I remember that mad rush. There were a few sellers that had some pre orders left at the time and fast forward to today, they don't have allocation of the first batch figures. All of mine have been pushed to reissue and there's no confirmation that there are any form FT anyway. It's worth checking with sellers first if the pre orders they have are likely to be fulfilled. Not sure if you did this @Marcelo Antunes but might be worth doing so to save off any disappointment?

 

Yes, it’s the total price for preorders (in stores that give discounts to preorders, i’m not sure but I think most, but not all, do).

I did, and some preorders will be first batch, some they don’t know - will depend on how much they can get and in sole cases of anyone desist (I’ve just made a smal lot of preorders some weeks ago when I noticed that it’s essential to preorder and noted all this year producta did not have a lot of options).

 

So you paid 490 yuan balance?

For the combiner teams at least, unless the seller just listed the pre-orders, it is hard to believe any orders now will be in the first run.

Especially if FansToys continue to use their allocation method of basing on Road King / Maverick quantity.

Let's take Iceman for example. I just checked that the monthly sales is 192 at LBP. Since some people let the timer run out, the total units is probably 250 to 300. This gives us an estimate of the first run allocation for a relatively large seller.

I pre-ordered FT-31D and E pretty late (end May 2019). I don't think I will get them in the first run...

 

I did not because I could not preorder (ended up paying the 620 yuan street price), but several people in a forum in China confirmed this (and it's consistent with that happened with older figures). In fact, one store that I preordered even mentions that they give 150 yuan discounts to any preorder.

 

Can you confirm if it is 490 + 30 (deposit) or 520 + 30 (deposit)? I believe it should be be latter.

(If the former, maybe I need to change store.  )

Do you have the link to the store?  

 

From what I've got, it was 520 + 30.

This one: 首页-强值装甲玩具铺-淘宝网

But I've just noted that they do not give this discount to all preorders - "Enter the store to buy products over 999 yuan (excluding one-time purchases of replenishment products and special products), minus 150 yuan!".

So to try and prevent not getting preorders in the future, I ended up preordering a lot of future FT relates in the last few weeks:

Preorders


FT-02 - Acoustic Wave (Shockwave) - 3 units

FT-02B - 2 units

FT-21 - Berserk (Blitzwing) - 2 units

FT-25 - Outrider (Trailbreaker) - 2 units

FT-26 - Chomp (Skullcrusher) - 2 units

FT -30B - Iceman - 2 units

FT-31B - Magnum - 3 units

FT-31D - Smokey (Dragstrip) - 2 units

FT-31D - Bandit (Deadend) + partes Menasor - 2 units

FT-41 - Sheridan - 2 units

FT-42 - Hunk - 3 units

FT-44 - Thomas - 4 units

FT 40 - (Fortress Maximus) - 2 units

FT 40A - (Cerebros) - 2 units

FT-45 - Spindrift 2.0 (Seaspray) - 1 unit

FT-46 - Tesla 2.0 (Perceptor) - 2 units

FT-47 - (Huffer) - 2 units

FT-48 - (Jazz) - 2 units

FT-49 - (Mirage) - 2 units

FT-XX - (Blaster) - 2 units

FT-XX - (Cliffjumper) 2 units

 

Per my seller, the 1st batch pre-orders for limbs were gone after the release of Road King because it is a huge success. I was too naive at that time and I didn't preorder. Al other subsequent preorders from some sellers are for reissue which do not have a schedule, so I am running out of idea but to preorder through TCP and 30D and 30B are sold out.

I think this is what @nhyone and I keep talking about: you are NOT supposed to use any coupon on per-ordered items.

To say this, the 'only' significant discount by per-ordering is probably just FT. For all other companies, the preordered discount is around 30-50 yuan which you can always get the through using in-store coupon when they are in stock.

I seldom pre-order anything other than FT unless the product is so hot.

 

Hum, isn't this mentioned clearly? I remember seeing this and never applying a coupon.

 

Okay, so it is ~$77 then.

I don't see this note in the store, but from your description, it sounds like a 150 off 1,000 yuan store coupon.

Good deal if you buy just over 1k worth of stuff (regular items). It is equivalent to 15% off.

 

I meant to say FT-31D Smokey. Lol.
But yeah maybe more units will be available upon release.

 

@ChromeMagnus What did your Taobao to Superbuy purchase total come out to? Curious if the math makes sense to do it this way, or give up and pay the markup for a North American retailer. Thanks in advance.

 

You mean for my preordered FT-30B Iceman? At the moment it is sitting in the SB warehouse. I haven't paid for shipping yet. I'm going to wait and ship it with FT-41 Sheridan and Ft-31 Magnum, both due out next month.
So far I've paid about $85 USD before shipping. I paid for the preorder deposit and in-stock balance payment through Taobao directly (allows me to avoid SB service fees since I'm actually purchasing myself directly) and had the item shipped to Superbuy's warehouse address.

If I were to ship out Iceman alone right now, these would be my shipping cost options.
If I were to ship Iceman alone right now I would choose one of the following shipping options:
-EMS Wuhan
-EUB (same as ePacket)
-China Post.

This method I'm doing allows me to avoid USA sales tax.

 

I'm thinking for trying this out. Is the $85 including the alipay fees? I want to compare it to what it costs to buy using superbuy as the purchaser and see how much difference the exchange rate is. Can I have the actual yuan amount the figure is?

My EMS Wuhan shipment was finally picked up on the 25th after sitting in the warehouse ready to be picked up by the couriers since the 19th. Which according to superbuy is the norm right now. Its already at the Shanghai sorting center.

I have my finger's crossed that it gets through the airport quickly once it reaches there. I think I'll sacrifice a Hasbro siege target master to the post office gods for safe and speedy delivery.

 

Yes the $85 includes the preorder deposit I paid last year (5/24/2019 almost exactly one year ago), the instock balance I paid last week, and the Alipay fee for each of those transactions.

The lower 5XX discounted price is for those who preordered. I could have shaved off another 20 yuan but I forgot to apply the additional coupon voucher while I was checking out. They are sold out at the moment.
FansToys FT-30B Iceman 空袭 大无畏合体 变形机器人玩具小蜜蜂-淘宝网


Hopefully your shipment doesn't take forever to arrive. Please keep us posted every step of the way.

 

It's nice to know SB warehouse doesn't pad the weight a bit like the TB warehouse does.

 

I got LBP to issue me a partial refund of 38 yuan ($5.31 USD) for incorrectly overcharging me for the balance payment including the local courier fee which wasn't charged to @nhyone.
So my price for FT-30B Iceman so far is about $80 USD before shipping.

 

Which is still less than the street prices of 86-87. A comment I got from a Chinese forum is that Little Bee prices are not the best (which might be the reason that you are paying more than the 73 US total that some other preorders are charging), however, they are the most reliable, because the comments said that Little Bee seems to be the usual FT "almost official" venue.

 

Yes. My total paid so far for Iceman is 550 yuan (30 yuan deposit + 520 remaining balance) = $76.72 USD + 3% Alipay fees = 566.5 yuan = $80 USD before shipping. That's the norm for Iceman preorders from other TB sellers from what I've been seeing. That's also the total @solskjaer paid for his preorder from his TB seller (not LBP).

 

Ah, ok, sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

Yes. In fact I pay 555 yuan in total which including 1% by paying through a credit card (not Alipay balance). My seller told me Alipay charges them 1% if I pay through a credit card. Big sellers usually don’t care about this tiny fee though.