
In the meantime, I added a Swarovski Crystal section to the store for all to see. It's only two figures to start off; definitely far less than what I use to stock but the site's been gaining some popularity and I've had customers who love Both anime and Swarovski figures. More are bound to be added in due time. They aren't too different since like anime figures...they are rare to come by and if you don't order them in their small window of availability...expect to be spending a large amount of $ from dealers on eBay and other sites trying to rip people off -_- On a negative note, Swarovski has a tight MAP policy (Minimum Advertising Price) for the legit sellers like me. In other words, if I sell figures at a final price lower than that, I lose the ability to sell them -_-; so I have to practically keep them at their full retail price. I won't however inflate their prices if the figures become super, super rare and I make sure they have free shipping for all US customers :-)
Also, hey, my site is called Chuck's Anime Shrine and a shrine can have some crystals in it, too.
Been expanding the store aspect of this site as you guys might have been able to tell from the recent posts. For a few years now, the store has mainly been catering to anime figures, since well, they sell and help put food on the table. The one thing that has been lacking (besides Gunpla ^^;;) would be the sales of the actual anime that we all so love and dear; the anime DVDs and Blu-ray disks...
Let's face it, the internet age has been killing DVD sales and by the time even a store like mine gets them, the prices get so low and the competition gets so fierce that ANY store that isn't Best-Buy or Walmart that's trying to honestly sell them...will run themselves into the ground within a week. The common tactic of these and other stores online is to sell DVDs for even way less than what it costs them to stock it. In other words, they choose to lose money on the items...mainly so they can scam and overprice people on other stuff in their stores -_- Trust me, I have gotten burned that way by many online & brick and mortor dealers; plus let's not forget the dealers online that say they got the DVD and end up giving you a bootleg with some crappy printed cover -_-
Blu-ray sales on the other-hand, seem to be doing ok, but again, the day for 100% digital downloads is closing in. (oh and let's not forget about the good old anime pirating crap that goes on). Despite that grim future for DVD and eventually Blu-rays, I still decided to expand the store to start to include some great anime Blu-ray disks and yes, even some DVDs.
Will my pricing beat that of the big chains like Amazon, Best-Buy and Walmart? Probably not. Again their tactic is to lose money on these things so that you come back for stuff they overprice. I still sweeten the deal by lowering the price from the retail price AND offer free shipping on them if you live in the US. For those who buy/pre-order I will promise you your copy, even if that means I go and buy it at full retail. But hey, if you end up not getting them, that's just more anime for MY collection.
Three blu-ray disks that I'd like to let you all know about are the ones that just got announced for pre-order;
Many of you are familiar with the Otacool project Kotobukiya and Dannychoo.com did with otaku rooms and I'm certain many of you heard about the second collage book fronted now by mega cosplay site CURE. If not, then you guys really should check out the official post over at Dannychoo.com. Some of you might become rather popular in Japan with your cosplay outfits. Even my fiancee, Danielle is joining in the fun ^^
Being that I'm an anime store owner, I'll be getting the rights to stock the Otacool 2 book ^_^
Christmas is almost here and before you know it, it'll be 2010, too. Some of you might know that the anime figure business doesn't always match up with the holiday season. A large amount of new figures don't seem to get released to the states until around January or early February. Why? I'm not sure, but luck would have it that I'm actually getting a LARGE shipment of both new and even long out-dated figures. Some figures were scheduled for late January/February 2010...but are actually running early ^^...
They won't be in until around Thursday December 17th but with X-mas just two weeks away, I'd think it would be best to get the word out so they can be shipped asap to make it for x-mas day. Here's a list of them:
(* means the item is an out of production/ hard to find figure)
...phew; that's a huge list. Some might not have the links posted; that's either because they sold out or I just didn't get to list them yet ^^;; If you want anything, you can shop through the store or email me what you'd like.
Don't fret, ALL are the real deal. No bootlegs on my watch -_-
Pardon the rather commercial post this time but I thought letting you guys know I'm getting THIS many figures in before Christmas would be something you'd all want to know about.
As some of you may know, I own an anime store and its an anime store run with an OsCommerce back-end. OsCommerce is frankly a do-it-yourself kind of set up. One rather important thing it originally didn't have was an rss feed for people to keep track of the newest figures, figure pre-orders and other anime products that get placed in the store. RSS feeds are obviously much better in automating the updates and making it easier for you guys to see if anything changes on a daily basis without having to go to the store's main page everyday (though I of course wouldn't mind that either ^_-). I took away the rather useless amazon product links that (sometimes) linked to my items on amazon.com to now have this feed. I also put it up on the new anime.fm page. OsCommerce does have a bunch of programmers that post up useful add-ons but as usual, I had to completely re-code the supposedly working add-ons to match my site -_- So lots of time was actually put into what should have been a quick deal.
Anyways, be sure to subscribe to it to keep up to date. You never know what figures, etc I might have up for pre-order or order ^_^
Thanks to Paypal, I was able to add a much needed feature to my anime store. That feature of course is is to give anyone shopping at my store the ability to buy and redeem gift certificates. They start as low as $5 and go up to $1000. I made it simple and had it as one button that opens up a secure page on Paypal.com in which you can choose the amount with the supplied drop-down menu. The Paypal gift certificate makes it so that you can print it out to give to someone or email them with a customize message as well. This is good if you know of a friend that is an anime fan but you are not sure what to get them, or if you want to give yourself a budget on what to spend. Trust me, I collect anime figures and merchandise too and particularly at cons, I have to limit myself ^^;;;
Hope anyone reading this blog can make good use of this feature. I have the button shown below as well as on the front page of the store of course.
(btw, the picture above is of course, Nendoroid Zange-chan)
Last week I created a new branch for my anime store. Now you can find me on Bonanzle. For some of you that, like me, didn't even know much about Bonanzle, its an online marketplace like ebay. Yet, unlike ebay, it isn't loaded with fees and is very user friendly. I was able to import all my listings there very quickly and the community there is very positive and will IM you a bunch. When I'm on the site you'll know and you can IM me with questions about items or just chat about anime, politics...whatever.
Unlike other online sellers, I don't bash eBay but I'm always looking for more fans of anime to service my store to. Overstock.com might be next.
