Q. How long has CornerStoreComics been around?

CornerStoreComics started as a one-man show back in December of 2001, selling collectible toys and some comics online.  Over the first few years we added hundreds of new products from dozens of new vendors, moved into a small warehouse, and opened up our first (tiny) brick & mortar comic shop.

By 2006, the site had grown to thousands of products by over a hundred vendors, and we moved into an even bigger warehouse.  In that same year, CornerStoreComics purchased another great online toy store, AmazingToyz.com, and brought on its founder as our new Operations Manager.

In 2007 we opened our new & improved Comic Shop, and, in our very first year in our new location, won the Best Comic Shop in Orange County Award as voted on by consumers, and presented by Fox TV Los Angeles!

In 2008 we added an online feature that allowed our comic book customers to access and edit their comic subscriptions online.  In July, CornerStoreComics and AmazingToyz became CornerStoreComics LLC (under the same ownership.)  And now, our biggest accomplishment to date is this dandy new web site that brings CornerStoreComics, AmazingToyz, and our comic shop all together in one great place!

Q. Why do you charge a cancellation fee for something that hasn't even arrived yet?

There are several reasons.  First and foremost, we place our orders with the vendors based directly upon the pre-orders we receive from our customers.  Unlike our customers, once we place those orders, getting them cancelled becomes significantly more difficult.  Cancelling orders with vendors not only puts a strain on our vendor relations, it also puts us at risk of losing our place in line for our entire order.  That would impact every other person that ordered the same product.

Second, because we cannot cancel our order, we're stuck paying for merchandise above and beyond what we forecasted for our business, both for existing pre-orders plus the additional stock we already feel we need for new orders that come in once the product is released.  It is rarely an easy case of "Just sell it to someone else" that we sometimes hear from people.

Third, there are realized costs associated with canceling an order.  There are credit card authorization fees that we incur when we accept an order (to make sure a customer's card is valid), sometimes PayPal fees that we cannot recover (depending upon order & cancel dates), fees associated with physically removing your order from our system, adjusting inventory counts, and correcting sales reporting.  It would be wonderful if the people that did this stuff worked for free, but alas, they do not.

We encourage our customers to order responsibly.
 

Q. What is the difference between a cancellation fee and a restocking fee?

A restocking fee is applied to an order that is already 'in stock' and has entered the processing phase prior to the receipt of the cancellation request.  Stopping an order that is already in process requires a great deal of coordination and effort to accomplish.  In addition to the reasons listed above in the 'cancellation' answer, there are additional costs associated with stopping a 'live' order that can be anywhere in the process from processing to packing to shipping.