The kitchen is on fire. Welcome to the final part of the Vapiano story where the tables are turning. In the first two episodes we followed Mark Korzilius' journey from setbacks to founding Vapiano, a groundbreaking restaurant concept, highlighting its fresh ingredients, dynamic atmosphere, and data-driven operations that drove rapid success. While achieving initial profitability and garnering attention from industry giants like McDonald's, Vapiano's global expansion has led to stellar revenue growth. However, it has also resulted in the emergence of numerous side projects (or distractions), operational challenges, increased costs, significant investments, and a notable accumulation of debt. This underscores the prioritization of top-line growth over profitable growth. We will continue on this thread and see how the story ends, but I would encourage you to read part one and two for better context. Vapiano P1: Italian Food Made in Germany (substack.com). Let's dig in.
Before Going Public
We are now in 2015 and the year is a disaster for Vapiano's PR department. Employee time stamps are being manipulated, endless overtime for employees and high turnover in managerial roles are reported; mice in the kitchen and even rotten food allegedly found.
The company is confronted with allegations of exceeding working hours among trainees in an article published by Welt am Sonntag, while the same outlet accuses Vapiano of manipulating punch times. The auditing firm PwC is commissioned to investigate the allegations and finds that there is no systematic approach but rather misconduct by individual employees, a mistake that’s being corrected. Internal however, investigations into stamp times are carried out regularly now and beyond its obvious reputational impact, this sucks up valuable management time and attention.
In the summer of 2015 CEO, co-founder and investor Gregor Gerlach, who has been running the group since 2011 is stepping down and Jochen Halfmann is taking over. A new Vapiano People Program with an App is being developed with the aim to better interact with customers that will incorporate innovate features such as mobile pay. The German website sees a launch of new magazine to further promote the brand and there is now a full inhouse blogger and Instagram team being installed. In October the company buys seven restaurants from original co-founder, former co-investor and ex-president previously responsible for internation expansion Kent Hahne (2x Bonn, 3x Cologne, 1x Koblenz and one in Cologne that’s under construction). This package of Vapiano restaurants is very successful and generates net sales of more than 20 million euros in 2014. Hahne opened his first Vapiano restaurant in Cologne in August 2006 and in 2015 with his company apeiron AG, Hahne operates six L'Osteria franchise restaurants, a direct Vapiano competitor, and two self-owned restaurants GinYuu.
Then in November of 2015, the next public relations bomb goes off with allegations regarding the company's quality standards. The company immediately investigates the issue through internal and external specialists but finds no evidence of any quality issues. Nevertheless, knowing that the group is now being closely watched, the company’s already in place hygiene standards are being reinforced. Additional audits and inspections are performed nationally. Further, all Vapianos worldwide are being audited twice by the partners SGS Institut Fresenius and SAI Global. Auditing software is purchased to simplify the implementation of the audits and the resulting measures. Apart from the external examinations, there is a food sampling plan in place being performed continuously. Again, all of this sucks up costs, management time and attention. With all these tumultuous developments the company’s growth engine is undeterred. Revenue grows by a whopping 50 million euros to 202 million euros, an increase of 33%. Impressive. While average spent per customer increases in all countries, the number of customers per day in Germany decreases by 3.3% partially due to the negative press towards the end of the year. Five own, four JV and 19 new franchise restaurants are added that year to the group, the total number of own managed restaurants grows to 51, there are 31 JVs and 84 franchises which bringing the total to 166 Vapiano restaurants. Global restaurant sales are now above 400 million euros.
But while revenue grows by an astronomical 50 million euros, operating profits, alarmingly, shrink again. Gross margins are staying perfectly healthy above 75% but operating costs keep growing disproportionately fast. The Company’s outstanding debt jumps by almost 30 million, close to 85 million euros by the end of the year. With operating profits at 9.5 million euros, alarm bells should be going off right now.
In Q4 of 2015, new CEO Jochen Halfmann introduces Strategy 2020. The new strategy includes five essential points. One, profitable growth in the newly defined core markets of Germany and Austria as well as in the UK, Netherlands, France and USA. Two, operational excellence through strict “best practice” management. Three, further development and digitalization of the concept considering guest feedback. Four, greater focus on long-term employee retention and five, building a modern and sustainable IT landscape. Sound’s good on paper but let’s see how things pan out.
Vapiano's investments (capital expenditures) that year are primarily directed towards new restaurant openings, renovations of existing establishments, and share acquisitions in other Vapiano restaurants from franchisees or JV partners. A significant portion of funds is allocated to the digitalization of the guest experience, including the development of a new app scheduled for market release in 2016 and the implementation of a time recording system across all group restaurants. The world's first standalone Vapiano restaurant with a delivery service that year is built in Fürth, Germany. The company keeps expanding its presence in both inner-city locations and international markets, such as Shanghai, China.
To finance all of this, the group has its own operating cash flow which comes in at 18 million while capital expenditures are 26 million euros plus 14 million for acquisitions. The funding gab is filled with 26 million euros of new debt and a seven-million-euro equity raise. At that end of the year and after the equity raise Gregor Gerlach (through his AP Leipzig GmbH & Co. KG entity) holds 30.1%, Hans-Joachim and Gisa Sander through their Exchange Bio GmbH hold 25.5% and the Tchibo heirs, Herz through their Mayfair Beteiligungsfonds II GmbH & Co. KG hold 44,4%.
But for the first time the restaurant’s concept that was so successful to date is being questioned. Some customers are starting to mislike the operational flow of the concept itself. If you want pasta, you must queue for pasta. If you want pizza you stand in a different queue. A small side salad, yet another queue. "You spend more time carrying trays than an actress in Berlin-Mitte. The audience in the pasta limbo can only consist of people who have worked for an insurance company for a long time and, like Stockholm syndrome, they can no longer get away from the industrial canteen feeling," writes TV host Beisenherz provocatively. While overly harsh in his assessment he's not entirely wrong judging by customers venting their frustrations in forums and social media channels. It isn’t uncommon for those who ordered pizza to have already finished eating while there is little movement in the pasta queue. Long term that doesn't go down well, QSRs competitors like L’Osteria are handling this process differently, with much success.
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Tipping Point

Where are now in the year 2016 and things start to deteriorate visibility. Perhaps not for the leman’s eye but any business minded observer can see that there are problems under the hood. Yes, revenue grows yet another whopping 50 million to almost 250 million euros but half of that growth, comes from acquisitions of restaurants that the group didn’t already own 100%, which is now being fully consolidated within the group’s accounts. Here is a concrete example. In the past, Vapiano SE, the group’s top holding company held an indirect 50% stake in a French subgroup via the subsidiary VAP Restaurants SA, based in Luxembourg, and included this as an associated company in the Vapiano SE consolidated financial statements using the equity method. Due to the acquisition of additional shares in September of 2016, Vapiano SE's indirect share in the French subgroup increased to 75%. This means that Vapiano SE takes control of the French subgroup, which is therefore included in the group’s financial statements as part of the full consolidation. The revenue from the acquired subsidiary now recorded in the consolidated income statement amounts to 12.8 million euros. While that’s great for the top line, the loss of the fully consolidated entity equates to 0.2 million euros. Yes, you are buying revenue, but there are losses attached to them, not profits. A similar case is the Swedish entity that runs eight restaurants with revenue of 11.5 million euros but has losses of 235 thousand euros. So much for Strategy 2020 and “profitable” growth.
That year the group’s operating profits are absolutely tanking, halving to 3.5 million euros. Operating profits are now a mere 1,4% of revenue. Remember original founder Mark Korzilius who talked about operating margins of 25% to 28% at the restaurant level? Yes, there are overhead costs for the organization that sits above the chain of restaurants, but operating margins that low indicates a course correction is needed. What’s telling is that in the annual report, in the management discussion section, the company starts talking about EBITDA as a proxy measure of profitability, rather than operating profit or net income. This wasn’t the case in the years before. Is this window dressing for an upcoming IPO? EBITDA is short for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. How can you measure profitability of a restaurant chain that absolutely and unequivocally needs capital investment to maintain its restaurant operations, the very source of cash generation, by simply excluding this maintenance charge (depreciation in the income statement)? Vapiano’s own annual report talks about the fact that existing restaurants must be rejuvenated from time to time and that new interior designs have to be implemented every few years. These things wear and tear, they go out of style, kitchen equipment breaks and needs replacement. This business absolutely needs maintenance capital expenditure, why anyone talks of profits before these maintenance costs is beyond me. Fun fact: in the previous annual report EBITDA is mentioned seven times, mostly around restaurant acquisitions and financing, not however as a profit indication for the group. In the new annual report, EBITDA is mentioned 28 times. Maybe it’s just me but belated Charlie Munger liked to call EBITDA: bullsh*t earnings. When in doubt I stick with Charlie. Interestingly, EBITDA for Vapiano keeps growing while operating and net profits keep falling.
Operating cashflow for the group that year is about 21 million euros, but capital expenditure is 30 million and acquisitions for subsidiaries another 20 million. To finance these expenditures another 28 million euros of debt and 16 million of equity is raised. Net debt rises above 130 million euro. The operating cashflow of the group before any capital expenditures is 21 million euros. I am not sure free cash flow would be significantly positive after maintenance capex is paid out; it’s not broken out so we can’t be sure. Granted, I am not on the ground during this time, and I am not in the board room, I am simply reading what’s in front of me, but to me this is starting to look like a distressed situation. Regardless, the following year the company goes public.

IPO

Where are now in the year 2017 and its Vapiano’s first year as public company. The company’s annual report reads the following “Sales revenue, like-for-like growth (LfL) and the earnings figures EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA are used as the most important financial performance indicators for controlling operational business activities.” The very same report however also says: “The majority of the group's investments regularly go towards opening new restaurant locations and modernizing existing restaurants. The latter are differentiated into regular replacement investments that occur during ongoing operations (Maintenance CAPEX) and fundamental investments in the renovation of a restaurant (Remodeling CAPEX). On average, a restaurant remodeling takes place nine years after opening.” It says it right there in their own report; every nine years a remodeling is taking place. Remodeling and updating is not cost free, so why exclude depreciation charges which reflect capital expenditures? I understand that perhaps you would want to strip out one-off opening costs, that’s fine and fair, but don’t go overboard.
The number of restaurants increases by 26 (previous year: 13) to a total of 205. The increase consists of 27 new openings and one closure. Group revenue grows to an astonishing 325 million euros but here comes the shocker, operating profits turn negative to 25 million. Fine, strip out foreign exchange losses of 3 million, IPO costs of 5.8 million and new opening costs of 6.1 million and you still have 10 million euros of operational losses. All the while the debt load of almost 130 million hasn’t materially changed, so those operating losses are before a six-million-euro interest payment. 184 million euros are raised through the IPO of which 85 million go to the company. This money is earmarked for further expansion as the group has ambitions to almost double the footprint to 330 restaurants by the end of 2020. The company is currently not profitable on an operating basis, and still wants to expand aggressively? I don’t get it. The remaining 100 million euros of the IPO money raised is distributed to co-founder Gregor Gerlach and Wella heirs Hans-Joachim and Gisa Sander. The family office of the former Tchibo owners Günter and Daniela Herz with a 44% stake, don’t sell a single share. After the IPO, 32% of all the company’s shares are now in free float.
One year later, in 2018, things get even worse. Revenue grows to 371 million, but operating losses mount to 85 million euros, that’s before interest expenses of 9 million. Even the beloved EBITDA figure turns negative, meaning the operating business before any expansionary or even maintenance capital expenditures is loss making. All regions are experiencing significant deterioration in their earnings profiles. Like for like sales are down 1% across the board. That’s revenue, not profitability. The question naturally arises: is the Group approaching its natural saturation point here or this operational by nature? The operating cash flow is now 9 million while financing cost are close to 7 million. That leaves 2 million for maintenance capital for 74 own restaurants and 76 joint ventures ones. Describing this as financially tight, would be an understatement.
Things are not looking good at this point. Yet the company still grows restaurants by 26 new sites. 64 million euros are spent on acquisitions, new openings, and maintenance costs, financed through a 20 million-euro equity raise and 72 million of new debt. The Company now has net debt outstanding of over 160 million euros. After the equity raise and by the end of the year 2018, Mayfair owns 47.4%, VAP Leipzig, Gregor Gerlach’s entity owns 18.9% and the Sander couple own 15.5% of the company. Yes, the Sanders and Gerlach may have taken 100 million euros off the table, but they still have substantial skin in the game. Plus, Mayfair hasn’t sold a single share and instead injects more money into the company through the equity round. The stock has now fallen from its IPO price of 23 euros per share to under 6 euros by the end of 2018. Something must be done here. And indeed, there is pivot in strategy and a hard push for change. At last, the management team abandons its aggressive growth plan and curtails new openings significantly. Additionally, the team wants to run a thorough analysis of weak locations to then either discontinue or sell sites. In Europe, the operating focus will be put on corporate restaurants and joint ventures in major cities to ensure the ideal size and location to match the respective demographic target group. Outside of Europe, the franchising business is being expanded and at the same time a consolidation of the existing corporate and joint venture markets is being sought. All future investments will be reviewed to achieve higher rates of returns on new openings. Investments are also being made in the renovation of older restaurants. The goal in the future is to also open smaller formats, like Mini-Vapianos (less than 400 square meters) or Freestander at prominent transportation hubs outside city centers (currently in Fürth and Toulouse) to cater to individual location requirements, and to enter new partnerships. I am not sure why management hasn’t stopped all expansion altogether, bringing the ship in order first, getting profitable, clean up, all hands-on deck before considering any further expansions whatsoever. But again, it’s easy to comment from the sidelines; maybe they saw white spaces that would be covered by competing concepts if they weren’t moving fast and aggressively enough. Although pushing internationally means competing with local players such as Jamie's Italian, Prezzo, Pizza Express, Wagamama, Nando's and many more which brings in its own dynamic.
Management also aims to enhance guest satisfaction. This involves refining operational processes, reorganizing the support center, and refocusing on the core offering: providing fresh and high-quality Italian food at affordable prices for a broad audience. The group also aims to reduce waiting times, especially during lunch, while also improving the evening atmosphere. There is even what I would call an evolution, away from Vapiano’s original concept, reorientating the customer journey. The ordering flow is being changed, offering guests synchronized preparations of all dishes while eliminating wait times at the cooking stations. The open show kitchen remains, staying true to original mantra of freshness and transparency but now guests can choose their preferred method of ordering through a mobile app, using a digital order point (kiosk), or by personally placing an order with a waiter. Guests can still freely choose their table and are then informed about the complete preparation of their order through a pager or their smartphone. This is a substantial deviation from the original concept, but a needed one. The group is also exploring and implementing the expansion of take-away and home delivery services but only at suitable locations, not universally across new openings. I am not sure why home delivery is even a priority here; it adds operational complexity. It’s better to clean up shop first and get back to the basics before adding new complexities. To be fair management does try to simplify. There are 49 different permanent dishes on the menu and additional 10 seasonal ones. Customers can choose from eleven different types of pasta. There is simply too much choice, and it makes orders complicated. The company announced to slim the menu down to its most popular and typical Vapiano dishes. There’s no need for an Asian salad at an Italian restaurant. "We have to go back to the roots, i.e. classic, honest Italian cuisine" says COO Everke. Regardless, in November of 2018, the supervisory board pulls the plug on CEO Jochen Halfmann and replaces him with Cornelius Everke. Everke himself has just become COO five months ago. Since 2017 he was responsible for international expansion. From 2011 to 2017 that role was filled by Mario Bauer – put a pin in that name, he’ll play a key role in the groups fate later. Then nine months later, in the middle of 2019, Cornelius Everke quits. He essentially concludes that his skillset and experience in the areas of internation expansion is no longer needed in the foreseeable future. To put it differently: Vapiano has moved from a growth story and has become a restructuring case, and other skills are required for that job. In June of 2019 Everke says the following “(we’ve) made a bit of a mistake when it came to foreign expansion”. No sh#t. Vapiano postpones the presentation of the 2018 annual financial statements three times in the spring of 2019, citing negotiations over an urgently needed loan of 30 million euros. It’s not until the end of May that a binding loan commitment comes through from the financing banks and major shareholders.
We are now in August of 2019 and the corona pandemic is just around the corner. Supervisory board chief Vanessa Hall takes over as interim-CEO and things are unravelling. Visitor numbers are declining; originally, it was planned to sell the US business but halfway through the year the buyer cannot come up with the money. But not all restaurants are performing poorly. The group's poor figures contrast starkly as an example with the experiences of the Swiss-German franchisee, who runs six restaurants. The Sodano family in Switzerland pays Vapiano a royalty of 6% of sales for the use of the brand. Enrico Sodano explains in an interview that they operate largely autonomously from the licensor. If an “accident” were to occur, he could immediately replace the Vapiano sign with Sodano, he says. The family concluded the rents and contracts with employees and suppliers independently. The Sodano family have six locations in Bern, Basel and Zurich, around one million guests every year and 350 employees. Things are going well on the ground. The delivery service they’ve built is offering them a second income stream. Expansion into Winterthur, St. Gallen and Lucerne are being planned; small locations with 150 to 250 square meters and an attached delivery service. Originally, Vapiano restaurants used to be huge but for such a large restaurant to be profitable, 800 to 1,000 guests per day are needed. That’s possible in medium-sized cities, but not in smaller towns which is why the Vapiano group now also supports smaller formats. Back to our corporate drama. The 2019 annual report would be the last report the group files. By the end 2019 the outstanding debt of the company is at an astronomical 450 million euros. Revenue has grown by another 7%, produced by four net new openings through two JVs and two franchise restaurants but operating losses come in at 317 million euros. That sound like an absolute shocker at first but depreciation and amortization charges are 345 million, so that operating cash flow is actually positive but unfortunately capital expenditures and interest payments are so large that they are eating up all of the company’s operating cash flow. Then in the beginning of 2020 Corona hits with full force and the world shuts down. As a result of the measures to prevent further spreading of the virus, the group is forced to cease all global business operations (except in Sweden). While all these shutdowns are happening, the group is the middle of negotiating with its lending banks and main shareholders. There are additional financing needs for restructuring measures, even without a pandemic happening in the background. The situation is so dire that the company starts pleading to the German government to roll out the package of financial help more quickly. Unfortunately, it’s to no end. The rapid closure of restaurants and the resulting lack of operating cash inflows in conjunction with the additional financing requirements, lead to the company’s final knockout punch. In April of 2020, the Vapiano group officially files for insolvency proceedings. The end of an era.

New Beginnings

Because of the pandemic, the majority of the group's subsidiaries in Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, Sweden, and China also file for insolvency or seek liquidation. The US business never gets sold in the end and is wound down. In the summer of 2020, significant group divestments occur, including the sale of 75% shares in the group's French subsidiaries, shares in franchisor companies, Australian subsidiaries, German subsidiaries, associated companies, self-managed restaurants in Germany, and insolvency-related sales in the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Sweden. The buyer of the Vapiano brand and one of these bundles of Vapiano restaurants is company named Love & Food Restaurant Holding, a consortium led by Mario C. Bauer – a name I told you to remember. Bauer was a former Vapiano board member and led the national and international expansion, opening 200 sites in 33 countries from 2011 to 2017 until he was succeeded by Cornelius Everke. Bauer didn’t feel comfortable with the IPO at the time but clearly has a lot of managerial and entrepreneurial talent.
The buyer consortium is an absolute A-Team comprised of European QSR top league hitters, including the founder of the Pret A Manger chain Sinclair Beecham; Henry McGovern, the founder and Ex-CEO of the giant international restaurant and foodservice operator AmRest; the Van der Valk Family that runs hotels and Vapiano restaurants in the Netherlands, and co-founder and ex-CEO Gregor Gerlach. The acquisition value is 15 million euros and entails 30 Vapiano restaurants in Germany, albeit that’s just the purchase price which comes on top of any capital investment needed to refresh and return the sites to its former glory. Nevertheless, just as a thought experiment, if you can get each site to 2 million euros of revenue and 400,000 euros in operating profit on average, which wouldn’t be an overly aggressively assumption given the company’s history, you’ve got yourself a package that can deliver restaurant-level operating profits of 12 million euros or more. It’s not disclosed how much capex was needed to refresh the operations, just that fact that the overall investment plus purchase price was a middle double-digit million-euro figure. Stil, it probably was a decent purchase. The same consortium buys Vapiano’s French business for 25 million euros just two weeks prior. After the transaction concludes, the master franchise is given to Delf Neumann and his Gastro & Soul GmbH. Neumann is an experienced operator, and he is ambitious to revitalise the brand with new services and products. For example, instead of pizza, the restaurants will be serving pinsa - a flatbread made from sourdough, wheat and rice flour, topped similarly to a pizza. It targets a more health-oriented customer base looking for a less calory heavy option. The menu overall is expanded by including a variety of vegan and vegetarian dishes.
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Today Neumann’s Gastro & Soul GmbH operates 18 Vapianos on its own account and has 29 franchise sites, amongst other brands. By the year 2021, Vapiano operates 191 restaurants in 34 countries. This is around 50 fewer sites than before the bankruptcy. The number of branches is particularly thinned out in Germany – from 80 to 55. Nevertheless, Vapiano's home country remains by far the largest market, followed by France with 35 restaurants and Austria with 15 locations. “We have shrunk ourselves to health,” says Bauer in the aftermath and there is no further shrinking planned. Quite the opposite, the smell of expansion is in the air again – pun intended. Not as aggressively as before and with a new menu and ordering process.
Overall, the team around Bauer is filled with industry experts with knowledge and networks gained over decades who have a great track record, a long-term view, and the staying power to let Vapiano breath and finds its way back to success. The pressure of being a public company with all the associated quarterly, half-year and yearly disincentives have been removed. The menu is changed and extended with new types of pasta and sauces with significantly more vegetarian and vegan dishes available. Guests can order with restaurant staff, at terminals or on their phones and there are barcodes attached to the tables identify the respective seat. The food is brought to your table, all at the same time if you are in a group, no more annoyances with waiting in line. There is a plan for smaller, 350 square meter locations, with half the number of guests and significantly fewer staff and less set-up costs required to make the economics work. Locations that capitalize on remote work and increased demand for local lunch options, higher population density with shorter delivery routes and therefore cost-effective in house delivery services are targeted. And Bauer is testing the concept of ghost kitchens, which operate without a dining room or service staff, focusing solely on preparing food for delivery services, which for obvious reasons have a very different operational set up and footprint. Original founder Mark Korzilius however is not entirely convinced. He is not a fan of the pinsa for instance and he considers Vapiano's pizza as its cash cow, flagship product and believes that the core Vapiano proposition of Pizza, Pasta, Bar that has given the company its original success is being diluted. He instead admires the competitor L'Osteria, saying they’ve done a better job by focusing on Italian classics, especially the impressively large pizzas that sticks out beyond the plate is leaving every customer in awe. The guys who run L’Osteria are the same guys who have built Vapiano with him in the first place. Bauer on the other hand, like a true business leader, remains undeterred, stating that he is frequently asked whether Vapiano's restart was bold or foolish. He believes in entrepreneurship, franchising, in his experienced fellow partners and importantly the Vapiano concept. By the year 2024 you can find over 140 Vapiano branded restaurant in 27 countries across the globe, including locations far away from its birthplace like Australia, USA, Columbia, Chile, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. And why not? Italian food is, and will remain to be, incredibly popular. Vapiano offers fresh and tasty food at affordable prices in a good atmosphere. This combination of attributes should attract a lot of customers. It certainly has in the past.
For more stories: WIP Thomas Weitzendoerfer Substack

I feel that that there's a good criticism to be had of Daredevil over the fact that we're not given much on what happened in Fisk's life between when he killed his father and the crime boss he is at the start of season 1. What was his rise to power like to go from this:
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...to this:
https://preview.redd.it/h5nmlzes0vzc1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4f6bc8683dbdf906ec3043b28a88efbc21b550b
I'll digress, the reason I created this thread is because I recently got interested in Godfather of Harlem, a semi-fictionalized take on organized crime in 1960s Harlem. And in that show, Vincent D'Onofrio plays a fictionalized version of Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, the Genovese family boss who became known for using front bosses to insulate himself and also pretending to be insane to deter FBI investigations into him.
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And D'Onofrio's still carrying a fair amount of Fisk in his performance as Gigante, especially when he's using intimidation or giving orders (hell, he even seems to slip into his Fisk voice on several occasion). Which makes his Gigante come off to a degree as behaving like how I imagine Fisk probably was like in the 1980s and 1990s.
So it got me thinking what Fisk would've been doing. And it made me develop a timeline for his criminal empire, based on what we have in Daredevil as well as stuff in Echo and Hawkeye.
1960: Fisk is born (I think Fisk is supposed to be about the same age as D'Onofrio).
1972: Fisk kills his father. After he and his mom dispose of the body, she sends him away to live with her relatives in Tamaha, Oklahoma to protect him from potential retribution from Rigoletto (given that his father was in debt to Rigoletto). The evidence exists in what Fisk says on his first date with Vanessa:

Wilson Fisk: When I was a kid, I used to dream what it would be like to... to live somewhere far away from Hell's Kitchen. Somewhere beautiful. Vanessa Marianna: What made you stay? Wilson Fisk: I didn't. When I was 12 years old, my mother, she sent me to stay with relatives. Had a farm, middle of nowhere. Those were good years. Vanessa Marianna: But you came back. Wilson Fisk: Yes. Time and distance, they afford a certain clarity. I realized that this city was a part of me, that it was in my blood. And I would do anything to make it a better place... for people like you.

Adding what we see in Echo, and my take is that it was here that Fisk took his first forays into criminal activity. He became friends with William Lopez, and they ran their own little crew.
1979: Around when he is 18 or so, Fisk becomes homesick, and returns to New York City. There's still the matter of his father's debts to Rigoletto. Having developed street cred in Oklahoma, Fisk gets himself a position working for Rigoletto, working out a deal where a cut of whatever money he brings in goes towards repaying his father's debts.
1979-late 1990s: Over this period of time, Fisk gets made and rises through the ranks of the Rigoletto syndicate, going from Rigoletto's driver to being an enforcer and finally his underboss.
Mid-1990s: During this time, Fisk as underboss has some dealings with the Kitchen Irish, and is thus acquainted with Roscoe Sweeney and Silke, the gangsters who were responsible for pushing Matt's dad to take a dive to Creel.
Late 1990s/early 2000s: It is around this time that two things happen: the first is that Fisk decides he needs Rigoletto gone because he's not content with being number two, plus he wants to get involved in several ventures that Rigoletto isn't interested in. So Fisk sets Rigoletto up to be sent away to prison on RICO violations, something he pulls off thanks to secretly manipulating some FBI agents and corrupt cops in his pocket. While this is going on, Fisk meets James Wesley, and grooms him into becoming his right hand man.
So with Rigoletto locked up and removed from power, Fisk is now the de facto boss of the Rigoletto syndicate, with Wesley acting as his combined underboss and consigliere who also serves as the intermediary between Fisk and underlings who carry out his orders.
Mid to late 2000s: Fisk travels abroad to China and Japan to forge partnerships with the Yakuza and Triads, and develops a fondness for Chinese and Japanese culture (note that he wears a kimono in 1x08, and he has Chinese tea on hand to serve for Madame Gao when she visits him at his penthouse). He makes deals with Madame Gao to move her product in Hell's Kitchen, and Nobu to act as a local contact for Nobu's employers.
So the Hell's Kitchen syndicate now looks like this: Fisk as the man at the top, Wesley as consigliere and emissary between the various partners, Leland Owlsley as the treasurer, Gao, Nobu, and the Kitchen Irish as Fisk's supporting partners.
While that's going on, William Lopez arrives in New York and establishes the Tracksuit Mafia, and gets seed money from Fisk to get the gang off the ground. Fisk takes an interest in William's daughter Maya, as he sees potential for her to become a useful soldier to him. Fisk begins grooming her, while also paying her friend Kazi to spy on her for him. This is something he secretly does on the side up until he's arrested (deleted scenes in Hawkeye show Fisk wearing his black Daredevil season 1 suits in his interactions with Maya).
Also during this time, Derek Bishop borrows money from Fisk in order to start his private security firm because no bank will offer him collateral for a loan. He still hasn't fully repaid his debts by the time of his death in the Incident. Bishop Security is the firm that employs Francis and the other bodyguards Fisk uses in season 1 of Daredevil, and I think they also ran security for the Presidential Hotel in season 3.
2009-2012: Anatoly and Vladimir Ranskahov arrive in New York, and start a new enterprise in Hell's Kitchen. They do a lot to get themselves noticed by Fisk and his partners, and Fisk eventually acquiesces to let them get a seat at the table.
Around this same time, Fisk's partnership with the Kitchen Irish begins to falter because their boss feels like he's nothing more than a proxy for Fisk to run the gang through, and that Fisk doesn't view him as an equal. Similar to how we see him handle problems like the Russians and Nobu during season 1, Fisk decides to take the Kitchen Irish out. He has John Healy assassinate the Kitchen Irish boss, and Nesbitt is subsequently promoted to take his place. Fisk then orchestrates a war between the Ranskahovs and the Kitchen Irish, and runs both sides of the war: he provides manpower and resources to Vladimir and Anatoly, while simultaneously paying off some of Nesbitt's underlings to provide him intel. The war, which racks up a lot of casualties on both sides, ends around the time of the Incident, with the Kitchen Irish being reduced to a second tier gang that is left running a turf below 42nd Street, and which has to pay a tax to Fisk to be allowed to continue operating. (After Fisk is arrested, Nesbitt makes plans for the gang to make a return to power with Finn Cooley's support, but they're massacred by Frank Castle before that can happen.)
2012: Don Rigoletto, Silvio Manfredi (the retired mobster that Ben Urich is introduced meeting with in 1x03) and some other old-school mobsters get released from prison as part of the "Class of 2012". While Silvio would rather enjoy retirement (though keeps his ear to the ground based on what he's saying to Ben), Rigoletto wants to get back in the game and take back control of Hell's Kitchen from Fisk, as he's had time to realize that Fisk had a hand in his getting sent away.
Summer 2012: Derek Bishop is killed in the Incident, and his wife Eleanor inherits his debts to Fisk.
2012-2014: Fisk takes advantage of the damage from the one-two punch of the Incident and Hurricane Sandy. Through the shell company of Confederated Global Investments, he asserts control over Union Allied Construction, Westmeyer Holt Contracting, etc. and engages in bid rigging schemes regarding the redevelopment of Hell's Kitchen.
April 2013: Fisk begins paying Detectives Christian Blake and Carl Hoffman.
Late 2013-Early 2014: I borrow a bit from this thread about how I think Rigoletto's downfall went. Rigoletto begins working with the FBI to try and bring down Fisk, a task force run by SAC Tammy Hattley. Unfortunately for Rigoletto, it turns out that Blake and Hoffman have have loose-lipped friends on this task force who tell them that Rigoletto's trying to lead them to this new secret "kingpin" who runs organized crime in Hell's Kitchen. They tell Wesley about it, he tells Fisk about it, and they decide they need to turn Hattley to their side. John Healy kills Hattley's son in a staged hit-and-run. Fisk then arranges for Hattley to be brought to him, and uses a combination of a big bribe and the threat of having her husband and daughter killed to secure her loyalty.
Fisk engages Rigoletto in a protracted war, using his own men to eliminate Rigoletto's supporters and destroy his businesses. In June 2014, his men abduct Rigoletto right out from under the FBI's surveillance, and bring him to the Veles Taxi garage. Here, Fisk takes the opportunity to gloat to Rigoletto about how he's a washed out has-been, and then personally beats him to death. He then has Vladimir and Anatoly's guys cut Rigoletto to pieces and dispose of the remains. Rigoletto's books are subsequently acquired by Fisk, including such things as the $28,957 debt that Farnum owes (the one that Wesley promises him will be forgiven if he successfully hangs Karen in her jail cell). This whole affair also marks the beginning of the end of Fisk's relationship with the Russians, as they begin to feel the same thing that the Kitchen Irish felt: that Fisk sees them as lapdogs and not equals. Such an opinion of theirs only strengthens when Matt Murdock begins targeting them as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
September 2014: Karen Page discovers the evidence of what Fisk is doing at Union Allied, prompting him to have her framed for Daniel Fisher's murder. After the subsequent failed attempts on her life, he decides to settle for buying her off, a decision that indirectly will lead to Karen murdering Wesley down the line. Fisk also buys the loyalty of Caldwell at the Bulletin to tip him off about whatever Ben Urich tries to write about him.
October 2014: Fisk having Hattley in his back pocket means that the FBI investigation into the bombings is quickly scuttled and closed. Still, the matter of Detective Blake possibly talking in the wake of being shot leads Fisk to set about his scheme to manipulate Ray Nadeem (a name offered to him by Hattley). He drives Nadeem into debt over the next two years.
December 2014: Fisk is arrested. With Wesley and Owlsley dead, he appoints Felix Manning to take their place as street boss and treasurer, with Felix working in coordination with Donovan & Partners. Felix oversees the remaining street operations for the duration of Fisk's stay in prison up through his release at the start of season 3.
Spring 2017: The events of Daredevil season 3 (credit to u/AlizeLavasseur for this).
2018-2023: Fisk takes advantage of the post-Snap chaos to get himself out of prison and back into power running things on the street. He also appoints Maya to effectively take over Dex's former job as Fisk's chief assassin, and further secures her loyalty by arranging her father's death at the hands of the Ronin, then writes himself into her life as her new "north star" (much like he did with Dex).
December 2024: The events of Hawkeye
Summer 2025: The events of Echo

dottore has his first official hoyoverse merch on sale! i had to do some research into proxy buyers for this so i wanted to compile everything i've learned into a small guide on how to buy merch from the official genshin impact taobao store for anyone who wants to grab some while they're on sale.
hehehoho look at him!!!!
mini disclaimer: these items are currently on preorder! last time i checked, the estimated shipping time for the full set is in august so they won't be delivered for a while.
guide time!
step 1: choose a proxy buyer because this merch is being sold in china, you'll need a proxy to buy it on your behalf and ship it to you elsewhere in the world. the one i've heard the most about from friends is superbuy so it's the one i'm going to use for this example, but they all work the same anyway so it doesn't matter too much.
step 2: get the link for the merch you want to buy i will put the link to his merch in the replies because reddit's filters removed my last post for having it 😔 this is sumeru akademiya behaviour. can't have shit in teyvat i guess
step 3: paste the link into your proxy buyer (still using superbuy for this example) you can select which merch you want on this page
dottore currently has a badge ($2.23), an acrylic shaker ($8.61), and a set (both pieces for $10.83) available. unfortunately you can't buy the polaroid separately :( if you want it you'll need to grab the full set
*these prices do not include shipping costs! you will need to pay a fee later on to ship your merch to you from the warehouse
no matter which proxy you use, your screen should look something like this
step 4: place your order depending on the proxy buyer, they'll charge a small service fee on top of the cost of your order as they're the ones handling it for you. once you've placed your order, they'll buy the merch on your behalf as soon as they're available (think beijing timezone work hours) and you're done! the merch has been ordered!
step 5: global shipping check your emails around when the merch is scheduled to ship. you should receive an email when it's arrived in the warehouse
once it's arrived, you'll need to go back onto the proxy buyer site and manually schedule and pay for global shipping. depending on where you are in the world, prices will vary. but i think it lets you choose from different shipping companies so you can pick the lowest price (and i don't think it should be too much because the merch is small and light)
step 6: you have merch!
a lot of the other harbingers' sets have sold out but dottore's is still available! there's still time to pick it up if you want, but i don't know how long you'll still be able to get it for. if you have any questions, i'm not the most familiar with proxy shipping but i will try to answer anyway
i hope this helps :) now go out there and get yourself some dottore as a treat

Recently, Hoyoverse has opened up an official store over on amazon, but I noticed that there's still quite a large selection of items missing from it. People searching for merch might come across a website that I will not be naming in this post (you can find them as the first search result for "Genshin Merch") which in my opinion, does a disservice for grossly overcharging for everything. I'm pretty sure that they gather their stock from another Japanese store called HakuTea which is closer in line to what the selection and pricing is from the official Chinese store on TaoBao. Below I'll go about explaining how to order from them.

Browsing and Ordering

If you don't natively speak Japanese, feel free to plug Hakutea into a translator to navigate the website at your leisure. Unless you happen to live in Japan, you're likely going to need a proxy service to get the goods from Japan to wherever you are. When I made my order, I personally used Buyee by putting in a request to buy from another website which you can find underneath the cart. You would then copy over the information about what you want to order in Japanese over along with any notes that you would need to provide. Since I ordered the Boo Tao lamp and that contains a battery, I specified in the notes section in English that for shipping, order it with special airmail since I would like my package to get here before the end of the millennia. There are definitely other proxy services like Buyee such as Japan Rabbit, but feel free to look into other sites.
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https://preview.redd.it/d5clwy2nvxxc1.png?width=1226&format=png&auto=webp&s=13ae27362dce2082556203b38feed297b117a54b
There may be some items that are out of stock at Hakutea, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't be obtained. As an example, the Ningguang 2021 concert acrylic still exits in a few places if you search for her Japanese name ( 凝光) on Mercari and you'll see that there's still some listings for it. For Buyee, they do charge a separate fee from the Hakutea order because it's a separate order but it's only 800 yen (~$5.13) to my knowledge. I will mention that there will be a shipping fee for getting the goods from China to Japan (It isn't too bad, likely won't be above about 4000 yen or ~$25.66) in addition to the fee to get it shipped from Japan to where you are. If you happen to be getting something that has a battery in it such as the Boo Tao Lamp, you will likely pay extra for shipping it you. I'll get more into it in the shipping section.
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Shipping

After ordering your goods, they'll likely be held by your proxy service until you decide what shipping you are going to do for your product. Before you get your goods shipped, you can also consolidate your package so that you save a bit on shipping by just having one box with everything. You can also request additional padding and a photo of your goods if you want to make sure everything looks correct. For Buyee, they have quite a few options as I believe they're one of the larger proxy services. The options are for air mail and sea mail, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you do not use sea mail as your method of shipping as it has been known to either take forever, damage your package, or outright get lost completely. This is also when the shipping from For my order, I used Buyee Air since it was comparably expensive to the other air mail options and ended up getting to me quite quickly (4 days). After you pay for your order, they'll process it and ship it to you.
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Comparison between Hakutea & Unofficial Fan-site

I mentioned at the beginning that the prices on Hakutea were significantly better than that fan-site that will not be named, so as your reward for getting to the end of the post, here's a chart showing just how large the markup is:
Look at those savings!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and hopefully I can get around to answering it.

https://preview.redd.it/nkxjiyngauxc1.jpg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad8bb152745434b937f1508284c7c319235f6432
What is the USA fighting for? The aggressive stance it is taking is quite clear but what are the motivations involved and what might the ultimate outcome of America's various global wars be?
The aim of the leadership of the United States is to reverse the trend toward power being shared across the planet. The enemy this leadership fears is multipolarity. To understand what is going on certainly does not require a degree in rocket science, or the more appropriate qualification, a degree in great power politics. What is at stake and the motivations involved are quite clear.
The motivations referred to above that you will hear from North American leaders will involve such issues as the preservation of ‘western values’, the fight against repressive authoritarian regimes and the delivery of all the freedoms that come via democratic institutions. But when have you ever trusted what politicians say? I suspect you would agree that the word of snake oil salesmen is far more trustworthy.
So, what are the true motivations involved in U.S. foreign policy? One is certainly self-interest. Expanding the U.S. economy naturally makes U.S. politicians more popular, more jobs, a higher standard of living for all, and so on. Never forget Trump and his slogan “America First!” Not that he was the first American politician to use this slogan. It was in fact coined by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The phrase can be considered a call for the USA to withdraw from the world. However, this is not what we see happening currently.
The Biden administration is quite obviously acting as a wrecking ball across the planet destroying, or at least attempting to destroy, rivals and those it considers enemies. The aim is clear, to bolster U.S. power while weakening those who rival its power now or who may assist in rivalling its power later. This wrecking ball approach is however, creating as many new enemies fearing and loathing the USA as it does friends who see opportunities in siding with it.
The motivation that lies at the heart of the clear urgency with which the USA and its allies are attempting to disrupt the advent of a multipolar world is the drive to maintain the power and dominance they believe is their birthright, a birthright they have held and nurtured for a century and more. Losing this entitlement to consider the planet rightfully theirs to administer as they please is an unconscionable thought to them. The motivation therefore to avoid this loss is enormously strong.
Currently the sorry land of Ukraine is the focus of this struggle by the western coalition of powers to maintain global manipulative power, the power which they conceive of as their by right and, if some Americans are to be believed, one given by God. With half a million Ukrainians dead or injured and a conflict obviously lost the West urges everyone on toward ever more death and destruction. The urgent necessity to win means that the clear fact of defeat cannot be acknowledged. The carnage must then go on, leading ultimately to the complete collapse of Ukraine.
That Ukraine must be sacrificed in the name of what Washington conceives of as the greater goal, western continued domination, appears to offer no great problem or qualm to U.S. planners. These, the Neocons, have never worried overmuch about the casualties of war or even of the destruction of entire nations. These fundamentalists, the true ‘American Firsters’ have the true supreme goal in mind at all times, one that surmounts all others, the USA as global guardian wielding the ultimate earthly weapon of ‘full spectrum dominance’.
Whether you wish to call it a prison planet or gulag the end result envisaged is the same, the USA having supreme and unassailable power, able to monitor each proxy carefully, pushing in this direction or that at will and sure at each step that its surveillance capacity will snare all incalcitrant entities. The global guardian will strike down at any who dare oppose it. Sweeping powers will enable the guardian of the gulag, the warden of the world, to detect the slightest deviation from the renewed ‘America First!’ policy and consign such deviants to their fate of re-education or worse.
So, how do you like it? If you believe you would then get behind the US/UK/EU push for victory in Ukraine against the Russians. If they are beaten you only have China to deal with and then you are virtually there…
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN AN AMERICAN GULAG?
https://preview.redd.it/v1spwz9iauxc1.png?width=717&format=png&auto=webp&s=27d2645559015de5b9c8178efe14c05d8bfa9f01

Since last year, I've used Superbuy for 7 packages and would like to share my experiences with the service so far with people who are thinking about trying out Superbuy or just started. I've already taking part at reward programs for sharing unboxing experiences, but I won't register this post for any of the programs. Thus, my review is free of conflicts in interests and I'll cover the good as well as bad experiences I made. Most of my experiences apply not only for figure collecting, but I note it since the priorities in my usage case lie more in safety than in price. It might also be relevant that I'm an European customer, because other buying options compete with possibilities within in the EU where the extensive EU consumer protection rules apply.
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Why using a proxy?
There are Chinese platforms that generally also allow for shipping outside of China. Still, not all items will be allowed to be shipped abroad. In fact, I started out with Superbuy when I tried to make a purchase at Taobao and was informed that the item cannot be shipped abroad. Besides, there are platforms like Xianyu that cannot be fully used without a Chinese phone number.
People also report that their Taobao accounts were arbitrarily banned, because accounts from foreigners seem to be generally considered as suspicious. By now, my Taobao account was not banned, but after my Xianyu experiences, I consider those worries justified. This is particularly relevant for figure collecting, since preorders are common for those orders and deposits were required for every preorder at Taobao and Tmall I've seen so far. From what I've gathered, your money spent on deposits would be gone in case you get banned between preorder and release.
As someone who doesn't speak Chinese, I rely on a proxy for communication with sellers. I surprisingly often saw offers that allow for special requests via note so far. On the other hand, wrong deliveries do not seem to be an exception.
Before I tried Superbuy, I was taking a look at another proxy for Chinese platforms that was said to offer cheap shipping options, but I was worried due to the language barrier and limited English support when chatting with them, although their support was also very friendly and willing to help. All of Superbuy's associates I've chatted with so far speak English fluently.
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Guides that I personally found useful for using Superbuy:
How to sign up for a Taobao Account: https://www.reddit.com/WagoonLadies/comments/x5qjkg/guide_how_to_sign_up_for_a_taobao_account_on/
How to buy and ship using Superbuy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-reNMFZWT8M
How to preorder using Superbuy: https://www.reddit.com/Superbuy/comments/vmv493/preorders_with_deposits/ and https://myfigurecollection.net/thread/19208 and https://myfigurecollection.net/blogpost/60295
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Shopping Agents
When placing an order, one of Superbuy's shopping agents will make the order and communicate with the seller. It is possible to detail special requests, e.g. I ordered a tailor-made doll clothing and the shopping agent helped me by telling the seller which pattern I wanted.
They also double-check the order. For example, in the beginning, I didn't know that deposits and final payments are common on Taobao and the shopping agent prevented me from paying a final payment for something I didn't order earlier, which I was quite glad about. :D
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Photo service
When your order arrives in the warehouse, Superbuy's associates will take 3 photos of your order as free service. I'm not sure whether this is the standard for Chinese proxies, but coming from Japanese proxies, I was positively surprised about that. Those photos are generally of high quality and allow not only for checking the completeness of your order, but are often also useful for checking the state of the item, e.g. whether your item is in fact new if this is what you ordered.
Superbuy also showed the most recent warehouse photos on the product page if someone else previously ordered it. This is very useful when ordering items of which you cannot find any reviews on the internet or custom-made items like doll clothings. This feature seems to be deactivated at the moment, but I hope that they can bring it back. For custom-made items, I found that customers also often post photos in the rating on Taobao.
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Inspection service
Superbuy will also check the order when it arrives in the warehouse. For example, a kind associate found that my item was delivered in the wrong colour and that my item arrived broken another time.
They also check for limited items, e.g. liquid in a quicksand acrylic block and batteries in a diorama with lighting in my cases. They also offered me to remove the batteries for free. I'm glad about that, because I couldn't ship the item with batteries at all. This is not only relevant if you order items with batteries: I already heard of a case with another proxy where someone did not receive their own order, but someone else's order, which was an item with batteries. This is not only irresponsibly dangerous, but could end bad for the customer. Mistakes happen, but I wouldn't order from a proxy that doesn't check for prohibited items, even if you don't plan to order items with limitations yourself.
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After-sales service for orders in the warehouse
Superbuy can arrange the return of orders, if returns are accepted by the seller. This service is free once per month and can be requested for a fee otherwise. When I received the wrong item or a broken item, Superbuy arranged exchanges for me, which was completely without further costs.
I recommend to check the warehouse photos carefully, especially when you don't order from a manufacturer's official flagship store. I already ordered a figure (Nendoroid) that was sold as new, but when looking at the warehouse photos I found that the figure was most probably not new, but resealed, and possibly, the seller tried to hide the true condition of the item. In this case, Superbuy arranged a return for me and I received a refund of the item's price, but I had to pay for the return. It seems like in such cases the seller can insist on his/her claim and nothing can be done about it. It seems like that the seller can even refuse to take the item back, therefore I recommend to rethink carefully whether it is worth to take the risk from buying from other stores than manufacturer's official flagship stores.
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Customer Support / Chat
Using a proxy is obviously not as straightforward as simply using an online shop and often enough I didn't know how to solve a problem on my own. All the more important is the proxies support. I had to consult the cutomer support several times due different issues and they always new what could be done about it and how to solve the issue. The associates are extremely knowledgeable. They were also always very friendly and patient.
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Community
I'm not really active on the community platforms, but my experiences with Superbuy's reddit and their ACGN WhatsApp group are throughout positive. Superbuy moderators as well as the users were very kind, helpful and had very good ideas.
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Fees
Placing orders and storage of items in the warehouse for 3 months is free of costs. There are many value added services. By now, I've used the Expert Shipping Service for 20¥. The packing material has to be paid for and can be selected manually or by the associates as part of the Expert Shipping Service. There is a fee for payments: https://www.superbuy.com/en/page/help/#p3_23_helpId1196
I didn't encounter any hidden fees. I've already made bad experiences with a Japanese proxy in this regard (e.g. consolidation of packages into a ridiculous large package that then can only be shipped with the proxies own shipping service for double the costs compared to pre-consolidation using independent shippers). In contrast, Superbuy already refunded a part of the shipping costs back to me when they were lower than their estimate.
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Taxes
Meanwhile, there are online shops and seemingly even Japanese proxies that take part at the IOSS (Import-One-Stop-Shop) program for EU, i.e. for orders up to 150€ these shops collect the value-added tax. The advantage of this is that you don't have to pay handling fees for customs handling to the shipper in your country. I don't know whether there are Chinese proxies that take part at the IOSS program, but Superbuy doesn't offer it. This means that you have to take care of the taxes yourself when the item arrives in your country. This should be considered when choosing a shipping option, because handling fees for customs handling vary with shipper, see section Shipping options.
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Shipping options
I wonder why Superbuy doesn't have surface shipping options (at least I don't see any surface options for my country). I've read that people claim that Superbuy's shipping is relative expensive due to the lack of surface shipping options. For other countries, I usually use surface shipping, because it's cheaper. I'm not familiar with Chinese shipping options, so I can't say anything about that, maybe there is a problem with surface shipping.
I can't recommend UPS and FedEx. According to my experience, their handling fees are higher than those of EMS, DHL and other shipping methods I've tried out so far. As far as I know, they aren't even allowed to handle the taxes without my consent (and I would have declined) in my country, but they do it away. Otherwise, I used the Shipping Expert Service's recommendation, because I'm not familiar with the shipping options in China.
Superbuy recommends not to ship more than 5kg per package, because this is for many shippers the threshold for deciding in which cargo hold the packages are stored in and the one for lighter packages is safer if I remember correctly. I only shipped one package that weighted more than 5kg and it was damaged, therefore I'd follow Superbuy's recommendation.
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Payment Methods
By now, I always used PayPal for my payments. Unfortunately, PayPal payments are offline at the moment (see https://www.reddit.com/Superbuy/comments/1cbvq7n/followup_regarding_the_paypal_payment_incident/). Although I'm not a fan of PayPal in general and I wouldn't rely too much on them, I'd come back to this payment method if Superbuy brings it back. In case PayPal payments will be enabled again and your banks currency isn't dollar: Check whether PayPal or your bank has the better currency exchange rate. It seems like in many cases, the bank has a much better currency exchange rate. I think PayPal made modifications to the system, but it is still possible to prevent PayPal's currency exchange rate by using a Visa or credit card.
I've tried out Sofort, Giropay and others, but they didn't work, for most cases because my bank refuses to make the payment. But I was able to use WISE transfer; bear in mind that Superbuy's bank account information depend on the selected remittance currency, i.e. if you live in Europe and you need a BIC and IBAN to make a payment, you need to choose euro as currency.
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Shipping Expert Service and packing
When using this service, Superbuy repacks the orders and picks a beneficial shipping option for a fee of 20¥. It's also possible to detail special requirements. I always select "Lowest Freight" as Desired Shipping Plan. Because I'm unfamiliar with the shipping options in China, I've used Shipping Expert Service for every package so far. I can't say how much I've saved using this service, but I've certainly saved more than 20¥ each time, especially because it's hard to estimate how much packing material is necessary and what the final weight would be, but the associate can check the items in the warehouse.
I've always been satisfied with the packing. I appreciate that the associates pack everything with a sufficient amount of packaging material and also make the package as compact as possible to save shipping costs. For some packages, they also cropped the cardboard so that packing material and content fits in precisely.
https://preview.redd.it/oxs7om31nsxc1.png?width=781&format=png&auto=webp&s=1cf73176562c27a50b5ac1631aecf2112de5c3ec
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Superbuy's compensation
In my opinion, the make-or-break factor for considering buying options as a figure collector is safety. Figures are fragile and unfortunately, sooner or later, every figure collector will make experiences with broken figures either by manufacturing defects or breaks during transport. As a collector, broken figures are worthless for me and when considering that broken scale figures or scale figures with imperfection sell for only a fraction of their original price (if you can get rid of them at all), many other figure collectors seem to share this opinion.
When buying with Superbuy, you theoretically can have three insurances: PayPal consumer protection (but PayPal is offline at the moment), the shipper's insurance and Superbuy's compensation. If you use all three, you also pay three insurances. I would expect that with three insurances that cover the full payed amount that I'm eligible for a full refund in case my order is damaged during transit. Unfortunately, I had to experience that when using Superbuy, this is not the case: The only time that my order arrived damaged I was palmed off with the possibilty of a shipping coupon for a fraction of the price.
I think that what you need to know is the following: Superbuy claims to offer a full compensation in case of damages during transit if you pay for the Shipping Expert Service, but according to my experience, this compensation only exists on paper and I recommend to only make an order if you are willing to take this risk. But for those interested, this is the summary of the story:
^{I ordered a scale figure (PVC, not resin}) ^{using Superbuy in December and paid 149.76€ with PayPal. I ordered it from China using Superbuy, because we (the figure was meant as a gift}) ^{only found out about it when it was sold out in Japan and elsewhere already and I already made good experiences with Superbuy earlier (these packages were smaller and arrived in good condition. I used the Shipping Expert Service to combine the scale figure with a small order. The package (5.6kg}) ^{was shipped in December with EMS Preferential Line-HZ for 75.80€ including Value-added services and the package arrived in January. When the package arrived, I've payed taxes and the handling fee.
I didn't accept the package personally, but when I received it I noticed that the outer package was damaged. In my opinion, it is obvious that the package had fallen down several times or something heavy has fallen onto it. I made photos of the package before I unsealed it. When opening the package, I found that the figure's box was dented. The small item was undamaged. When opening the scale figure's box, I found that a clear-transparent piece had been broken off and another piece had scratches, seemingly because two pieces rubbed on each other. The clear-transparent piece was still lieing inside the figure's box, therefore I'd expect that the damage happened when the box was already sealed. I don't think that the figure can be repaired properly, because it's a clear-transparent piece in the front. Anyway, it was meant to be a gift and I certainly won't make a broken present.
I followed Superbuy's instructions and informed Superbuy as well as the local carrier and provided all details including lots of photos. The local carrier refused to pay for the damage, because it can't be proven whether the damage happened in my country or earlier. They said I should contact the shipper for a compensation. But the local carrier provided a form for a damage report, namely CN24. Superbuy told me that they have forwarded these information to the logistics and told me to "pls no worry".
In February, Superbuy pretended that the local carrier actually "didn't offer "parcel damage report", we're not sure if it's successful to appeal with overseas ". As for the compensation, they said: "If we still can't get any vaid reply from them, I will try to help you apply for a certain allowance from our company. Although the amount may not be large, we hope to express our apologize in this way." I don't understand what they wanted to say by the local carrier actually "didn't offer "parcel damage report"". I've sent them the report CN24 once more and told them that I can provide any information that is necessary to apply for a compensation. I also offered that EMS or the local carrier can have the whole package including the figure for investigations. I told them that I expect a full compensation, because the item is 3x fully insured and somehow it has to be possible to make use of these insurances. Superbuy replied that "we are difficult to directly intervene and need to rely ... the cooperation of the logistics provider, ... often can not bring the desired results, and therefore can not be like shopping malls directly for the user to bear all losses caused by the logistics of the user to quickly solve the problem! We also hope to get your understanding of the existence of logistics problems, Superbuy can not guarantee perfect results, but will do our best to help to solve the issue until you're satisfied. ..."
Meanwhile, I've talked to the responsible associate from my customs office and he told me that a refund of the taxes is only possible, if I send the item back. I've asked Superbuy for a return, but Superbuy didn't respond to this request. The deadline for applying for a refund of the taxes has expired by now.
In April, I asked for an update about the current status of this issue. Superbuy told me that they pushed the logistics provider again and offered that they could apply for a 258RMB freight coupon that is valid for a year. This is not only less than 15% of my loss, but possibly, I wouldn't even be able to make a full use of this coupon, because I'm not sure whether I want to ship something that would require shipping costs of 258RMB after this experience anymore.
The whole process is exhausting, because it is lasting for almost 4 months already. Superbuy never told me why EMS would refuse the compensation. I also heard from other sources that for international shipments, the shipping company makes it extra difficult to receive the compensation. I've no experiences in this regard; I've been buying figures from different countries, mostly Japan, for years and this is fortunately the first time that a damage happened during transit. But if Superbuy doesn't provide further information, I have to think that EMS told them that Superbuy didn't fulfill all criteria to apply for a compensation. I also don't like the bargaining about it. I have the feeling that at the moment, they are trying to see with how high of a refund they are getting away with. The case isn't closed yet, I'll update this post to report how it ended.}
It is ok if they don't want to provide extra security for shipping, because it is out of their control. But then, they shouldn't advertise it, but be honest and say that shipping is at one's own risk. I'd appreciate it if they would remove this misleading advertising from their website:
https://preview.redd.it/kcsa4r3ensxc1.png?width=412&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb21d36d83730323395cd69298185cc1d8ba1f03
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Chinese figure manufacturers
Good Smile Arts Shanghai (GSAS): I noticed that people were wondering whether GSAS is as good as Good Smile Company (GSC). I only have one scale figure from GSAS, but I'm absolutely satisfied with it just as I'm with my GSC scales. I have 25+ GSAS Nendoroids, and while this is not enough to make general statements, taking into account how many Nendoroids GSAS released so far, this is the impression I have: Many of the GSAS Nendoroids are very detailed, I think even more detailed than the GSC ones, and I appreciate this a lot. On the other hand, I have the feeling that some ambitious designs cause constraints in posability, i.e. some poses aren't even possible without risking colour transfers (this is a problem some GSC Nendoroids have, too) and balance problems. At the moment, most of my preorders are from GSAS. As for Nendoroid dolls, I prefer the Nendoroid doll outfits from GSAS.
https://preview.redd.it/kvg84uzgnsxc1.png?width=807&format=png&auto=webp&s=2262dd994500c46ed7a5878a496739ff65a72424
Myethos: I have the impression that many people got into figures from Chinese manufacturers due to Myethos and deservedly so. I have one figure of an original character from them and it does justice to Myethos reputation of high quality figures for a good price. I got two more Myethos figures in a sale, these are a bit clunky and less detailed, but I have the impression that these are an exception and I still like them.
APEX / Apex Toys: I have 2 figures from them, they did a fantastic job with the figures and the elaborate bases.
Reverse Studio: I have one figure from them, I'm very satisfied, beautiful original characters.
Qing Cang Studio / Hobby Rangers: I don't have experiences with their figures, but I enjoy their acrylic dioramas. I'm not sure, but it seems like this is the studio that does a lot of acrylic shikishis for different franchises, too: It seems like they often only have a cardboard in the back, and cardboard and acryl glass are connected by a unfitting glossy tape, which unfortunately makes the whole shikishi look cheap.
These of course aren't all manufacturers, there are even many of the the well-known ones like Hobbymax and Ribose missing. HPOi (https://www.hpoi.net/) lists most if not all figures, but is unfortunately not available in English. Recently, myfigurecollection (https://myfigurecollection.net/) added Chinese figure manufacturers. Take a look at for example myfigurecollection's club for Chinese figures (https://myfigurecollection.net/club/1729). I'll detail in the following which figures I would buy using Superbuy.
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Taobao and Tmall stores that I've tried out
These are of course only a few, but these are the ones I've used and those I've been satisfied with so far:
Goodsmile official flagship store (https://goodsmile.tmall.com/shop/view_shop.htm?spm=pc_detail.27183998.202202.1.78da7dd6ALz7VG): You can get the GSC figures with their Good Smile Online Shop Bonuses here. To my surprise, they still have many figures that are sold out in the international Good Smile Online Shop. Some figures that are only available for ridiculous aftermarket prices in Japan and elsewhere are still available for their standard price here. Meanwhile, there are also Nendoroids that are sold exclusively in China.
miHoYo flagship store & Genshin flagship store (https://mihoyo.tmall.com/ & https://yuanshenwj.world.tmall.com/shop/view_shop.htm): I appreciate that they seemingly restock most of their merchandise. In my case some merchandise was cheapest here, especially if you will send off a package with Superbuy anyway and this can be added without increasing the shipping costs.
Onmyoji flagship store (https://onmyoji.tmall.com/?spm=a312a.7700718.0.0.5d8020179qqRQS): As far as I know, most of their merchandise is sold exclusively in this store. It seems like they partly restock, but not endlessly.
Daisy doll club (https://shop57503217.taobao.com/?spm=pc_detail.27183998.202202.1.6af87dd6geTQbn): Daisy is a small company for ball-jointed dolls and fitting accessories. I like that their dolls are compatible with other dolls and their nicely sculpted accessories. Their dolls use strings, what I needed to get used to.
Xiaoyuanzi baby clothes (https://shop135999671.taobao.com/?spm=pc_detail.27183998.202202.1.7ca57dd6gHCu8Q): It's currently not possible to order from this shop using Superbuy, but I think this is a mistake. As far as I know, there is no problem with this shop at all, they sew tailor-made doll clothes according to the customer's wishes and I hope that is is only a misunderstanding. If you know why there should be something wrong with this shop, please tell me, I'd be curious to know. I've listed it, because I hope that they will allow orders from this shop again: There are several tailor's shops on Taobao for doll clothes, but I think this shop's clothes have among the best quality. They stitch up the kimono's sleeves, which looks much better when posing the dolls. I also appreciate that they use special scissors for corrugated edges on the inside, which is not only pretty, but avoids fraying. They have a nice assortment of patterns that are small enough to look good on dolls. Only complaint I have is that the positioning of the pattern wasn't perfect.
https://preview.redd.it/433tuowrnsxc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=32c331a5a3cf0d0008ac1df480a0a784096b7654
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What I personally would buy using Superbuy:

• Good Smile products with Good Smile Online Shop bonuses: There are extra parts as Good Smile Online Shop bonuses for some Nendoroids that are almost mandatory and Nendoroids that are sold exclusively in the Good Smile Online Shops. If you can't use a local Good Smile store you can either use the international Good Smile Online Shop or the Goodsmile official flagship store on Tmall. If you use the international Good Smile Online Shop, you cannot choose the shipper. They also use UPS and you have to pay their handling fee in addition to the shipping costs. Another downside is that the international shop doesn't allow combined shipping for preorders, even if they release the same day. Therefore, you have to pay shipping costs and arbitrarily high handling fees to UPS for a single Nendoroid in the worst case. Therefore, I prefer the Goodsmile official flagship store on Tmall, because I can choose a shipping option with Superbuy.
• Merchandise that is only sold in official flagship stores on Tmall
• Tailor-made accessories for Ball Jointed Dolls: There are small manufacturers, like the stores that offer tailor-made doll clothings, who sell exclusively or almost exlusively on Taobao.

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What I personally wouldn't buy using Superbuy any more:

• Scale figures: Learn from my mistake (see section Superbuy's compensation). I wouldn't take the risk of ordering a scale figure using a proxy any more, unless you really can't get it elsewhere or there is a bonus you really want. But even then, I already received bonuses when buying elsewhere that were said to be Tmall bonuses. Most scale figures including those from Chinese manufacturers are available at shops with consumer protection.
• Any item that weighs more than 5kg (see section Shipping options): Even if the figure isn't that big, I'd recommend to look up the weight, because especially Chinese manufacturers seem to use elaborate boxes (e.g. Apex Toys Ningguang's wooden box).

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Conclusion
I've already made great experiences with very helpful and committed associates. I appreciate their work a lot. They gave me confidence in trying out the service and otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to pick up some grails I don't want to miss now. On the other hand, I've already experienced the figure collector's nightmare of a broken scale figure and loss of the full item's price despite insurances.
Superbuy claims to offer a worry-free shopping experience. For me, this is not the case. I'm always worried when my package is sent off until the relieve when a package arrives undamaged at home, because I have to expect that shipping is completely on my own risk. Still, Superbuy prevents many risks from order to warehouse which is why I'll continue using the service for figures I really don't want to miss out on.

https://preview.redd.it/knk6ii1yblwc1.png?width=842&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f3c94778ea48ec16dfcbf98544c48aca377b60a
A group of Indian scientists has published an overview of modern methods of Internet blocking introduced by government agencies, using the example of their own country. They studied the mechanisms used by Internet service providers restricting access to prohibited information, assessed their accuracy, and the ability to bypass such blocks. The team of residential proxies 2captcha has sorted out this research and would like to bring to your attention the main theses of this work.
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In recent years, researchers from different countries have conducted many studies of blocking methods that are used in countries considered to be "not free" – for example, in China or Iran. However, in recent years even democratic states like India have deployed large-scale infrastructure to censor the Internet.
During the study, scientists compiled a list of 1,200 potentially blocked sites in the country. The data was collected from open sources like Citizen Lab or Herdict. Then, Internet access was organized with using nine of the most popular Internet service providers. Initially the OONI tool was used to determine the fact of censorship and blocking of the site.
OONI vs custom script for the blocks search
Initially, the researchers were going to use a popular censorship detection tool called OONI. However, during the experiment it turned out that it gives a lot of false positives – manual verification of the results revealed many inaccuracies.
The poor quality of censorship detection may be due to outdated OONI mechanisms. So, when DNS filtering is detected, the tool compares the IP address of the specified host returned by Google DNS (it is considered to be uncensored) with the IP address assigned to the site by the Internet provider. If the addresses do not match, OONI signals the presence of a block. However, in the realities of the modern Internet, different IP addresses do not mean anything and, for example, may be an evidence of the use of CDN networks.
Thus, the researchers had to write their own scripts to identify the blocks. Below is an overview of popular ways to block content on the Internet and an analysis of their effectiveness in modern conditions.
How are blocks implemented or what are the middleboxes?
The analysis showed that in all cases of blocks of various types, they are carried out with using embedded network elements. The researchers called them middleboxes – they intercept user traffic, analyze it, and if they detect an attempt to connect to a prohibited site, they embed special packets into the traffic.
To detect middleboxes, researchers have developed their own Iterative Network Tracing (INT) method, which uses the principles of the traceroute utility. Its essence boils down to sending web requests to blocked sites with increasing TTL values in IP headers.
https://preview.redd.it/2t0obc01clwc1.png?width=854&format=png&auto=webp&s=c1b38479299f637f50aaae7f0effcebdc5880436
Middlebox mechanism for data interception
DNS blocks
The DNS resolution process is the main step towards gaining access to any website. The URL entered by the user is firstly resolved to the associated IP address. When using DNS block, censors always interfere at this step – the controlled resolver returns the wrong IP address to the user, as a result, the site simply does not open (DNS poisoning).
Another blocking method is the use of DNS injections – in this case, the middlebox between the client and the resolver intercepts the DNS request and sends its own response containing an incorrect IP address.
To identify DNS blocks by Internet service providers, the researchers used TOR with exit nodes in uncensored countries – if the site opens with it, but not with a simple connection through the provider, then the fact of blocking is confirmed.
After identifying sites blocked by DNS, the researchers determined the method of blocking.
https://preview.redd.it/b06b3ua5clwc1.png?width=844&format=png&auto=webp&s=6eea92f2a912ec3c115d42a895c0b357cde172ed
Iterative network tracing method: the client sends special requests (DNS/HTTP GET) containing a blocked site and an ever-increasing TTL
TCP/IP packet filtering
Blocking by filtering by packet headers is considered to be a popular method of Internet censorship. There are many studies on the Internet, the authors of which are trying to identify this way of blocking sites specifically.
In reality, the problem is that this method is easily confused with ordinary system failures, leading to difficulties in the operation of the network and reducing its bandwidth. Unlike HTTP blocks, when filtering TCP/IP, the user does not receive any notifications that the site they need is blocked – it simply does not open. It is very difficult to validate and separate blocking cases from normal network failures and errors. Nevertheless, the researchers tried to do it. The handshake procedure was used to do that. Handshake packets were tunneled through Tor with exit nodes in uncensored countries. In the case of sites a connection to which was managed to be established through Tor, the handshake procedure was performed five more times in a row with a delay of about two seconds. If each of the attempts turned out to be unsuccessful, there was a high probability that a case of a deliberate filtering took place.
As a result, no such blocking method was found for all of the tested Internet service providers.
HTTP filtering
But in the case of five out of nine providers, HTTP filtering was detected. This method involves analyzing the contents of HTTP packets. It can be done with the help of those intermediate network elements (middleboxes). To identify HTTP filtering, the researchers created Tor loops ending in countries without Internet censorship. Then they compared the content received in response to requests to blocked sites made within the country and while using Tor. One of the first tasks was to identify the moment at which the block occurs. For example, in a case of some providers, after sending an HTTP GET request, an HTTP 200 OK response was received with the TCP FIN bit set with a blocking notification – it is the one that forces the client's browser to terminate the connection with the target site. However, after that, a packet from the site also came. In such cases, it was unclear whether the blocking trigger was the client request or the site response. This was discovered with a use of a simple manipulation: in the HTTP packet header in the GET request, the Host field was replaced with HOST. This turned out to be enough for the blocked site to start opening. This proves that the censors only check the client's requests, not the server's responses.
Conclusion: do all providers implement blocking?
Often, particular Internet service providers do not block websites themselves, but they rely on providers managing "neighboring" networks in this regard. In the experiment under consideration, several Internet service providers were never noticed to be using their own blocking, but at the same time, sites blocked in the country still could not be opened by the users of these providers.