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Welcome to my About Me Page ^_^ My name is Chuck Gaffney and I am the owner
of Chuck's Anime Shrine. Sold
here in the eBay branch of the store are anime figures, manga as well as Swarovski
crystals. Chuck's Anime Shrine (formerly Chuck's E-Store) is a fully registered
anime, figure retailer for the State of New York. I've been featured on Business
Week and I always put customer service first. As a big fan of what I sell,
this is a labor of love and will also be my ticket to freedom from working
for somebody else in the drugdery known as a job. Here's a brief history of
who I am and what my business is:
Timeline:
1985: At only a year and a half, I became a video gamer playing
games on my Dad's Atari 2600. Playing games like Pac-Man Junoir, Donkey Kong,
etc.
This was the start of me being a gamer and then of course an anime fan, business
owner.
1997: Thanks to my good friend Tiago, I got into a little
game named Final Fantasy VII. It took me beyond my little Nintendo fandom and
brought me into the world of anime, the superior Japanese art forms and Japanese
culture. This of course included a strong following to a show called Dragon
Ball Z.
This
explains
why
my username
is princetrunks415. My friend Tiago later went on to work for the famous William's
Street (aka, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim)
2002: As a senior at Newfield High
School, I began to draw anime to best of my abilities and it was then I came
up with the idea for the site www.chucksanimeshrine.com.
On March 08th 2002, what started as an html hard coded project in my web
design class, became the first version of my anime site, which was a simple
fan site showcasing my artwork and the number of anime series that impacted
me. A month later in April, I meet my now fiancee and soon to be wife, Danielle
since I was apperently the only anime fan in Selden NY on the old AOL People
Search. In other words, I owe much to Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Ball Z and
anime in general.
2003: Chuck's Anime Shrine took a step
toward popularity. Danielle and I created some what are known as AMVs (Anime
Music
Videos) and hosted them on the website. This was two years before YouTube
and on many occations my site's bandwidth exceeded what y web host could
handle. Popularity of our videos drew much attention to anime with people
stating "I discovered & bought the whole xxxx series because of your videos"
or "This music artist is great, I bought their albulms because of this video."
This of course disproving claims by some anime studios and music labels
that these videos are violations in copyrights and do nothing in making money
for the artists showcased. The videos even became staples on sites like Newgrounds.com and
even the singers in the group QED endorsed my one AMV, "Love Bites". Danielle
and I can be slightly blammed for the AMV explostion that today litters YouTube
^^;;
2004: Plans for my own mascot (Fumi)
for the site that would be part of her own video game made by me was in the
works.
I was to also make a parody of the terrible workplace that was Friendly's
Icecream. Sadly, that job combined with college and my then start as an Amway
business owner (I'll try every way I can to NOT have a boss) caused such
projects to be put on hold as well as caused me to be hospilized (yes working
for Friendly's in Selden was THAT bad -_-) I have not forgotten these projects
and will make sure my goals will be eventually done.
2006: Late in the year, after life
throwing way too many punches at me, I used my experiance at an eBay consignment
store, call Money Tree Auctions, to start an eBay business. The consignment
shop fell under causing me to use my Computer Science degree to get a web
job at the pro camera store, Berger-Bros Camera. Before I started, I legalized
my business creating Chuck's E-Store. The reason for the company being called
Chuck's E-Store and not Chuck's Anime Shrine, was because I was mainly selling
Swarovski crystals, LLardo crystals and other related products gained from
my partnership with a local wedding products wholesaler I met through Money
Tree. For those wondering "will you still sell those products", the answer
is yes, so fans of the old Chuck's E-Store...don't worry
at all.
2007: As an anime fan and of course very much wanting
to not work a job since to me..well I'm nobody's slave, I got a dealership
with the offical US anime wholesaler, AAAanime.com.
Later that partnership grew to companies like Diamond Comics and YesAnime.com.
So, unlike many anime product dealers you find on eBay, I'm not selling crappy
fakes from Hong Kong, but only the real deal.
2008: I upgraded chucksanimeshrine.com to a new and better
look and sales from all branches of the store reached $100K. This was up from
the $40K sold in 2007 and of course in the midst of everyone panicing over
the economy. This was all thanks to you here on eBay, your loyalship and you
ignoring outside fads like the fear of the economy. I also bought and own the
anime music site, anime.fm
2009: My store and site's achivements as well as some web
comments landed me a meeting with the heads of Business
Week as well as a number
of
front page appearences and so far, my first
guest column on the site. As
of August, I made all the parts of my business as one entity, "Chuck's Anime
Shrine" to keep the name all the same and drop any confusion on what "Chuck's
E-Store" was. This business has made my day-job only a part time thing and
eventually a no-time thing. Goals for the future include creating jobs for
the Long Island area in a still crappy economy and of course with that will
be advertisments and such, so who knows, soon you might see more of this
business.
Thank you all who follow me and my business and I promise to keep
my customer serivce as perfect as it has been. I know one day some knuckle-head
will give me a neutral or negative for probably no reason but I will be sure
to serve you all here to the best of mine and my future employee's ability.
Anime and video games will probably stay as the main focus (Swarovski crystals,
etc will still be here) as I'll try to move futher in that biz with maybe
even some voice acting in
it as
well
as
doing what I can to enspire others to see the beauty and the depth of Japanese
Anime.
Sincerely,
Chuck "Prince Trunks" Gaffney |
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