I don't know how many people know about this and I hope I am not
opening the floodgates, but you can now order parts through the
KyoshoUSA website. You may think this is a good thing but in my
experience it's not. First, a couple of facts.
1. You are NOT ordering directly from Kyosho stock.
2. What you order may not actually BE in stock.
Now here's my personal experience.
I
was checking out the KyoshoUSA site, and along with a massive redesign, I noticed the Shopatron link on
the bottom left. I clicked on it and poked a round for a while and
found some stuff that I wanted to order. I usually purchase as much as
I can from the shop here but there were a couple of items that were out
of stock and I figured I would use this as a test.
Shopatron gives you the impression that they have accurate
stock information and you can order everything directly from the
warehouse. As you dig a little deeper you realize that the stock
isn't checked until after you place your order. They farm your order
out to Local Hobby Shops in an attempt to get it filled in one place.
Whoever has what you need and is close to you gets to fill the order.
If there is not a single shop that has everything, you may be hit with
multiple shipping charges, but you are able to make that choice when you place your order.
So, I ordered some stuff. It took about two business days to
determine if my items were in stock. In a list of 8 items, one was
cancelled and one was delayed for a week. I was able to cancel the
delayed item (I am just going to get it from the shop) and I accepted
the rest of the order. At this point I was a little annoyed that I had
placed the order on a Thursday and I was still dealing with it on
Tuesday. The order finally shipped on Wednesday.
Here's the kicker, the shop that is filling my order is on
the other side of the country so it will take a week to get to me via
UPS ground. It will be almost two weeks after I placed the order and I
am still not getting everything that I wanted.
I wanted to post this recount for several reasons. 1)
Information. I wanted to present facts to everyone to let them know
how Shopatron actually works, I also wanted to provide feedback on an
actual purchase experience. 2) Comparison. Sometimes it's difficult
to get information from the shop on incoming stock but even if it took
a week to get that info, I would still have my products before I got
them from Shopatron.
Am I plugging the shop here a little bit? Sure, but that's
because I think it's a superior resource. If you need one hard-to-find
item and you can locate it at KyoshoUSA then maybe that's the way to
go, but I would at least check in with the MZR shop first. Otherwise, it's a crap shoot. The shipping takes longer and it's
not really cheaper. If the shop heres steps up communication just a
notch it would be a blowout.
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Friday, July 7
by
Spoon
on Fri 07 Jul 2006 01:02 PM PDT
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