somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow

I’ll just say this in advance: I don’t want to sound like I hate the internet or anything, it’s just that the Internet, like most thinks, has a downside in addition to its many advantages. While the only two posts I’ve written seem pretty anti-Internet, I actually like the Internet for all the good things it provides.
Now onto my post!

I’ve recently been staying at my grandparents’ place in LA, and have therefore been taking advantage of the diversity here to look through the numerous anime merchandise shops in the area. (Shops I suggest include Power Anime, Toylet Collectables, and Anime Jungle.) I’ve recently been interested in PVC figures, and those 3 shops have the biggest selection out of all the shops I went.However, while these shops do have great selection, they aren’t perfect, and don’t have everything.
That’s where the online shopping comes in. Some figures I have seen on people’s blogs, but are not in the shops I have visited.Therefore, I resorted to online shops to try to find figures. (I’ll include a list of different anime goods sites below, because I’m just that nice.) However, I think, while using online shops, I really lost some of the shopping experience. Yeah, it sounds lame, but I think some of you may understand what I mean. In a physical shop, you can see all the goods on sale, look at the physical object rather than a 2D picture. Maybe it would be better to say that physical shops are good for browsing, if you don’t know what you want to buy. I personally often find myself in that situation, but I dunno about the rest of you.
Online shops, though convinient, are often more useful if you know what you want to find, as most have this very nice feature called ctrl+find, or a searching function. However, for browsing, the online store lacks, as you only get to see 2D pictures instead of 3D object. This is even more important when buying figures, as figure-buying is a very picky art, depending a lot on how the figure looks in the 3D, not in the 2D. Pictures can give you some information, but not enough information for something as specific as figures. (also, you never know when pictures are photoshopped, or taken from another source. Counterfeits and scams are more common online as well)
When talking about online stores, we also get into the problem of delivery. Shipping costs are often a pain (though not as much anymore because gas prices are going down), and the bought object could be damaged on its way to its destination.
Not only that, but, referencing to what I said in my last post, shopping becomes less personal when you do it through a site. This human interaction is important, at least for me. For example, in one of the stores I went to, the store owner was a pretty cool guy, and would over give me better deals when buying at the actual store than the website advertised. Also, when in a physical shop, you can sometimes haggle with the seller, while in an online store, the numbers are basically set in stone.
Also, because you are just clicking a button, you do not really feel anything when buying an object online. This could lead to irresponsible spending. (though I know I do this in real life too…)
In the end, I think that a combination of both a physical store and some sort of online presence is good. A website is good to advertise yourself, while a physical store is good for interacting with customers. A problem with many of the shops that I went to is that they didn’t have any web presence, so it was hard to determine what they sold, or if they even existed anymore. (the latter problem happened more than you might think…) The three shops I suggested above were all very good in the fact that they had great selection in the physical shop and a well-established web presence which doubled as online stores.

Summary:
Online shops:
pros: looking up specific items, getting the word out about a shop’s existance, all around convenience, can deliver items far away
cons: 2D pictures, less personal, delivery costs and potential problems, counterfeiting/scams, irresponsible shopping (this depends on the person shopping)

Physical shops:
pros: 3D object, browsing (for people who don’t know what they want to buy), more personal (haggling and potential deals), easier to catch counterfeits and scams
cons: looking up specific items, less convenient (have to actually be in the shop), harder to advertise a shop

Having both is definetly the best, as the pros of one often cover the cons of the other.

Lastly, here’s my list of online shops for anime goods (mostly figures). Thanks to dannychoo.com for a majority of this list!
yes-asia
play-asia
hobby-link japan
hobby search
archonia.com
kid nemo company
power anime
toylet collectables
amazon (I think you’d be surpised how many figures amazon has these days…)

(you know, wordpress is kinda annoying because of the fact that its input window for writing posts is tiny… maybe I should write less.)

(just fyi, I never proofread. so don’t blame me for the horrible grammar or spelling, or all around not making any sense at all. I’m pretty brain dead today, so that might be a problem as well…)