Holo Merch Bros

[Anonymous No.]

Bros, what's the single largest order you had from holoshop and what was the shipping cost? If you have screenshots of recent items with ridiculous shipping costs, post them as well.

I want to gauge how fucked the shipping costs is now, and see what fucks up the cost calculator, compared to before the changes on 23/12

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
A shit load of 3rd Fes merch,
>Subtotal $532.00
>Shipping $40.00

With 4th Fes I had to go to Geekjack because I literally could not get a shipping price from the website. Generally the prices on shipping were VERY reasonable before this bullshit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
The worst per item cost I've seen so far.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46598485
I ended up using Tenso for 4th Fes stuff

[Anonymous No.]

>>46598856
You need to jump hoop and use jp alternative site to get better shipping deal, no i don't know what it is but i remember some anon advice them week ago.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597938
cute...

[Anonymous No.]

>>46598856
ask anons from /hlg/ on how they do it. Something like using a local address and have it shipped to them using an alternative service

[Anonymous No.]

>>46599130
>>46599297
Proxy buyers are what you want try using this site it has some useful info
https://www.buyfags.moe/Proxy_and_forwarding_services

[Anonymous No.]

https://shop.geekjack.net/pages/hololive

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
Too lazy to grab a screenshot but I bought two full sets of Gura's merch, 7 more Dino Guras, Sana's birthday set, another bread dog by itself, and Mio's hoodie all together in one order.
Shipping was only $76 and this is despite it coming in a fuckhuge box.
I started using a forwarder for orders in the official store after they've fucked the shipping prices back in December. I tend to buy plushes of the talents and there was one period around late Dec-early Jan where a bunch of them were available and it was asking for over $200+ just for the shipping price itself and this was to a US address.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
This was the price in CAD for Kronii's birthday merch. I decided it wasn't worth it

[Anonymous No.]

>>46598856
>>46602726
Jesus christ what the fuck are those shipping prices

[Anonymous No.]

>>46602726
The shipping company using volume metric, i dunno if anyone ever address it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46602726
It’s not worth it, wtf.

[Anonymous No.]

Why did I get the jacket? Because it's fucking weird, that's why. This order came in a 42x32x24cm and was under 3kg (~6 freedom units) I can get rough estimates online for a single package for 40-90 USD between the two zip codes- the holo shop would probably charge 200+ for a similar order today.

>>46606035
Volume metric but it's also scuffed as fuck. Adding even small items that won't actually increase the size of the box being used exponentially increases shipping sometimes. While playing with it in February I would add a second copy of an item in a bundle and it would triple the shipping cost.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46606871
Registered with a proxy when I saw this bullshit on a ~100 USD set, and adding anything larger than a sticker set made the price go insane (added Sora's cup? +50 USD shipping)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46606035
Used to be non volumetric until the recent shipping changes. Now it's just playing whack a mole to see what fucks the shipping cost cause as >>46606871 said, random small items increases the cost for no other reason than a big fuck you for trying to support your oshi

[Anonymous No.]

Biggest merch bill so far. Ignore the prices on the item breakdown, lying for import tax reasons, obviously. Shipped via tenso to bongland because holopro shop doesn't ship to anywhere in yuroland.

It was
- Towa set
- Flare set
- something from IRyS
- Sui album
- AZKi album
- Flare daki
- Sora 5th anniversary shirts/tickets

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
Like 21 plushes when the first holoEN plush set went up for a group buy. Shipping from Geekjack ended up being a little less than 300 dollars.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46602726
Kronii's first bday merch. It was around 200 with shipping, way more than other stuff (I've got all of Gura's merch and a few Fauna pieces). Biggest regret ever after how Kronii turned out, still makes me mad every time I think about it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46611148
Her first bday had much better merch though, and it's normal for a daki to be that expensive

[Anonymous No.]

>>46611340
Ngl, wada arco's daki cover at that price is pretty much a steal.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
I only buy plushies.
Wish I had more money to buy plushies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46613132
Also fuck all the oshis that release plushies for $70 and are not even big and trying to money grab.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46613248
Depends on the complexity of the design too, don't it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46613593
Yes, if the design is difficult as in the case of friends with u plushies then I'm able to understand higher prices because of the clothes and other crap, plus someone has to put it together and it's probably annoying.
But if you're going to release something that's just a big head without really a lot of complicated designs, you can fuck off With regard to aqua, I am not her hater just showing one of the cases I can give from my memory
Moona plushie is a similar case, but there I imagine sea imports shit and prices kicked in, even if god knows why it would be manufactured in the sea.

[Anonymous No.]

Shipping fees are generally fair with Geekjack, they're usually about a third of the total merch price

[Anonymous No.]

>>46616693
Geekjack just charge the regular EMS rates from https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/charge/list/ems_all_en.html based on estimating the weight of the items. On a few occasions they've underestimated and had to ask people for more money.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597938
Wow, that's a lot of plushes.

[Anonymous No.]

Why is DHL the only fucking option either way

[Anonymous No.]

The way they package the merch is so inefficient it is incredible. I remember ordering a poster and they put it in a fucking huge box that was 90% empty.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46621808
From where, the official shop? Geekjack's packaging has always been excellent (because it's literally just CDJapan doing it for them). They do go a bit crazy with the packing paper but that's necessary if you don't want things like posters or mats creased/destroyed in transit.

[Anonymous No.]

>fucked shipping
Try to not be european lmao

[Anonymous No.]

my niggas can't be spending hundreds of dollarinos on this crap

[Anonymous No.]

>>46622136
Shipping holo merch to europe is about 20% cheaper than the US now anon

[Anonymous No.]

>>46621808
Absolutely, they packed it the way they would for JP local delivery. All my rubber mats were shipped flat in a huge ass box too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46621808
these huge box even if empty rise up the shipping cost a lot, Cover literally scammed you

[Anonymous No.]

I don't buy merch at all but I really wanted Suisei's stamped signature at least once....

[Anonymous No.]

I wonder if there's a way to get Cover's investors to pay attention to this, it has to be destroying overseas merch sales. Especially bad considering their investor docs showed the sales figures when they offered good shipping rates.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46622908
I refuse to buy duplicated cards like that. Lazy whore.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46622779
I got it when they had flat shipping charges so it's fine. I was just confused when an enormous box arrived and it weighed 1lb.

[Anonymous No.]

Is there a website where I can sell official merch that I got? There's a merch set that I bought on november last year and currently feel I'm not interested in it anymore, it will ship at late april anyways, so I want to see where I can find people that would by that stuff. I'd be very happy with getting back the money I payed plus the shipping plus customs plus 10% 'cause inflation

[Anonymous No.]

>>46628436
I buy some stuff off mercari and yahoo auctions. I think mercari is JPONRY though. Probably just ebay if you wanna sell it in the western market. I can tell you from experience that these marketplaces are flooded every time a holo's merch ships. You will have no trouble selling it as long as the price is reasonable.

[Anonymous No.]

I saved a fair amount by just using a middleman service and ordering from their JP store. Middlemen fees are literally nothing in comparison.

>>46621808
Wallscrolls always get you fucking ripped off in shipping because most places don't have any efficient boxes for it. And because you need an irregular box size they don't qualify for some of the cheaper alternatives for shipping stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46628775
I assume you're talking about a proxy shipping service. Not geekjack?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46629144
Geekjack essentially is a proxy. They get all the orders from Cover at once, then ship them via CDJapan's proxy service.
Unfortunately Cover only allocates them a tiny fraction of the stock the official shop gets, and now burgers are ordering from there too because the shipping is cheaper, so limited items are selling out in literally 20 seconds.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46597796
DHL fucked-up shipping calculators, or at least whatever Holo used before is the one fucked-up and Holo was losing tons of money.

Basically, as long as your item can still fit on a standard padded envelope, or a small box, it will be fine. The price for the art book is pretty damn good honestly for how heavy it is.

But the moment the item become odd-sized, or be pretty big, DHL used the biggest size of boxes they have that can fit your item's dimension. This is important because DHL charge based on box size (mostly). Unlike EMS who only charged based on weights, mostly disregarding of your item sizes.

Hololive shop should at least provide EMS as alternate option.... but I guess it will step on Geekjack's toe since EMS shipping is their entire shtick. Geekjack is still listed on their overseas buying link.

Buyee is still available but since Buyee only recognized JPY, you need to VPN to somewhere in Japan and used Buyee's Add-to-Cart.

So I guess Tenso is recommended, or any proxy shipping service that gives you a JP mailing address. Buyee is basically Tenso (same parent company), but Buyee will help buy-and-check-the items for you before shipping it, for a small service fee.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46621683
Its technically the most reliable and the least complain. Amazon used DHL for alot of their shippings for cheap. But its Amazon, they're shipping tons of stuffs daily.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46622100
Yes, the official shop. It is what's fucking up the shipping calculator.

Iirc, DHL basically have a standard fixed-price for boxes, regardless of the item weights. If a poster cannot fit into smaller boxes, it will go up and up until the poster can fit into the box. This is why tapestry and such become super expensive item to ship.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46623350
On one of their investor presentation slides, overseas merchandise and shipping is a thing they're putting as "in progress". Just hoping they can do something by the time EN Connect hit

[Anonymous No.]

This one from back when shipping cost was pretty ok. My place is pretty close in proximity with Japan.

[Anonymous No.]

So..... the thing is not uploading. So fuck it.

Bought 3 of the HoloID 3D Debut merchs. Shipping cost is 15$

After changes, bought the Hololive artbook, shipping cost is 22$ (I was pretty surprised about this. Artbook is damn heavy)

So yeah, I just hope that Hololive just switched to something else other than the most expensive DHL services they have. Seriously, I don't really need Express shipping for merchs. I can wait for a week.

[Anonymous No.]

>small oshi indie can deliver me her merch with less hassle than Hololive shop, faster and cheaper too

[Anonymous No.]

>>46632710
Geekjack's thing is acting as a proxy for countries that Cover's official store doesn't service. DHL ship to the same countries, Cover are just choosing not to offer it. I have no idea why they're not offering DHL and EMS to everywhere, it's not hard and you don't have to do any compliance stuff if you just say tax and duty are the customer's responsibility.

>>46633639
The artbook was the reverse of the usual situation - shipping from geekjack was insane because EMS charges by weight.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46633983
Yeah I know about the artbook thing.

Also for fun, I try to quote on DHL's website on how much it cost to ship things using DHL. It is sooooo stupidly expensive, that it made the Cover's price quote, kinda reasonable for express service.

So, Cover is not fully to blame for having stupid price, DHL is super expensive already..... but yeah, they should offer alternatives shipping method already since it is kinda actively hurting their merch sales. Hololive shop is not even shipping to every available country, only select few. I'm also honestly not sure on why they're not shipping to everywhere other than maybe their CS team is not fully beefed-up yet... DHL is technically the least fussy services available for the shippers and the receivers.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46633761
You can technically do the same thing with Hololive too since it has similar Buyee integration as BOOTH. Its just that nowadays you need to hop abit to VPN to JP so it become JPY instead of Dollars so Buyee can grab it for you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46632710
>>46633003
I think the main issue is actually how cover calculates the item's volume. Sometimes, adding a single folder or acrylic stand increases costs so much, I'm beginning to think that items and sets' volumes are tied to shipping boxes instead of individual value.

>>46634571
DHL mainly operates for large volume B2B logistics, not C2C. You will never get a good quote as an individual, but enterprise rates can be negotiated pretty good.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46626355
Sorry your whore doesn't get any jobs

[Anonymous No.]

>>46632821
its reliable but holy fuck it breaks my wallet

[Anonymous No.]

>>46634739
You shouldn't need a VPN to use a proxy, they're the ones who are doing the ordering from Japan to begin with. If you use From Japan (who I'd recommend over Buyee) you can just paste any Cover store URL into their search box and get a page like this where they scrape the price:
https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/special/order/confirm/https%3A%2F%2Fshop.hololivepro.com%2Fproducts%2Fsuperidol_cometchan/N_1/lgk-link_search_url_sp