General question about shipping etc for Mandarake listings

oxypetalus · Post by **oxypetalus** » Thu May 27, 2010 4:14 pm

I have never purchased from Mandarake before but have been watching the auctions for a while. I have a few questions for users who have won cels from them before.

How are the shipping charges and packaging? (Please note what country you were shipping to and what you won)

Do they ever re-list items that don't get bids? (I looked at some past listings and saw a few things I would've liked :/ )

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Thu May 27, 2010 4:36 pm

Shipping depends on what you order (is it a book? cel? poster.. etc)
But in my experience it hovers around $15-25 dollars for cels and posters.
For books and shikishi around $12-18.
<-- in US

Packaging is excellent. They are very professional, and once you
pay they ship a.s.a.p. I've had incidents where I won, paid, and 48hrs later
had the cel in my hand-- and once, just 1 day after I paid. O_O

And no, they never re-list things that end w/o bids.
They typically sell them in their stores after auction or pass
them to another store location. But they don't reappear online
in their everyday or bwa auctions.

Sky Rat · Post by **Sky Rat** » Thu May 27, 2010 4:54 pm

Shampoo wrote:
And no, they never re-list things that end w/o bids.
They typically sell them in their stores after auction or pass
them to another store location. But they don't reappear online
in their everyday or bwa auctions.

I've seen the same background from Pom Poko listed twice, as well as a Lil' Bits cel that didn't sell thefirst time. I don't usually see items reappear but I'm pretty certain I've seen it occasionally.

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Thu May 27, 2010 5:09 pm

've seen the same background from Pom Poko listed twice, as well as a Lil' Bits cel that didn't sell thefirst time. I don't usually see items reappear but I'm pretty certain I've seen it occasionally.

Hmm..

dont think I've ever seen or heard them
re-list items that go w/o bids in the past but oh well! I guess they
must on some occasion if you have seen it
w/ some items.

Personally, I cant vouch for all items only what I've
seen from cels/sketch portion bidding on their site, but one of the
Mandy workers who handles the english orders gave me
the exact answer I just typed up after I asked the very same
question that oxypetalus asked in particular about an
item I wanted that ended w/o bids.

jenn-b · Post by **jenn-b** » Thu May 27, 2010 5:34 pm

Just got my invoice for a huge framed piece. It looks like it will be around $50 for shipping. So if you are looking at something big, keep that in mind. Well worth it for me though!

teggacat · Post by **teggacat** » Thu May 27, 2010 5:44 pm

pretty much "ditto" to what Shampoo said, about $15-$25 for a cel, I only ever purchased cels /sketches from Mandarake so I can't speak for other types of items, but everything was always packaged very well, and sent very quickly, no probs ever.

jenn-b wrote:Just got my invoice for a huge framed piece. It looks like it will be around $50 for shipping. So if you are looking at something big, keep that in mind. Well worth it for me though!

Jenn-b, that's really not a bad ship quote for a large framed piece, sure beats a deputy!!!

jenn-b · Post by **jenn-b** » Thu May 27, 2010 6:26 pm

I totally agree. I think it's completely fair. Heck, my last deputy parcel from Japan cost me around $200.

theultimatebrucelee · Post by **theultimatebrucelee** » Thu May 27, 2010 6:54 pm

their packaging is decent most of the time, for cel I think its pretty good(only got one cel from them). and the shipping fee is reasonable as I don't think they charge more than what they get charged, unlike some proxy services that I had used, one charges packaging fee and the other charges "box fee", 1000yen per shipping box..

off topic, but I've only ordered about 4 time from them this year and they had already managed to make mistake and shipping me the wrong item while shipping my item to other people..and of course, I got the short end(the much cheaper item)

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:59 pm

Shampoo wrote:But they don't reappear online
in their everyday or bwa auctions.

Art items that don't sell in the BWA tend to pop up at the Nakano store. There's a seperate little store on the 4th(?) floor where the higher end cels & genga can be found. The starting price for items in this store seems to be about 10,000 yen and up. All the items are behind glass and you have to ask a store representative to look/buy the item.

I guess that's good, though. When you see how some of these potential buyers treat the items in the dollar bins, it'll make you cringe. I saw one guy forcefully drop the cels in the dollar bin back. I guess that's why each cel comes packaged in heavy duty cardboard.

As for packaging items, Mandarake does a really good good and the shipping prices are very fair. They ship all their items EMS and that's usually guaranteed for up to $200. Normally, I pay $15-$20 for one cel/sketch item and for an oversized framed cel, I paid $75.

oxypetalus · Post by **oxypetalus** » Fri May 28, 2010 11:13 am

Thanks for the info everyone. Soo it seems I'll just assume the worst and expect that the item I was interested in won't be re-listed as re-listing very rarely occurs

Sky Rat · Post by **Sky Rat** » Fri May 28, 2010 12:22 pm

I think the items I saw twice were listed the first time corresponding with the last BWA (in the regular auctions.) So they might have been an exception to the norm, the Mandarake figuring they would have sold if people hadn't been so focused on the big auction (and they were right, at least one of the things I was looking at did sell the second time.)

It'd probably be safer to assume what everyone else advised, that they don't relist.