Thank you for suggestions. Never used HLJ before, just AmiAmi but I've heard good things about HLJ.

They have a tendency to over-book preorders and not restock once an item sells out, especially if it's really popular. Talk to Den-O if you want some serious horror stories.

Still, I've been using them for about a decade now and the worst I've had happen is a preorder or two got dropped.

Not around here most likely, HLJ does have its problems. They never happened to me personally, been using HLJ for over a year now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. HLJ tends to „oversell“ pre-orders so it can happen that your order can't be fulfilled. And they don't tell you if it happens, because if it happens the item is already released, only you won't get one in that case. It happened to a good amount of people on this site, it seems this only happens with Tokusatsu-items, but you should be aware that this can happen.

I personally still use HLJ because stuff tends to sell out at other sites too fast for me to grab them and as I said, I never had any problems with them myself.

Also, every site has its flaws, that's what we have to deal with. AmiAmi has lousy customer service, NY either sells out faster than you can look and after that raise the prices like they want, HLJ tends to not fulfill orders. And both AmiAmi and NY won't let you cancel pre-orders. It's pick your poison or pick one up on the aftermarket.

I say this because I think you should know what you're dealing with. But in your current situation where you are not even sure if you want it, I would say put a pre-order up on HLJ, because that gives you the flexibility you need.

Poor Den-O has the worst luck I've seen in a long time.

One of the problems with HLJ is even if you cancel an order, sometimes they still bill you for it. And they can get very pissy if you don't pay up. It's even worse of you have a billing agreement and money just disappears.

I used to pre-order with HLJ pretty regularly and on occasion I still do when it's an absolute final resort. Like how Amiami has inconsistently been listing Drive TK figures and I'm stuck with HLJ. But I would never ever ever recommend them to anyone for anything. They are the aboslute biggest joke of the online retailer community.

In any case on more than one occasion with HLJ I've pre-ordered items only to have the orders completely disappear from my account. With no notice given, seemingly cancelled. So I'll order the item elsewhere and once I get it in hand I tend to get notices of payment being due from HLJ for things I didn't have on order any longer but have reappeared on my account. They delete pre-orders from my account about as often as I place them in all honesty. Yet when I explain these issues I get berated by whoever happens to be on the other end at the time.

I've had quantities changed on my pre-orders more than once and they've attempted to bill me for multiples of figures over and over. I set everything to Private Warehouse these days and yet very often I get billed for shipping for individual items. They've mailed orders to out of date addresses for me before meaning they were lost forever and I've never gotten my refunds for said incidents either.

I've also been flat out accused by their customer service people of lying about all of these issues as well despite having e-mail documentation of all of it.

I've only had preorder issues with HLJ before but on the day Kiwami was released, HLJ actually had Kiwami IN STOCK in the morning for a short period. On a whim, I ordered another Kiwami which was not fulfilled. So not only are they not fulfilling preorders, they aren't even fulfilling orders when an item says In Stock on their website.

I've never been burned by HLJ before, but I only use them for Transformer preorders (only Bandai/toku items I've purchased from them are D-Arts Charizard, a DX Chogokin, and two Monsterarts they had discounted during a post-Christmas sale).

When they start screwing around with Transformer preorders, I'll be done with them. The horror stories from those that have been dicked around by them are too bad and too consistent to make them worth my while if/when I start experiencing similar stuff.

CDJapan is a good place for figuarts as well, they may not have every single figuarts you can imagine, but they always tend to get the stuff in stock and always fullfill your pre-orders, and some times they'll still even have left over figuarts for good prices.

I got my Zangetsu like a month after he was released and got him all for around 43 bucks with shipping. Kiwami and Hibiki is still on their site for around the retail prices as of right now.

I just got my first pre-order from HLJ and it was a pretty smooth process, so I haven't been screwed over by them quite yet. I feel like the problems arise once you become a loyal customer.

Since NY was my only chance to pre-order Drive, I can try to pre-order him on Big Bad Toy Store. How good is BBTS with pre-orders since I haven't bought anything from that site in years.