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Volks Japan webstore maintenance and update

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The store will be unavailable from December 12 - 20:

https://www.volks.co.jp/page.jsp?id=319885&version=en

 

Note the following in particular:

 

 

Inventory reservation timing

 

Current System:

Items are reserved when placed into shopping cart

 

New System (Post-Transition):

Items will be reserved when the payment transaction is completed

I think my thoughts on that are best summed up by:

 

 

Just in case that line in red doesn't completely sink in for anyone--After December 20th the next time there's an After Event clickwar, you aren't guaranteed to get anything just because you manage to put it in your cart; it's not yours until you complete checkout. So if you want multiple items now you are penalized, and if they do the thing with some items being available an hour or two later you can't buy it all in one transaction as you could before.

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Monty

I would hope this new system includes an option to combine items like amiami has, because that's going to make the After Events even less fun online than they already were otherwise with how the SD and DD stuff regularly comes out at different times. I hope there's more info soon.

 

Although I also wonder how much trouble people letting items 'camp' in their carts was causing, if any.

I would hope that these site updates make it sturdier. A few weeks ago when the Dolpa Xpasses went on sale, it completely crashed the site so badly that it had to go offline for about 2 days. (At least, I assume that was what caused the crash, as those Xpasses seems to break the server every Dolpa but this time was way worse than any other time, and it resulted in them making the Xpasses be lottery instead of clickwar which to be honest they should have been to begin with). While the lottery thing was its own safeguard, I hope the site itself will be made stronger as well.

 

edit: 'With the new system, functions including the search tool and page design will be updated, making shopping on our site a more smooth and pleasant experience' is good news at least, I always found the site to be really badly laid out and hard to find stuff unless you actually knew what you were looking for. Several people new to Volks/DDs have told me that they found the whole thing daunting whereas other doll companies were much easier for them to navigate/understand. I hope this can fix that.

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cfx

The rest of the language on that page suggests site improvements wrt reliablity so hopefull that will happen.

 

If item 'camping' was causing issues, or people doing that and then not buying (which we know happens given how items briefly reappear), a better solution for the customer would be to make the carts expire in a shorter stated period of time; an hour, 30 minutes, even 15 minutes. I don't know if it still works the same way, Amazon used to have a 15 minute limit on the Black Friday period "lightning deals." It was a little inconvenient, but it was doable. That would make this still where you could buy a number of items from the same time release without the concern that buy buying extra items you may be losing what you've already put in the cart. You'd have to still make a separate order for the stuff that's an hour later like they've been doing. Or, if they really did get the site working better maybe they wouldn't need to stagger events anymore.

 

Depending on how they do their system redesign, this sounds like it has the potential for other issues that would cause Volks far more trouble than whatever they are trying to solve. If items you buy are truly not reserved until after the Nicos credit card validation completes, then it would be possible to pay for items that are already unavailable and they'll have to refund you. If it instead does a final in-stock check when you click the button to confirm payment, then maybe you've ordered 5 items and 4 of them are now deleted and with only one maybe you didn't want to order after all due to shipping costs for a single item. Do you still get a chance to cancel then?

 

I know what I'll end up doing due to this. If there's an item I want of the type that usually disappears in a few minutes like shoes or hats, I'll end up trying to order that item alone and then outfits later. Or I won't try at all because it's too frustrating and depressing to think you got something and then didn't.

 

Or I'll just wait for the Volks USA lotteries and take my chances there.

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Gabriel

Yeah. As described, this sucks.

 

I'm almost always going for multiple items and those items are always split over two different releases.

 

I guess we'll see how it works in practice and if there are any other changes (like a change in CC payment processor, a speedier storefront, changes in how things are released, etc.) that may offset this.

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BeyondTime
Yeah. As described, this sucks.

 

I'm almost always going for multiple items and those items are always split over two different releases.

 

I guess we'll see how it works in practice and if there are any other changes (like a change in CC payment processor, a speedier storefront, changes in how things are released, etc.) that may offset this.

 

As long as they address the first point in some reasonable way i.e. a combined shipping option, then it should be ok.

 

Hopefully the rebuild adds paypal back in. As far as quantities go, they seem to being going out of stock less than they used to in the initial stages, and they seem to restock multiple times throughout an event, and even days after the event.

 

I don't think Volks really liked the over priced resale of their products immediately after their sales events. Selling more stuff really is the best counter to that.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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Cauldroness

Ugh, this is the worst news.

 

This is how it typically happens to me on the US site:

- I get all the 3 items I want in my cart.

- I go to check out, but 1 of the 3 is now unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now 1 of the 2 remaining items is unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now the last item is unavailable.

- I leave having bought nothing.

 

This process got so frustrating that I totally gave up and don't even bother to buy from VolksUSA during new releases. I refuse to pay shipping for a single item unless I'm desperate for it -- the cost only becomes "worth it" when I can get 2 or more in a single transaction, which is impossible due to the scenario above.

 

If the same thing is going to happen on Volks International, then it's not worth the stress. I'd rather pay more on a second-hand market then go through that hassle, especially given the much higher shipping cost.


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BeyondTime

- I get all the 3 items I want in my cart.

- I go to check out, but 1 of the 3 is now unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now 1 of the 2 remaining items is unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now the last item is unavailable.

- I leave having bought nothing.

 

That just sounds catastrophically bad. XD

 

Honestly from a server perspective what you describe is so inefficient it would be almost certain to result in increased server load.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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finnleo

In any case this is going to boost the site performance quite a bit, at least in theory.

 

Since the website back-end system wont have to back-and-forth between people's browsers and the online inventory system, and instead will only update stock levels when payment is done... But this still leaves problems during clickwars as already mentioned.

 

I just hope they dont hire the same people that did the new "and improved" amiami site (though if it was who i think it was, thats probably not going to be the case), where I find it sort of adoring that they rolled-back the japanese site, but left the english one as the suck-o-matic almost out of spite.

 

on a comparison note, its problematic to compare amiami to volks, since one sells mainly pre-order items, where there is much more flex in adding items into the end of month item order, whereas volks has a there and now style, which is a bit more awkward in terms of combining separate items... Unless they incorporate a warehouse system like at Hobbylink japan where you can stock your paid for items and then combine them for shipping separetely within a certain time period of purchase (or thats how I imagined it to work)

 

On a more personal related note... this announcement came as a slight annoyance since I still had Art Jr. to pay for, and only yesterday got the money together finally ... but luckily still managed to get the payment through 30 minutes before they shut the web-store down.

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cfx

I really dislike the new Amiami site...though I figured it was just because I'm an old fuddy-duddy that doesn't like change when the old site worked just fine. I hadn't visited the Japanese one lately and didn't realize it had been reverted to the old. Amiami's new site reminds me of Tokyo Otaku Mode and various other US-centric anime/figure shops that I can never navigate or find anything on, and all have too-large text and pictures so there's so few items on a given page. I don't understand why that trend is everywhere...maybe it's for small screens on mobile devices, but since the sites all have mobile versions too that makes no sense either.

 

Time in Japan vs. the US got me again. I don't know how long that message has been on the Volks site about the store being closed, but I only saw it last night just before I posted it. I wanted to order from them today before it closed but it's too late of course.

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shikaree

That sucks. Only saving grace is I buy less stuff from each release now, so it won't be as big an issue as it would've been a year ago. There's always Volks USA to fall back on, but I liked the surety of being able to get everything as long as you're quick and diligent about being there at release time.

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sinclair
This is how it typically happens to me on the US site:

- I get all the 3 items I want in my cart.

- I go to check out, but 1 of the 3 is now unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now 1 of the 2 remaining items is unavailable.

- It bounces me back to the START of the check-out process.

- I go to check out, but now the last item is unavailable.

- I leave having bought nothing.

 

I had this happen to me and didn't know this was the way Volks USA was and emailed them about it. When they told me, I asked them to go to how Volks Int does it. Well, I guess they went the other way. Very sad. I really think this is going to favor the Japanese people more, and scalpers and really hurt us real customers.

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MarQ
New System (Post-Transition):

Items will be reserved when the payment transaction is completed

 

I agree with most replies that this sucks. This will certainly cause more problems. If I as a customer have items in the shopping cart, I should be able to buy these too. A predefined time between 15 and 30 minutes is quite useful until click on checkout.

 

Apart from that, how can they close the shop for 8 days during christmas-shopping-time? Imagine Amazon would shut down its store in December for just a few hours ... totally unacceptable.

 

With the new system, functions including the search tool and page design will be updated, making shopping on our site a more smooth and pleasant experience.

 

I'm looking forward for that.

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Monty

Apart from that, how can they close the shop for 8 days during christmas-shopping-time? Imagine Amazon would shut down its store in December for just a few hours ... totally unacceptable.

Because Volks is a Japanese company and Japan doesn’t really have ‘Christmas shopping time’. Christmas is for kids and couples (if celebrated at all) for the most part, and neither are likely to be buying stuff from Volks. It’s also pretty common for sites/places to go into maintenance around this time so that they’ll be ready for the new year.

(Of course I’m also of the opinion that in terms of online international Christmas shopping, if you’ve left it until now you’ve left it too late anyway...unless you have some kind of god-speed postal system)

 

Anyway, I’m suddenly having flashbacks of trying to get a certain pure neemo on amiami and having her be sold out literally as I was checking out... as for Volks though recently it seems to me like a lot of things stay in stock a while, except for shoes, but then there are the surprise ‘must have’ items that sell out instantly in every single Volks store (recently those white fox ears/tails)

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finnleo

(Of course I’m also of the opinion that in terms of online international Christmas shopping, if you’ve left it until now you’ve left it too late anyway...unless you have some kind of god-speed postal system)

 

Its called EMS.

 

Though this is highly dependent on how flights from the source country come to your actual postal service.

 

But in volks'es case it would have been more how backlogged their packing and shipping side of things is, than the actual post doing its thing ... and pleasantly for me personally art jr. got boxed up in a day and is now sitting at a airport in Osaka.

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kranberrijam

Geez, I'm really sad about this news. I've done group orders a few times, since I seem able to get all the items people want most times during clickwars. But now I guess it's "everyone out for themselves." :/ I do agree, a fifteen minute cart hold is a much better idea, plenty of other sites have cart time limits.

 

But I do hope the "improvements" are actually that, and not just a bandaid.


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Haha, I was just looking back at the Volks USA Special Holiday Event 2018 thread and just had to quote this:

 

someone needs to add how it works on Intl site - u know, when u add a thing to cart it stays in cart while u click on second thing!

Nope. Can't have that can we? Had to instead do the opposite.

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ParacosmDoll

.

Edited by ParacosmDoll

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Misuka
I really dislike the new Amiami site...though I figured it was just because I'm an old fuddy-duddy that doesn't like change when the old site worked just fine.

 

The new site runs like molasses.

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cfx
Apparently the relaunch has been delayed until tomorrow December 21.

Now it says TBA.

 

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Gabriel
Apparently the relaunch has been delayed until tomorrow December 21.

Now it says TBA.

 

Yeah, they updated it to that almost right at the reveal date/time. Hopefully they're not having as big of problems as the last VolksUSA switchover.

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ParacosmDoll

.

 

Edited by ParacosmDoll

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Monty

Yeah the layout of the new site (on mobile at least) is...not good. I like some of it, but the fact that all the 1/6 Dollfie clothes is the first to come up when you click ‘dress’(ie clothing) is odd. It does have buttons for all the sub brands of clothing but those won’t mean anything to a newbie, they’re just gonna wanna know what fits a DD, but now the ‘DD dress’ button just takes you to the limited DD character outfits - not even the Tenshi no Koromo stuff, which has its own section. Ugly as the old site was I really liked that you could click on a doll size and it would bring up every single clothing item that would fit that size, regardless of its ‘sub brand’. Unless there’s still a way to do that which isn’t clear on mobile?

 

On the plus side all the doll stuff is now the first thing you see instead of having to find the button amongst all the other hobby stuff, so that at least is more newbie-friendly.

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In general it seems like things are just thrown together in large categories in a way that is inconvenient to browse and they aren't grouped on the pages either; eyes for instance don't have all the sizes of the same styles together.

 

And now you can't browse again at all, there's just a front page saying it'll be ready by the end of next week.

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Nekota

Euhm....I kinda need to pay for my saber...but even if I tried the japanese site..they say my ID is incorrect and the english one seems not working at all..I wanted to pay like begin of the month but it was down and now the deadline is coming closer.....deadline is 28th december

 

Any hints or tips of solution?

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finnleo
Euhm....I kinda need to pay for my saber...but even if I tried the japanese site..they say my ID is incorrect and the english one seems not working at all..I wanted to pay like begin of the month but it was down and now the deadline is coming closer.....deadline is 28th december

 

Any hints or tips of solution?

 

the main problem was that users had to redo their password upon starting to use the new system.

 

But the problem with that is that they seem to be using the same dinky setup as amiami, that the japanese side and international side have their own customer database, and at least I couldnt get a password reminder sent, prompting a E-mail unknown.

 

My only recomendation is to contact Volks customer support with the situation if they could get you a payment link through email, or extend the deadline because of this problem, since the end of the week for japan is basicly saturday, which is the 29th.

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