PlanetAxel Goes Into Bankruptcy

I should only have $70 or so at risk, which I'll handle tonight via chargeback if needed. The rest came through as pending refunds already as I'd paid by Paypal :/ still not a good feeling at all.

Hoping that $70 comes back too, as reordering everything at higher prices elsewhere hurt enough.

Since this is the most prominent thread and everyone is understandably worried, this is where any other leaks will be merged. Leaving the discussion in the Retailers thread since in years to come that will be where people see what happened.

(Also AF, UP1 are fine, I was kidding about the account thing as it's my own fault for being an impatient fool!)

R
 
It is a shame, they also have a lot of stuff which is still In Stock and they probably aren't even going to be able to at least to shift some of it off. Meaning that a whole bunch of good stock is either going to be skipped or shipped off to the nearest discount store or second hand shop for little to nothing!
 
Oh man, really sad about this :( They were awesome, got most of my FMA Blu-rays from them, as well as Radiant Historia and Up on Region 1 DVD when it had only just come out in cinemas here.
 
CloudedMinds said:
dont forget that there is otaku.co.uk aswell
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I'd forgot about them, only used them once and it went smoothly.

Shame to see a good company go into bankruptcy, though perhaps their deals were too good? Guess we won't know the specific cause of this.

As for UP1 I've used the extensively and would recomend them. Always happy to answer quetions and quick to fix/resolve issues. Price wise they are more expensves for some items, Animeplex titles they give no discount at all on and Sentai is a lower discount than other companies. I'd assume thats just a matter of distrubutors though.
 
its funny PlanetAxel is no more and were like lil kids who just lost a hamster and already thinking of replacing it

shouldn't we be chating about PlanetAxel instead of where we should look for next
 
animefreak17 said:
@Rui shut up your not a fool im a fool for not noticing it was a joke
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No need to put "Shut up" at the start of sentence mate, I understand what your are trying to say to Rui but, it sounds like your being rude when I started to read it.

It is a shame that they have shut down, since I only started using them, thankfully my last Hidamari Sketch boxset I bought from them arrived yesterday but they shall be missed.

I may start using UP1 a bit more now but I don't import too much stuff anyway.
 
animefreak17 said:
its funny PlanetAxel is no more and were like lil kids who just lost a hamster and already thinking of replacing it

shouldn't we be chating about PlanetAxel instead of where we should look for next
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I remember that time when I ordered something, and a couple of weeks later it arrived.

Another time I ordered something, and a week later it arrived.

One time I ordered something, and when it hadn't shipped after a week, I cancelled and got a refund.

Oh, how could I forget the time I went to the website, right, and it was down! I cried and cried.

Never forget.
 
Reevothemusefan said:
animefreak17 said:
@Rui shut up your not a fool im a fool for not noticing it was a joke
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No need to put "Shut up" at the start of sentence mate, I understand what your are trying to say to Rui but, it sounds like your being rude when I started to read it.
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not at all i just i wasn't being rude or i didn't mean to be, im just saying RUI isn't a fool. RUI i didn't mean to be rude towards you if it seemed like i was sorry
 
Never had any problems with Otaku, other than the time I made a special order (with the .com branch), they said they couldn't get it, I found it elsewhere, they apparently found one after all as they shipped and charged it to me and I couldn't cancel since it was a special order. Haven't used them in ages due to Yes Asia making it easier. For that matter - if Yes Asia are still doing free UK postage it is worth taking into account that they stock US goods too.
 
The difference is, PlanetAxel isn't a living entity. While it's sad that y'know, these people have lost their jobs due to this, as consumers it's only natural that we're going to look for somewhere else where we can purchase products, so it's not that big of a "loss", if you know that I mean.

What it essentially means for me is, that I'll have to go to UP1 for more than AniplexUSA stuff; which is more expensive, but in terms of availability, what's available will pretty much be the same in terms of new releases.

Also, I'm not sure how viable the business model was in this recent hellish climate. I mean, not only did they sell things for cheap (Pokémon Conquest only came out on DS yesterday in America, but they were listing it for £20!) but they also had the customs work-around - that must have been expensive for them.
 
For all the people involved, employees and consumers, this is just really, really ****.

Joshawott said:
The difference is, PlanetAxel isn't a living entity. While it's sad that y'know, these people have lost their jobs due to this, as consumers it's only natural that we're going to look for somewhere else where we can purchase products, so it's not that big of a "loss", if you know that I mean.
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Except few (if any) other retailers are actually doing what they were doing - offering products from all over the world to anywhere else in the world, priced in local currencies with helpful region code information at reasonable prices and without the hassle of customs...

Actually no wonder they've gone down the tubes. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were secretly bought by their worse competitors with the sole aim of closing them down.
 
Haha don't worry, I wasn't upset over being told to shut up ;)

I actually tried to send Axel a nice farewell/thanks e-mail only to find all of their modes of communication had been closed, so now I'm in the awkward situation of being worried over my $70 with nobody to talk to, which sours things a little. They were a very solid supplier though, and I'd used them for years before switching the bulk of my purchasing to them more recently due to Rightstuf's shipping changes (bally Parcelforce).

I'm sure as has been said that the recent currency fluctuations (my company lost money and they must have had far more exposure than we did) and overly optimistic pricing and special offers all contributed to their downfall.

Otaku.co.uk are decent too, though I don't really use them much. They have a much better website design and are also reliable and established, but somehow I just don't find them as easy to deal with. I used to use them a lot back in the old days when I knew the staffmembers' names.

R
 
@Rui thank you

anyways yeah i guess

HMV
Otaku.co.uk
UP1
RIGHTSTUF

will have to do.

im going to start using UP1, il have a look at the others tho
 
ayase said:
Except few (if any) other retailers are actually doing what they were doing - offering products from all over the world to anywhere else in the world, priced in local currencies with helpful region code information at reasonable prices and without the hassle of customs...
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I agree with what you said there except perhaps the bolded part. I found I could never trust their currency conversion; it was always a little bit "off", making their products seem cheaper than they actually were. My last couple of orders were exactly the same price in the two currencies they accepted, US and Canadian Dollars, despite the Canadian Dollar being a better rate for someone paying with UK currency (but still not as cheap as their GBP prices claimed).

I just remembered that Axel revamped their website a couple of months back. Perhaps the end of their rewards program wasn't a sign they were going down if they went on to spend money on that.
 
I'd really recommend UP1 to anyone...I've been buying nearly all of my manga and most of my import anime stuff from them for about six years now.

Helpful staff and super-fast dispatch/delivery. Great site. I don't work for them...honest.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
I just remembered that Axel revamped their website a couple of months back. Perhaps the end of their rewards program wasn't a sign they were going down if they went on to spend money on that.
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Their current website is probably my favourite website (bar the help section) to shop on. There is the odd issue with retaining currency choices and the such like, but apart from that it is very intuitive and clean throughout.
 
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