My BigBadToyStore.com Experience

by isaac on Apr.20, 2010, under Figures, Thoughts

Having rekindled my Transformers interest, I find myself checking a couple of Transformers fan sites daily nowadays, checking on news of new figures, new happenings, conventions & stuff like that. It’s a very lively community, with yearly Botcon conventions organised by Transformers Collectors’ Club & Hasbro in the USA. There are BotCon organised elsewhere around the globe too like in Europe & Japan.

Two sites I check daily nowadays are Transformer World 2005 (TFW2005 in short) & Seibertron.com. TFW2005 is more of a forum while Seibertron is more of a news site. There’s a gallery section in Seibertron where you can check out tons of galleries of past & present Transformers figures. Browsing these 2 sites, I can’t help but notice a link to BigBadToyStore.com on both sites. So curiously, I went to check it out. Turns out it’s huge online toy store with an amazing variety of selection you can gawk at. They sell mint as well as 2nd hand toys in loose, opened or sealed form which is great as buying used toys is the only way to get some very hard to find figures, provided you can afford it of course. My focus was of course Transformers, in particular the Alternators section. As mentioned in my Transformers! Final Part post, Alternators are rare collectible figures now so I was wondering if I might be able to find 1 or 2 figures that I was looking for at reasonable prices. To my surprise, there were 2 figures, in good shape (one is sealed, one is opened but Back in Box condition) & price wise I can afford it. So I took the plunge, created an account, paid for it with my credit card & sat on the order for a while, wondering how I was going to ship it back here.

I had 2 options for shipping it back, use BigBadToyStore shipping by US Parcel or use Borderlinx, a shopping consolidation service by Citibank. Shipping it by US Parcel was cheaper but slower delivery (3 weeks) & most likely will get stuck in customs. Shipping it by Borderlinx was a little more expensive but faster delivery (5 days) & might slip through customs, depending on my luck. So I decided to use Borderlinx & try it out. I’ll blog about the Borderlinx experience seperately as it was not a very smooth one, unfortunately.

So finally, I got my package from BigBadToyStore, delivered via Borderlinx & here are some pictures to commemorate the ‘joyous’ occasion.

Overall I’m very happy with the packaging & how they sealed each box individually. I have no issues recommending BigBadToyStore to anyone, but please keep in mind, you’re shipping from USA so shipping cost is a bomb. Always try other cheaper alternatives in finding your rare figure, whenever possible. But if you can find an alternative method to ship it back, then shopping on BigBadToyStore is highly recommended, especially since they have clearance sales quite often.

UPDATE 21/04/2010: Talk about coincidence. BigBadToyStore is having a 15% sale on almost everything till this Friday, April 23, 2010!!! So go check it out.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday was BigBadToyStore has a ‘Pile of Loot’ shipping system. What this does is allow you to buy an item, store it in their warehouse for up to 6 months, all the while adding new items you wanna buy to the pile. A great way to consolidate stuff you want to buy & ship it in one go. I still have stuff sitting in my ‘pile’ over there now .

11 Comments for this entry

TS Lim
April 20th, 2010 on 6:19 pm
You going to leave them in their boxes?
isaac
April 20th, 2010 on 6:30 pm
Eh, what do you think? Of course not lah. Already opened after taking those pics.
John Wong
April 20th, 2010 on 7:01 pm
u getting paid for your free marketing kah?
Joshua
April 21st, 2010 on 7:13 am
Ooo, someone got new toys to play with. Literally. Lol.
isaac
April 21st, 2010 on 12:04 pm
@john Well, you mentioned already, it’s free marketing. Would you pay me if I did free marketing for you? Kakakaka

@josh LOL! I have a lot more new ones actually. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Nex
April 21st, 2010 on 6:08 pm
Always good to come across another serious Malaysian collector willing to go the extra mile to get what he really wants.

I’ve met so many who ask me to e this and that for them, but refuse to pay the shipping when I find it…

Would love to see your collection one day
isaac
April 23rd, 2010 on 1:59 am
Hi there Nex! Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, shipping is the one thing that can really make or break a deal. I myself ran into this, I’ll explain it in my next post about Borderlinx.

I’ll be posting more about the additions to my collection so stay tuned

p/s: Amazing job you did with Daniel M. on Joanna’s costume. It looked super kick ass!
Massy
April 23rd, 2010 on 7:38 am
I never get anything from US before. Though I owez get *uhuk~ toys/figurine from Japan.
isaac
April 24th, 2010 on 1:39 am
Hey Massy! So which Japanese site you always get your stuff from? I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.
Nick Wong
April 27th, 2010 on 11:46 am
I like the Pile of Loot option. You never when something you’re looking for will suddenly pop out from BBTS but your order has already been shipped out, making you pay twice for the shipping!
isaac
April 27th, 2010 on 6:09 pm
@Nick Yeah, Pile of Loot is perfect for international customers. And good stuff can really pop out all of a sudden in BBTS & disappear as quickly. But I managed to grab a Beast Wars Transmetal Rattrap this way.