[HenshinTension]

Just a disclaimer here before I rant: My experience may be a fluke and/or a result of the holiday this week and may not necessarily be your own experience. Now that that’s out of the way here’s the story (I apologize in advance for its length).

I placed two separate orders on Friday. The first was through Newegg for Ryuki since Anime-Island and nearly every other online vendor that I know of was sold out of him. I then proceeded to order Knight, Zolda, Ouja and Magnet States Fourze from Anime-Island. I ordered them around 6 pm (CST) in the evening so I knew the earliest my order would ship would be Monday. Anime-Island has a policy that states this:

“We do ship on Saturdays and Sundays (yes logistics never stops) so even if you placed the order on a Thursday and you think we did not ship it by the weekend, you may be wrong. We generally have shipments going out at 5am Sunday mornings and this means you will get your item as if it shipped on a Friday.”

However I did not assume my order would be processed that quickly so I figured on Monday being the earliest it would ship. So when my order did not update on Monday from “Awaiting Fulfillment” I didn’t think anything of it. However, I figured that since their policy also states this:

“Generally we ship most items on the next full business day, unless an item is restocking”

that my order would likely ship on Tuesday. Tuesday evening rolls around (now the second full business day since my order) and my order still shows as “Awaiting Fulfillment”. I start to get a little concerned as I feel this means that my products were still being located and being prepared for shipment. I did a check on their site and sure enough Kamen Rider Knight was now completely sold out (meaning that I likely got the last one they had). I send them an email at 6 pm asking for an update. Around 10 pm they reply back that since my order was placed on Friday, they grouped it with the weekend and Monday orders, which is a bit different that their above stated policy. They go on to say that they’ve packed my order and that it is now awaiting pickup. However they also say that Kamen Rider Knight would be shipping from a different facility and that it won’t ship until Thursday (i.e. today). They do, however, provide me with a tracking number for Zolda, Ouja and Magnet States Fourze…but it’s USPS. I had specifically selected Fed Ex for shipping since I have all my packages shipped to my office and prefer not using USPS if at all possible. No big deal though…at least I’ve got a tracking number now.

So I know yesterday didn’t count since it was a holiday but I figured the order would have shipped by this time today, right? Not the case. My order still shows as “Awaiting Pickup” even though it is 3:00 pm (CST) in the afternoon. Now it seems that my order will likely not go out until tomorrow, making it a full week since I placed my order. Couple that with the fact that I just received my order from Newegg already (from a vendor that is typically pretty slow to ship your order which I know from personal experience) and that makes for a slightly disappointed HenshinTension.

As I said earlier…my case could be a fluke and may even be due to the holiday. That doesn’t make me feel any less disappointed though. I know I should be more understanding as they are a small business as opposed to places like BBTS but the vendor I bought Ryuki from is likely the same size/even smaller than they are. I know that I will eventually get my figures and I’m sure they’ll be expertly packed and I’ll be stoked to have them. I just have a tendency to think that if I had ordered the figures from a place like BBTS (whose prices are very close to Anime-Islands prices) I would have had them today or tomorrow as opposed to late next week. /rant