Short Rant!!

[Doclove524]

Just wanted to vent a little.. I ordered an entire set up with plane, motor, esc, and servos from HobbyKing. (Yaeh I'm cheap I guess) Now evidently my big mistake was not ordering from their USA wharhouse!!! I placed the order on Jan 30th and the order is still in frickin Hong Kong. I thought the Chinese were suppose to be very efficient and pridefull workers? My order was finally picked and packed for shipment on the 11th, and here it is the 16th and it is still sitting at the postal counter waiting to be thrown on a plane!! Pityfull service..... They say 7-21 days after the package is shipped from their facility, to my door, and I knew that going in. But the order was placed on the 30th of January and it was the 11th of Febuary before it left their facillity!!! It will probably end up being a full month before I get it and I would imagine there will be some sort of shipping damage to fully round out the whole frustrating experience......Never again!!

[jwoz]

You get what you pay for.

[Wildflyer]

Yes there stuff from China does take a while to get here, but they are about the same as any other company that ships from China that I have dealt with.
One little jerk company on Ebay, if you win an auction below what they want to sell it for, they will keep sending you nice little messages, until your time to file a complaint has passed, then they will not respond to you. I do not blame Ebay, just the China company.

On the bright side, if you order an in stock item from HobbyKing's US warehouse, they do ship quickly. I live about 20 miles south of their warehouse, my average shipping time for about 5 orders is 43 hours. That beats most other companys

[stevecooper]

I waited 5 months a while back,,,,bubsteve

[Old Fart]

Anything RC related that comes from China to the US generally comes through LAX or SFO. I take all of the LAX stuff home for a month and fly it

[Henry Sistrunk]

I allways have my orders shipped EMS Express. It costs more but takes only about a week. Never more than 10 days.
Henry

[stevecooper]

after shipping you may as well buy it at a LHS,,,bubsteve

[CrimzonRider]

Originally Posted by Henry Sistrunk

I allways have my orders shipped EMS Express. It costs more but takes only about a week. Never more than 10 days.
Henry

Ditto....ordered 2 small instock items 2/9/12 rcv'd today at noon...around 13 bucks....

cr

[Old Fart]

Originally Posted by stevecooper

after shipping you may as well buy it at a LHS,,,bubsteve

Only works if your LHS actually has ANYTHING in stock that's remotely useful

[Henry Sistrunk]

And, I don't really have a LHS
Henry

[dkrhardy]

My LHS is a good 50 min to an hr drive, but he has sooo much good stuff! Another is about the same but opposite direction and they too have good stuff. Time is my issue! Oh, and money!
Don

[Glacier Girl]

And don't forget you ordered right smack in the middle of Chinese New Year.
That's a 2 week affair for them. 2 weeks of pretty much total shut down.

Then followed by trying to catch up on 2 weeks of orders sitting there plus all the new ones.

[E-Challenged]

If you have a LHS with the brands and selection of foamies and stuff that you want, call ahead and make sure they have it and how much. I sometimes have to drive to 3 different widely separated ARF/toy stores to find common stuff. Forget about balsa, etc., building and covering supplies and bagged accessory items. Could it be that good hobby shops no longer exist because of high volume online/offshore suppliers undercutting their prices, popularity of instant gratification models, and users going for the cheapest ?

[dkrhardy]

Great! I did that when I was looking at the DX8 ... he had a 10% sale!
Don

[earthsciteach]

The "you get what you pay for" is harsh and really just a cliche statement.

People buy from HK because they are tremendously cheaper for "comparable" products. That is fine as long as you know what you are buying. If you go into the purchase with the realization that the customer service is going to be nowhere near that of a company like Horizon Hobby or your local hobby shop, then you won't be disappointed. Don't expect the plane to fly out of the box. Don't expect the cg to be per the mfr's recommendations (if you even receive instructions). Plan to go over the product with a fine toothed comb to find deficiencies. Anticipate long delivery times. I ordered 4 batteries from the US warehouse a week ago and still haven't received them even though they shipped days ago. Its all a part of ordering from a discount online vendor like HK, Banana Hobby or Nitroplanes.

[Glacier Girl]

Honesty time wise I think has a lot to do with the sellers and their business.
HK is dealing with thousands of orders a day. Not like they stop and run to the post office as soon as they get your order packed up. More likely the PO, etc. makes one or two runs a day to them for pickups. If you order late, or they miss the bus so to speak, your order sits around till the next run.

On the other hand, smaller places can ship right after they get your order as they have less orders to deal with.

For example, I ordered 4 CF fans from X-flight on Feb 16th, around midnight my time.
I received conformation of the order and shipping info (sent registered air mail) on the morning of the 17th.

I received the fans on the 23rd. Not bad, a week from Hong Kong to Lakeland FL.

Heck mail I send across the street sometimes take longer then that.


And as a side note, I just checked the shipping updates. Fans left HK on the 17th, hit New York on the 19th, then took till the 23rd to go from NY to me.

[Wildflyer]

At HobbyKing, make certain that all items on your order are in stock, if there are any out of stock items on it, they will hold the entire package until it arrives, then ship.

I have purposely ordered an out of stock item (when I didn't care about time) and noticed, I received my order before the same item ever showed as being in stock. I believe they fill all back-orders, before putting an item into general stock. Of course this is the way they should do it.

I hope they will keep increasing the stock at the USA warehouse. They have a good selection of planes (~170) and batteries (~200), but only 4 motors right now, 15 ESC's (5 out of stock) and so on.

I know HK is slow from China, but at least you know before you order, if an item is in stock.
Before the age of the internet I placed an order with Tower Hobbies, then 1-2 weeks later, I got a letter saying one of the items was out of stock, and what did I want them to do, (cancel or wait) it was 3 months before it arrived. 2-4 weeks was about normal back then.

I have noticed a problem about getting older, I get a new project, check it out and order all the parts I want for it. Then 3 weeks later a box arrives, I look inside and wonder, what in the heck is this stuff for

[Glacier Girl]

Originally Posted by Wildflyer

I have noticed a problem about getting older, I get a new project, check it out and order all the parts I want for it. Then 3 weeks later a box arrives, I look inside and wonder, what in the heck is this stuff for

We call that "Old Timers Disease"

[NJSwede]

Originally Posted by Old Fart

Only works if your LHS actually has ANYTHING in stock that's remotely useful

Most of my LHSs are more interested in making me feel ashamed of being a beginner than selling me stuff. Because of that, HeadsUp is my LHS. I get the stuff in about 2 days, so it's almost as fast as driving 25 minutes to my nearest hobby store. Sometimes faster, since I don't always have the opportunity to take 1.5 hours out of my day to go to the LHS...

[dkrhardy]

Originally Posted by jwoz

You get what you pay for.

That is true! He will get what he paid for, and probably a good deal to boot! The only issue I have with HK is the shipping. Folks say they get their stuff in 10 days to 2 weeks ... I sure don't! USA warehouse is a bit better and lower shipping cost ... if they have what you want. I go to some of the 'discount" US companies for a lot of my stuff, as well as HL, HZ, etc. Just be sure you can afford the wait if you go to companies "over the pond".

BTW, OP has not said a word after the 1st post!

Don

[Doclove524]

Originally Posted by dkrhardy

That is true! He will get what he paid for, and probably a good deal to boot! The only issue I have with HK is the shipping. Folks say they get their stuff in 10 days to 2 weeks ... I sure don't! USA warehouse is a bit better and lower shipping cost ... if they have what you want. I go to some of the 'discount" US companies for a lot of my stuff, as well as HL, HZ, etc. Just be sure you can afford the wait if you go to companies "over the pond".

BTW, OP has not said a word after the 1st post!

Don

Hey Folks!! Figured I better jump in here. I finally got my stuff!! I tracked it through it's route in China and it seems that each stop along the way took an average of three days, Now that is not three days to get there, thats three days once it arrived at any given point to be "processed" and passed along!! From back wharehouse to front wharhouse, three days, packed for shippment, three days, received at air parcel desk, three days, processed for overseas ship, three days... Once it hit the states it was three days to my door and that was over a weekend. Everything was in the box.. no damage that I have found. Pretty much built it last night... have about another hour to be flight ready. Now just need to have a few days that the wind isn't blasting!!! Thanks for listening and adding comments... helps with the frustration to share!!!

[crxmanpat]

Doc,

Thanks for coming back and updating the thread with your results. Glad to hear you got your stuff.

I order from Hobby King a lot, but only for stuff I use for my kits (motors, ESCs, and servos mainly). Sometimes their shipping can be frustrating, as well as waiting for parts to come in stock.

I'm now getting most of my stuff direct from the manufacturers, but I still get the HXT servos as I really like them. In fact I just ordered 100 servos over the past few days.

However, I have never bought a plane kit from HK, either from China or the USA warehouse. Fortunately, I have connections and can get just about anything I want at a good price through other means. I've heard too many horro stories about very slow shipping, additional fees due, etc to ever want to try and order a plane from them.

BTW, moved this to the Vendor section as that is where it really belongs.

[Mainuh]

I would add a +1 for using the EMS option when ordering from HobbyKing. I just got an order yesterday shipped with that option in 8 days total time. With the exponential savings they offer on so many items, shelling out an extra $8 to speed up shipping was a no brainer for me. I'm waiting on another order I did not use EMS on which was ordered 2/14. But it's in the states and has cleared customs and the post office sort facility so it should be delivered soon.

[crxmanpat]

I've noticed recently that the shipping times for EMS and regular International were about the same. Before Xmas season last year, I was getting packages an average of 9 days from the date of order. Right now it seems to be running about 2 weeks.

This is based on what others have been posting about delivery times on RCG.

[pattern14]

Living in Tasmania means everything is shipped in, as almost nothing is manufactured here. Small price to pay for this pretty much overlooked and comparatively untroubled part of the world. LHS's are few and far between, and what there are don't really cater to electric flight, still being rooted in glo stuff. The club scene reflects that as well. It never fails to amaze me that it costs me less for postage from HK, the peoples republic, or Taiwan, thousands of miles away, than it does a couple of hundred miles from mainland Australia. I've seen numerous posts where the Chinese companies get a bad rap, but if you look at the big picture, they are only a very small percentage of the customers. I have contacted companies in Europe and the U.S, who reply with a "sorry, can't help", or "we don't deal with private customers outside of the country". I tried buying a styker fuse a couple of years back from the U.S-no one wanted to sell me one, and the Australian distributor wanted $120.00AUD when they are sold over there for less than $20.00 USD. Tried getting a phase 3 f16 from Hobby people in the U.S only a few weeks back, and was told that they couldn't send me one either. Tried getting parts from the U.K GWS dealer, who did not have them, and would charge exorbitantly for postage if they did, and recieved no follow up reply from another U.K dealership. GWS in Taiwan sent me a pair of wings, including postage for $25.00, direct from the factory. So if I get better service and prices from Hong Kong or Shanghai than I do from my own country or the USA or Britian, thats where I'll spend my money. 99% of everything comes from there anyway, so I am just cutting out the middle man. There are some exceptions though....S and B models, and Wowings are both Australian EPP kit manufacturers, and their planes are better than any Chinese import, and much the same can be said for Canterbury sailplanes in New Zealand. I support these companies fully, as they always provide good service and feedback, but sadly they are very much in the minority, and price wise find it very hard to compete. I did not want to sound like I was venting, but I guess that's the way it turned out.....cheers