Hobby Search

[bill937ca]

Yes but they also will backorder stuff for you.

cheers

 

jeff

 

Yeah, but you are professional model builder.  You're always working on something.  Other people often have limited windows in which to do their projects.  Back orders are very dangerous game.  Its a good way to buried with more items than you originally anticipated.  Its happened to me and to hobby stores owners I know. Someday you'll end up with a 3 year supply of something that you differentially dont' need three years worth.

[bill937ca]

Plaza Japan also sells Kato catalogs and quotes shipping rates.

 

Currently Plaza Japan has no 2010 Kato catalog. I did not find it in the shop, then I asked in an e-mail and the answer was negative.

Thanks for the advices, next time I will take more effort on finding items.

 

Or you could ask the list. That's what we are here for. 

[Lawrence]

My order with HS was placed 08/01 and cost me Y2600 for a 2 car dmu a small pack of motormen, a small pack of signals, and a small house kit EMS, no SAL option available.  It has now arrived in the UK, and I have had to pay £13 VAT and good old Parcelforce are charging me another £13.50 completion fee.

 

With such costs, it would be cheaper to buy from Wellington or Sharps.

 

How the hell can Parcelforce justify such a fee, good old rip off Britain in full bloom again  :cussing:

[Guest ___]

Yeah, I agree. It's not the more ergonomic website on earth but once you looked around for some time you get used to it. And I must admit, I love going there and just browse. Anyway, I have now a very good system to find what I want. I just use the search engine. For the time being they are, like for Leo, my choice Japanese online retailer.

 

Typically when I place an order, I just dont have the time to peck and hunt for things.

[ToniBabelony]

HW is my choice of preference. Not only do they ship SAL (which saves me a bothersome visit to customs), but they do accept pay-pal, have a good service, also have a point system, have 'rare' items and have a somewhat standard 20% off retail price, which is very convenient when ordering large quantities. If HS was to introduce Pay-Pal again I'd reconsider HS, but as my 'large-order-period' is over, I'll stick to HW.

[westfalen]

My order with HS was placed 08/01 and cost me Y2600 for a 2 car dmu a small pack of motormen, a small pack of signals, and a small house kit EMS, no SAL option available.  It has now arrived in the UK, and I have had to pay £13 VAT and good old Parcelforce are charging me another £13.50 completion fee.

 

With such costs, it would be cheaper to buy from Wellington or Sharps.

 

How the hell can Parcelforce justify such a fee, good old rip off Britain in full bloom again  :cussing:

By my calculations Y2600 is only about £17.50, the £13 VAT seems a bit of a rip off as well. None of the probably hundreds by now, orders I and others I know have gotten to Australia from Japan by EMS or SAL, the US and the UK have ever attracted any additional charges. I think you're living in the wrong country mate.

[Lawrence]

Sorry, did not make myself clear, the shipping was Y2600  , the actual order was approx Y8500

 

But it finally all arrived today, Kiha 58, 2 cars, cream and red, look like lovely little models, some detailing required to the mass of grey on the roof and underneath but that is ok, now all I need is a layout to run them on 

[westfalen]

Sorry, did not make myself clear, the shipping was Y2600  , the actual order was approx Y8500

 

But it finally all arrived today, Kiha 58, 2 cars, cream and red, look like lovely little models, some detailing required to the mass of grey on the roof and underneath but that is ok, now all I need is a layout to run them on 

That makes a bit more sense, but still, having to pay anything on top of what you've already paid is a rip off.

 

I like the old Kiha 58's myself.

[David]

An update on Hobby Search showing shipping rates:

 

After you go through the second order screen, where you enter your credit card information and select the type of shipping, you are presented with the final confirmation screen. I placed an order today and this screen shows the shipping cost so you can back out if it's more then what you where expecting. I can also confirm that for at least some orders the system will automatically determine that you can't ship it by SAL and remove the SAL option.

 

This is still a bit of a bummer in that it makes it even harder to check or compare shipping rates then what it was before (before you'd only have to lose your cart in order to to check how much more it would cost to add some bulky item to your order).

 

I realize that part of what it was hard in the first place was because your account is on a seperate secure site, but it would be a really nice feature for Hobby Search, given that (AFAIK) there are only 3 shipping zones, to show a shipping estimates on your shipping cart for each zone.

[harukablue]

My order with HS was placed 08/01 and cost me Y2600 for a 2 car dmu a small pack of motormen, a small pack of signals, and a small house kit EMS, no SAL option available.  It has now arrived in the UK, and I have had to pay £13 VAT and good old Parcelforce are charging me another £13.50 completion fee.

 

With such costs, it would be cheaper to buy from Wellington or Sharps.

 

How the hell can Parcelforce justify such a fee, good old rip off Britain in full bloom again  :cussing:

 

I picked up a parcel from Parcelforce on Friday, it came to me ia EMS it left Japan at 23.08 on 6th of Jan,, arrived at Parelforce customs in Coventry at 22.00 on 8th of Jan,,,by 14th of Jan it had just be processed and was on the way to my local depot, so 6 days sitting in the depot and as you say I had to pay £13.50 for the service!!

[Guest ___]

I tempting fate by SAL shipping from Hit-Japan. I may try to tempt fate with HS. Sadly my last order from them was made two weeks too late for SAL.

 

I was able to modify my order for SAL, so I'm trying SAL for a small item. Let's see when it ships at the end of the week how well it fares.

[westfalen]

My order with HS was placed 08/01 and cost me Y2600 for a 2 car dmu a small pack of motormen, a small pack of signals, and a small house kit EMS, no SAL option available.  It has now arrived in the UK, and I have had to pay £13 VAT and good old Parcelforce are charging me another £13.50 completion fee.

 

With such costs, it would be cheaper to buy from Wellington or Sharps.

 

How the hell can Parcelforce justify such a fee, good old rip off Britain in full bloom again  :cussing:

 

I picked up a parcel from Parcelforce on Friday, it came to me ia EMS it left Japan at 23.08 on 6th of Jan,, arrived at Parelforce customs in Coventry at 22.00 on 8th of Jan,,,by 14th of Jan it had just be processed and was on the way to my local depot, so 6 days sitting in the depot and as you say I had to pay £13.50 for the service!!

This Parcelforce sounds like they are just there to take people's money. When I get an EMS parcel via Australia Post I get a card in my post office box to say it's there, go inside and sign for it and that's it.

[Nozomi]

I would 'love' to have a  provider like parcelforce. SwissPost charges SwissFranc 35 (£ 21, $ 34) for EMS delivery....

[IST]

My Unitram set from PJ was sent with EMS and I did not have to pay anything plus amount for it.

[Lawrence]

My order with HS was placed 08/01 and cost me Y2600 for a 2 car dmu a small pack of motormen, a small pack of signals, and a small house kit EMS, no SAL option available.  It has now arrived in the UK, and I have had to pay £13 VAT and good old Parcelforce are charging me another £13.50 completion fee.

 

With such costs, it would be cheaper to buy from Wellington or Sharps.

 

How the hell can Parcelforce justify such a fee, good old rip off Britain in full bloom again  :cussing:

 

I picked up a parcel from Parcelforce on Friday, it came to me ia EMS it left Japan at 23.08 on 6th of Jan,, arrived at Parelforce customs in Coventry at 22.00 on 8th of Jan,,,by 14th of Jan it had just be processed and was on the way to my local depot, so 6 days sitting in the depot and as you say I had to pay £13.50 for the service!!

 

 

 

I have emailed them and asked them what the £13.50 charge is for as my parcel pretty much followed the same time line as yours.  Having already paid £18 for delivery (I have no issue with paying the VAT) I don't see why I have to pay more to get it to my door.  The thing is if I had driven the 25 -30 mins to Perth to pick it up I would still have to pay, so I made them bring it to me  .

 

I await their reply

[disturbman]

My Unitram set from PJ was sent with EMS and I did not have to pay anything plus amount for it.

 

That's because your not living in the UK.  By the way, you didn't even have to pay customs ?

[harukablue]

If you want to see how god ems is take a look at my track

 

EJ002771483JP

 

 

 

http://www.track-trace.com/post

 

Use track with options

 

Lew

[cteno4]

I would 'love' to have a  provider like parcelforce. SwissPost charges SwissFranc 35 (£ 21, $ 34) for EMS delivery....

 

Oh man! This makes me love the USPS then. no EMS delivery charges and no duty! EMS on the US end is express mail so basically 24 hr max delivery once it gets out of customs on the US side and its at your doorstep by noon, even on xmas day...

 

do they charge you delivery surcharges on SAL packages or is only for the express delivery of the EMS packages?

 

Ill remember this next time someone is griping about usps fees!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[IST]

By the way, you didn't even have to pay customs ?

 

No, never.

And today I got my books from HS. It was posted at 14th January. Quite good. 

[westfalen]

My Unitram set from PJ was sent with EMS and I did not have to pay anything plus amount for it.

 

That's because your not living in the UK.  By the way, you didn't even have to pay customs ?

I've never had to pay customs on anything I've gotten into Australia. The only package I've ever had customs even open was a set of Kawai open wagons that had a package of sawdust to use as a woodchip load that must have looked suspicious on the x-ray machine.

[David]

That's because your not living in the UK.  By the way, you didn't even have to pay customs ?

I've never had to pay customs on anything I've gotten into Australia. The only package I've ever had customs even open was a set of Kawai open wagons that had a package of sawdust to use as a woodchip load that must have looked suspicious on the x-ray machine.

 

A lot of countries inspect and control incoming plant and live animals to a greater or less degree, including raw wood based product. From my own experience with doing commercial hardwood importation a long while ago customs would require a quarantine period for many sources to ensure the wood wasn't carrying any foreign pests (i.e. killer terminites). I doubt they'd want your woodchips to contain some aggressive asian beatle or something (then again maybe all those cane toads you have would eat them).

[Nozomi]

I would 'love' to have a  provider like parcelforce. SwissPost charges SwissFranc 35 (£ 21, $ 34) for EMS delivery....

 

do they charge you delivery surcharges on SAL packages or is only for the express delivery of the EMS packages?

 

jeff

 

 

Yes, they charge SwissFranc 18 (£ 11, $ 17) for SAL packages. These charges have nothing to do with import taxes or as we call them over here: VAT value added tax. VAT will be put on top of the postal charges. SwissPost made a deal with the federal government. SwissPost  checks and taxes parcels from abroad in the name of the government and of course they don't do it for free. What hurts me the most, the hole process of 'checking' and 'calculating taxes' of my parcels is usually done in one or two minutes (according to tracking). SwissFranc 35 in the case of EMS or Swissfranc 18 in the case of SAL is just crazy.....

Of course SwissPost has a different reasoning: Nozomi's parcel from a safe and sound country will take us 2 minutes to process, Mr. X's stool made of an elephant's foot will take us half a day. Why charging according to acctual time spent.. better give 'em a 'flat' rate....

[ToniBabelony]

In Germany it's worse I think. Everything I ordered with SAL from HW Japan got VAT taxed, apart from one package that was under €22,20 (rail and GM kits). Anything above €22,00 gets a 19% VAT on top of it. Sometimes no tax if you're lucky.

 

EMS is even worse as these, when above a value of €22,00 you get taxed and above a value of €150 you have to pay a customs duty on top of it all! My last package, worth of about €140, I had to pay around €27,50, pick it up myself and open it. They were very busy at that time, as it was around Christmas and had only one staff member available, whereas they normally have three active for imports. The other two were ill; sweet revenge.

 

I expect to go there again next month to pick up the TOMYTEC controller. Now, that won't be a punishment to go there :3

[andreas]

Found this on the Hobby Search web page:

 

From 2nd till 10th of February, HOBBY SEARCH is holding a Special Sale,

commemorating the start of SAL service at our shop. What we offer is...

-For PVC Figrue, Mechas, Anime Toy and Fashion Doll, 15% discount and 5% points.

-For Gundam Model, Military, Model Car, Hobby Tool, Model Train and RC Model,

20% discount and 5% points.

*Note that this sale covers all orders placed during this period, SAL or EMS!!

 

Andreas

[lbriand_fr]

Good news.