Als Hobbies

[John Barker]

Got caught out for the 3rd time (and last) ordered a new plane from their web site, only to be emailed thats its not in stock.

 

SO TAKE IT OFF THE DAMN SITE THEN!!!!!!!

 

Was my reply, hmmm no answer on that one! Suprise suprise.....

 

Needless to say Als Hobbies is off my bookmark list!

[Ralph Yeates]

I have the same issue with heli's,midland advertise it, when you phone them to see where it is they say oh it's out of stock if your lucky they send you an email. I use sites such as fastlads now as they have traffic lights to say in stock or out of stock there are a number of good sites that have this feature.

the technology is there "why not use it or loose it  {customers that is } "

my 2 cents

Maybe Al can afford to loose customers?

Edited By Ralph Yeates on 14/04/2009 11:59:26

[Andy Harris]

I've also learnt that you have to phone AlsHobbies before you place and order.

 

The stock indicators are very useful!

[Rick Tee]

My experience of phoning Als, information given may or may not be accurate or even usefull and they are happy to sell you something not suitable for stated purpose which is more expensive then the item you require. Apart from the fact that i order over the internet to save money so am not very keen to pay for a phone call.

 

I agree with Ralph, Als can afford to loose customers or they'd do something about their poor service and inaccurate web site. Bought from them twice, never again, there are plenty of good retailers on the net no need to support the bad ones.

[Garry Pollard]

I have used Als three times and found the service very good. Am I one of the lucky few?,  I t would appear so from the other lads comments

Garry

[weasel]

i used als hobbies, first time last week, ordered a hangar 9 warhawk, it arrived next day, iwill keep using them, if they can keep up the same  fast service. after changing from another, model shop who gave, false promises.

[Rick Tee]

I thought Als were fine with my first order, all went pear shaped with my second. It's hard to tell how good a service is untill it goes wrong, then it depends on their willingness to apologise, sort the problem and how quickly they respond to email. They miss sold items over the phone and gave incorrect information. I waited 5 days for a reply to email then phoned and asked for my money back, total time taken to sort over 2 weeks. Not exactly speedy. One complete model that could not be flown for 3 weeks. There was no apology and no offer to sort the mistake.

 

I suggest if you wish to use them don't allow any substitution as substitutes my not be suitable and will almost certainly be more expensive, be sure you know what it is you want/need and take whatever the sales man tells you with a pinch of salt.

[BB]

I have used Als once or twice via the web and haven't sufferred ill effects.  True though sometimes when you call the shop you don't always get the info your looking for.  I'd rather hope you just experienced a 'gliche' John.  Ali views this forum.  So, Im sure he will take note.

 

BB

[Cezary Parmonik]

in 5 orders 3 were out of stock :-/

[John Barker]

I hope Al DOES read this, i ended up ordering the model from the Model shop in Leeds, helpful speedy, accurate info and willing. What more do you need?

 

Watch and learn Al, well done Leeds

 

John

[ian walker 1]

first time i have used this site and it will be the last.Infact I didnt use  them i cancelled the order. got a phone call from them and  out of the three orders i wanted they didnt have any of them.Two items were ordered as packs of ten they only had in packs of two by some other supplier at a greatly increased price. The other item was some other make which may or may not have been ok.The last item was only added because they will not accept online payments by card under £10.Also the site is not secure and you have to trust them to how they want to charge for post and packing as its not shown when you leave your card details and click on pay.

In all for a model site of this size I think its a very poor show and I will get by very well without them.

[Doug Ireland]

I've had similar problems with Al's. On more than one occasion I've had an email from them saying that some items were not in stock and that the rest of the order would be cancelled because it was below their mail order limit.

[andy watson]

I have used them a few times, and all was well except my first order.

 

I phoned up to see if they had 5 parkzone embers and a vapour in stock.  Now I appreciate that a stock level of 5 is a bit much for a shop to keep, so I was fully prepared for them to have to order some for me.  What I wasn't prepared for was them asking ME to phone around all their shops for them to find out if they had enough!

 

I sent Al a message via another forum telling him of my experience.

[Gavin Livsey]

I'm afraid I won't be using Al's again either. I bought a Phoenix flight sim at Christmas together with the adapter lead to suit my Futaba TX. When it arrived the square connector plug was broken so I returned it immediately saying that it was faulty. After a two week wait my replacement arrived. Unfortunately, it was exactly the same one that I had returned!!!

 

 

[John Barker]

I cant believe it after everything ive been through with this company i STILL gave them another chance (Im going to heaven) I ordered 2 items both went through payment taken only one arrived the other? Yep, out of stock! Does this guy run it from a garden shed they never have anything in? Id love to hear a response from them, but after the response i got from them at the Grantham model show last year there's no chance, all i got was shrugged shoulders and a cocky smirk! So another shop got my £250.............

[James Marr]

overall, my experience with al's hobbies is more than positive. Al himself, Clive and a few others are very helpful and have sorted out any problems i've had although there are a few who work at al's hobbies and they couldn't care less.

[Romeo Whisky]

 I won't use Al's for anything I can get elsewhere.  They've also told me to ring their other stores on occasions, and I don't like having to order stuff I don't need just to get over their minimum order value.  Stock-outs too.

 

I ran a small one-man business for 15 years designing and selling specialist systems to large companies.  It quickly dawned on me that I was giving a level of service far beyond anything they got from larger outfits which gave me (and them) great satisfaction.  Surprise, surprise - they same thing seems to apply in model shops too.  The smaller the outfit the - better the service.  Hats off to Giant Cod, Go Brushless, Model Fixings and others who apply the "golden rule" in their customer relations.

 

I like BRC too, but their frequent stock-outs and constantly engaged phone lines are beginning to irritate me of late.  It has sometimes taken me three days to get through to them!

[Matt Jones]

I use Al's a lot as I work in Milton Keynes and it's convenient to stop in on the way home from work. By post I've always been happy. Everything's arrived timely and in full.

   Going into the shop is a mixed bag. Ali snr is a true gent who goes out of his way to be helpful and has always been happy and chatty however I do feel Ali jnr looks down on us as simply walking wallets. I was asking him for some advice with my jet build and when he realised it was a cheap model, relative to his, he seemed uninterested. To me it's a sizeable investment that I don't want to get wrong.

 

   Also, whilst I won't post details of what I saw, I wasn't happy with the way some of the staff were treating an item of stock in the shop.

 

Issues aside I will continue to use them for the convenience and bredth of range.

[Klippy]

I tried Als once, never again, I now use SMC or Robot birds.

[flytilbroke]

Have to admit only used them twice. That was enough. I too got the "phone other branch" nonsense.

 

Very few Model shops/stores have an total stock control linked to the Websites information. The Websites are after all a form of catalogue of what can be aquired.

[Doug Ireland]

I got "moderated" on this same thread some time ago. As far as I'm concerned I get the best service for most of my stuff from SMC, Slough RC, Balsa Cabin or Steve Webb... 'nuf said!

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

I agree Doug,

I've had great internet service from Slough Models, SMC and Webbies.

 

Never tried Al's on internet funny enough. I did call at their stand at the Nats - fair enough they were busy, but they weren't very helpful.

 

So it doesn't look like I will be using them in future, going by what people say here. If I was Al I'd be having a very careful think about the response John's original post has created.

 

BEB

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother on 17/11/2009 22:05:05

[Stephen Grigg]

Galaxy are great, helpfull, always ,and fun to deal with.and thats how it should be and they are happily taking all my spare cash with a smile and thats on the phone

[Peter Miller]

Yes. I keep plugging Galaxy. They are the best and fastest that I have ever dealt with.

[Matt Jones]

Unfortunately yesterday they were out of a couple of things I wanted. Now I know a shop can't keep everything in stock all the time (I work in retail) but running out of a core product and not being able to tell you when it'll be back in stock struck me as odd?

 

Anyway, still happy to use them as they're local and competitive, at least on the things I wanted. Tried Galaxy and a few others but they don't stock what I want.