Hi everyone, G4F fans,
I'm Gougou.
Before we knew it, G4F has been running for more than 3 months now. We've had a lot of rewarding moments, but also hit quite a few bumps in the road... Anyway, a lot has happened during this time, and I feel like it's time to write this post to our fans to share what's really on our minds.
Who we really are
Our entire team is made up of people with a deep passion for cards, merch, and anime/ACGN culture. Most of our members are from China. Honestly, if we weren't running this business, we'd still be pouring most of our energy (and money) into these hobbies. We're genuinely happy that we managed to turn our passions into our current work.
Fans who are familiar with us probably know that our store wasn't originally called G4F—it was Wishwholesale. So counting from back then, we've actually known each other for almost a year. At first, we didn't dive right into the card business. Our initial plan was to wholesale anime figures and dakimakura (body pillows) for the Japanese market, but for various reasons, that didn't pan out. (To this day, we still have a life-sized body pillow sitting in the office, which completely exposes our otaku roots, lol.)
We tried a lot of things, but it was tough to make any real progress until one day a coworker suggested, 'Hey, our office is right upstairs from Kayou—why don't we partner up with them?'
And that's how the story started.
Combining Wish's existing ecommerce experience in the US region with Kayou's determination to expand its US business at the time, we successfully struck a partnership and became one of Kayou's official first-tier distributors.
Even though trading cards are a hobby we love, we were actually quite inexperienced when it came to running an actual business. We took a lot of detours at the beginning—including choosing to leak some product info early on just to grab attention quickly, and almost frantically recommending our store and server everywhere possible. I know looking back now, that probably wasn't the best approach, but thankfully, we finally gathered our initial fanbase, which slowly gave us confidence.
The very first server we built was Kayou Naruto CCG (now renamed to Kayou Naruto-G4F). I still remember staring at the member count 24/7 when we first launched it. Sometimes only 1 or 2 people joined all day, sometimes none at all, but whenever someone joined, I would get so excited! Shoutout to MeowMix as the very first fan to join—even though you quietly left our server without saying a single word... And thank you to Majin Gerry, our longest-standing fan who is still in the server—thanks for lurking in silence all this time without ever leaving... I still remember back then most people came to discuss Jin3, and everyone was eagerly anticipating it. It didn't take long for the server to get lively. During that time, I also met Choisauce, Manny, Slawbunnies, Mav, ruru, and many other friends who are still active in the server today! Also a big thank you to Senju, Skimit, Jakovo, El Jefe, and other friends who supported our business from day one. You guys are the ones who made us believe this could actually work! (And thank you for enduring our terrible shipping times and packaging early on.)
With the launch of Jin3, our server entered a phase of rapid growth. The sudden surge in members had me scrambling at times, and I want to send a huge thank you to our very first mods, AMbition, ruru, and of course, the legendary Potato of the server! Afterward, we went through many events, giveaways, lucky wheels, and some random shenanigans, passing 100 members, 300 members... all the way to our recent 1,000-member milestone event... Thank you to Jergen and Mango, who joined the mod team later and have stayed by my side ever since, as well as our newest mod, Berky! You have truly helped me and G4F so much and you are the most reliable and trustworthy partners. Especially Potato — as our earliest and longest-serving mod, please never doubt the help you've brought to this server and to me personally!
We've been through peak times when the daily chat logs were so long someone had to summarize them (thanks Mav again!), and we've also had dry spells where there were hardly a few messages in the server all day. But I deeply feel that while we met because of this hobby, everything else has brought us even closer together! I still remember the day Bandai Naruto TCG was announced, the encouragement you gave me in the server and in my DMs.
Special thanks to some old friends I haven't mentioned yet: Artbypt, ramilli, retrospexs, spolem, Dragoneye, Nick, SYM1, ChassyB, Bang, vesperial, and many other quiet supporters whose names I didn't get to list.
As the Naruto server achieved a certain level of success, we successfully built the Kayou MLP server, and our business grew right along with it. However, WishWholesale wasn't a website dedicated exclusively to cards and merch. To bring ourselves closer to the fans, after a period of preparation, we finally officially launched Goods4Fans (G4F)—our dedicated platform for anime cards and merch—this July. This was both a massive opportunity and a huge challenge for us, because platform migration meant drastic changes and a lot of rebuilding from scratch. For example, when we first started G4F, we still ran into quite a few issues with orders and logistics, and the new website easily created a sense of distrust among fans, which caused us huge losses and a psychological letdown... But we believed this was an adventure worth taking, and we believed G4F would eventually earn recognition from more and more people!
To this day, we now operate Discord servers and Reddit communities for multiple IPs including Kayou Naruto, MLP, KPDH, WinxClub, and DemonSlayer. More and more mods who share our interests are joining us and lending a hand! Thank you all!
Aside from our own G4F website, we also run Amazon and eBay stores, along with multiple social media accounts. I'm thrilled that our scale is growing larger, but I'm also exhausted by the various annoying headaches we have to deal with along the way.
We've always poured our hearts into our own operations, continuously working hard to improve and optimize our service quality, without the bandwidth to pull dirty tricks or hurt others. Yet, for some bizarre reasons, we still often get framed, slapped with groundless accusations, or face haters hurling toxic abuse at G4F or our team members. You know, shits happen... But like Jergen told me, people only try to attack you when you become successful enough to get their attention. Indeed, I guess we should just keep focusing on making G4F better! But I still want to state once again that G4F has never intended to do anything evil or get ahead by stepping on others. We hope that healthy competition and a friendly ecosystem can make this hobby better—that was one of our original intentions.
Recently, we rolled out a seemingly more aggressive paid membership service. I know many fans held reservations, but those who actually experienced it have given it 100% positive feedback. I think G4F will continue working hard to prove that we are a brand prepared to stay and accompany our fans for the long haul, not here to make a quick buck and run. We will use more actions and actual results to prove that choosing G4F and becoming a G4F member is a huge perk we bring to our loyal fans—and a meaningful bond!
Here, I want to give a special shoutout to the 'daddies' who chose to trust us from day one and became our members (Yes, our highest membership tier is called 'daddy'. I know it sounds a bit weird, but isn't it also pretty unique :)
Thank you to our founding daddies: YouAreMyGlory, Ghost, majesdane, Joshua Victorio, n00bslayer47, iceman.
G4F will keep striving to bring you high-quality service and perks worthy of your honorable 'daddy' status.
Last but not least, I also want to thank all the other subreddits, Discord servers, influencers, resellers, and individuals who have ever helped and supported us. G4F could never have made it to where it is today without you!
G4F will continue to expand into more IPs and products, try new things, and hopefully go on many more adventures in the future with all of you! Stay tuned!
0 comments