Manga Anime Online Shop ANIMAXIS

About back ordering books to the publisher.

As you know, we Animaxis offer not only character goods, but also manga (comic) books, illustration / art books, etc, that are released by the publisher. For the newly released manga, we get order sheets from our dealer about a month ago and we order them. We also update manga or other books that Animaxis staffs buy in person which we find very interesting (so we want other people to read it too). And we update books that are requested from our customers, if they are available on our site. We try to update as much as manga as we can, but because there are so many works released (like more than a hundred works) in a month - well, we can't be perfect, so we have to narrow down our options quite a lot.

Because of the stockyard limitation, we can't carry loads of copies, so when we buy books we buy at a limited number. When they sell out and we get another order, we have to make back-order directly to the publisher, unless they are available at our dealer. However.

Until we contact the publisher and ask for the copy, we don't know whether we can actually order it or not. If we are unlucky then we get short and dry replies: "Sorry, it's out of stock" (but they might reprint it sometimes later), or "Sorry we are out of stock, and we don't have any plans to reprint it".

You don't know how reluctant we get when we receive this sad answer - especially after waiting for a long time for us to get thorough to the publisher (their phone lines are limited)...

So, the stocking situation at the publisher is the one we cannot predict at all. For instance, at the time of our update, we were told that "the book will be shipped in 1 or 2 weeks", however, after a week, we are told "sorry, they are gone!". On the other hand, the book was "out of stock" at the time of our update, but the next day it's back in stock because it was reprinted. We hope there is some kind of a system we can build to link with publisher's stock status, but that is a dream we can never achieve... (sigh)

Like we said earlier, the answer of "out of stock" is a huge blow to us. Very shocking. And sad. And heart-breaking... (really!) We get really saddened every time this happens, because we weren't able to spread the works we liked, and above all, we have to let our customers down who got interested in the works by telling them "sorry we were unable to restock your requested book"... The thought of sad faces behind the computer monitor of our customers reading our mail, really rips our heart...

We do try to be careful, especially if the manga is announced to made into an anime or its anime version started (or in any other media like TV drama, film, etc), but... since there are no ways for us to prevent this "out-of-stock phenomena" happening, all we can do is to have our fingers crossed every time when we call the publisher.

So when you order the books that says "it will take XX weeks to restock" on our site, please have your fingers crossed as well. Then, we might be lucky and we don't have to let you down by telling you "sorry, we are told the book is out of stock"...