Hobbyking

[Peter Jenkins]

On 01/08/2023 at 12:59, EvilC57 said:

Does anyone on here still order from HobbyKing?

I've just ordered two pairs of carbon fibre u/c legs for 160 size F3A aerobatic aircraft from the International warehouse which was the only one shown operating.  It took 11 days to reach me and one leg had a manufacturing defect.  I fed this back via their system and about 4 hours later received a reply apologising for the faulty workmanship (I'd sent a photo of the problem) and telling me not to send the part back but that they would be sending me a replacement.  10 days later I got a complete pair of legs as replacements when I had said I only needed the starboard leg.

 

So, I'm quite happy with the service and the total cost is still less than I'd have to pay for a UK supplier of such parts of which there are very few.

[MattyB]

Some news from HK on FB...

 

 

Apparently they have been sold (to whom it's not clear), though at present there is no shipping to the UK from the new warehouse "...but the team in the office are working on it..." (according to Stuart in the comments against the FB post and this Youtube video...) 🤨

 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by MattyB

[leccyflyer]

Stuart's a good hand - which I consider to be the highest compliment imaginable - and if anyone can make it happen then he's the man to do it.  I guess that It could take some time though.

[MattyB]

12 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

Stuart's a good hand - which I consider to be the highest compliment imaginable - and if anyone can make it happen then he's the man to do it.  I guess that It could take some time though.

 

As long as he isn't an Anthony Hand (the previous owner), hey... 😉

 

From the video it doesn't sound like he is either the new owner or an investor. He may be good at the social media stuff and model development, but HK's previous failings haven't been in those areas - it's stock, shipping issues and costs (especially to the UK), a lack of transparent comms and customer service where they have fallen down. Only time will tell if they can remedy things, but I don't think many of them will be within Stuart's behest tbh - it's all going to be about the new leadership, and whether they truly want to change the leopard's spots...

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by MattyB

[leccyflyer]

Stuart works for Hobbyking now - I  think he's responsible for Durafly product development, he's not  a new owner as far I know. He used to be an active participant in this forum in the old format.. He worked for Hobbyking in the UK, then in the Amsterdam warehouse, then Motion RC, then back to Hobbyking.

[Don Fry]

Errrrr, read MattyB’s  post.

“We are super exited to serve our EU customers directly once more…….”

No mention of third countries on the far side of tariff and tax barriers. Those barriers work both ways mind. Don’t get too exited if you live west of La Manche. 

[Steve Colman]

Living in Spain, I have made many orders from HK Europe during the past 7 or 8 years or so. During that time I only had a problem with one order which was resolved to my satisfaction in good time. The recent demise of the EU warehouse was something of a blow and I had resigned myself to searching for items from alternative suppliers of which there are many of course. However, sometimes there's nothing like the devil you know.

 

One of my favourite models is the Grand Tundra and it was getting to the stage where I would be needing replacement main wheels which were/are only available via HK. Having to order from either the global or US warehouse would have been more costly and less convenient with the added wait for shipping.

 

So, I for one, welcome the return of the EU warehouse and hope HK manage to sort things out.    

[MattyB]

2 hours ago, Don Fry said:

Errrrr, read MattyB’s  post.

“We are super exited to serve our EU customers directly once more…….”

No mention of third countries on the far side of tariff and tax barriers. Those barriers work both ways mind. Don’t get too exited if you live west of La Manche. 

Yep, that is definitely correct for now at least - from the comments on FB…

 

[Philip Lewis 3]

They have been aware of this issue for years and have done precisely nothing about it.

 

Given what they have been up to for the last few years not sure I would give them another chance anyway.

[MattyB]

Indeed. I still suspect that the reason they haven’t been able to sell to the UK post Brexit was because HMRC was asking them for a huge chunk of backdated VAT from the heyday of the UL warehouse, but we will probably never know.

[Zflyer]

Lets just wait and see.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I've no idea other than guesswork what happened to H.K UK, EU, my instinct tells me it something China demanded from them caused the demise of the "Golden era" .

 

 

[FlyinFlynn]

14 hours ago, MattyB said:

Indeed. I still suspect that the reason they haven’t been able to sell to the UK post Brexit was because HMRC was asking them for a huge chunk of backdated VAT from the heyday of the UL warehouse, but we will probably never know.

Hobbyking have always been able to sell into the UK, just from the international warehouse. If there was some kind of beef between HK and HMRC don't you think it would affect direct sales too?

 

I think Hobbykings UK bonded warehouse was taking liberties supplying goods outside of the warehouse without proper paperwork and due taxes, and they were pressured to stop by the authorities. At the time HK found the required systems too onerous or expensive to implement in their given time frame so they pulled the UK warehouse. Given the way the Chinese companies dropship, I am surprised HK don't sell through Aliexpress and let them deal with the processes.

[MattyB]

39 minutes ago, FlyinFlynn said:

Hobbyking have always been able to sell into the UK, just from the international warehouse. If there was some kind of beef between HK and HMRC don't you think it would affect direct sales too?

 

Of course, but it's an awful lot easier to carry out enforcement against a company with a warehouse on UK soil needing regular large scale stock deliveries than it is one sending thousands of individual packages from HK to the UK.

 

40 minutes ago, FlyinFlynn said:

I think Hobbyking's UK bonded warehouse was taking liberties supplying goods outside of the warehouse without proper paperwork and due taxes, and they were pressured to stop by the authorities. At the time HK found the required systems too onerous or expensive to implement in their given time frame so they pulled the UK warehouse. Given the way the Chinese companies dropship, I am surprised HK don't sell through Aliexpress and let them deal with the processes.

 

Agreed, that would definitely have worked. It's completely baffling why they have not tried an alternative route - they must have left hundreds of thousands of lost UK revenue on the table in the 3-4 years they've been unable to supply us effectively.

 

[Erfolg]

It does appear that a number of businesses based in the Far East are now importing into the UK Vat payed, which also seems to include Amazon.

 

The demise of Ripmax, in its present form will present additional opportunities for purchases from these retailers.

 

No doubt some will argue that we could be purchasing counterfeit goods. Although in my opinion at the middle to low end of the market, counterfeiting is pointless. Also the LMS future is further undermined. again in my opinion the main threat to most is the Council tax, additional Waste disposal charges (carboard boxes/packing), utility bills for water, electricity and so on. They need an awful lot of customers, to pay these overheads,, where as the rent is now often trivial in many cases. Also they have to be in the right location (not the high street) with car parking.

 

All of which brings us back to HK, why not a business arrangement with Alibaba or some one similar that deals with the vat issue, avoiding the customer handing charges, and the incurred Vat.  

 

The UK customer base for our hobby has shrunk, will continue to shrink, as many of us, now see that we are the older, if not the oldest club member. Personal imports via the likes of HK could extend the participation in our hobby, at affordable cost, delaying the niche retail aspect that is looming, or has engulfed us.

 

But what are the options for high value items, such as RC sets, IC engines (particularly the UK high end engines)?

[Andy Stephenson]

I went through the motions of logging in to HK and putting a couple of LiPos in the basket at approx £30 each and followed on all the way to the checkout including calculating the shipping which came to a third of the total. Maybe not so good a deal unless the items are cheap to start with, so I backed out at this point. I wonder if they monitor their web activity to see how many failed purchases happen at this point.

[leccyflyer]

I've had a few orders from AliExpress recently and been pleasantly surprised with the turn-around time compared to their estimates, which are typically ~4 weeks, but have been arriving in <10 days. These have been spares, which were not available elsewhere. This morning I received a replacement airframe for my Volantex P-51, which is currently Missing in Action - ordered six days ago and landed with the postie just now, free delivery and a very good price, even with the VAT added at source.  I didn't want to purchase a complete package with transmitter, charger and batteries and AliExpress had geared up airframes at half the price of the complete package.

 

The key thing is that the package was clearly sent from within the UK and has a return address in Leicestershire - it didn't get here in six days from Hong Kong.  The AliExpress site asks that I confirm delivery at which point my payment will be released to the seller.  So it looks as though that option to have an agent like AliExpress handle that side of things in there. If they can do it, surely Hobbyking can?

[PatMc]

1 hour ago, leccyflyer said:

I've had a few orders from AliExpress recently and been pleasantly surprised with the turn-around time compared to their estimates, which are typically ~4 weeks, but have been arriving in <10 days. These have been spares, which were not available elsewhere. This morning I received a replacement airframe for my Volantex P-51, which is currently Missing in Action - ordered six days ago and landed with the postie just now, free delivery and a very good price, even with the VAT added at source.  I didn't want to purchase a complete package with transmitter, charger and batteries and AliExpress had geared up airframes at half the price of the complete package.

 

The key thing is that the package was clearly sent from within the UK and has a return address in Leicestershire - it didn't get here in six days from Hong Kong.  The AliExpress site asks that I confirm delivery at which point my payment will be released to the seller.  So it looks as though that option to have an agent like AliExpress handle that side of things in there. If they can do it, surely Hobbyking can?

Since the service seems to better than or as good as Hobbyking's at their prime is anyone concerned if HK never returns ?

[MattyB]

15 minutes ago, PatMc said:

Since the service seems to better than or as good as Hobbyking's at their prime is anyone concerned if HK never returns ?

 

For motors, ESCs, etc, not so much. They did do some nice models though that you could not get anywhere else (such as the Durafly range).

[leccyflyer]

25 minutes ago, PatMc said:

Since the service seems to better than or as good as Hobbyking's at their prime is anyone concerned if HK never returns ?

Like Matty said, not as far as lipos, motors, ESCs, servos etc - there are other suppliers for those things, but for the Durafly and Avios models there isn't an alternative source and spares for those are increasingly difficult to come by.  For instance the Durafly Bf109e is far and away the best looking small fun fighter sized Emil, but the lovely scale props with all that hub detail do break. I had a couple of spares, but had a bad morning and broke two on take off, so the Emil currently has a Spitfire prop on there. which is not as nice. I also waited a long time to get a replacement for the broken control column servo set up on my Avios Spitfire and ended up having to butcher an attempted repair on the broken parts, not very successfully. Those came back into stock briefly last month and I was able to get one. It's things like that, for existing models, which are difficult to replace.

[Erfolg]

Not strictly HK, although related to this thread. In AliExpress, is there a obvious quick glance way of identifying which items are shipped as VAT paid?

[leccyflyer]

When you come to checkout the VAT is displayed. When you place your order and pay, you can download an invoice. Like this - obviously I've cliped the image so as not to show the transaction details.

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by leccyflyer
Obscured order Number

[Geoff S]

That looked very expensive until I saw the final figure in £ sterling 🙂   Don't know what the currency used in Singapore is but there's roughly 10 to the £1.

 

I had a 400mm ws Spifire from BangGood (labelled Eachine) in which the gyros didn't work. BangGood weren't very keen to help me but I managed to get a new receiver via AliExpress and fitted it with some difficulty.  It came very quickly and the extra expense was worth the lack of hassle with BG. There certainly are other sources than HK and I used them a lot in the past.

 

[Shaun Walsh]

Just been on the Hobbyking website and UK warehouse is back as an option although precious little appears to be available yet.

[Geoff S]

Despite not having bought anything for a few years, I still get emails from HK.  Today there was one about Orange receivers and I went to the HK site and logged in. As I was a looking a message popped up that someone in Bournemouth, England had just bought one.  So from that, it seems HHK are prepared to ship here. I didn't try anywhere else.