I find a good old fashioned razor blade from a box cutter can get around that. but you have to be Uber careful. take the blade and wiggle it under the adhesive strip. work your way back with the blade slowly and carefully. lift the label as you go so it’s easier for the blade to get underneath without damaging box. I worked at roses we did that stuff all the time. just had to be careful. yet we had to unload riding mowers in a huge box with just one person working the trucks, so yeah safety was not a rule more of a casual rumor lol

Wow, thanks for sharing these insights with us. We will see if we can get these to somebody at Amazon (is in all of our interest as they just have a lot of Exclusives).

Best wishes fellow collectors. happy hunting.

I ordered a pop from amazon not a third party and it said it was new. I got tired of returning and getting it damaged so I decided to keep it and took the pop out of box because the box was too damaged. It was a chrome pop and it had finger prints on it and the base the figure stands on had scratches and scuff all over the bottom of it. It seemed like it was taken out and put back in and sent to me. This has happened a couple of times. Things happen and they could have been mistakenly sold as new. I do like amazon they have some nice looking pops and they sell a lot of things I like. They just need to work on shipping funko pops especially if they are going to sell funko exclusives.

I stopped getting Pops through Amazon. As you said they hardly arrived in their original boxes and not properly protected. They also put their own warehouse tracking bar code directly on the open boxes over the Funko barcode. So good luck taking that sticker off the box without damaging the value. They are not worth the time and money with due to the crapshoot and poor handling.

Amazon has its ups and downs. Ironically,when I started collecting pops I used to purchase exclusively from Amazon. There are actually a few very important key points to take into consideration.

I’ll start by saying that as a retail manager for many years, Amazon has the most outstanding customer service in the industry that I have seen in quite some time.
Now as far as pops go.

1. Most of the pops would be considered mint as they generally come from directly from the distributor. They do have what I would call b grade pops that range from “used like new” to “acceptable”. The only problem is you can’t see how bad the damage is to the pop they don’t have any photographs of individual runs which of course it’s understandable.( the vast majoy of the time the damages to the box not to the pop itself)

2. Because most other venues have so many third-party sellers, Amazon is often not the least expensive place to purchase pops from, unlike many of their other items. they don’t offer negotiation on prices or options etc.
3. Many times the pops will come damaged. most people, as I couldn’t imagine when I first started, would never assume that the box has more of a determining Factor of value then what is inside of it. I will tell you from personal experience and reading many of the comments that their staff is not trained accordingly and how to properly handle shipping pops.

4. They sell directly from their warehouse but they also allow third party vendors to sell. Many times the third party vendors might be a little bit less expensive. However to be honest, from experience I’m likely to pay a few dollars more to have Amazon as the distributor they’re much easier to work with if you do have any damage defects etc. I have always only been a prime member so to be honest I’m not sure how shipping and returns work for non prime members. For prime members ,shipping and returns from Amazon are free
When dealing with the third party many times you have to pay for one of the other.

In general if the item is received damaged or has a defect you will not pay for the return shipping. . under other conditions, say for example you changed your mind or it was a gift. Henerally you required to repay the return postage.

To recap ,absolutely the best customer service and simplicity of returns. Many customers do receive damaged items from poor packing however they will not give you any hassle and returning or exchanging. Try to avoid the third pretty vendors, however Amazon does have what’s called the A to Z guarantee. This is where if the third party is being unethical unprofessional or unreasonable Amazon will step in and 99% of the time Amazon is going to take care of the customer.
it will tell you when you order the item who distributes the item and who is selling the item and exactly remember the format but it’s written in light blue underneath the item description.