Hobby shops in Australia

[Wanderfound]

Are there any hobby shops in Australia that don't suck?

I like the idea of supporting a local hobby store, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable premium to do so. But they aren't making it easy.

So far, every hobby store I've checked out shares the following features:

1) Lousy aircraft parts inventory; they usually don't have what you need.

2) Mediocre customer service, ranging from actively hostile to friendly-but-clueless.

3) Extreme pricing; the markup vs HobbyKing is generally in the region of 200-1,000%. Motors and batteries are about two to three times HK pricing; props are more like ten times the price.

As I said, I'm willing to pay a premium for a local business, but this is ridiculous. And while they could possibly counter the price difference with excellent customer service, they just don't.

Is there a hidden gem hobby store somewhere in Sydney that I haven't discovered?

 

[Swanno]

Seems like you are having similar experiences to me with the hobby shops over there. Here in Perth I generally try to support local Hobby Shops with the larger purchases I make for transmitters and receivers etc.

I bought a Futaba T8J which I now kind of regret after looking at what I could have got overseas but a big part of the purchase was getting a warranty on it. Still the remote is very nice and relatively easy to use.

Other than remotes they generally lack in anything flight related that is anything from mid low to high range gear. Usually just some RTFs here and there.

I ordered another receiver for my T8J from them but that was around 3 and a half weeks ago now. I went in once the inquire about it and the boss said he would do something about it personally. Got a call a week later asking if I wanted to allow them more time or get a refund, I allowed them some more time. I have phoned them once but they have failed to inform me about my order since then so I will probably go get a refund early this week. I was trying to get a receiver over here so I could start flying full size FT aircraft but I didn't want to rely on my cheap 9x which betrayed me numerous times with brown outs.

I have had a look at two other stores but it seems that most of them shy away from the planes generally only stocking props at a premium price. A Flite Test warehouse or distributor would make a killing over here. Their customer service is amazing.