animefan2017
School Idol
i do wonder if theres going to be another flash sale day too bought nadia in 4k which i wanted for a while to go with the evangellion i acquired earlier in the sale
UK Anime Christmas Sales for 2024 [Anime Ltd's 12 Days of Xmas + More]
- Thread starter NormanicGrav
- Start date
MiaLeeSakura
Completely Average High School Student
MiaLeeSakura
Completely Average High School Student
yeah they said 3 days of flash sales with some music flash sales thrown in there iirc. dont know if that's a whole day of music flash sale or just an item here or there
Joe
Thousand Master
I bought Nadesico at 4:58pm, and I may have got the last copy as it went OOS pretty soon after. When it first went up there was IIRC only 8 available. Those of us in the Discord started noticing stuff being added at about 4:40.
NKRSDST
Completely Average High School Student
There's no "direct" information about the stock but when you want to add an item to your cart and increase the quantity from the default 1 to let's say 1000 and hit the "add to cart" button (or if you have it in your cart already just increase the quantity there and hit either the plus or minus button) the page will give you an error info that says "You can only add xxx [title] to the cart."
This way you'll know how much stock is in the sale until the currently allocated available copies reach zero (sometimes further stock gets added and sold out items return to the sale though)
Loris
Kiznaiver
yeah everything was about the same time, 4:40~4:45ish. Most of the deals have gone 'live' around that time so it might be worth keeping an eye out a bit earlier
MiaLeeSakura
Completely Average High School Student
i feel asleep and didnt wake up early enough TT TT im usually better about it lol just the one day i didnt check bc the flash sales started at 4am for me so by the last flash sale i was tired lol
BrokenPhoenix
Vampire Ninja
They should have made the new last chance stuff live at 17:00 on the dot (as advertised), much like how the flash sale deals changed over at pretty much the exact time advertised. This would have given everyone a fairer shot. It's not ideal if they go live and are available to purchase 20 minutes beforehand (if you're not on this forum or on the Discord channel, you've got little chance of snapping up the in-demand stuff by the time 17:00 rolls around).
I was only alerted that the new stuff was added via this forum (around 16:45) and was lucky enough to get something I wanted (so this isn't me being salty or anything, haha).
Also, if they have OOP stuff to sell again in the future, they shouldn't add the stock to the website until it's ready to go live. Otherwise you have cases where some high demand items go out of stock, before the sale has even begun (for example, they had an advertisement for Tokyo Ghoul posted on their social media, and I don't think it was even in stock for the sale).
I was only alerted that the new stuff was added via this forum (around 16:45) and was lucky enough to get something I wanted (so this isn't me being salty or anything, haha).
Also, if they have OOP stuff to sell again in the future, they shouldn't add the stock to the website until it's ready to go live. Otherwise you have cases where some high demand items go out of stock, before the sale has even begun (for example, they had an advertisement for Tokyo Ghoul posted on their social media, and I don't think it was even in stock for the sale).
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RedundantSquash
Brigade Leader
I didn't even get an email from them until just after 5pm which didn't give me enough time to get what I wanted. It seems unfair that people found out that this stuff went live on platforms some of us aren't even on. Maybe it is a good thing that I didn't manage to get what I wanted today, my order from nearly a week ago still hasn't dispatched yet so I would likely have been waiting ages for them anyway
BrokenPhoenix
Vampire Ninja
I didn't even get an email from them until just after 5pm which didn't give me enough time to get what I wanted. It seems unfair that people found out that this stuff went live on platforms some of us aren't even on. Maybe it is a good thing that I didn't manage to get what I wanted today, my order from nearly a week ago still hasn't dispatched yet so I would likely have been waiting ages for them anyway
It's not so much of an issue when there's plenty of stock, but when you're dealing with extremely limited products, there needs to be some order to it, to give everyone a fair shot.
It would be like saying: Glastonbury tickets are going on sale at 17:00 on this particular day, but then, without an official announcement, the tickets go on sale 20 minutes before the advertised time and sell out or there is significantly less available by the time the official sale period starts.
If you're not on this forum or the Discord, then you're only way to have known would have been through email or AL's social media (Anime Limited have explicitly stated that 17:00 is when the sale changes); but by then, some products had already been available to purchase for around 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure Outlaw Star CE sold out around 17:03, and it had already been live since at least 16:45. As it went live early, it was only available for 3 minutes during the actual sale period (if at all).
In future, AL might as well say "get F5'ing at 16:30 because you never know when we'll click the button". Something tells me the backend of their website doesn't allow them to update multiple product pages all at once, so they have to do it one at a time (hence they start updating them earlier than the advertised time so everything is ready for 17:00). It all comes across very amateurish and unprofessional.
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RedundantSquash
Brigade Leader
I couldn't have put it better myself
The way this sale has gone has put me off coming back for any more if I'm honest
usnapoleon
Kiznaiver
I get where you're coming from and I totally agree. The downside is that amongst all the anime vendors I know, the best deals are here. Crunchyroll is very overpriced even when on sale and rightstuff isn't there anymore.
First post updated with the Last Chance to Buy Round 2 titles and SRPs/2023 Prices noted for all Anime Limited releases.
From the looks of it, the 2024 prices is bit more expensive than 2023.
From the looks of it, the 2024 prices is bit more expensive than 2023.
Dai
Death Scythe
Very much so, but this is the depressing reality of chasing items where demand exceeds supply in the 2020s. People who go out of their way to access back-channel information will have the edge. In 2021 it took me three months of using a stock notification app before I could buy a Playstation 5; they were selling out in minutes, sometimes seconds.
NKRSDST
Completely Average High School Student
The host of the issues in this sale aren't exactly new, though it does feel like things go up a lot earlier than before... last year I usually got online to check what came up around 10-15 minutes before the official start, now it's 30-40 minutes of occasional F5-ing.
The assumption that the shop doesn't allow many items going live at once seems plausible... I recall that on the first "Last Chance" day the number of available titles steadily increased over the span of a few minutes before everything was up.
AL could however try to take this into consideration so that if they decide to add titles to the sale with single digit (or low double digit) stock, they could add those titles last.
On the other hand adding (low) stock of titles meant to be in a later part of the sale ahead of time seems more like a financial move, this way there's a good chance to cash in on the FOMO and sell at a full(er) price.
It's the same with the 10%/15% coupons... it's just best for AL when these are spent early on while new offers along with free shipping thresholds get folks to place more and higher orders.
The assumption that the shop doesn't allow many items going live at once seems plausible... I recall that on the first "Last Chance" day the number of available titles steadily increased over the span of a few minutes before everything was up.
AL could however try to take this into consideration so that if they decide to add titles to the sale with single digit (or low double digit) stock, they could add those titles last.
On the other hand adding (low) stock of titles meant to be in a later part of the sale ahead of time seems more like a financial move, this way there's a good chance to cash in on the FOMO and sell at a full(er) price.
It's the same with the 10%/15% coupons... it's just best for AL when these are spent early on while new offers along with free shipping thresholds get folks to place more and higher orders.
BrokenPhoenix
Vampire Ninja
To be balanced, the flash sale was run perfectly. They started and changed over at the advertised time. Everybody who cared, knew what time they were going live and they did go live at said times.
However, you can't advertise a 17:00 sale change over, but in reality change it gradually at 16:30 for example - especially for "last chance" OOP products, some of which only had single-digit quantities available. For these super limited products, they could have said, check back at these particular times for a super limited item and run it akin to a quicker flash sale. That way, they can make it live on the dot and give people a fairer chance.
The last chance stuff which has substantially more stock available, could have then just been added as normal at or around 17:00 (although, even those should be added on the dot as well).
However, you can't advertise a 17:00 sale change over, but in reality change it gradually at 16:30 for example - especially for "last chance" OOP products, some of which only had single-digit quantities available. For these super limited products, they could have said, check back at these particular times for a super limited item and run it akin to a quicker flash sale. That way, they can make it live on the dot and give people a fairer chance.
The last chance stuff which has substantially more stock available, could have then just been added as normal at or around 17:00 (although, even those should be added on the dot as well).
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MiaLeeSakura
Completely Average High School Student
re:cycle of the penguindrum CE is restocked
Honestly tho I would think the issue leads to the flash sales being one item whereas last chance stuff is multiple items and they're updating it manually to be ready for the 5pm time.
But it's a shop based store no? A lot of store systems have a way to create a page for inventory alignment to the backend but hide it from customer view, you'd get a 404 not found if you typed the url directly not to mention it should just be hidden in the overall item listings so customers shouldn't be able to access not that ik how AL site works though but it is interesting they seem to be taking the manual approach...
Honestly tho I would think the issue leads to the flash sales being one item whereas last chance stuff is multiple items and they're updating it manually to be ready for the 5pm time.
But it's a shop based store no? A lot of store systems have a way to create a page for inventory alignment to the backend but hide it from customer view, you'd get a 404 not found if you typed the url directly not to mention it should just be hidden in the overall item listings so customers shouldn't be able to access not that ik how AL site works though but it is interesting they seem to be taking the manual approach...
BrokenPhoenix
Vampire Ninja
Yes, the ideal solution would be to have everything show up all at once, on a specific sale page on the website, and at the advertised time.
However, if they are unable to do that because of website limitations, then a quick flash sale for the super limited items (in terms of quantity) would at least be fairer than what they're doing now - each item would sell out in a matter of minutes anyway and you could move onto the next one pretty swiftly. You could have even paired up the sets like March Comes In and Your Lie In April and sold them together at the same time.
The core issue is: low-quantity products going up for sale much earlier than stated. It's something they really need to look at if they do this type of sale again.
For the final additions to the last chance page, we'll all be F5'ing from 16:30 now
kevers7290
Completely Average High School Student
Gutted that I was away yesterday and missed Nadia. That was one of the few items I wanted to get this year. I can't even console myself with the standard editions as they seem to have been delisted for some reason. I despise the entire concept of flash sales. Oh well, I guess they won't be getting my money this year. Time to start assembling an order with Sentai instead.
JimmyJimJim
Hikikomori
Dropping out of my eternal lurk to say that Nadia has recently come back into stock on HMV at 50% off with the FILM50 code, making it around £49 for both parts if that helps
. (Edit for the 4K version)