Effective immediately, we will no longer honor cancellations or edits to any Hold Orders once the items have been pulled for your cache. If there are items you no longer want in your Hold Orders, you are welcome to follow the standard return process and we'll issue a credit or refund as appropriate for any returned items, less the 10% restocking fee. Making edits to existing cache orders is problematic and given how the back end of the inventory system works, it's just cleaner and easier for us to handle them like any other return rather than editing existing orders. Sorry for any inconvenience and hope you understand our dilemma . Any questions on the matter, feel free to reach out.
Secondly just a reminder that ALL PACKAGES now include up to $100 of insurance on First class, and up to $200 on priority mail packages if you opt to purchase priority. If your order is worth more than $200 we highly recommend purchasing the insurance addon which can be found on every product page as a suggested upsell item. This $3 item will cover orders for up to $500 for each quantity of the insurance you purchase. So if you order is worth $350, buy it once, if it's $620, buy it twice and the total value is covered.
In short you do not need to purchase the insurance if your order is less than $100 on first class, or less than $200 if shipping by Priority mail.
From the latest Chibi Chop Shop newsletter, comes an article about the state of the nendoroid industry and small businesses like Chibi Chop Shop.
News came down this week that Connexe Toys has gone out of business. This retailer focused on Nendoroid sales and was even a source for us for a few items. I'm not sure how their company was set up and if they were a brick and mortar store or purely an online one, or how large they were, but my impression is that they were a small business and seeing any small business have to shut down is a massive shame.
I want to take a moment and appeal to you, the customer base and implore you, in fact no, BEG you to stop preordering items or in fact ordering items direct from Good Smile Company at all and instead bring your business to small business retailers such as us, or companies like the now out of business Connexe Toys. Your business can save failing shops like these.
Good Smile Company owns the distributor in the US, and they have been engaging in frankly unethical practices of undercutting their own retailers by selling their products on their own site for less than we can even BUY them for in many cases. This is scummy frankly and GSC should be ashamed and should be making every effort to direct customers to their partner stores if not ALL stores in general that sell their products. Instead they offer preorders direct from the source meaning NOBODY gets them faster, and even offer little bonuses to lure you in. Those little extras along with lack of patience in getting your Nendo items leads to less people placing preorders with retailers, even though GSC REQUIRES us to offer them in order to be a partner store. I fail to see really what "partnership" benefit they even offer other than a link buried on their confusing website.
Most retailers are stopping preorders altogether with GSC (ourselves included), and it would be a better support for the industry at large to support small business and simply buy items off the shelf or online rather than relying on preordering. It used to be that preordering was the only way to guarantee a copy of a figure you wanted, but as GSC has been vastly expanding over the last couple years, supply is not a problem. In fact we have surplus of most product on hand but nobody to sell it to because folks want it now and give their money direct to Good Smile.
The only saving grace is that we are a split item shop first and foremost and frankly whole product matters very little to us with the small discount we get after you factor all their extra fees and shipping they charge us. We prefer buying collections, importing large lots from Japan, and buying a few figures here and there from various other sellers to maximize our selection diversity. Right now we are sitting on mountains of whole product with little hope of needing to split them and trying our damnedest to liquidate them on some other outside market platforms, but that also costs us another 11-15% in fees, making most sales of those items a loss.
Since GSC's distributor decided to require full case purchases just for the sake of their own convenience, our business has been shrinking because our product diversity has dropped and most money is committed to buying their ever growing influx of new items by the case full, which we are stuck honoring from about a year ago on, due to the hideous preordering model the nendoroid hobby works under. Basically it required us to foresee the future of our business and we didn't foresee a pandemic and post pandemic recession, and they have no forgiveness for those facts which have shrunk the business by about 30% vs last year.
June was probably the worst sales month we have had in about 2 years. June is typically pretty slow since it marks the start of summer time and school getting out, graduations, family trips and the like, but we usually survive through it without much trouble. This year was much harder and it doesn't look that great moving forward into July. We seriously are going to have to consider cancelling several items from the distributor which were over ordered back when the business was estimated to be able to support it, and lose about 20% of the cost of those items, which is honestly a LOT of money, but if it frees us to be able to put 75% of our funds back into other sources, it will be a benefit in the long run.
Right now we are continuing to tread water and striving to expand our name and pay the bills and stay open, but every day is becoming a struggle since around November of last year. We're looking for any means to push product, expand our presence and grow the brand, but it's challenging to say the least.
I know this sounds a bit like a blogger complaining about their work day, but we think it provides valuable insight into the nendoroid industry at large and how the status quo practices affect real small family businesses like ours and presumably, like Connexe Toys.
The wishlist page has finally been updated and rolled back from the poor 2.0 version of the integrated app that we were forced to update to when we updated the site infrastructure to shopify 2.0
The old version 1.0 page view version has been restored and a stock filter option has been added to filter by in stock or out of stock products. Additionally all lists created by customers under the 2.0 system have been rolled together into a single list. There is no way to do multiple lists on the version 1.0 page view setup, so they've been combined into a single list.
Everyone using the wishlist should clear the site cookies and clear your browser cache if you experience any loading problems.
There was an issue report at the end of last week where hold order management shipping requests for shipping your chibi caches was not available. There was an issue in Shopify's end which they have since fixed and the feature should once again be working. If you experience any difficulty please clear your web browser cache and cookies and try again before reporting any further issue with it. Thanks for your patience while they resolved the issue.
You will soon be able to make purchases over Google and eventually our YouTube channel as well and on Amazon as well! We're trying to grow our sales channels and reach more people to bring the awesomeness that is Chibi Chop Shop to more people in the hobby who don't even know we exist!
Just a reminder that we are currently doing a Buy One Get One FREE sale on all face plates until tomorrow at midnight, so biggest sale on faceplates yet. Also a big thanks to those who have jumped on the sale already, it's really helped us out a lot. Lastly we are currently getting a Shopify Capital loan and will be paying off the PayPal one and purchasing a fair chunk of the stuff from the list above in the coming weeks.
Here is a list of items that are pending arrival from the distributor and will be shipped over the next few months as funding becomes available. We will be prioritizing items which have the most preorders wherever possible.
Nendoroid More: Dress Up Sailor Houshou Marine Swacchao! Aqua Princess Sakuna Itachi Uchiha: Anbu Black Ops Ver. Yun Arikawa Doctor Miss Fortune Somali Doll Gavin: If Time Flows Back Ver. V Wattson Swacchao! Nobara Kugisaki Vladilena Milize: Bloody Regina Ver. Oozora Subaru Diablo Mei Kamino Osamu Dazai: Dark Era Ver. RM SUGA Doll: Outfit Set (Oshi Support Ver.) Doll: Outfit Set (Lan Wangji: Harvest Moon Ver.) Doll: Outfit Set (Wei Wuxian: Harvest Moon Ver.) Siesta Kagura Nana Melty Jin Sukuna Sakura Miko Sakura Haruno(re-run) Gaara(re-run) Traveler (Aether) Doll Inosuke Hashibira Kano Kars Suguru Geto: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Ver. Ezio Auditore Sasuke Uchiha(4th-run) DIO(re-run) Yami Bakura Wu Siyue Hatsune Miku: MIKU EXPO 2021 Ver. Kento Nanami Mikasa Ackerman(3rd-run) Baili Hongyi Jolyne Cujoh Naruto Uzumaki(4th-run) Uruha Rushia Hinata Hyuga(re-run) Doll Outfit Set: Priest(re-run) Yue Qingshu FrostNova Swacchao! Tanjiro Kamado Swacchao! Nezuko Kamado Swacchao! Zenitsu Agatsuma Swacchao! Inosuke Hashibira j-hope Satoru Gojo: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Ver. Swacchao! Rem Doll Zenitsu Agatsuma Kanon Shibuya Liscia Elfrieden Swacchao! Emilia Swacchao! Ram Toge Inumaki Nendoroid More: Face Swap Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Nendoroid More: Face Swap Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swacchao! Satoru Gojo Swacchao! Megumi Fushiguro Swacchao! Yuji Itadori Ryunosuke Tanaka(re-run) Nyatasha Nyanners Natsu Dragneel Yumeko Jabami(re-run) Swacchao! Osamu Dazai Bruno Bucciarati(re-run) Hajime Iwaizumi(re-run) Reiner Braun Darkness(3rd-run) Kazuma(re-run) Venti Tetsuro Kuroo: Second Uniform Ver. Fuka Miyazawa Skeletor Yuta Okkotsu: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Ver. Tokino Sora Doll Li Zeyan: Min Guo Ver. Doll: Outfit Set (Li Zeyan: Min Guo Ver.)
Once again, just wanted to give an update that we have a LOT of new product just around the corner (like $65,000 cost worth of stuff) and many preorders will be in these items, but there are still some stragglers we are waiting to hear back about. I don't walk folks to be upset as one recent customer was, about communication, because we have made a great many efforts to try and keep folks in the loop, but apparently the one area I forgot to update was the Shipping and other important updates banner section, which it's been a few months. So pop on over there and check out the updated info.
Also we have started our SMS text marketing program; sign up today and get a 10% discount code good any time on all items. This discount is not combinable with other offers but is handy to have for when those key items drop during a wave of restocking when a sale isn't running! Also rest assured we won't be blowing up your phone every day with ads and promos, maybe once every week or two we'll send a promo and you'll get friendly reminders from the system to check your shopping cart if you haven't finalized checkout, so you don't miss out on items you are thinking about.
We will soon be offering SMS marketing opt in which will give you a 10% discount off anything for one purchase. By signing up you'll get occasional notices of promotions and sales going on (about once a week) as well as friendly reminders of items left in your cart. Since things sell out so fast here most the time, it's good to get the reminder to finish that purchase before it's bought out from under you. We will also be looking at seeing if we will be able to integrate our back in stock feature to utilize the system as well, but uncertain if that will be viable or not.
We are always able to offer store credit, but an oversight on the status bar had all purchasing of your offer requests suspended, We are still unable to offer cash at this time as we have about $67,000 worth of product in the queue we are trying to scrape funding together in order to purchase over time, so it will be some time until we can offer cash, even for smaller lots sadly. Until then we are always willing to make store credit offers and generally offer more than we would if offering cash anyways, so it's a win-win.
