Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of the NTFA Store?
Why does it take so long before I receive the merchandise?
Which comic book titles can I choose from?
Can I subscribe to the comic books?
Why don't you offer toys and statues in the NTFA Store?
What is the purpose of the NTFA Store?
The purpose of the NTFA store is to provide Nordic Transformers fans with certain Transformers items that
can be difficult to get hold of. Merchandise is imported close to cost - I don't aim to make a profit, but
try to keep the costs as low as possible.
Please note that the NTFA store primarily supplies customers in the Nordic countries, and in the
case of the comics, Europe. If you live outside Europe, I strongly recommend that you try to find
another supplier, as the shipping costs from Sweden to non-European countries is very high!
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Why does it take several months before I receive my comics?
There are three separate factors that build up the long delivery times.
1) All "current" comics have to be ordered from the United States about two months
in advance. Unlike the Nordic comics market, American publishers don't print the comics until they know
how many comics have been ordered - the merchandise is first offered in a catalogue, comics dealers place
and pay for their orders, and only then the comics are printed.
2) Shipments from the USA to Sweden take about two weeks to arrive. My supplier doesn't offer faster
shipping methods, but even if they did it would be of limited interest since the shipping costs would be
higher - it would force me to raise the price of the comics quite a bit.
3) Our supplier only send out one shipment per month. This means that each title in a shipment is delayed
between 0-4 weeks before it is sent out.
However, when I finally receive the shipment, I try to repackage and send it out to my customers the same
day, to avoid delaying the merchandise further.
Look at the release schedule to find out the approximate shipping dates.
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Which comic book titles can I choose from?
Several. IDW Productions publishes 3-4 Transformers titles every month. At the time of writing, the
selection includes Transformers: Infiltration (soon to be followed by Transformers:
Stormbringer and Transformers: Escalation) which can be seen as the main storyline, depicting
the adventures of the "Generation One" Transformers in a slightly modernized setting;
Transformers: Evolution which is a book telling more "experimental" tales of Transformers in
alternate settings (like "what if the Transformers had reawakened in the late 1800's"); and
Transformers: Generations, which reprints select stories from Marvel Comic's original run in the
1980's. Later this fall we will get Transformers Spotlight, which switches focus to a new
character every month, and even later we will get one or more sequels to Beast Wars: The Gathering,
which finished in May.
I also carry Devil's Due's G.I. Joe titles.
I still have surplus stock of both IDW's Transformers comics, as well as the previous publisher's -
Dreamwave's - comics. IDW's books can be ordered here, and
Dreamwave's books here. Note that many titles are also collected
in trade paperbacks, which can be ordered on the paperback and books
order form.
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Can I subscribe to the comics?
Yes, I am offering subscriptions to most mini-series. You will be able to start a subscription at the
time when the first issue of the mini-series is offered.
As for subscription discounts, I am only able to offer a relatively small discount since I must finance
it out of my own pocket, but depending on how you send payment it will also save you some money on not
having to send monthly payments.
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Why don't you offer Transformers toys or statues in the NTFA Store?
Several reasons: When I import comics and DVD's etc. to Sweden it helps keeping the costs down, since I
can order many items without the postage costs running too high. This way many items are actually cheaper
to buy from me than from an American store, even though I have to add my expenses for postage and customs
fees, etc. But toys and statues are so large and heavy that there's little to gain in ordering a large
shipment at a time, and whatever little it would save is likely to be wasted immediately on the high
costs for domestic postage. Most of the time you can get the same or a better price by ordering the stuff
from abroad yourself, especially considering there's a certain chance that your merchandise can
get through customs without import taxes and VAT being charged on the shipment.
Additionally, there is also a larger variety of toys and statues than of comics and DVD's, which would make
it difficult for me to keep a stock of toys; unsold toys take up much more space than unsold comic books,
space that I don't have; plus, a stock of unsold toys ties up much more money than a stock of unsold
comics - i.e. one unsold comic is a potential loss of some 3.30 euro, whereas one unsold toy would
constitute a potential loss of 10-50 euro. To cover for the risk for losses, I would have to raise the
prices on all items - which would of course make it even less interesting to buy the toys from the NTFA
Store!
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This page was created by Lars Eriksson, groundsplitter@ntfa.net.
The last revision was made on Wednesday, July 12, 2006
