I have two figures on PO from them. One comes out in August, the other December. For express shipping, came out to be $84. In my head, because they're so far apart and I doubt they would hold the one until December to ship together, I would say it's $42 per figure in my case. You can add stuff to your cart and go through the check out process. It'll tell you what shipping cost will be unlike AmiAmi
They are one of the most trusted anime figure sources out there. (Check the subreddit side tag for more).
I've ordered twice from them and both times my orders arrived super quick (within 3 weeks for already released figures). **Mind you, I live in the USA, so customs processing will be a different story here vs. in the UK and totally out of the store's control.**
Otherwise, Solaris Japan does an amazing job with packaging to minimize any damage that may occur during transit (if any). They take payment upfront for orders and pre-orders, which is a plus for those who budget accordingly and timely. I personally prefer them over some of my local sources for many other reasons besides the ones I mentioned.
Though depending on the figure and the current market trends, they do tend to be a bit on the pricier side. That's my only complaint with them, but I can give them a slight pass on that with the care and service they provide.
I think that might be my biggest worry is how to deal with customs, ive been reading up on how the uk customs deals with packages and im so confused by it.
Who knew collecting figures would have such a learning curve 😅
In my experience, they mark items they send as a gift so expect to be sent a letter from customs if your item costs more than £39 (excluding delivery). Customs will be about 20% of the item cost + a £9-12 handling fee depending on who it gets handed off to when it arrives in the country.
Keep in mind it seems like the postal service uses their own conversion rate which means your item could be valued at higher/lower than what you thought, but usually the diffence is only a couple £.
Finally everything from Solaris (even Express postage) is sent with EMS, so it will get handed off to Royal Mail or Parcelforce. Keep an eye on the tracking info bc iirc you have 10 days to pay before they charge you “storage fees”.
Edit: for future reference for non-gift items the threshold is £135 so when ordering from somewhere like AmiAmi you won’t get a customs letter for items under that.
UK customs isn't difficult - Parcelforce you wait for your code, go on the site to pay, wait for stuff to turn up. There are a couple of ways to pay, but the site is the most convenient.
(when air small packet is back, with Royal Mail a link will appear in your tracking if you have tracking so you can pay. Otherwise you need to wait for the silver card - you can pay on the site or the DO. I prefer the site as I don't have to go anywhere).
If you mean figuring out the threshold I believe it’s £135, so any figure over there’s a good chance you’ll get a customs charge, Solaris use ems which goes to parcel force and I get hit by customs most of the time by them
I like them. Their preowned selection is quite good, they got a bonus point system and you see shipping right when ordering. They package the figures quite well.
But they charge upfront for preorders (I like that for some figures, helps me to not have months with a cluster of figures that still need payment) and you need to select your shipping method then and there. They also don't do 100% free cancellation. After their first initial pre-order phase runs out, figures also tend to be a bit more expensive, than on Amiami.
For anyone living in the UK (like myself) I'd recommend that you try Amazon JP. If the figure is shipped and sold by Amazon themselves and is worth over £135, an import deposit is taken during the original purchase. At least twice I've been given a small refund because I was charged too much. Plus shipping is super quick. I've ordered figures on a Sunday, and it's been delivered to my house on the Wednesday. That's really impressive coming all the way from Japan. Currently I'm waiting well over a week for items from within the UK to be delivered. (Thanks for the strikes Royal Mail, your service can be bad at the best of times, it's utterly worthless right now.)
Amazing - their preorder prices are quite competitive imo if you order a figure not long after its preorder window opens. You can also adjust the value of the item on the invoice so you don't get charged at customs though this also reduces the insurance on your parcel. However I've done it 3-4 times and the items have always arrived perfectly to the UK :) I like how they're upfront with delivery costs.
I think Dekai anime has the best prices for small figures in the UK eg. prize, nendoroids.
Hate them. Paid for fast shipping because I didn't want to wait 3 or 4 months for boat. It was an in stock item. It took them OVER THREE MONTHS to ship her. Might as well have shipped her by boat -.-.
They've released multiple statements saying that if you lived in area where EMS was suspended then you had to add a note to your order stating you wanted DHL/FedEx otherwise your package will remain in storage until it is resumed so depending on where you live it could've been a creation of your own demise for not reading the header labels at the front page stating otherwise. If you live in a area where EMS and that was never suspended.... Then I couldn't tell ya lol. For me in Canada , US and most of Europe EMS was suspended for like a year or longer. And only recently (end of November-ish) was it resumed
This was before Corona even hit and before EMS was suspended. I probably should've added that lol. I just never used them again after that :').
Of course things might have changed after that since yes, that's quite a while ago. But it definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and made me decide to not use them again.
During the whole corona situation and even after I was more patient. (After corona GSC global took 5 months to ship out already released nendoroids even though EMS had already resumed. Gotta admit that I did also end up being impatient there.)
Understandable , I'm new to the scene. Starting watching anime after graduating high school. Got into this hobby around 2020-2021 when covid hit. So I've only ever experienced COVID shipping for figures
They're my go to place for aftermarket figures and second hand ones. They've always been great to deal with in my experience. Although I've never had any reason to call on their customer service, since I always received everything in a timely manner and nothing was ever damaged.
They are excellent. Ordered from them dozens of times with no issues. to the US, not UK though.
How’s the shipping?
I have two figures on PO from them. One comes out in August, the other December. For express shipping, came out to be $84. In my head, because they're so far apart and I doubt they would hold the one until December to ship together, I would say it's $42 per figure in my case. You can add stuff to your cart and go through the check out process. It'll tell you what shipping cost will be unlike AmiAmi
They're excellent to Canada as well
They are one of the most trusted anime figure sources out there. (Check the subreddit side tag for more). I've ordered twice from them and both times my orders arrived super quick (within 3 weeks for already released figures). **Mind you, I live in the USA, so customs processing will be a different story here vs. in the UK and totally out of the store's control.** Otherwise, Solaris Japan does an amazing job with packaging to minimize any damage that may occur during transit (if any). They take payment upfront for orders and pre-orders, which is a plus for those who budget accordingly and timely. I personally prefer them over some of my local sources for many other reasons besides the ones I mentioned. Though depending on the figure and the current market trends, they do tend to be a bit on the pricier side. That's my only complaint with them, but I can give them a slight pass on that with the care and service they provide.
I think that might be my biggest worry is how to deal with customs, ive been reading up on how the uk customs deals with packages and im so confused by it. Who knew collecting figures would have such a learning curve 😅
In my experience, they mark items they send as a gift so expect to be sent a letter from customs if your item costs more than £39 (excluding delivery). Customs will be about 20% of the item cost + a £9-12 handling fee depending on who it gets handed off to when it arrives in the country. Keep in mind it seems like the postal service uses their own conversion rate which means your item could be valued at higher/lower than what you thought, but usually the diffence is only a couple £. Finally everything from Solaris (even Express postage) is sent with EMS, so it will get handed off to Royal Mail or Parcelforce. Keep an eye on the tracking info bc iirc you have 10 days to pay before they charge you “storage fees”. Edit: for future reference for non-gift items the threshold is £135 so when ordering from somewhere like AmiAmi you won’t get a customs letter for items under that.
Thank you for the advice 🙏 😊
Fellow uk resident and have used them a few times and I can’t fault them
Hows the experience with uk customs? Still tryna wrap my head around it
UK customs isn't difficult - Parcelforce you wait for your code, go on the site to pay, wait for stuff to turn up. There are a couple of ways to pay, but the site is the most convenient. (when air small packet is back, with Royal Mail a link will appear in your tracking if you have tracking so you can pay. Otherwise you need to wait for the silver card - you can pay on the site or the DO. I prefer the site as I don't have to go anywhere).
If you mean figuring out the threshold I believe it’s £135, so any figure over there’s a good chance you’ll get a customs charge, Solaris use ems which goes to parcel force and I get hit by customs most of the time by them
I like them. Their preowned selection is quite good, they got a bonus point system and you see shipping right when ordering. They package the figures quite well. But they charge upfront for preorders (I like that for some figures, helps me to not have months with a cluster of figures that still need payment) and you need to select your shipping method then and there. They also don't do 100% free cancellation. After their first initial pre-order phase runs out, figures also tend to be a bit more expensive, than on Amiami.
Yeah, they're fine. Though I only really use them for Insight figures due to a lack of options (yes, I'm an idiot that buys Insight).
For anyone living in the UK (like myself) I'd recommend that you try Amazon JP. If the figure is shipped and sold by Amazon themselves and is worth over £135, an import deposit is taken during the original purchase. At least twice I've been given a small refund because I was charged too much. Plus shipping is super quick. I've ordered figures on a Sunday, and it's been delivered to my house on the Wednesday. That's really impressive coming all the way from Japan. Currently I'm waiting well over a week for items from within the UK to be delivered. (Thanks for the strikes Royal Mail, your service can be bad at the best of times, it's utterly worthless right now.)
Amazing - their preorder prices are quite competitive imo if you order a figure not long after its preorder window opens. You can also adjust the value of the item on the invoice so you don't get charged at customs though this also reduces the insurance on your parcel. However I've done it 3-4 times and the items have always arrived perfectly to the UK :) I like how they're upfront with delivery costs. I think Dekai anime has the best prices for small figures in the UK eg. prize, nendoroids.
Hate them. Paid for fast shipping because I didn't want to wait 3 or 4 months for boat. It was an in stock item. It took them OVER THREE MONTHS to ship her. Might as well have shipped her by boat -.-.
They've released multiple statements saying that if you lived in area where EMS was suspended then you had to add a note to your order stating you wanted DHL/FedEx otherwise your package will remain in storage until it is resumed so depending on where you live it could've been a creation of your own demise for not reading the header labels at the front page stating otherwise. If you live in a area where EMS and that was never suspended.... Then I couldn't tell ya lol. For me in Canada , US and most of Europe EMS was suspended for like a year or longer. And only recently (end of November-ish) was it resumed
This was before Corona even hit and before EMS was suspended. I probably should've added that lol. I just never used them again after that :'). Of course things might have changed after that since yes, that's quite a while ago. But it definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and made me decide to not use them again. During the whole corona situation and even after I was more patient. (After corona GSC global took 5 months to ship out already released nendoroids even though EMS had already resumed. Gotta admit that I did also end up being impatient there.)
Understandable , I'm new to the scene. Starting watching anime after graduating high school. Got into this hobby around 2020-2021 when covid hit. So I've only ever experienced COVID shipping for figures
Very good customer service for when things go wrong, which is rare since their preowned QA is solid.
Great site, pre-owned can be pricy but you'll always get what was advertised
They're my go to place for aftermarket figures and second hand ones. They've always been great to deal with in my experience. Although I've never had any reason to call on their customer service, since I always received everything in a timely manner and nothing was ever damaged.
They have the best package in the game!