How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Decided to test make a test purchase at Hasbro Toy Store just in case I wanted to buy stuff from there in future and balked upon realizing that they would charge $30 for shipping to my residence. Is this "normal" for shipping costs from them? I figured that if they are going to gouge me on shipping like that, it may not be even worth it for me to try and buy a figure like Throne of the Primes there and I should try Amazon Japan instead.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Unfortunately, that is normal. Meanwhile, to ship within the states is only $5-$10.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

HTS has jerked me around pretty hard in the past. Throne of the Primes is up on AE, HLJ etc. You're better off getting him there, imo.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Yeah, I kinda guessed that it wouldn't be even worth it to buy Throne of the Primes from HTS even if I could get the opportunity to purchase one, which itself I doubted since so many people seem to want that figure and will probably snap it up once it becomes available at HTS.


Seems like it would be much cheaper overall to get the figure off Amazon Japan (did a test purchase of it there as well). Some other sellers seem to be selling it on Amazon Japan, but they don't appear to ship to my area.



That was what I figured. Dunno why that's the case though, since other sellers don't seem to charge like that for shipping over the border.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Other options would include shipping to border amd picking it up if you live close enough or use a parcel forwarding service.

Or just preorder the takara pp43 from your preferred vendor.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

I'm not connected to such a service, unfortunately. I know some Japanese sellers won't ship outside Japan and/or require a Japanese credit/debit card be used to pay for purchases, but I don't have a Japanses address or any such card. I know some people purchase form Japanese retailers and have the item shipped to a trusted friend or acquaintance who lives in Japan, who then ships it to them, but I don't have such a connection.



I'll probably have to resort to purchasing the figure direct form Amazon Japan, since I know they will ship to my residence, or from say, A3U and then picking it up at their store, though I'm trying to figure out what's cheaper/more convenient for me, likely the former.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

It's two fold really, Hasbro Toy Store would be competing directly with Hasbro Canada if they charged less for shipping over the boarder... So to avoid competing with themselves they treat Canada as an International Shipping destination.

What I don't get is WHY THE FUCK Hasbro Canada doesn't have an online presence for shipping direct in Canada. I mean if they can compete directly in the US through Hasbro Toy Store in the USA with regular retail outlets why the hell doesn't Hasbro Canada also operate a HTS.ca site for all the exclusives and stuff?

It makes no fucking sense to exclude us as it excludes direct profits with no middle-men from local retailers or e-tailers picking up SDCC exclusives and flipping them. I mean they could easily make a lot of buck if they offered a similar service for Canadians, but HTS while capable of shipping worldwide is directly tied in with a US location physically and so makes for a really limited option for profits.

Hasbro just has no god damned business sense when it comes to e-tailing.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Good points, but despite their customer service already being in Quebec, I'd venture to add that it's also because: 1) they don't have the necessary Canadian infrastructure (both physical and IT related) to handle an online presence (i.e.:take orders, ship out orders, handle customer support, etc...) or 2) they refuse to incur the capital expenditures needed to due to the size of the Canadian market relative to potential online revenue (we're not the American market) - it may cost them more to do this then keep the status quo going. 3) Another thing is that they have to educate the Canadian public to start shopping on an HTS.ca site, which would require some marketing, and almost be a difficult task to suddenly change consumer's habits. 4) More so they'd have to compete with their partners amazon.ca/walmart.ca, for the same small market, which they probably have established distribution deals with already.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

I suppose Hasbro Canada doesn't seem to think we are worth the effort of catering to with an online presence, which is rather unfortunate.




The problem there is that even said middlemen like Amazon or Wal-Mart also seem to have difficulty stocking certain items themselves on their websites and instead offer other third parties/scalpers who artificially inflate the price. It wouldn't be such a big deal if said middlemen can get their stocking act together, but as it stands, it seems like we get the shaft.

Re: How much does Habro Toy Store charge for shipping?
 

Amen to that! Distribution wise, at least for some Transformers lines, it has utterly been garbage for us. But it'll probably be worse with a HTS.ca, same crappy stock levels now distributed across another e-tailer...I'd bet even if they have a HTS.ca site, the Transformers section would always be barren. That or you'll have scalpers program their bots to buy up all the sought after items. Ultimately it'll just be another source of anger for us fans, do we need another site to bitch after?