BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
Additionally, you can also contact your bank to get them to stop the automatic charge. However, I'd only resort to this if you have emailed Anime Limited to request cancellation and they haven't responded.
UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread
- Thread starter jonno394
- Start date
Additionally, you can also contact your bank to get them to stop the automatic charge. However, I'd only resort to this if you have emailed Anime Limited to request cancellation and they haven't responded.
ussjtrunks
Hunter
It’d be nice at this stage for them to just say they don’t want to do it instead of saying they might do it at some stage
BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
Free shipping isn't the norm in the UK, but it's not exactly uncommon. The UK's biggest online video game outlets (TGC and ShopTo) offer free shipping on all their orders, for example.
The UK's biggest bookshop, Waterstones, provide free delivery on orders over £25. Rarewaves sells all sorts of physical media and they have free shipping when you spend £10 or more, as another example. Zavvi charge £1.99 for all orders. HMV has free delivery on orders over £25 as well.
I also think Amazon and Amazon Prime have a lot to do with our perceptions of shipping costs (I'm guilty of this myself). If you buy with Amazon Prime regularly, it can be difficult to go to a "regular" retailer that charges £4.99 for standard delivery and takes 3-5 days to arrive.
I don't begrudge Anime Limited for deciding to charge for delivery on orders below £50. They got to do what they got to do, to survive as a business and I would assume they aren't as big as a player like HMV and other places where they can continue to absorb more of the cost. However, I will be thinking twice about buying a single random Blu-ray from them as you can slap £3.50 onto the final price now; a lot of the time you can buy their products for the same initial price or less from another retailer that does offer free shipping. Although, for pre-orders I would assume AL will continue being the cheapest with their EBs and 10% off for members.
Waiting for AL sales and grabbing a bunch of stuff you want, to get over the £50 threshold will probably be the way to go. But I'm just thinking about the singular EB pre-orders that are less than £50, like others have mentioned. It may be a case of just looking around more for the best price available with the cost of shipping included.
Last edited:
Shadow Cat
Death Scythe
Chris on twitter just pointed out the banner that says "Free UK Delivery on orders over £20"
So... Yeh... This is going well
Edit to add the banner:
So... Yeh... This is going well
Edit to add the banner:
Last edited:
Denny Fisher
Dragon Knight
If there going to add shipping costs of £3.50 on orders under £50 why not have the option to ship when orders exceed that amount?
Otherwise, what's the point of membership if someone only spends £35 of less. In fact, low orders actually discourage membership now.
Otherwise, what's the point of membership if someone only spends £35 of less. In fact, low orders actually discourage membership now.
Googlyhead
School Idol
So what is it supposed to be? £20 or £50?
Because that’s quite a difference not just in absolute price (2.5x), but (as noted in other posts) it’s literally either side of the threshold for most of the EB or ‘fancier edition’ releases.
I would normally assume it’s best to wait for them to untangle their own mess, but there’s not really a good track record of that, and you would expect everything to be formalised prior to the launch of the revamp.
Last edited:
RadFemHedonist
Guild Member
BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
Looks like it has been an incredibly amateurish launch. And the website still looks bad and clunky, in my opinion. Scroll down a little bit and the banner at the top comes and covers up half of the main advert they have at the top of the page, and you've got the scroll up in the right kind of way to see the full image. When you're scrolling down the page, the top banner will start glitching and try to come down onto the screen again as well.
Don't know why they just didn't get a proper website developer in to make them a super clean website.
Last edited:
Loris
Brigade Leader
It's actually quite amazing how much worse the website is. The older one wasn't amazing but man. Why is there so much dead space and so much white.
I'm not sure why but every website redesign lately has been complete and utter dogcrap, always worse than what they replace.
Shipping sucks but it's not particually surprising, just have to be more selective with christmas sales I guess.
I'm not sure why but every website redesign lately has been complete and utter dogcrap, always worse than what they replace.
Shipping sucks but it's not particually surprising, just have to be more selective with christmas sales I guess.
Shadow Cat
Death Scythe
Adding Dr Stone to the cart at £38 gives me a £3.50 shipping charge. So their banner is wrong. Overall this new website is a joke
£20 would have been a sensible amount. would have been ok at £30 at a push for free delivery
BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
I don't want to be mean, but come on man, look at it. It looks terrible; it looks like a scrapbook with the white outlines poorly cut around the product images.
This doesn't scream "Europe’s leading boutique animation distributor". I can't imagine the Anime Limited staff sitting around a table and thinking this looks good, and giving it the green light. I actually think I prefer the older design, it was bad too, but it wasn't this bad.
Compare the above to something like Eureka Entertainment, it's so much cleaner and tidier:
This doesn't scream "Europe’s leading boutique animation distributor". I can't imagine the Anime Limited staff sitting around a table and thinking this looks good, and giving it the green light. I actually think I prefer the older design, it was bad too, but it wasn't this bad.
Compare the above to something like Eureka Entertainment, it's so much cleaner and tidier:
Last edited:
Denny Fisher
Dragon Knight
I pretty much want to cancel my subscription as its no longer worth it. (If thats even possible)
The only reason for getting a subscription now would be for the sales or for new members to cut shipping.
If there offering free shipping on orders over £50 they should offer to ship all together when that amount is exceeded.
The only reason for getting a subscription now would be for the sales or for new members to cut shipping.
If there offering free shipping on orders over £50 they should offer to ship all together when that amount is exceeded.
BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
Yes, it's possible.
Email Anime Limited requesting to cancel your Anime Unlimited membership and wait for a response. If they don't respond in a timely manner, then contact your bank and explain to them you have requested to cancel this automatic charge but the business has not responded to your request; your bank should then take care of the rest and stop any future automatic charges going out to them.
Denny Fisher
Dragon Knight
My membership was renewed months ago automatically with an order. Im not even sure when as its not even listed in my emails or orders. Bank details don't help as its not listed as £17.99
The issue is when will it run out so i can cancel.
ayase
State Alchemist
Worth pointing out that’s also the case with Amazon if you’re not a Prime member. And that’s AMAZON, they’re making billions more a year than any UK anime distributor. Also Prime shipping isn’t really free since you’re still paying Amazon £9 a month, which is nearly 3x£3.50…
Personally I don’t really begrudge companies charging for delivery, with inflation the way it’s been the last few years their costs are going up as well, it’s not like they can continue to absorb increasing costs forever lest their profits dwindle to nothing. What’s £3.50 even worth now, really? A basic cup of black coffee in a cafe?
I feel like on balance the actual price of anime in the UK has still gone down considerably in recent years and people kinda forget that. An entire series on blu-ray for £20-£30? The me who would spend £90 on six single volume DVDs at £15 a pop back in the ‘00s would be over the moon too bad I’m broke now but that’s hardly the fault of anime distributors.
BrokenPhoenix
Thousand Master
Best thing to do then would be to get into contact with Anime Limited and see what they say, then go from there. Your bank should still be able to put a block on automatic charges as they'll be able to see other charges you've made to the business.
Very true. They also put up their minimum spend for free delivery (for non-Prime members) recently as well. However, for that £9 you're getting free next day delivery or even same day delivery if you order early enough in the day on the large majority of products. If you want next day delivery without Prime it will cost you £4.99.
I pay for Amazon Prime myself (I pretend to be a student, don't come for me Besoz and only pay £4.49 a month), and I think I'd still pay for it at £8.99 as I do buy a fair bit from Amazon, so it pays for itself.
For sure, anime is definitely a lot cheaper now and many UK businesses have shipping charges or at least shipping charges below a certain amount. I pay £3.50 shipping a pop to Forbidden Planet for a single manga, but that's only because their manga arrives in perfect condition every time, so it's worth it.
And to be fair to Anime Limited, they do a great job packaging things with bubble-wrap and other protective material, even if it's just a single Blu-ray. However, as customers, we're always going to seek out the best possible price in most cases. I'll still buy from their website, but I'll see how my spending habits change with the new postage cost; thankfully the Naruto sets are over £50 anyway and I've already pre-ordered Bleach set 2 from AoL due to the new shipping charge at AL.
Denny Fisher
Dragon Knight
The issue i have is membership.
I spent so far this year £454.50 on 16 orders. Only 2 go over the £50 threshold.
14×3.50=£49
10% £450=£45
£17.99 membership
With the introduction of shipping its not worth membership anymore especially on pre-orders well for me anyway.
I spent so far this year £454.50 on 16 orders. Only 2 go over the £50 threshold.
14×3.50=£49
10% £450=£45
£17.99 membership
With the introduction of shipping its not worth membership anymore especially on pre-orders well for me anyway.
Googlyhead
School Idol
The thing is; they’re presumably still predominantly selling their own products direct to the customer, which means getting the full chunk of retail profit (as opposed to just the b2b or store fraction).
Perhaps there’s some benefit of economy of scale for some (such as rarewaves), but I doubt it’s much in percentage or penny terms. And there remain other small retail-only media outlets with free shipping (hive, thegamecollection…)
I’m inclined to conclude that this relates to their expansion into selling products from other publishers. But my opinion of this so far is that they don’t offer any value or other benefits or advantages.
Hopefully there’s a plan to enhance the (un)limited offering with free shipping, as it’s somewhat stripped down from the original pitch, and this further whittles away the value as discount.
serpantino
Thousand Master
I don't think I can go over everything but here's some notes I made after viewing it for a short space of time (looking on mobile in vertical & on 1440p desktop) if anybody disagrees feel free to let me know as I'm slightly rusty on the web-dev front:
Title wise too much padding round the container, it'd be better to add less & add a little more to the icons/burger menu as they seem to be flex-between with 0 padding or margin. On desktop the navigation menu is very squashed together, there's plenty of untapped real-estate left & it could all benefit from being a bit bigger (the social media icons are tiny for me). A little transition animation when clicking to open the menu items would be nice too and the text inside may as well be centered & larger for convience (don't have to move mouse so much).
Carousel & main layout is very janky, the blue background sections don't really make sense the way they're aligned & they've tried to squeeze too many game cases on the screen whilst the font size is too big & yet also seems to have very squashed letter-spacing.
The carousel & boxes in general are far too sharp, they should be more consistent with the logo & maybe have a thin border, definitely some border-radius at least to round the corners.
H2's need to be more central, it's a bit weird seeing them at the left edge, at least offset them more to the middle & "view all" should be more prominent, at least a heavier font-weight again with more letter-spacing as you want people to know there's more.
Using the angled boxes doesn't work if you're clipping them top & bottom, they also need to look a little sharper & remove some of the left over white colouring on the edges; for AL I'd just go with front shots, you can always carousel them to have a side shot, contents shot & back shot on each entry for the user to go through, or even just keep them on the actual product page (In the case where you're paying more for extras make that the primary).
Margin & padding on the footer are huge & it's a bit confusing having stuff like the Navigation (again) in the footer. The social media icons in it are also tiny and the copyright etc could do with being a bit bigger & again, less squished.
On mobile you can drag outside the carousel to shift the site, overflow-x issue maybe?
The navigation on the carousel etc is too small compared to the rest e.g. < 3/4 > should be bigger. It's also unclear what content is in what section visually as there's not enough visual separation (white space doesn't count).
General alignment, especially vertically is just inconsistent, some containers are bigger than others, some have more padding.
Hover is a little too subtle on buttons (anchor tags) it's not bad but a slight colour shift & a little more transform scale % would help, there's also no working :active on it for when it's clicked (if someone's net is a bit slower they might click multiple times due to lack of feedback there) they also have a tonne of top padding.
Colour wise the scheme is kinda all over the place. Black & 2 shades of blue that don't really go together, pure white backgrounds are always a no-no, on some screens they can be painfully glaring and some weird purple scheming at the bottom with text colour that really doesn't go as the weight is too thin & the colour isn't complementary to the purples. That latest news section does actually have a separator above (again looks to be a different shade of blue), it seems kinda a weird place for latest news too though.
Some of the carousel text is the same colour as the background or nearly the same so it's nigh on invisible if not completely. There seems to be some issues with missing buttons too.
There's a good use of some global variables so why are they being overriden or not utilised for stuff like that?
I really hope they didn't pay for this & it's somebody learning to code; in which case I hope this is taken as constructive feedback & don't get disheartened because it's far easier to point stuff out than to build a site (not that I'm an expert myself.)