wednesday_10_00 | don't panic but

I meant to ask you or s_vamp about the "bk1 site renewal" email I received. Did you get that?

I don't know how I feel, honestly. I was feeling guilty/nervous about my plan to place my latest order with Amazon because I feared that not having my little contributions would somehow break bk1, and I like having options. However, if I'm only going to order twice a year, I might as well order from Amazon or mangaoh and get G-Defend. I am very sad about my order history being purged. I could download it to preserve it, but then I will forget where I've put it, yadda. It's just not the same.

Mostly I'm nervous because I don't hang out in fannish circles anymore and -- if honto doesn't work out as an option -- how will I learn about new SAL-shipping-friendly bookstores?

(Hee. I see your posts.)

I meant to ask you or s_vamp about the "bk1 site renewal" email I received. Did you get that?

Ha, probably, but I tend to delete emails they send me that don't have gift certificates. (I know this is a bad habit, because I suspect that's why I didn't know about the end of their magazine subscription service until they actually stopped sending me magazines.)

I am not exactly what you would call a loyal bk1 customer, but it will make me extremely sad to have no cheap option (relatively speaking) for ordering manga. :/

(Shh! Don't give away my super-secret-not-at-all-obvious username!)

I got the email, and it sounded to me that they were just adding e-book service on top of what they were already doing.

Here's the pertinent quote:
今回のリニューアルで、検索機能の向上やビーケーワン・モバイルビーケーワ
ンの統合に加えて、新たに電子書籍の取り扱いや提携書店でも貯まる新ポイン
トサービスを追加し、これまで以上に快適でお客様のお役にたつサービスを提
供してまいります。

"With this renewal, in addition to enhancing the search function and combining bk1 and mobile-bk1, we will handle e-books and you can earn points on the cell phone site, so we will be providing you with even more helpful service than before."

It doesn't say anything about shipping options specifically, though.

it sounded to me that they were just adding e-book service on top of what they were already doing.

I dunno, I think the fact that they are taking on the name of the (existing) e-book site makes it seem more significant than that.

A guy on the forum I linked to checked with them specifically, and they said they are keeping the same shipping options the same, so at least (for now) we'll still be able to order SAL. But the fact that they won't accept new international customers sure makes it seem like they're discouraging international business, and I think that's not a very good sign for us.

But the fact that they won't accept new international customers sure makes it seem like they're discouraging international business, and I think that's not a very good sign for us.

I read that passage you quoted, and I think you are interpreting it too strictly. To me, when I read a phrase like "our international customers" they aren't specifically referring to people who have ordered in the past, they mean "any international person in a country that we service." They're just being polite about it by using the word "customer."

when I read a phrase like "our international customers" they aren't specifically referring to people who have ordered in the past, they mean "any international person in a country that we service."

Well, first of all, I don't know how you get "our international customers" out of これまで海外発送をご利用いただいていたお客様. But more importantly, the other guy in the thread wrote and specifically asked them (because he also thought I was being too literal) and they confirmed it. New customers (or customers who have only placed domestic orders in the past) won't be able to ship internationally after the change.

...and what if I move? Will I be able to register a new international address? So alarming. (Don't know what to make of "progress"'s cynical take on how they might treat international orders. But I do now know how I feel about the change: sad. Or that could be the coffee prince kicking in.)

Will I be able to register a new international address?

Jeez, I didn't think of that. I hope so, since it would still be the same account which has placed international orders before.

Don't know what to make of "progress"'s cynical take on how they might treat international orders.

Best to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen, I guess. :/

But more importantly, the other guy in the thread wrote and specifically asked them (because he also thought I was being too literal) and they confirmed it.

Well, in that case, you're absolutely right about it being a bad sign. It also seems like an extremely strange policy. <sigh> It will be a real shame if the changes eventually result in having to stop using them as a service.

It also seems like an extremely strange policy.

Totally agreed (which is why I read that sentence about 50 times, thinking I must be misunderstanding it). I'm happy for the time being to be grandfathered in, but it doesn't make me comfortable about the future; I feel like this is the first step in phasing out international customers entirely.

Wow, that makes me feel like I should place an order with them now to make sure I'm in their international database. I have ordered with them before, of course, but it's probably been at least a year.

Sigh... I love their cheap shipping, but have always found their ability to communicate clearly with their customers to be... less than I would desire. I suspect they never liked dealing with international customers that much.

I never want to discourage someone from ordering manga, but...just check your order history with them, instead?

Though I understand your concern about how long it has been. I just checked my history and had forgotten the order I placed with bk1 in 11/2011. Before that, my previous order had been in 7/2009, and I fear they would have taken this opportunity to purge me from the system. Of course, not accepting new international customers means this is a constantly shrinking aspect of their business. If they don't open up registration, they will eventually shut it down when the international customer base shrinks to an unsustainable level.

It appears my last order with them was in late 2010, so definitely more than a year.

(Also, am glad I had a chance to go in and save a copy of my order history; I like to squirrel away things like that.)

They do seem to have my current address on file, but I have a pretty large backlog of things I haven't gotten around to ordering, so it would probably make sense to put in another order with them before the change, just to be safe.

I had a chance to go in and save a copy of my order history

Just out of curiosity, did you save the web pages, or just the information? I guess I consider my order history to be preserved in gmail, so I'm not worried about that.

I saved the whole web page. I have order history going back to 2005, so it predates my gmail. I could dig up the same information by going into my financial records, but having it all in one place is more convenient.

it predates my gmail

Same for me, but I imported all my old MSU mail into gmail when I started, so I have it there anyway. (I just checked to make sure, and I found the registration email and everything. Really could have deleted some of the other junk they've sent me, but I'm too lazy to do anything about that now, so oh well.)

You don't want to know how much email I have archived from before gmail (it goes back to 1993... some of it is in pine). At various times I've transferred the archive into newer formats so I can still access it (at the moment all my archives live in Mail on the mac) but it is a giant pain to search.

I occasionally transfer some of the old mail into gmail for easier access, but honestly I don't want my gmail burdened with every #$%@! message I've ever saved.

Hee! OK, I actually just used this as an excuse to try out the search features in Mail. It dug up all my old BK1 messages pretty quickly, going back to 2005 -- not bad. I'm still glad I saved the order history page with everything handily listed in one place, though.

I'm still glad I saved the order history page

Am I missing a handy "show all my orders on one page" link? Because for me this is 14 separate pages. Or, if I saved by invoice instead of order history, maybe 50+ pages.

Yikes, that's a lot of history! My order history all fits on one page, but I haven't ordered from bk1 nearly as much as you have, I think. I tend to use Amazon more often (I deal poorly with delayed gratification).

Drat. Now that I've decided to do this, I was hoping that option existed. (I love how I shifted from NOT planning on preserving the order history to "Sara's done it. Now I have to.")

Um, sorry? :-)

FWIW, these days I mostly save web pages by using the print to PDF feature on the Mac, which is pretty quick. Not as complete as saving a web archive, I suppose, but it's not like I'll ever need this information for anything other than morbid curiosity, anyway.

Do you back up your drives in "the cloud"? For me, downloading the web pages would become a nightmare of transmitting the documents from one drive to the next. Gah. Digital flotsam.

I am a pack rat sans compare. Just about every digital piece of flotsam that I have ever created on any computer is dutifully transferred from one computer to the next. I keep everything aggregated in one or two places, so it's not hard to transfer without keeping track of the bits.

If you really care that much about my backup strategies: the core of my data is backed up via Dropbox. Things which are either too big or not important enough to be in Dropbox (I have 50G storage there) are backed up automatically and wirelessly from laptop(s) to network drive. The network drive is backed up to an external drive.

And I still feel like I'm not quite backed up enough (what if a power surge fried both the network drive and the external drive? never mind the UPS/surge unit I have on them)... I have issues with my possessions.

their ability to communicate clearly with their customers to be... less than I would desire.

Yes. As evidenced by the disconnect between

spacealien_vamp's impression from the email that was sent out and the actual changes they are making. Just because they don't have many international customers doesn't mean we don't deserve to know what's going on.

don't panic but

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