I guess in my mind, pre-order meant that this product hasn't been manufactured yet, but now somehow it's sold out....but perhaps I'm wrong about that. Either way, this is super annoying.
A pre-order is not a pre-production order. They already have commissioned a factory to begin production because there are minimum quantities and all that. A pre-order is simply a reservation of that product that is in production.
The Merch store in general is just a mess. I would think everyone shares that type of mentality when it comes to preorder items. At least with the case of retailers with retail video games made to preorder that makes sense when something is sold out because certain retail stores will get an X-amount of numbered products to be sold, which in turn needs to be shared with other retailer stores across the world (or at least the US) and the Online stores.
With the Merch Store it's just one retailer, they could leave it open and find out a rough estimate of how much products needs to be made to give everyone a chance to buy the product and then leave a little bit more so that some can be sold in the store when the product is actually released. But you do have to remember this is a "new" thing for them. they never ran a store before (with actual products to be sold and ship) so to some extent they can be excused.
I just hope they learn a lot about these complaints from people and change for the better. For me i rarely buy from the Merch store because it's just horrible for me. Shipping is CRAZY, granted i live in Hawaii, but shipping should never cost more than $20-40. Let alone with my recent purchase I had to pay for shipping twice one for $40 and one for $15. Granted it was for a preordered product but one would assume shipping would be for both items. its sad when you want to buy a product but shipping would basically cost just as much as the product.
It should just be one small amount for shipping for everyone. Let alone the fact they still havent changed it for me as there is an error when i try to look at my cart in the merch store. It will always show a $5 shipping until you actually try and go to buy the product in which case it will show the real shipping price of $20-40. Again just crazy. This will probably be the last time i buy from the merch store till these are change!
Welcome to collectables being sold. Its a sad, but they only print so many.
