Packaging, Shipping, Refunds and Replacements - Share your Experiences!

[Firshizzle]

What's wrong with IST's site?

[AJpyro]

What's wrong with IST's site?

Oh god. Please not them. They're the only good place I buy my comics from.

[Brewman]

What's wrong with IST's site?

I usually get some older books when I pick up new releases as I worked my way through my wish list budget allowing and their search function would always give me all kinds of not what I typed in. For instance I would type in Fantastic Four omnibus not only would it give me pages of other FF books outside of omni's but it would also throw in other books with omnibus in the title. There were times when it would not even pop the book I was trying to search for even though it was only a month or so old. Short story long.... I hate their search function.

[VanWinkle]

I usually get some older books when I pick up new releases as I worked my way through my wish list budget allowing and their search function would always give me all kinds of not what I typed in. For instance I would type in Fantastic Four omnibus not only would it give me pages of other FF books outside of omni's but it would also throw in other books with omnibus in the title. There were times when it would not even pop the book I was trying to search for even though it was only a month or so old. Short story long.... I hate their search function.

I adore IST as a service, but you're 100% right about their site. Their search and browsing experience are terrible.

Regardless, I buy from them 75%+ of the time because their service is worth it.

[kodave]

I'm starting to get kinda' peeved at Cheap Graphic Novels.

I order form them because they're not too far, and even though they ship with Media Mail, I'll get my orders a day or two after they ship.

Thing is, they used to take only a day or two to ship an order out. Now, for may last few orders, it seems to take them around 7 days (not including weekends) to ship something out!

What gives?

I notice on their website they post notices when Diamond screws up their shipment and they're missing books or books arrived damaged, thus delaying orders with those books in them. Maybe those are your orders? If not, maybe their service is just declining. I remember last year around the holidays they were really behind on shipping out orders, I think because they had a big sale and couldn't keep up with the orders. It could be that too even though we're still a few weeks away from American Thanksgiving.

I am having the same frustrations. I have been using them over ist because I haaaaate navigating ist's website, but the delays are starting to get old. Also it seems that every week they are having supply issues on their header, gotta wonder if Diamond is having problems or is cgn.

Their search functionality is pretty bad and worse than CGN's, but it's not impossible to use. CGN's site isn't that hot either but at least the search works better and they keep their future releases updated more frequently.

[Brewman]

I notice on their website they post notices when Diamond screws up their shipment and they're missing books or books arrived damaged, thus delaying orders with those books in them. Maybe those are your orders? If not, maybe their service is just declining. I remember last year around the holidays they were really behind on shipping out orders, I think because they had a big sale and couldn't keep up with the orders. It could be that too even though we're still a few weeks away from American Thanksgiving.



Their search functionality is pretty bad and worse than CGN's, but it's not impossible to use. CGN's site isn't that hot either but at least the search works better and they keep their future releases updated more frequently.

The CGN shipping delays have been ongoing since early summer, at least from my experience. Now that I am mostly caught up on my oddball old release wish list books, I am seriously looking at switching my business to IST and see if they are faster at this point. The other reason I will give another shot at IST is the way CGN is cutting release week discounts on books they know will be hot and IST has yet to do that to my knowledge. Throw in the shipping break and the rolling 2% discount and I start to wonder why I stuck with CGN so long other than I am an extreme creature of habit.

[slop101]

I notice on their website they post notices when Diamond screws up their shipment and they're missing books or books arrived damaged, thus delaying orders with those books in them. Maybe those are your orders? If not, maybe their service is just declining. I remember last year around the holidays they were really behind on shipping out orders, I think because they had a big sale and couldn't keep up with the orders. It could be that too even though we're still a few weeks away from American Thanksgiving.

No, I'm aware of their notices of missing/late books, and my orders never have those in them. They're always books that they have in stock, ready to ship. There hasn't been any major sales or a lot of huge releases. Maybe they used to have a bigger crew fulfilling orders and now they're down to just one guy packing all the boxes? If that's the case, they should pass the savings along.

[Cold Water]

For me, IST's search engine is too broad. But other than that, I'm not experiencing anything bad. I get the occasional "expired" page if I try to go back, but I just redo the search. If I need to find a book, I google, and then find it on amazon (if it's not in stock, it was at one time, so it should still show up), and then I look for it on IST.

[Rimmer]

Their search functionality is pretty bad and worse than CGN's, but it's not impossible to use. CGN's site isn't that hot either but at least the search works better and they keep their future releases updated more frequently.

I use TOW almost exclusively, since they're the same company as IST I'm betting they use the same search engine/backdone, as TOW's is very difficult to use as well. Example, you enter in "green lantern omnibus", you would think it would ONLY pull up items with those 3 words, but it pulls up TONS of pages of GL stuff, and somewhere in the mix willthe 5 omnibuses mixed in. I typically use the little pics to find what i'm looking for vs the text as it's all jumbled, you can't sort, etc...

BUT, I LOVE TOW - their pricing, their preorder service, their loyalty program, their customer service, their packing, etc... I actually just ordered from IST a week ago (due to their sale), and had no issues. I highly recommend them. Although TOW never has sales anymore at all - they let IST have the sales while TOW just sits there, I guess...

[mtop2036]

tow and ist are the same people?

[kodave]

I use TOW almost exclusively, since they're the same company as IST I'm betting they use the same search engine/backdone, as TOW's is very difficult to use as well. Example, you enter in "green lantern omnibus", you would think it would ONLY pull up items with those 3 words, but it pulls up TONS of pages of GL stuff, and somewhere in the mix willthe 5 omnibuses mixed in. I typically use the little pics to find what i'm looking for vs the text as it's all jumbled, you can't sort, etc...

BUT, I LOVE TOW - their pricing, their preorder service, their loyalty program, their customer service, their packing, etc... I actually just ordered from IST a week ago (due to their sale), and had no issues. I highly recommend them. Although TOW never has sales anymore at all - they let IST have the sales while TOW just sits there, I guess...

tow and ist are the same people?

DCBS and IST are the same company. They bought the online portion of TOW within the past couple of years. So now they're all essentially the same company. It is interesting that they've maintained the TOW storefront online rather than just redirect customers to IST or DCBS.

But I don't think IST uses the same search functionality as TOW, at least not purposefully as a result of the buyout. Maybe it's the same if they coincidentally used the same web platform or programmer.

One guess might be that perhaps the search is intentionally broad so you see more products you might want to buy. But that doesn't necessarily excuse it from not ranking the search results by relevancy.

It would be great if IST could have a more robust wishlist functionality too. Amazon perfected the wishlist game with the ability to make multiple wishlists. It would be nice to sort all the stuff I've got on my IST wishlist by title or publisher or character or whatever I choose.

[Cold Water]

I ordered 4 TPBs from IST on Friday. It's been a while since I had placed an order with them. My ordered arrived today in basically a portable bomb shelter. I had forgotten how well they packed their stuff.

[Cold Water]

It would be great if IST could have a more robust wishlist functionality too. Amazon perfected the wishlist game with the ability to make multiple wishlists. It would be nice to sort all the stuff I've got on my IST wishlist by title or publisher or character or whatever I choose.

Yes. I just would like a priority setting for mine. And the ability to leave comments. All the comments for books on my wishlist state to check IST for cheaper pricing.

[Hellboydce]

My most anticipated book of the year arrives (The Goon) only for all corners to be dented and dust cover creased, I am getting increasingly pissed off by speedyhens packaging, usually just a cardboard wrap around, smaller books come in cardboard mailers and these are usually ok, but for big books this flimsy cardboard they put them in is not good enough, I know speedyhen are cheap, but in the email I fired off to them asking for a replacement I said I would happily pay a quid or two more just for them to come in proper boxes with some padding, they could at least offer the choice on checkout

[Balakin]

My most anticipated book of the year arrives (The Goon) only for all corners to be dented and dust cover creased, I am getting increasingly pissed off by speedyhens packaging, usually just a cardboard wrap around, smaller books come in cardboard mailers and these are usually ok, but for big books this flimsy cardboard they put them in is not good enough, I know speedyhen are cheap, but in the email I fired off to them asking for a replacement I said I would happily pay a quid or two more just for them to come in proper boxes with some padding, they could at least offer the choice on checkout

usually there is express delivery that may be the solution although probably it's not available with preorders. Maybe it worth an email when you preorder next time.
Mine only has a small dent on one of the corners, nothing to complain about just a mild annoyance.