Ordering snacks and misc items from sites like J-List
Ok this is what I intended to talk about without all the being mad about it, and after getting over it. Sorry for the rant that was in this post before. This will be an entirely informative post without the rants I wrote.
When ordering from any website and that is obviously not only the case with J-List, things tend to go out of stock at the same time and as your order gets processed. This happens everywhere and is really a bummer. As to how to solve the problem, there are solutions such as contacting the website's support service but most of the time you'll have to cope with it and accept that you won't get everything you ordered.
When you order snacks now you're in for a run at the Casino if you want something that isn't all that much popular like chocolate Pocky or Pretz. Don't even think that the stock status will be enough to guarantee getting it. I've had the opportunity to see a 20% chance of not having one particular snack. That's kinda high when we consider that most people would prefer making one big order rather than several small orders which ends up ruining you for the shipping. What does it mean? It means that you have to think that any of those snacks are NOT going to be in your possession and that you have to be ready to cancel them.
Another point to watch out for is the customer service. Not that it's intently bad, it just happens that if you're ordering from Japan you'll have to deal with a Japanese native speaking service which means they might not understand everything you ask and inquire in another language. I remember my first order with J-List was a mess because I was trying to rearrange what was missing with by adding stuff and removing other items so it would balance my first order looked like this:
> OKA379 Qty 3 Glico Pakitz Chocolate $1.40
> OKA283 Qty 10 Calorie Mate -- Chocolate Flavor $3.00
> OKA341 Qty 1 Pie no Mi -- Special Milk Pie $1.40
> OKA330 Qty 1 Meiji Curl Stick -- Smorky Cheese $1.60
> OKA304 Qty 2 Ottoto -- Okonomiyaki Flavor $2.00
> OKA175 Qty 2 Pie no Mi -- Almond Chocolate Pie $2.00
> OKA167 Qty 2 Taiyaki Chocolate $2.00
> SNK718 Qty 2 Calorie Mate -- Fruit Flavor $3.00
> TAJ578 Qty 2 Glico Cratz (Pretzel & Almond) -- Pepper Bacon $1.60
> OKA227 Qty 2 Calorie Mate -- Potato Flavor $3.00
> OKA310 Qty 2 Soft Sauce Sembei -- Sauce Soaked Rice Cracker $3.00
> EYE001 Qty 1 FX Neo ~ Japanese Hard Minty Eyedrops eye drops JAPAN $11.50
> OKA369 Qty 1 Meiji Curl Stick -- Seafood Curry Flavor $1.60
> SWN23 Qty 1 Bull-Dog Sauce $2.40
> TAJ579 Qty 1 Glico Cratz (Pretzel & Almond) -- Cheddar Cheese $1.60
This was only part of it. So you can figure out how confusing it must've been for a non native English speaker to deal with all these changes. So do keep that in mind especially if you're dealing with a foreign country like Japan, mistakes in communication are bound to happen!
TLDR version: Order lots of different items (in my case snacks) with the thought that you won't get everything and that you will have to cancel some of them because you can't negotiate what's not there anymore.
P.S. My experiences were with snacks but I guess that it would apply to any other smaller items like figurine, collectible candy toy, etc.
Let's exercise a little caution as we post and comment about this matter. The days of bad businesses being able to sue our asses off without justification simply because of negative ratings and tales of poor service are almost upon us, and having "currently being sued by a purveyor of Japanese goods" as a figure.fm status does not strike me as being the sort of fun we wanted when we first fell in love with a Dollfie/Figma/Pullip/Nendo/Rockshooter/daikakimura/etc.
(Disclaimer: the author of this comment experienced very negative service - I ordered a packet of biscuits, they claimed they shipped the biscuits but were stopped by my local customs. my local customs and two registered shipment trackers revealed no such parcel had been sent. I still want my Green Tea Flavored Tea Biscuits, J-List)
And yes, that was five years ago. And yes, I can hold a grudge with the right motivation - like good Japanese candy.
So what would you recommend I do, it's not like I'm famous on the Internet enough to warn the proper clientele in a blog of mine, so I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with them. As for being sued, It's not like I slander them aside from the banner which I wasn't 100% sure that was the best way to go about it.
weird i never have problems with J-list from both places (Japan and USA) package was always perfect, maybe it was just single case (even the best make mistakes)
Sorry to hear. All I can say is what I always say to everyone.
"AmiAmi for life." - me
Hope things work out for you.
Sorry to hear that this happened but you can't just say that J-list is unreliable just because of this one bad experience you have had.
Although that it is unacceptable that they made this mistake. You gotta know that businesses make mistakes, no business is perfect. I'm sure you have made mistakes during work, given if you have worked before.
Please don't go calling jlist, "unreliable" it would be better if you reworded what you said. I'm sure there are many happy jlist shoppers there who have had "no problem" whats so ever.
Not to be rude, but this sounds more like a rant, then a warning.
Agreed, actually... Hmm, those biscuits are still on sale. *orders another box* Lightning can't strike the same place twice. Or the same idiot, I think.
hahah^^ well, if the business fails to do this a few times, then I think the business would be bankrupt in the first place^^"
from what I hear from some people I know who buy stuff from J-list, they have had no problem whats so ever
I would have to agree. (Everything I would say here *which would probably not be much* was meant with all due respect to both you and J-List ^____^)
Businesses make mistakes every now and then, and for one to (as you labelled it) "forewarn" other users, he must make sure that there would not be a single stain of a statement that can be easily misunderstood. The way I see it, this is more of a very personal rant or subtle defamation of the company, as if you're telling us "DO NOT ORDER FROM J-LIST. THEY'RE JUST PLAIN HORRIBLE." I'm not putting words into your mouth, but that's how it comes off from my end of the article. Perhaps a more proper way of addressing or making others aware of what you had been through is to narrate what happened, and keep your personal comments to yourself.
In other words, with all respect due to you as the "victim" of the situation, please be careful with your choice of words. =3
Yeh, I agree with you lol
From the post, it didn't specify the time he ordered, the time the order dispatched. So I was not really clear of the problem lol
It seems the poster expected a quick and prompt reply, which I find which is quite impossible to do, for such a known company as J-list. If it was bad customer service, he would not of gotten a reply in the first place.
In no way do I mean to be rude to the poster, so yeh^^" it's ok to rant but maybe, do it in a more subtle manner.
Modifying this junk post I made :/ Although I'd really like to change the title I can't XD
you can change the title, just go to edit your post, inline edit
Thanks I didn't know this~ XD Now it's fully edited~
Hi, this is Peter, the owner of J-List. Very sorry you had a bad experience with us. It looks like your order was not all in stock, and the items were shipped in three shipments, two on Jan 5 and one sent out today.
All items are reported accurately on the website, however there is plenty of room for small problems, since if the website reports we have ten of an item, and you and someone else buy the ten items at the same time, it's possible to have one of you not have the items actually be in stock (depending on the order we process the orders). Often we don't know that an item isn't really in stock since there's the number we have in the database, and the number actually on the shelf, sometimes errors creep in. I think the errors are small, and since we restock snacks 1-2 times a week usually it's not an issue (we can get more of the item before it's time to pick the order), but this did not happen in this case clearly. The Christmas rush did not help the situation.
Anyway, you can always open a ticket to a J-List staff member at http://help.jlist.com . If you want to leave feedback directly to me, choose "website feedback."
Thank you for replying. If there's one thing that screams "good customer service", it's trying to work out how things went wrong in public. :D
Now to get some sukiyaki cheetos (and no, I won't complain about the lack of cheesy-grinning cheetahs)
Sorry for the douche post on my side and thanks for taking the time to reply to my rant. I'll modify it because it's horrendous, but I can't change the title to something less misleading. Since I did draw attention it would be a cowardly move to opt out, unless if that's what would be something you'd prefer.
I'll send you feedback in a while because this is something that got repeated with less impact than three years ago.
so... the problem is a 3$ item?
I got an parcel lost from (reliable company) for 3 months costing more than 100$ and i waited, after sent couple of emails they answer me. It's the life!
Would you like some WHINE with your $3 biscuits?
Yeah, I'm the idiot who eats $3 biscuits with a glass of Australian dessert wine that costs $20 a bottle <- hardcore idiot chav ahoy.
._. so you're "warning" about losing an item worth 3dollars ONCE. ._. okay.....
Yeah I gotta say that my post wasn't clear at all, I'm more warning about the length of time that the order took to be processed and the lack of communication on the customer service side.
lol, just small error, not like it hasn't happened anywhere else~
my HLJ order was canceled to no stock when it clearly showed it had plenty at the time I ordered.
Agreed. Latest editions of MySQL Database 5.x Community Edition unfortunately doesn't support transactional SQL and rollbacks well (required database type is extremely slow and not usable with really busy sites), and this is basically what a store database would really need in order to guarantee that there was stock at order time within a reasonable period of starting the order. And I don't think any of these Japanese shopping services can afford to pay $10k for a yearly site license for that support :(
Damn ye, Oracle. Damn ye very very much.
I've ordered some things from JList in the past and never had any issues with them. Same for HLJ, Hobby Search or Mandarake. (Had lost mails from Hobby Search once but just ordered again so no biggie.)
While I can relate that any order fulfillment or shipping woes can ruin the experience even after many successful purchases, allow me to be so bold as to heed a warning to the sometimes easily angered and ranting youngsters online here. If such details or mishaps in 1/100 orders or cases will upset you that much, life is going to be tough on you!
Don't think you'll get far if one wrong sale ring up or rude cashier at your local supermarket convinces you never to again because you'll run out o places to go before you know it! (Which is not meant to say we should overlook poor service, just that a middle ground is best.)
The only reason I was that upset was because I thought my second experience with them could've gone better, but I wasn't able to portrait this adequately in my post, so I'll be modifying in order to achieve a better warning post.
Just a tip, not a good idea to display grievances on a website that promotes the website you have an issue with. Especially when the webmaster of said website follows posts on that site regularly. Props out to Peter for being civil and wanting to straighten things out instead of escalating things further.
That said, I haven't had many problems with J-List myself (in fact, I recently started linking them in my blog as a place to order figmas I review.) The only problem I had was one time they sent me a Nagato Yuki Sega playset instead of the Bad Witch Nagato figma I ordered. I sent over a ticket and even offered to ship the incorrect item back, but they said there was no need and resolved the matter without issue. Sure, Nagato came a little later than I was expecting, but it wasn't a huge deal, and I'll order from them again in the future ^^
Luckily for me, there's a local place that sells japanese snacks, so I don't have to have them shipped to me ^^; All hail Mitsuwa!
We definitely need to do better, there's always an "error rate" that is never zero, unfortunately. There are a lot of different potential reasons -- being overworked (we were packing 800 orders a day in December) is one, but having non-otaku staff is another (hence the potential for mis-picking and what not). We'll keep trying to improve!
(Rolling out an improved customer email system in a couple of days actually, which will be a lot more clear.)
geeze and all this fuss over just a 3 buck item??? seriously?!
i guess every dollar counts, bloody poor buggers lol
OP needs to lighten up and no make fuss over the little things
in fact im gonna say this right off the bat, " S*** happens"
Now you can read the actual message I wanted to portrait, the real deal wasn't so much as for the item out of 100$ + 40$ shipping 3$ is negligible although I'd have hope they would've left me more than 30 minutes to tell them to change it before they sent it XD
but still it was uneccesary to make such a post like this. when you start losing at least 300 bucks or more, then it might be a worthy mention...
coz i just lost that much yesterday on items i ordered
Time is also a matter of fact here. I can make that much money in three weeks but you can't rebuy three weeks worth of time waiting for nothing to happen with 300$. I didn't follow the order on a day to day basis either.. Wouldn't have paid extra shipping if I have known it would've taken the same time as snail mail time. Which is a difference of about 30~40$ off extra wasted shipping.
As for you, it really sucks for you man I feel for you :( You could actually mention what went wrong why, with a clear headed mind like I just did now. If it is even closely related to ordering from Japan I guess?