HobbyKing UK Open

HobbyKing UK went live this morning, stocks limited and the prices about 15% dearer. But shipping a lot cheaper than from china

Great they finally open it and will only ship to GB......??????

They're not selling much at the moment...Not going to entice me in until they start doing some batteries for starters!  

Edited By Simon B on 09/07/2012 10:10:55

I thought that was the idea of having a dedicated GB warehouse! What's the problem with that?

They call it a UK warehouse and will only ship to GB ie the island containing England , Scotland and Wales, so it is not available to Northern Ireland and the other offshore islands comprising the United Kingdom. Why not be accurate and call it the GB warehouse?

I live in the United Kingdom and will still have to order from China!

Yes, I've been waiting for them to open so that I could order some.

I've been eagerly waiting but now, a pretty poor show from HK. There should have been a whole lot more in stock. Not a single accessory, for example. No receivers, batteries, cables, fittings, etc.

Based on the current stocking levels I see no reason for them to have even bothered opening...

Found one funny thing - The EU store is selling an MX2 for $183 (about £130), when you can get them in the UK for less. I think HobbyKing doing airframes seems to represent poor value...

Hmm...will wait a while methinks - much as I am tempted by the airframes, no point without some other bits!

Their prices for airframes aren't all that in general, i didn't think.

After the pantomime I had getting a refund after my order went missing in the post they are going to have to make a pretty good show and make some effort before I shop with them again, in the meantime I will order from GS or HK and make a Paypal claim if the stuff hasnt arrived in 42 days.

If you click GBP in the currency box it gives the price in sterling about £114 the best UK price I can see is £133.

Most airframes seem to be cheaper in the UK warehouse than the EU warehouse

VAT rate in Germany is 19% as opposed to our 20% which could account for the difference. However, shipping costs will be lower (swings and roundabouts)

and Tinpot - although it says 'GB' they will ship over here (I just ran it up on a dummy order and it went through

That would suggest they should be cheaper in the German warehouse but they are cheaper here

Then they should have stated UK not GB, anyway after all the hype the opening is a damp squib with little or no stock, this is after months of promising container loads of stock just waiting for a suitable warehouse. I got sick of waiting until the "UK" store opened to replace some of my lipos and looking at the current stock levels I am very glad I sourced them from another supplier.

Scott did recently say in the RCG HK Lancaster thread 'a bit suprised (sic) ourselves at it opening today, most of the stock has not been entered into the system yet! ' so hopefully there will be more on there soon.

Edited By NigelH on 09/07/2012 21:36:50

The UK/GB confusion is very common - as I said, I've had loads of arguments over 'free shipping to mainland UK' when they actually meant mainland GB and that was from firms that were there originally. Anthony is Australian operating from Hong Kong and probably didn't know the difference (the others are all GB based and should have known and didn't). You could argue that the Isle of Man is also excluded as they aren't even part of the UK. However, it seems that they will ship to the wee north - but not to the south of Ireland

The stock levels are a bit of a conundrum - stuff keeps getting added almost hourly - it's probable that the stuff is in stock, but they are still updating the database. Give it a day or three to get the website up and running and then see what's there (but some of the stuff seems to have gone on back order already - one was a model yacht, but, given the weather over there, that's understandable )

Edited By Daithi O Buitigh on 09/07/2012 21:41:08

Edited By Daithi O Buitigh on 09/07/2012 21:58:21

It will take a week or so to get stock levels "live" at anything like realistic levels....and I will get this problem of Northern Ireland looked into pronto.

I don't think there actually is a problem with the north Scott. I did a dummy run (I need to go [put some money in on the plastric debit card first) and everything went through except the payment (I cancelled at that point)

The south - now that's a different thing

Latest from HK is this:

Great news for our European customers! Our UK warehouse is NOW OPEN!!! We have started taking orders within the UK area. (Expanding to more countries every day)

We are using Parcel Force for our UK shipping service, this delivery service also covers the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Coverage of the following areas will be coming online over the course of the next few business days.

Postcodes IV, HS, KA27-28, KW, PA20-49, PA60-78, PH17-26, PH30-44, PH49-50, ZE

Eire is an other country, is it not. They have there own Government, tax regime and laws etc.

I can see the logic in acknowledging England, Northern Ireland ,Scotland and Wales as being the UK.

Other countries are foreign lands