Am I sorely mistaken, or http://www.himeyashop.com/index.php/cPath/30 prices soared after their homepage renovation?
In the last year(s), the yen-dollar exchange rate was good, but the prices of both new and old erogames added to their Game stock seem somewhat overpriced, in my opinion (this includes the second-hand material, too. Heck, for an used doujin Fan Disk which http://travis.girly.jp/ “sells” for 1700 yen, Himeya asked me 70 dollars… ).
I still think that Himeya’s customer service is great, but I’m now searching for alternatives which can accept a Visa Electron debit card for payment and offer EMS postal expeditions for their merchandise ( http://shop.tsukumo.co.jp/ , for example, seems good, but I can’t find if it offers EMS shipping in its Overseas Expeditions page).
Any suggestions?
J-List.
You can request items.
quote:
J-List.
You can request items.
Request, yes...
Get a reply email, no.
I could cite several attempts to ask questions, special order through Jlist and can't even get a reply email.
Last one was for a B-game. They were offering the guide for it and I merely requested if I could purchase the JP game along with it, price whatever they needed, a yes or no answer would be fine. That was....two or three weeks ago?
Still no answer. Typical, least by my experience. Probably my only criticism of Mr. Payne's company.
quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
J-List.
You can request items.
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Payne:
Hi, we will always be happy to try to get anything that's not on our site. There is no way to guarantee anything, and if you ask for something that we don't have distribution for, then it can be quite hard to get. DVDs, manga, and photobooks are quite easy to order through our distributors, but doujinshi are by their very nature a very different animal since they're out of print the moment they are released for the first time. I think the reason you don't see companies continuing with their "we will find anything for you" services is that it's impossible to even attempt to do this, it's just too difficult to keep it up and running.
Oh, almost forgot [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/redface.gif[/img] (however, I doubt that J-List can sell old and/or second-hand games). But...
quote:
Originally posted by Mirk:
Request, yes...
Get a reply email, [b]no.I could cite several attempts to ask questions, special order through Jlist and can't even get a reply email.[/b]
I had the same problem, too, even when attempting to eMail to Lamuness here. In my case, however, my eMails get REFUSED by... who? An example:
Delivery Status Notification
- These recipients of your message have been processed by the mail server:
lamuness@peachprincess.com; Failed; 5.5.0 (other or undefined protocol status)
Remote MTA mail.peachprincess.com: SMTP diagnostic: 592 [url=lamuness@peachprincess.com]lamuness@peachprincess.com[/url]@blacklisted address is blacklisted
Recently, besides the cited example, at least two different from-me-to-JList (Peter, more exactly) eMails received the same treatment too...
Hmm, blacklisting customers doesn’t seem like it’d be good for business…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 04-08-2006).]
quote:
Hmm, blacklisting customers doesn't seem like it'd be good for business...
It isn't. They have lost hundreds of dollars worth of sales from me alone.
Sad thing is, I'd rather buy through Jlist. I want to support Mr. Payne's company simply due to the fact I like what he stands for and he seems fairly personable. I put it in the same class as Animenation for me.
A lot of places can beat Animenation's price on things. But Animenation has always had outstanding customer service and every email I've ever sent to them in the 10+ years of being a customer they have answered. A few times I have even gotten reply emails from Gene Fields himself, the C.O. That is how seriously they take it, and I have always returned to give them my business even with less expensive alternatives.
I've been in retail now since high school, closing in on 20 years worth of experience from the lowest job to store manager to warehouse floor supervisor. One thing is certain regardless, the customer is the boss. Don't pay attention to that and you will regret it, possibly to the point of not having a place to work.
Sad.....most companies I have worked for have to advertise, really work for market share and customer service is paramount. Here you have customers knocking on the door and can't even get a response. Simply amazing.
even though it is not necessarily my fault, i would like to apologize for the email problems. however, even i fell victim for this issue; i had a serious bug in xc3 but could not peter via email at all after my trip in japan and progress on xc3 was literally halted for more than 2 weeks simply because peter couldn’t get my emails at all (had to go around in circles to reach him in the end)
and as for baldo, if you are talking about the email about a page that i already deleted and a page that i should move to a more appropriate forum, i got that email actually
If I’m reading that correctly it looks like the destination address was blacklisted (i.e. nobody was allowed to send email to lamuness@peachprincess.com) rather than the sender being blacklisted.
quote:
If I'm reading that correctly it looks like the destination address was blacklisted (i.e. nobody was allowed to send email to [url=lamuness@peachprincess.com]lamuness@peachprincess.com[/url]) rather than the sender being blacklisted.
I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't necessarily talking about the same problem Baldo has had. I've encountered that problem as well but figured it was due to email addresses not being updated or old/deleted email addresses.
I am speaking of actually browsing the Jlist entries then using their template to try and email them. I believe my success rate is around ten percent with getting replies through it.
I even used my mail (when they had the "type this in manually such and such at jlist") and encountered silence.
I don't like to accuse anyone of ignoring email from customers, I'd rather think something is either blocking the email from getting there or blocking the return email. Especially with little or nothing to go on.
From what little I have had contact with Jlist staff they seem pretty nice, so I believe it has to be something else. Since Jlist does sell adult material I can easily imagine some of the internet "white hats" could be in on it, but...again just speculation. I don't know if all of the information traffic goes through San Diego or Japan, but whichever destination it is could also hold some kind of answer to the problem.
Or I could just ask for a gmail invite and understand that if I want to do business here, that is the only sure avenue to do it.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamuness:
and as for baldo, if you are talking about the email about a page that i already deleted and a page that i should move to a more appropriate forum, i got that email actually
After my initial failure, I've sent you a second eMail from my secondary Yahoo address. Message received, apparently [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img].
However, I've consulted the homepage of the provider of my primary address (.tin.it), with alarming(?) results. A few months ago, this provider adopted a new Blacklist Anti-Spam service based on the "Spammer News" of these two sites:
1) http://dsbl.org/main
2) http://www.spamhaus.org/
Is it possible that J-List (and Peapri, too) IP is now included in one or more spammer blacklists (SMTP diagnostic: 592 [url=lamuness@peachprincess.com]lamuness@peachprincess.com[/url]@blacklisted address is blacklisted, do you remember?)?
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
If I'm reading that correctly it looks like the destination address was blacklisted (i.e. nobody was allowed to send email to [url=lamuness@peachprincess.com]lamuness@peachprincess.com[/url]) rather than the sender being blacklisted.
I was being somewhat facetious; i.e. I didn't know the right way to read it, came up with two possible readings, and chose the more amusing one. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
J-List is known to be on the blacklists of some e-mail providers.
Yes, sadly, we are seen as “spammers” by some companies because we send out a mailing list and sell adult products. Perhaps the best way to contact us is using the email form on the J-List site, which lets you choose the content (snack question, toy question, b-game question). I think it will work for everyone, although if those reading this could do test mailings and let me know if you get any bounces, we’d appreciate it.
Seriously, I work very hard to keep mails read and replied to. I am sorry you’re having problems contacting us – believe me, it’s not us blacklisting anyone!
Thanks to Ayyo for pointing http://www.paletweb.com/ .
It boasts a good stock and interesting (although PayPal-infected 
) prices… But someone knows if it’s reliable too?
I didn’t know you could request items from Jlist. . .
Even import games for consoles?
I can say for sure that J-List doesn’t accept requests for erogames (“Part of the problem is that distribution is ridiculous here in Japan” said Payne-sama). I don’t know about console games, however.
I bought Fate/hollow ataraxia when it came out from paletweb. It was my first transaction with them, and I was satisfied with the service. Currently, I have pre-orders for LE versions of Fate/stay night: Realta Nua and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Matsuri for PS2 with them. Hopefully this second transaction will good smoothly as well.
Their customer service seems okay. I usually get an email response from them between 1-2 days. The only gripe is that Paypal is only way you can pay electronically.
Thanks for your info, but I think I will use http://shop.tsukumo.co.jp/ from now, those guys are now(?) using http://www.dhl.com/splash.html for overseas expeditions, and I’ve successfully completed my first order (their prices are vastly more cheap than Himeya, especially considering the current Euro-Yen rate exchange) with no big troubles in the process.
I’ve used exclusively Japanese for communicating with them, therefore I don’t know if English is a option here, but they do have some English info:
[b]Dear Sir,
Thank you for the Inquiry.
We accept Visa[/b] (yeah, this includes Visa Electron debit cards too 
)[b], MasterCard, American Express and JCB credit cards.
All information submitted is secure and your account will be billed in Japanese Yen.
International (outside Japan) customers must pay applicable sales tax, duty and Customs charges. Your local government determines duty and Customs charges, which varies by country.
Duties, taxes and/or Customs fees will be an additional amount that will be collected upon delivery of your order. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with the exact amount you will be charged.
Your order confirmation details only the charges we are collecting. Contact your local government for specific details.
Total shipping and handling is up to the item’s weight.
See the details[/b] (for Europe; see http://www.tsukumo.co.jp/service/kaigai.html for the other destinations) [b]as below;
less than 2kg \ 6,600_
less than 4kg \10,200_
less than 6kg \14,000_
less than 8kg \17,200_
less than 10kg \20,800_
less than 15kg \28,600_
less than 20kg \36,500_
less than 25kg \44,300_
less than 30kg \52,100_
less than 40kg \64,700_
less than 50kg \78,800_
CAUTION:
EWe cannot accept the order of the hotel lodge address or school stimulant.
EWe need approximately 2 weeks to deliver the item(s).
EGuarantee makes while each manufacturer guarantee stipulation. We cannot accept the initial failer correspondence with some items.
EThe shipping is the customer burden in the case of the initial failer correspondence.
EThe customer should negotiate with the transport company directly in regard to the trouble occurred.
Thank you![/b]
Hope this helps .
[ 02-14-2007, 05:40 AM: Message edited by: Baldo ]
Yes, the Himeya Shop is a great shop, but their prices are expensives (EMS). You have a few alternative shops in English language:
- Palet Mail Service:
- DLsite.com (download of games):
Unfortunately, there aren’t many options to buy the Japanese games in English language. Perhaps, there are more shops, but we have to search and find them.