Well it had to happen eventually! I got slammed with a £20 import fee on a £22 toy. Fucking insanity thanks to Royal Mail and Mandarake's new coat of shit paint. Luckily this came at just the right time as alternative routes to purchase have opened up. Now safe to say I won't be shopping on Manda ever again if I can help it. Hopefully there'll be a mass drop-off in overseas custom now and they'll adjust prices accordingly - then the inevitable customs charges will even it out to the usual 300% price-hike that we're used to from them! Oy VEY!

^^Damn that sucks man

I really like Mandarake although their prices sometimes are a little off.

I'm Just glad i'm not so much into the hype toys they sell (those prices can be $%&#@ crazy!)

Updates have gone to shit as well.. both in the old layout and new layout. I've seen slow vinyl periods before but this is the first time I've seen nothing from Shibuya for close to a week.

Sorry to hear you got hit.
Last week i received 2 packages from Shibuya that were luckily lowered.
I wanted to get something from Nakano but now im on the fence.

Can I ask which location you purchased from.

I haven't done any ordering, but just have to voice agreement with the displeasure I am having with the 'updated' website. Not sure why they made the change, but even through the warning period where they said the new site was there, I kept navigating to the old style. I have problem with searches and things coming up, and differences b/w the Japanese and English versions, as well as frequent errors, crashes, and not being able to search for new arrivals. It was honestly just so much simpler and better before. why this is seen as new and improved I can't figure. I am sure there is some logic behind it, like making it more accessible to mobile devices or some other such thing I could give a rats a$$ about. Sigh. One more lowering of what used to be such a great service.

Me too! . . . shades of the awesome Flickr upgrade!

For UK residents: Just use the first 3 digits of your postcode to autofill the city and add the full postcode in the 'Comments' section!

[quote="ultrakaiju"... It was honestly just so much simpler and better before. why this is seen as new and improved I can't figure. I am sure there is some logic behind it, like making it more accessible to mobile devices or some other such thing I could give a rats a$$ about. Sigh. One more lowering of what used to be such a great service.[/quote]

Changing to a mobile device format has ruined Many sites. Streamling something that originally had a lot of substance and optionsto it, can Only result in confusion and / or dissatisfaction.

It's horrible to use now.. I get booted back to the main page more often than not after trying to view the second page for a long list of content (the "Toys" option for example). Hopefully they iron out these bugs..

One positive is at least they have stamped a huge 18+ watermark over the porn products.. I don't have to be so careful checking the site at work while the boss is lurking around

i switched on an email alert somehow, now i'm getting a couple of emails in japanese each day. Still haven't figured out how to switch if off.

As for the rest of the site, searching takes me longer and feels more disorganized than before. This splitting of a day's new product into three time periods also seems pointless. I used to just check twice a day at specific times and feel like i got a good handle on what was being offered each day. Now it just feels like a mess. And the favourites list is horrible. Stuff i favourite doesn't add to the list until much later, and I can't seem to uncheck stuff i've favourited that has sold.

all in all, way less usable and intuitive than before.

Has this happened to anyone else before?

That is an odd one. I am not sure what the 'forwarder' would refer to, as Mandarake has mail pickup directly at the stores. I haven't ordered in some time though, so it could be some new system they implemented, but still, doesn't really seem logical to go through another party. As long as you get the tracking info, I hope it all works out.

I mentioned in the Flickr thread but I'll mention it here as well. I think many of these new sites did not want to change their layout to mobile BUT Google changed their search algorithm to favor mobile sites recently. Hence while all these sites changed at once. It's one big mobile fuckfest on the web and I fucking hate it. Getting harder to keep using Snow Leopard on my Mac.

Could be because it's Golden Week from May 2nd to May 6th... Not sure what Golden Week is but I know a few places including Medicom are on break during this time. Explains why things will pick up again on the 7th.

If you chose DHL for shipping, Golden Week may indeed be the explanation:

Maybe the 7 and 5 are switched.

Who knew! . . . the Japanese write their dates properly too!

I bet you're right. Just to be sure though, if you don't receive the shipping email by the 9th, I'd check back in with them. Keep in mind they'll probably have a good bit to respond to.

Pretty sure Japan follows conventional date format aka dd/mm/yyyy

Haha, you mean 'conventional' in the sense that it is standard for nearly everyone outside of the US. Kind of like SI units.

Ha, so that's why Japan is ahead. They have 2 months on us

No, it sounds like a mistake. Shipping 2 months from now vs. in a few days when there just happens to be a holiday? It must be, but I can understand wanting to find out for sure, especially since the dates are written the same. Otherwise the question wouldn't have been asked in the first place. But like bunnyboy included, if you chose DHL, based on what Mandrake posted, that's definitely the reason. Still, I know that shipping confirmation email will solidify it for ya.

look I didn't want to be mean to our american friends, haha!

I was thinking about using the word "proper" but thought that might be a bit too much

@ boo velvet, 07/05/2015 in conventional format means 7th May 2015. I don't think you know what conventional format is

Let's get back to the topic here - new Mandarake is shit

no way, talking about dates is way more interesting

"soda pop SMASH"
You misunderstood.

Hahahaha!


Totally agree. Major step backward.