Here's a tip. Some of you may have caught my direct pre-order link for the exclusive the night before. It was ready to go but password protected. I posted it again about an hour before it went live. Although at noon PT the entire Sideshow website had everything redirected to point to the pre-order page. Nothing new here. We've seen this before.
However, it's pretty easy to predict these URLs. Here's what to look for. The blog showing the exclusive pics has the SKU in the URL. Also, they normally add a "1" at the end to distinguish it as the exclusive.
Just find the item name. Here it's "thanos-on-throne". Put "/collectibles/marvel-" in front and "-collectibles-" plus SKU number at the end.
https://www.sideshowtoy.com/collectibles/marvel-thanos-on-throne-sideshow-collectibles-3004341/
It's not a big secret but gets you there that extra faster.
I hope this helps you guys get to the direct ordering page faster next time. Of course when there's so much traffic hitting the site and the database not responding then there's not much you can do but wait until you get a valid response.
I remember a few years back ordering the Grey Hulk PF or Patient Zero EX PF. I wrote a simple script to check URL's every X amount of time. Once the link was active my script would email my pager. haha, good times.