How not to treat a potential customer

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
This is a lesson for anyone wanting to start a business... I'm not looking for any resolution, I'm just commenting.

I was thinking of getting a micro P51 foamy for my middle child (almost 6) for his birthday. He's not going to fly it. He just loves running around with planes and spinning their props etc. A nice little foam one would be easy to repair from the inevitable wear and tear.

I came across the 55cm model that Hobbyking stocks on their Ebay site. It was listed for a few dollars below their shop price, so I was about to pull the trigger when I saw the 'or best offer' option. I put in an offer that was a couple of dollars less and waited for their counter-offer (they never accept the one you put in).

A couple of days later, I get the Ebay notification that the offer's been rejected. No counter-offer. No note. And the original list price is jacked up over 20% immediately after they reject my offer!

Needless to say, I find this beyond rude (even if that wasn't their intention) and there's no way this transaction's ever going to happen, even if they reconsider and accept my offer...

Anyhow, I guess I'll get him a nice plastic model like I was first going to anyway.

Here endeth the lesson in how not to treat potential customers...
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
The Chinese use e-bay as a marketing research tool to try to understand capitalism not understanding that e-bay is a BAD model of said same. They don't get it. :confused:

Thurmond
 

MrGravey

Senior Member
I have to love and hate Hobbyking anyway. This is just more of the same from them in my opinion. You should have stopped by their tent at SEFF this year. People were stopping by to give them more than just a little piece of their mind.

The one thing they do with their customers that kills me is let them be taken advatage of. Try this test I recently did and see if your results match. I signed up on Hobbyking to be notified when more OrangeRX recievers were available in the US warehouse. As soon as I got the message that those were available I tried to order them and they were gone. I went to eBay and behold there were tons of new listings for those recievers at better than twice the price. There has a be a better way. I went to the OrangeRX website and left a comment, that also got deleted.
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
In general I've had pretty good experiences with hobbyking. I feel sorry for the half dozen people at the company that understand their customer's expectations but there are a lot of front of house workers there today will never understand...
 

aiidanwings

Senior Member
"... I find this beyond rude (even if that wasn't their intention)"

Sir, remember that you're a manly man who fights rhinos and farts fire. HK's actions don't offend your sensibilities... a bear mauling might, but some anonymous button pusher on the net hasn't the chance. Now tighten up your belt and go stab something.

Or play with your toy planes. Ya' know, whatever.:D
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
Hear hear, I ain't losing any sleep over it. Just thought I'd give potential entrepreneurs some friendly advice on how not to extract money from people like me...

I'll go back to catching trout in the river and consuming their roe as I catch them (seriously, don't knock it 'til you try it!)
 

MrGravey

Senior Member
I believe their net effect on the hobby is positive. That said they could be so much better with just a few small changes and that is the part that sucks. I also know better than to think the opinion of a single shopper means anything to them. As a matter of fact the opinion of every shopper doesn't matter so long as people are buying their stuff. Oh well, I have some NanoTech batteries to order from HobbyKing.com. I can complain all I want, but in the end they are still worth dealing with.
 

bmsweb

Site Moderator
I'll go back to catching trout in the river and consuming their roe as I catch them (seriously, don't knock it 'til you try it!)

You're killing me . . this weekend I think we will do the same!!!

I honestly thing HK do it to us all at one time or another. Have a look at the video below and jump straight to the 8:08 mark and you'll see my frustration come out on the video. HK have good range of products (much of which is out of stock) and their pricing is good for the most part, but that's really it with HK. For what its worth I understand your frustration :)

 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
To be fair, this is what normal retailers have to deal with and present the smiley face to the customer. Hobbyking lets us all taste what it's like to buy from wholesalers.

The trout roe is beautifully sweet and creamy, and has that lovely salmonid flavour that stays in your mouth for the rest of the expedition. I wasn't game to give it a go until after I'd tried feeding it to my oldest boy. He has a good palate and is far more adventurous than I. One of my fishing buddies adds it to the list of proofs that I'm a little nuts, along with wet wading right through the year and flying toy planes...
 

jd7792

Senior Member
You know what's really funny, EVERYONE that writes about Hobbyking writes in the negative, (me included) and yet they are the living proof that you can have your cake and eat it to! Any other company would have closed down by now but they just keep getting stronger.
Isn't it great to vent every now and then?
 

aiidanwings

Senior Member
You know what's really funny, EVERYONE that writes about Hobbyking writes in the negative, (me included) and yet they are the living proof that you can have your cake and eat it to! Any other company would have closed down by now but they just keep getting stronger.
Isn't it great to vent every now and then?


I think happy people are less likely to go rant online about having a pleasant experience.
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
Very true. But also there aren't many retail shops that give you much of a better experience nowadays... and they still Roger you as if they did.
 

jd7792

Senior Member
I think happy people are less likely to go rant online about having a pleasant experience.

Happy people? I think I once met one of them, but I can't be sure cause nothing he said made any sense and the funny white jacket he was wearing seemed to be helping him scratch an itch he had on his back!
 

oneiwily

Junior Member
I can tell that most of my experience with HK was OK , I don't ship the the US so I use the international warehouse, it's usually a day or two till shipped and 1-2 weeks of international shipping , that is good.

I did order once with something that was Back ordered, and after 3 weeks that it was still in back order .. I just cleared that item off the order , got points for it .. and it was shipped normally. Needless to say the next day that item came back from back order ..

I don't know what you expect from them .. I expect good prices , and fair service.
I know that any business will make mistakes and ship wrong things once in a while, it happened to me on local retailer .. It's part of any business that ships especially some one on that scale
 

jay302

Junior Member
I think happy people are less likely to go rant online about having a pleasant experience.
As a tech support agent, I agree with this 100%. You can have millions of <insert product here> that never have an issue. Those customers almost never call/rant/rave about how well the product is working for them. The few that do are largely ignored because us humans love drama!