Wednesday was one of the biggest days of the year for Funko Pop fans as the figure lineup for San Diego Comic-Con 2020 — or Comic-Con@Home as its been rebranded after the in-person event was cancelled due to COVID-19 — launched online, offering fans the opportunity to purchase their favorite figures while supplies lasted. And while Funko fans know that it’s every man for themselves when it comes to getting those exclusives, many found themselves empty handed thanks to issues with Funko’s checkout. And to say they aren’t happy would be putting it mildly. Funko fans are quite bitter about how things went down with Wednesday night’s Funko Virtual Con and have taken to social media to air their grievances.
This is what happened: on Wednesday evening, Funko’s exclusives went on sale at 8pm EST/5pm PST. Limited to 1 of each Pop per customer, fans could hop on, put their choices in their cart and then get in a virtual checkout line and then checkout, hopefully victorious. Unfortunately, when customers got to the “calculate shipping” portion of checkout, early on they noticed it was taking an extremely long time to populate. This was particularly frustrating for those who had carts well over the free shipping threshold of $50. Soon after the sale began, Funko posted to their Twitter account that they were experiencing an error and advised fans to not refresh or leave the page as they would lose their place in checkout.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Error Mode Engaged. We’ll get the issue fixed as soon as possible. Please do not refresh or leave your page or you will lose your spot! We’re sorry for the inconvenience. pic.twitter.com/f1Lq90Vo35
— Funko (@OriginalFunko) July 23, 2020
The majority of Funko shoppers did just that, believing that their place — and carts — would be held while the error was fixed but that didn’t end up being the case. Many customers discovered that when their carts refreshed to checkout, the items that had been available when they got stuck in the error had sold out. Many customers took that to mean that the instruction to simply wait had cost them what would have been theirs.
If that wasn’t bad enough for fans, however, this wasn’t the first time that Funko’s site has had major issues during a popular release. Fans noted that a few weeks ago when an exclusive The Office Pop was available, the site had serious issues then as well. It’s an issue that fans expected would be fixed for this latest drop but that apparently wasn’t the case.
Now, fans are sounding off on social media about their disappointment. Some are just mad the website wasn’t prepared for the influx of traffic while others blame flippers and bots for the issues. Whatever the cause, fans are heated and making sure everyone knows.
Read on for just how bitter fans are about Funko’s Comic-Con 2020 issues.
Just turn it over to someone else.
Next time let @HotTopic handle your sdcc exclusives there website runs way smoother then your trash ass site! pic.twitter.com/0y6BdPDGup
— Ramiro (@rrivera1229) July 23, 2020
Cruel experience.
@funko
— Thirst Responder (@Kurtis_Everyman) July 23, 2020
Waited for shipping to come up for 2 hours because we were told not to refresh or we would lose our spot.
Thanks for not holding our items while we waited
What a terribly cruel experience pic.twitter.com/30NX0mJ2VQ
Let a lot of people down.
Not cool. You knew about the website issues for weeks and did nothing to try and fix them. So much frustration for so many, and it could easily have been avoided. You let a LOT of people down tonight.
— Josh Brady (@jmbrady29) July 23, 2020
Worst site ever.
@OriginalFunko screw yall and yalls stupid website!!! Stuck again at the shipping page just to find out everything was sold out!!! WORST SITE EVER!!!!
— cheo (@Cheo_leija) July 23, 2020
Has to be a better way.
Your server mistakes cost me my entire cart! I was on as soon as it opened. I was not able to get any of my cart! There has to be a better way! Service SUCKS!!!!
— Shanna parris (@shannaparris) July 23, 2020
Trash.
yea, their website is STRIAGHT TRASH!! 40 minutes for shipping to load just to have your entire cart sold out? they’re gonna lose a lot of “fans” after tonight!
— cody”lee”deininger. (@codyleesev7en) July 23, 2020
We’ve been here before…
This is a problem that, according to many, is not uncommon with your store. If that is the case, you had a long time to either fix it or find a new system that will actually work. You failed to deliver a basic online experience, and that’s on you.
— MimFox_8 (@8Mimfox) July 23, 2020
Blame the flippers.
It’s so hard to be a fan of @OriginalFunko because of things like this. Flippers really take away the fun in collecting. And Funko doesn’t seem to care, really.
— Richie Arellano (@richiearells) July 23, 2020
Two epic fails in as many weeks.
Maybe realizing funko is too big for Shopify would be a good place to start fixing things. 2 epic fails in 2 weeks, terrible.
— marco romero (@wallyabsurd) July 23, 2020
Deliberate?
I think the shipping issue was on purpose so that it looked like they were trying to stop the bots but in actuality that’s who ended up getting everything regardless. They want the flippers/bots to get everything to create more demand and hype. The Ticketmaster of the toy world.
— A5 (@Slickk311) July 23, 2020
Yep.
Pretty much sums this up pic.twitter.com/fzZVGm8CnI
— Marisol (@MaderoMarisol) July 23, 2020