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It would not surprise me if Hobbyking go out of business all together in the next 6-12 months. They still have that massive fine hanging over them in the US (they have not issued any press release stating they've paid it or come to any alternative agreement), and if they had to withdraw completely from that market revenue (which will be down massively due to the pandemic and other online competition) will dip further. Their days of dominating the market seem well and truly over. 

Edited by MattyB
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I haven't used HK for very much lately either UK, EU or Global, but back in the day when the only choice was to order direct from their Hong Kong facility we managed perfectly well. Maybe they'll restructure their business to operate from that single site and keep better stocks, increase their trade and be able to offer reasonable postage options. Interesting times.

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Oh boy.  As a tester, I just went through the motions of placing an order for  copule of 1300mah LiPos.  Only available via global (like all the other LiPos that I looked at as potential orders.  Cost for the two£19.50.  Excellent- so far!  Then postage- £19.50!  (Dangerous goods) Ouch!  Then, perhaps, customs duties?

 

Looks like HK is finished here??  Or?  Has anyone any other thoughts?- points of view?

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you will get hit with duty, which is understood, plus a variable extra handling charge, which can be £10-15 on top of that. 

 

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I understood that the whole point of a firm like HK registering with HMRC was that you will not have to pay any handling charges as it will all be pre-collected at point of purchase; at least up to duty threshold of £135.

 

Above that I am not sure. I guess handling and duty will get added by RM or whoever deals with your particular import. But that was always the case.

 

29 minutes ago, Tosh McCaber said:

Excellent- so far!  Then postage- £19.50!  (Dangerous goods) Ouch!  Then, perhaps, customs duties?

 

No custom/duty will apply. As above no handling should apply as tax is already collected by HK. Whichever remaining warehouse the things come from.

 

I think that HK are as finished as us, the customer, wish to make them.

 

Edited by Nigel R
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57 minutes ago, MattyB said:

It would not surprise me if Hobbyking go out of business all together in the next 6-12 months

 

Maybe they'll shut down and then rebrand like Giant Cod or Fat Shark or whatever it was?

 

Hobby King

Pastime Emporer

Leisure Boss

 

???

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1 hour ago, Tosh McCaber said:

Oh boy.  As a tester, I just went through the motions of placing an order for  copule of 1300mah LiPos.  Only available via global (like all the other LiPos that I looked at as potential orders.  Cost for the two£19.50.  Excellent- so far!  Then postage- £19.50!  (Dangerous goods) Ouch!  Then, perhaps, customs duties?

 

Looks like HK is finished here??  Or?  Has anyone any other thoughts?- points of view?

Tosh -you shouldn't get hit with duty for less than £137 I think it is, or thereabouts.

The thing with the UK warehouse was you could get the bits that you need either next day or in a couple of days. The props and spinners that I ordered on Friday arrived a few minutes ago. I don't think that will happen from the HK or EU warehouse, at least to here. My question is - when will the bits that I ordered yesterday arrive, given that the warehouse is closed. Normally they would have been marked as dispatched by now, but they are still shown as Processing.

I was only saying yesterday morning that the spares situation in the UK warehouse had greatly improved over the last few months - that looks to have gone out of the window now. One of my clubmates has been waiting over six months for the prop blades for his HK Hurricane to come back in stock, so the model has been grounded for sake of a single prop blade.

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23 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

Tosh -you shouldn't get hit with duty for less than £137 I think it is, or thereabouts.

 

That's on goods that are subject to duty, but the VAT will need to be collected. Last time I looked neither the HK or EU warehouse had registered for UK VAT, so you may get caught. But at the moment it looks like the UK is applying a light touch to imports from the UK, I recently ordered a couple of sensors from SM Modelbau in Germany, they took off the German VAT so I was expecting to pay UK VAT and the collection charge, but the goods were delivered to me tax free. I think the UK has in the short term relaxed the requirement from the EU to ease trade disruption, but I can't see that lasting, especially if UK sales to the EU are not treated similarly.

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I ordered a P-38 from Motion RC EU last month. The model was delivered, with no charge made on delivery by the courier -where I'd seen such charges collected before and I thought the same. Then 24 hours later received an invoice from FedEx for VAT, Duty and a £12 handling charge for collecting those. I think there is a limit, below which the duty isn't payable, but the VAT will be -and probably that handling charge too.

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1 hour ago, Frank Skilbeck said:

I think the UK has in the short term relaxed the requirement from the EU to ease trade disruption,

 

I'm betting on a failure to prepare for the additional workload.

 

Seems a safer bet than the generosity of government.

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I think the writing's been on the wall for the UK warehouse for a while - they never seemed to have any stock & I've only ever bought from the EU warehouse in the last few years.  I'd still rather buy from HK than Banggood or AliExpress.

 

I hope HK stick around in some form - the Avios/Durafly models are very popular as well as some of the Turnigy-branded stuff.  it would be a shame if the hobby lost those products.  I wonder whether they might end up being split off from the main HK company to shield them from any liability from the threatened FCC action.

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My experience of AliExpress has be good so far.

P &  P very good

Items arrived tracked

Nothing of dodgy quality.

 

There has been a couple of times when items were sent wrong and an item didn't turn up despite it appearing on China Post tracker. You raise a dispute and fight your corner and I've always got a full refund. On one occasion Ali told me to keep the wrong items

 

 

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Waiting a few weeks is not an issue for me (when purchasing form overseas). In the past I would purchase much of the hardware at the start of a project, as part of the build process.

 

Paying 20% Vat is not to much of an issue, although like most people I prefer low tax. 

 

However any additional handling fees are very much not welcome. On that basis how can I tell if an overseas supplier has an arrangement to add the 20% Vat, to forward to the Customs in the UK? As far as I can tell. the sites I tend to look at in the Far East or Europe, do not seem to partake in this scheme?

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On 18/10/2021 at 12:17, leccyflyer said:

I ordered a P-38 from Motion RC EU last month. The model was delivered, with no charge made on delivery by the courier -where I'd seen such charges collected before and I thought the same. Then 24 hours later received an invoice from FedEx for VAT, Duty and a £12 handling charge for collecting those. I think there is a limit, below which the duty isn't payable, but the VAT will be -and probably that handling charge too.

I had exactly the same. I tried to forget about the so "Handling Charge", but FedEx started hounding me on a daily basis, so paid it in the end, but no more Motion RC for me. Shame.

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Just ordered from the EU warehouse and there is a problem HK really need to sort out, the maximum postage weight available is 2KG, I wanted 4 wing bags at between 1 and 2 KG each, only way to get them was to put through four different orders each under 2 KG.

 

So if what you want is over 2KG you won't get a shipping option and therefore can't buy it.

 

The postage cost was more than the items but lets be honest and stop knocking HK because that was still way cheaper than anything else available and maybe at under £40.00 a packet I might even escape VAT charges as they are supposed to collect them. 

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15 hours ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

What does "Handling charge" mean ? The postage fee being kept by H.K and this end having to charge for their part in getting stuff to you ?

 

Low tax Erf ? Give that one a lol if I may.

 

Not really a handling charge for the delivery but a charge for collecting the VAT on behalf of HMRC.

We might see HK start to use an online sales portal, e.g. Ebay, Amazon Marketplace which will collect the VAT.

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17 hours ago, ken anderson. said:

overseas, who would have imagined not so long ago,we would be weighing up where to buy from overseas.....wish we still had a model shop in ne..1...land.

 

ken anderson...ne..1......wish dept.

I wouldn't fret too much considering that more or less everything that one can find in a model shop will be sourced from abroad anyway. We've discussed this at length over the years and as with so much else today, what was viable twenty or thirty plus years ago isn't going to survive now - just have a look at your local high street!

Take heart that a number of model shops have reacted to change and offer us a wide range of goods on-line with first class mail order facilities. The likes of SMC, SLEC and several others seem to be doing OK and I find browsing those companies' websites an enjoyable pastime. I am fortunate to have a small model shop within a short drive of home and I use them when I need to, but as far as aeromodelling tackle goes they just can't keep much more than a few gallons of fuel and some odds and ends. Long gone are the days of their shelves being full to the ceiling with model 'plane kits that one could browse through and have the proprietor open up for your inspection. They seem to remain reasonably successful, but I think more on the back of model cars, plastic kits and other general hobby stuff judging by what people seem to buying when I've been in the shop.

Edited by Cuban8
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The local model shop (LMS) is selling much of the same stuff, from China, Vietnam etc. Their handling charge was often not trival either, yet not enough to stay in business.

 

The world has changed, it will continue to change, I try to purchase what I want as cost effectively as possible. Slightly related, is the fact i buy our groceries from the Super Market, along with Diesel, rather than the corner shop, The range of goods is greater and the purchase price much lower, apparently by £700 a year by a recent published estimate, per faimly. In my case probably that is £400. 

Edited by Erfolg
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A few years ago I commented that I thought that our UK model retail sector would eventually be dominated by a few large shops that embraced and sought to grow their on-line business. Some smaller model shops are still struggling on but I think that my original view has become true. It's about economy of scale as much as anything. Relying on local trade on a walk-in basis might have been OK forty years ago, but there's just so few customers to attract from say a handful of model clubs in a local area that a business must surely need to cast its net much further by using the web and on-line sales coupled with motivated staff, effective advertising, first class service and keen prices. Attributes that I'm sorry to say weren't on the agenda of quite a few businesses that have now gone.

Edited by Cuban8
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True of most retail sectors C8.

 

Fact is, operating costs for online shops are simply lower than high street stores. Ground rent can be lower for an anonymous commercial unit. Postal costs are passed on to the consumer. With a high street shop, those post costs are effectively replaced with a much higher ground rent to absorb, and the product costs can be raised to match, as people will simply buy at an online shop instead.

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