Irene is Coming

I've been holding off posting about Irene until we got close enough to get a better view of where it's headed. Even though those of us here at RACS HQ live and work a couple hours inland on the East Coast, it still looks like we're going have some sort of major effect from Irene as it passes up the east coast, so now we are making plans to batten down the warehouse Friday afternoon and head home to ride out whatever effects we get from the storm.

Our building here is designed for 85mph sustained winds, and we are far enoguh inland that I don't think we will be seeing anything like that here. Still, we're going to take a few precautions just in case - like bringing the picnic table inside and chalking the wheels on our travel trailer. And we already have cut plywood panels here in house if we feel like we need to cover the windows, as crazy as that might sound considering where we are. When Isabel came through in 2003, we had 65-70 mph winds here and some flooding. That was before our current building was built.

While the main track looks like it's going to skirt us and head straight up for New York, there is one westerly track (it's the blue line in the graphic above) that brings the storm in right on top of us, so we're taking this very seriously. If it moves significantly westerly overnight, we will probably cut out early tomorrow so everyone has time to go home and get their houses ready for the storm.

While we were talking about it today, it made me think of this:



'Fuckin Irene'. Yeah.

Earthquake

Yes, we just had an small earthquake here about 10 minutes ago. Apparently, it's a pretty decent sized one but 80 or 90 miles to our south. Apparently they are evacuating some buildings in D.C. I'm moving my folks here at our facility outside for a few minutes.

More later.

UPDATE: Looks like everything is OK, just the one tremor. Shook the office and warehouse here pretty good though. Very unusual for this area. We're back at it as we have quite a few orders to finish processing.

UPDATE 2: Devastation:

Kanokon TV Series DVD - Back In Stock at Last!

Just an FYI to everyone today - both the Kanokon TV Series DVD and the Kanokon OVA DVD are now back in stock. The OVA was only out of stock for a couple of weeks, but the TV series DVD (in typical Media Blasters fashion) has been on hiatus and out of stock since May.

Just a hat tip to everyone who has been waiting several weeks for being so patient. Thanks! All backorders are in the process of shipping now and will be completed tomorrow, so if you have been waiting your copy should be in your mailbox in a few days.

Queen's Blade II The Evil Eye Series, Collection #2 - On the Way!

We all know by now that when it comes to new releases from Media Blasters, street dates are optional. The thing is, some are estimated better than others.

The Queen's Blade II (Evil Eye Series) Collection #2 DVD was supposed to street yesterday. Even though it didn't release 'on schedule', we did get a shipping confirmation today from Media Blasters so our copies are now in route to our warehouse and will arrive early next week.

Just giving you folks a head up that are waiting for it that it won't be delayed by 4 or 6 weeks like happens with some of these. This one will only be about a week late. We'll start shipping your pre-orders as soon our copies arrive.

Canadian Mail Service to Resume Tomorrow

Just an FYI to all of our Canadian customers. The Canadian Postal strike has finally ended and mail service in Canada is resuming as of tomorrow.

On our end, the US Postal Service has announced:

Canadian Postal Employees Return-To- Work Tonight - USPS To Begin Accepting Mail Destined For Canada Tomorrow.

The Canadian government passed back-to-work legislation Sunday night. Canadian Postal employees will return to work beginning June 27 at 8:30 p.m. USPS will begin accepting mail for Canada starting June 28. Mail held in the USPS network since the work stoppage began is being released and transported into Canada.

Due to the large volumes of mail held by countries, customers may experience slightly longer transit times. USPS is working closely with the Canadian Postal Service to hold delays to a minimum.

This is definitely good news. Everyone should just keep in mind that the folks here at USPS have been letting Canadian mail accumulate in trailers for about 3 weeks now, so I'm sure all Canadian mail shipments will see pretty long delivery delays until Canadian post can work through that huge backlog. Everyone should just expect Canadian mail delivery times to be much longer than normal for the next few weeks.

Special thanks to Christina B. for keeping us all updated on this!

USPS Temporarily Stops Accepting Mail to Canada

Just an Update for our Canadian customers regarding postal shipments to Canada (airmail and EMS). Due the length of the Canadian postal strike, the US Postal Service is going to temporarily stop accepting mail to Canada for a short period of time.

All of our Canadian customers need to be aware that as of Monday (June 20th) we will have to hold all out going postal shipments to Canada in our facility until the USPS starts accepting Canadian mail again. All parcels currently in transit to Canada via Airmail or EMS will likely incur very long delivery delays and may not be delivered at all until the postal strike is resolved.

Keep in mind that even after the strike is resolved, there will likely be mail delivery delays for some time as the USPS and Canadian postal service works through the huge backlog of mail to be delivered.

This strike does NOT effect our FexEx International service to Canada, and parcels being shipped via FedEx are still being delivered on time (about 2-3 days on average). We recommend that all of our Canadian customers choose FedEx for shipment for their orders from RACS until the strike is resolved.

Here is a copy of the service bulletin we got a couple days ago:

Canada Post has suspended mail service across the country as of June 14, 2011. The suspension of service will impact the delivery of shipments sent by Canada Post. If you have recently shipped orders to Canada via US Postal Service, we encourage you to contact the buyers to let them know that delivery might be delayed. For orders you have not yet shipped, we recommend using a shipping method other than US Postal Service during the labor dispute. Updates on the labor dispute can be found on the Canada Post website here.

There are some locations, including PO boxes and certain remote areas, which are only serviced by Canada Post. Shipments to these postal codes will be delayed until Canada Post’s delivery service resumes.  A list of affected postal codes can be found here.

From the USPS International Mail Service Update today:

USPS DELIVERY OF MAIL TO CANADA STILL SUSPENDED, WILL STOP ACCEPTING MAIL EFFECTIVE CLOSE OF BUSINESS. SATURDAY, JUNE 18.

Canada Post has informed USPS its suspension of services would last until at least next week. With this notification, USPS will stop accepting all services destined to Canada with the exception of Global Express Guaranteed (GXG) Shipments at 11:59 p.m., CST, Saturday, June 18.

Customers sending letters and packages to Canada can avoid service delays by using GXG, which is available online at usps.com and at participating retail locations throughout the U.S.

Giselle Valera, vice president of Global Business at the USPS said in a statement today:

"As a convenience to our customers and to minimize service disruptions, we arranged to accept mail destined for Canada as long as possible," said Giselle Valera, vice president, Global Business. "We will continue to closely monitor the strike situation, and once Canada Post resumes operations, the U.S. Postal Service will again begin accepting mail for Canada. We also will then resume processing any Canadian-destined mail currently held in our network."

Canada Post Strike - Expect Delays for all Canadian Mail Shipments

Just a heads up to all our Canadian customers.

As of June 03, 2011 Canadian postalworkers are on strike. The strike will impact the delivery of all mail shipments into Canada. If you have recently placed an order shipping to Canada via any postal method, please expect the delivery of your order to be delayed. We don't know for how long.

For new Canadian orders, we recommend using our FedEx International shipping method during the strike period to avoid unnecessarily long leads time for delivery of your orders. FedEx is more expensive, but the delivery will be so fast you'll probably never go back anyway.

And please don't blame me folks, I'm just the messenger. -_^

Wagnaria!! Premium Ed Final Pressing Now in Progress - Restocks Due May 11th

NIS informed us today that the next pressing of the Wagnaria!! (Working!!) Premium Complete DVD Boxed (Eps #1-13), which has been pretty much sold out everywhere since late March, will be shipping to retailers on May 11th. This will be the final printing of the premium edition, and NIS closed up the re-order period to retailers today and fixed our qnties.

This means that our next shipment will be the last batch of these produced, and they are already selling out quickly. RACS will be getting 156 more sets, of which about half are already spoken for. If you want one of these, and at the current price of $44.98, go ahead and get your order in now to reserve your place in line.

Don't forget, Toradora is already sold out at wholesale, and we are down to about the last 20 or so sets of each. Once they are gone, that will be it. Just FYI.

Let Me Be Clear - All Our Japanese Imported Products Are Perfectly Safe

Considering that we have gotten at least four dozen inquires over the last few days about the safety of Japanese products, I feel like I need to make a public post to address the issue. I want to assure everyone who has any possible concern that there is absolutely no danger regarding radiation levels from anything we import from Japan, and I just want to make a couple of points about that:

1) Anything that we currently have in our warehouse was either already here or was in transit via ocean freight before the crisis in Japan occurred. This will be the case for anything new arriving here through at least mid-April.

2) Due to the odd nature of the Japanese Anime industry, almost none of the products we carry are actually made in or originate from Japan. For example: all domestic DVD's and Manga are obviously made in North America.  Most US Anime character merchandise is made under license by subcontractors in China and exported directly to the US. And since we deal directly with the big character figure firms in Japan (like Max Factory and Good Smile), and only import what they authorize for sale outside Japan, just about all our figures and toys ship directly to the US from the subcontractors in China (usually via Hong Kong) where they are produced and never see mainland Japan. The Japanese moved character item manufacturing to China a long time ago.

3) The only items that we get regularly from Tokyo are R2 DVD/BD's, Music CD's, and imported books like Magazines and Illustration collections. There are also a few character items that may pass through Japan on it's way to us. Any shipments of these items made after March 16th (to make everyone feel better) will be double checked on our dock with a digital meter (yes, oddly enough, we do have one) prior to going into stock here at our warehouse.

Frankly, I feel a little silly to even make this post, but too many people are writing in about it. There is clearly a lot of underlying concern, and I hope this helps put every one's mind at ease. Nuff said.

Have An Amazon Gift Certificate? You Can Spend it at RACS like Cash!

Several customers have inquired recently about how they might redeem an Amazon gift code or certificate here at RACS, so I though I'd do a quick post about it.

First, can you redeem an Amazon gift certificate or gift at RACS? Why, yes, I don't see why not (though our FAQ doesn't specifically mention this right now). Now obviously we cannot setup the store to automatically accept an Amazon gift code, but, you CAN spend an Amazon gift card here at RACS via mail order. Do you have something that looks like this laying around:

We will treat your valid, unredeemed Amazon gift certificate or gift code just like cash at full face value, so just place your order and select 'check' or 'money order' as your payment option, and then mail in your Amazon gift certificate or gift code (make sure we know the amount it's good for) to us along with any balance that might be due (via check or money order) and we will apply it your our order just like it's cash. Also, don't want to mail them, you can just drop the Amazon claim code # and dollar amount from the gift certificate into the comments box on the order form, or e-mail it (them) to us  (be sure to include your order #) after you place your order and we'll apply them to the order balance. This would work for credit card orders as well as long as you don't mind us adjusting the balance of the order by the amount of the gift certificate on our end AFTER the order is placed. How's that sound? :-)

Summer Wars 'O-Card' Available Directly from Funimation

As many of you know, FUNimation shipped the latest batch of Summer Wars DVD's without the 'O-Card' (which is the slip cover). Since we ran out of the first press versions about a week ago we have started shipping these non cover copies to customers over the last few days.

These non-first pressing versions do not include the special art card pack in, but they were supposed to  still come with the 'O-Card' slip covers.

If you received a copy of Summer Wars from us without the slip cover, you can request it from FUNimation directly, just fill out the form located here. And don't forget, be sure to select your 'place of purchase' as "Robert's Anime Corner Store". :-)

Average Transit Times - Various Postal Delivery Methods

I was looking over some of our aggregate delivery statistics for the last 30 days and wanted to give you a glimpse of what delivery time averages look like taken over a couple thousand shipments.

Here are the time in transit averages for RACS packages to all destinations:

This sample represents about 1,760 postal shipments made over the past 30 days from our warehouse in Winchester, VA. Not bad really considering all the recent weather events we've had. The anomalous 'maximum' packages, which are less than 1%, are probably stuff that got stuck during one of the big snow storms in January. Those parcels can be delayed by other things too, like when a customer gives us an incomplete address, so it's not always the post office's fault.

The 'International' tab reflects Airmail and Air Parcel Post shipments. 6-9 days is pretty good, but not quite as good as the Post Office would have you believe. This is why we recommend FedEx International, which is 1-3 days and is fully trackable.

'Priority Mail', billed as a 2-3 day service by the post office, is not actually quite that good, with 'First Class' mail actually having a slightly better time in transit ratio. This is why we use first class mail for all postal shipments under 16 ounces. When the post office is concerned, you don't always get what you pay for.

'Package Services' covers the mail classes we frequently use for economy and super saver shipments. As you can see our super saver shipping option, free over $50, is an awfully good value proposition as far as time in transit is concerned. Often the difference between 'free' super saver and $12 or $14 for Priority Mail ends up being only 1 or 2 days in transit. Of course, that's all the difference if you are ordering on Wednesday and want the stuff for the weekend, isn't it? :-)

GETTING SOCIAL WITH RACS IS EASIER THAN EVER!

Just FYI folks, we've made it easier than ever to get social with RACS! You can use the following easy to remember links to find us on Twitter, Facebook, or our official blog:

To find us on FACEBOOK just use:
www.animecorner.com/facebook

To follow our TWITTER feed just use:
www.animecorner.com/twitter

And of course, you can find our official BLOG anytime at this address:
www.animecorner.com/blog

Be sure to share these links with your friends too - THANKS!

Weather Alert - Expect Time in Transit Delays

We have managed to dodge the bullet so far here are RACS HQ with only ice out of this last big winter storm, and it has not effected our daily operations too much. In fact the problem hasn't really been getting orders out, as much as getting new stuff in from the vendors. For example, even though Funi is in Texas, all their product ships out of Navarre's warehouse in Minnesota. Think about that.

Anyway, because so much of the country is getting slammed by so much snow, ice, and blizzard conditions, especially to the North and West of us, I thought I'd better post a little something about it. So here it is:

Due to severe winter conditions in the Mid-West and North East region of the US, some delays may be expected during the usual in transit time of your orders. Please allow extra time for the delivery of your orders, even if you live in an area not effected by the winter storms. Because of the scope and extent of the storms, it's likely that freight schedules will be effected nationwide.

Winter Wonderland Closing Notice

It's officially a winter wonderland here today after a blanket of around 12 inches of heavy wet snow covered the landscape.

RACS HQ and warehouse will be closed today while we dig out, but we'll back in bright an early tomorrow morning - I'm even going to post some updates from home later today - so keep those orders coming and we'll get them out to you as soon as we can!

RACS Store Site Server Maintenance / Upgrades Notice

Just and FYI folks.

We'll be performing server maintenance and upgrades over the next day or so.

Most of what we are doing will be transparent to you and and will not effect the live store site, but if you run into any anomalies on the store site (especially late this evening or overnight tonight), this is probably why.

We'll try to keep all the weird animal noises to a minimum while we're working... -_^

New RACS Shipping Rates - Economy Shipping Now Free Over $49!

We've been revamping our shipping rates and schedule to be more compatible with our new (slightly heavier) eco-friendly packaging material, and to try to deal with the massive rate increases imposed on us by both UPS and the Post Office starting at the beginning of the year.

So here are the changes we've made, in a nut shell:

RACS SUPER SAVER (ECONOMY) SHIPPING IS NOW FREE OVER $49!
Super Saver (economy) - In exchange for slightly higher Priority Mail rates, we have LOWERED the threshold for our Super Saver free shipping option in half DOWN TO ONLY $49 shippable total, and we have made economy shipping our DEFAULT shipping method. It's what 63% of you already choose anyway, so I think this just makes sense. Super Saver orders will ship either standard mail or ground service (at our discretion). We are getting an average delivery time of 4.3 days for standard mail anyway vs. 2.8 day for priority mail, so again, this just makes sense.


Priority Mail - This is the biggest change. Priority Mail will remain available but will no longer be our standard shipping option - meaning you'll have to select it now at checkout. Our Pri Mail shipping rates have been increased, especially for larger orders, to reflect the reality of the Postal Service's recent rate hikes (again). The post office has increased transportation costs across the board, has now added the zoning of all weight classes all the way down to 1 lb, and has implemented even stricter dimensional size restrictions with extra charges for even what we consider small packages. A regular 2 lb parcel (that's 3 manga, for instance) to the west coast is now costing us $9.55 in postage alone for Pri Mail, and it's clear the post office is trying to discourage people from using the service as their Pri Mail rates are now comparable or higher for us than 2nd day air with a commercial carrier. Please keep in mind we have not changed our Priority Mail rates through 4 years of rate increases, and these adjustments are really way overdue.

FedEx - Our FedEx Air and FedEx Ground rates have stayed the same. FedEx 2nd Day day air is still flat rate $16.98 any order. FedEx ground (home delivery) is still flat rate $12.98 any order. All FedEx parcels ship fully insured, are fully trackable, and FedEx ground still delivers ground parcels on Saturday at no extra charge.

UPS - Our primary ground carrier is FedEx, but we know some of you like UPS. UPS ground service is still available but is no longer flat rate. The new cost now $9.95 + $1 per lb anywhere in the continental US. This change helps us deal with their new dimensional weight requirements for all parcels larger than, well, basically a snuff box. All UPS parcels ship fully insured and are fully trackable. UPS air freight service is not available, but wasn't before either. All RACS air parcels still ship FedEx.

Overseas - For international shipments, our Canadian rates have been increased slightly but are still very competitive. We haven't raised those rates for 4 years either, so we really needed to bring them in line with reality. I'm looking into a free shipping threshold for Canada also, so we're looking into a few different shipping options we might be able to use to make that possible. EMS and FedEx International rates are unchanged except to Australia, where they have increased about 4 1/2% to offset the additional remote zone delivery fees we are now incurring to that zone. Most of that increase effects smaller parcels under 5lbs, and rates for over 5lbs to that zone have hardly changed at all.

That's about everything. We've done a lot of testing prior to making these new rates live, but if you experience any 'glitches' while trying to place an order, please let us know. :-)

Slight SNAFU With Postal Tracking for Holiday Shipments

I just want to make everyone aware of a problem with postal tracking that isn't really a problem, but has been a cause of concern for folks that are getting nervous about the shipping of their holiday orders.

The postal folks at our local sort center here in Winchester, VA are so busy (or so under staffed) this year that some of our parcels are coming off our truck and going right into local sort and loaded into outgoing trailers without getting scanned. Since the post office really only offers 'delivery confirmation' anyway instead of real tracking, it's OK for them to skip this step to save time when they have to, but it does mean that some of our tracking numbers for priority mail and standard mail shipments will come up as 'invalid' online even though we've shipped them out. I expect this to continue through next week, so don't be too concerned if you get a shipping confirmation from us and the postal tracker shows 'invalid' for a couple of days.

Don't worry, we really did ship it (every shipment here goes on the truck the day the tracking number is generated), it's on the way, and it will pop up in the Postal Service's tracking system the first time it gets scanned somewhere in route - or when it gets delivered, which ever comes first.

Store Outage - Resolved!

Just a quick FYI to everyone who had trouble getting on the store Saturday afternoon. And no, it was not network overload - I wish!

We use Yahoo's servers in Houston (with a backup in San Diego) to host the primary store site, and they experienced a pretty nasty DoS (denial of service) attack across their whole infrastructure today. Our store is one of the big ones and sits across a distributed network so I'm not exactly sure how long it was down for any one DNS, but it looks like the attack caused the RACS store to be at least intermittently down for about 3 hours between around 12:50 pm and 4:02 pm PST (that was around 3 to 6 PM here).

Anyway, their engineers at the NOC center in Houston did a great job and have now resolved the issue and we are back up and running.

Apologies to anyone who could not get on the store, or was trying to place on order during that short window on Saturday.

PS: And yes, it's 1:58am and yes I am just finishing up my day. Thanks for asking. :-)

UPDATE: Looks like the DoS attack that took down Yahoo's e-comm servers was related to Operation Payback. I wonder if these people actually know who they are hurting when they do this stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Just wanted to post a reminder that we will be closed for business tomorrow, Thursday, November 25th for the Thanksgiving holiday, but we will be back at it on Friday filling and shipping all of your holiday orders and answering e-mails. Most of the other online Anime stores will be closed on Friday, so if there is anything you need we can take care of it for you.

While you are giving thanks this holiday season, and taking advantage of all the big box mover excess inventory giveaways, try to take a moment and think about all the small business people in America trying to hang on to their dreams during this resession. It's been another tough year, but we still have each other, and that's a lot to give thanks for. Stay safe this weekend, and enjoy your Anime!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :-)