IST (instocktrades.com) problems

[signalman112]

I saw that SPECTRE: THE WRATH OF THE SPECTRE was was back this past Tuesday morning. I had no problem placing an order.
Although it hasn't shipped yet.
Keeping fingers crossed.
Finding this Omnibus at a decent discount hasn't been easy.

[doolittle]

Posted on Facebook for all the good it will do.

Dear DCBS & IST,

I am writing this letter to express my love of comics, the industry, and my concern of what is currently happening on Instocktrades.com on Tuesday afternoons at 12PM EST, 3PM PST.

Firstly, I want to thank you for all of the many years of service and endless entertainment. You provide quality service at an unbeatable price. I also want to note that these are indeed extraordinary times and circumstances that we’re all living in. People have lost jobs, livelihoods, careers, family members, homes, etc. I’m not minimizing traumatic experiences or these awful events. You’ve been able to stay open in spite of this current pandemic, thank you!

I do want to acknowledge that you’ve addressed issues regarding the ongoing situation with a disclaimer on your web page about shipping, and volume of emails. That being said, I feel that the situation has reached a tipping point in terms of my patience and the understanding of the community at large.

I, (and I know of dozens of others) have waited over a month for books to ship. I’m not talking about USP, USPS, or FedEx, I’m talking about the amount of time you take to get the orders to the shipping service. I see my books either waiting to be shipped, or have been picked and scanned and not shipped for weeks at a time. This to me is completely unacceptable because you’re literally “sitting” on items that I have paid for a month or longer. I then send an email to ask, “why” or “what the status” of something is and I do not receive a response.

This is unprofessional, and extremely poor business practice since your website is the primary way that your business communicates and disseminates information about goods to the general public, and when items ship. The community isn’t receiving information from you, and your patrons aren’t being communicated with, by you. It is extremely concerning that people would spend hundreds of dollars worth of goods only to be ignored by the company that they just gave money to. Communication to the customer is key!

What is worse is when orders that are created are then, later, canceled. Sometimes weeks go by before you communicate that you don’t have said book. This is awful, because in that time I would’ve found a different company that has that book and I would’ve been able to buy that before it is completely gone, or OOP (out of print). Refunds are all well and good, but not when you’re still sitting on money with customers not getting what they paid for! This needs to speed up!

I also feel as though the web site has become unusable on Tuesday afternoons, with error messages and loading timeouts. It took me 40 minutes to get the books that I wanted to purchase and complete my order. The increased demand of new releases should’ve been anticipated, and prepared for. It was not, and is an ongoing issue.

I know that you’re (hopefully) following CDC guidelines, and practicing social distancing. Other companies have adapted to add more shifts so all workers aren’t there at the same time, or hired more people to answer emails and inquiries - this can be done remotely. If it’s a supply chain issue talk to Diamond, Lunar, or UCS Distributors and collaborate on some kind of a work around. If it’s a website traffic issue, (which I work in IT and I can tell you it is), get a new server!

You go on record stating, “You’ve more business than you know what to do with”, and yet don’t take steps to address that. This is frustrating! Please note that large discounts don’t translate to “best customer services”, nor does it always mean that I, or other comic book collectors, will always blithely use your service just because of “cheap prices”.

I love IST. I love the comic book community. I love reading comics and I love the service I (used to) get from IST. I always want to be able to buy my books from IST or DCBS, and I hope that things are soon fixed so I still can! Thank you for your time, and service that you’ve provided for us all!


Best,
Adam

Did you get an answer to this, Knapp? I'm pretty much out of patience with IST/DCBS. I'm going to look into ordering my books from other retailers.

[signalman112]

I saw that SPECTRE: THE WRATH OF THE SPECTRE was was back this past Tuesday morning. I had no problem placing an order.
Although it hasn't shipped yet.
Keeping fingers crossed.
Finding this Omnibus at a decent discount hasn't been easy.

Turns out I had no problems at all.
Book shipped Oct 30th and arrived Nov. 4th.
Very Acceptable.

[Captain Craig]

IST has a new layout. The function of the site has been altered, so far I like what I see. Will explore the Search functions etc later, see if that has improved. Always thought the ability to Search for upcoming titles was cumbersome.

[stgeorge602]

Last time I ordered from IST was June 2019. I never had an issue and on occassion some orders took a little while but overall it was a good experience. They email response time was hit or miss; at times they responded in a timely manner and others it would take a few days.

Reading through this thread, and living through this pandemic, it made me hesitate to place an order because some have mentioned long waits, sometimes a month or two as well as items being out of stock.

Thursday (11/5) I placed an order for six items, (Superman: City of Tomorrow vols 1-2; Mister Miracle Deluxe; Thor by Aaron vol 4; Event Leviathan; and Superman vol 3 Truth Revelaed.

Later that evening I decided to cancel three items and emailed them. I figures given IST has a backlog of emails my order would take a while and they would get the email and be able to remove the items. To my surprise they responded back yesterday (11/6) apologizing for inconvenience caused because the items already shipped.

This has been one of the faster processed and shipped orders I've gotten from them. I would say my average processing and shipping time with them is usually about a week.

[Big Bad Voodoo Lou]

I placed an order on 10/31 for four books, just over $50, so I qualified for free shipping. I still paid the $4 upcharge for UPS ground shipping, through.

A week later, two of the four books are showing up as "picked and scanned," while the other two are still "waiting to process."

Should I be concerned, or is this business as usual?

[Captain Craig]

^^^Business as Usual.

I don't recall the exact date but week 2 or 3 of October I placed an order for two books.
After two+weeks I get an email saying their distributor doesn't know when more of TMNT vol.11 OHC will come in would I like a book of same value or revoke that book and send my remaining selection?

I replied, if it is a request you can accommodate may I suggest a door #3? I'd like to continue to wait as I'm in no rush, plenty to read till then.
I got no reply but about 6-8 days later I got a "your order has shipped email" and it was that order with the TMNT. I say 'that order' as I had already placed another.

Did it take just shy a month to get it, yeah. Is that a big deal, to some you'd think so, to me it is not.

[Nick Miller]

IST has a new layout. The function of the site has been altered, so far I like what I see. Will explore the Search functions etc later, see if that has improved. Always thought the ability to Search for upcoming titles was cumbersome.

Smh when i searched there in the past, I never ever understood why I get 3,982 results for the EXACT title of a book.

[Nick Miller]

Now I’m getting an alert about the site being masked by another site smh.

[Andru]

My last 2 orders (both placed within the last 2 weeks) shipped the day after ordering. So maybe things are starting to return to normal.

Anyone have any idea why IST did not offer the latest MMPR deluxe edition "Beyond the Grid"?

I ended up ordering on Amazon after not seeing it anywhere on IST. It was never even listed under the coming soon section.

[JCinOntario]

New IST layout is improved, but I got a little scared when I didn’t see the 2% bonus discount while browsing. It does show up when you actually go to the cart. Picked up Infnity Saga omni, x-men and marauders tpbs. I see the x-men Omni 2 variant is still available.

[Ramsay Snow]

I did the $4 upgrade for my most recent IST order. It was just the Dini Batman omnibus, along with two other books. I ordered on Tuesday of last week, it's estimated to be at my house on Friday. Not too bad, considering the other complaints I've seen on here.

My previous order that had been sitting in the same spot for 2 weeks never came in. It's been over a month now, lol........I contacted UPS about it last week, they said it looks like they never gave it to USPS, but that IST will need to contact them to resolve it. I'm guessing it'll be seen as a lost package. I've contacted IST twice about this (No reply yet), hopefully it'll be resolved soon so I can get another package sent.

An update on that lost order that was sitting in one spot.........Literally a month ago, IST's customer service contacted me and asked if I wanted a refund or a new shipment of the same books to be sent. I asked for a replacement package. I never received a response after all this time, and didn't see a new shipping notification in my order history.

I checked out IST and all 4 books in that lost package are out of stock, so that's probably why they didn't send a replacement package. I just emailed them asking to just give me a refund, and I ordered the same books from Amazon for about $12 more, total (Which I don't mind, but my fear is Amazon is going to **** my books up due to poor packaging).....CGN didn't have the books, either, which is why I didn't order from them.

Also, I haven't had any problems since doing the shipping upgrades with IST, which is what I'll continue to do during this pandemic.

[Ramsay Snow]

They actually responded an hour and a half later and issued a refund, so all's good.

I guess they're getting back to normal on email response time, judging by what happened today..........The whole thing was annoying, but at least it's resolved and I know to use the shipping bump-up to avoid issues with the USPS.

[knapp40]

Course not!

[Ramsay Snow]

Good news is the books came in from Amazon unscathed.

Back to IST, I will say, since i've been using the shipping upgrade to avoid USPS, the turn-around time from IST has been 9-10 days after I placed the order. Meaning, the books literally get to me in 9-10 days.