Ordered about $130 worth of stuff from Great Models–several kits and about a dozen small items such as paint, glue and minor tools.
Three weeks later, I get a box containing $5 worth of paint and a single $10 kit. $6.50 shipping, everything else I ordered is “out of stock.”
So I order all the missing stuff from Roll Models, which will ship in “three to four weeks.” (Have people like this ever gone to business school???)
A week later, another box arrives from Great Models. Another kit and some paint, about $50 worth. $6.50 shipping again,and it’s all stuff I’ve already ordered from Roll Models.
One day later, the rest of my Great Models order arrives–the third kit plus some glue, ANOTHER $6.50 for shipping a few ounces of stuff.
So I’ve paid almost $20 for “shipping” and have double-ordered a bunch of stuff, which pisses me off. If I buy six books from Amazon and they don’t have two of them in stock, they pay for shipping when the missing two arrived, since they advertised them as being for sale. (It’s not my fault that Amazon doesn’t have them in stock, after all.)
Oh, and don’t bother trying to contact “customer service” at Great Models. I’ve tried twice, and in a month have heard nothing.
The mail-order model business is a bunch of amateurs, whether they call themselves “Great,” “Total” or “Infinite.”
I’ve had a similar experience with them. Twice in the last year I’ve ordered over $200 worth of stuff from them, which should get me free shipping. And both times I got the same treatment you did - the stuff came in multiple shipments with shipping charged. And it was just like yours - the shipments came a few days apart. I had expected them to ship everything together at once. I complained via email the first time and was told I would get a credit on my next order, which of course didn’t show up either.
For this most recent incident, I’ve sent several emails to their customer support address, and finally one to their “critical” support email address about two weeks ago, and have heard nothing. At this point, unless they refund the shipping that they overcharged me on both orders I’ll never order another thing from them.
Sounds like Great Models have a company policy of NOT posting an entire order at once to avoid “giving away” the cost of postage…so they can charge you postage two or three times where they originally promised that postage is free…and if they don’t respond to your complaints, then they don’t deserve your custom.
You’d think that they’d make SOME sort of effort to contact you (just a quick email) and advise that the entire order can’t be shipped at once…and then NOT charge postage for the back ordered items…what a rip-off.
There’s a good reason why I deal almost exclusively with just one model shop in the city where I live. If they don’t have it, they’ll get it in for me - and they don’t charge postage.
Monitor your order – GMW allows you to see what is going on with your order every day on-line and once an item arrives in stock it will show for several days before something happens. If nothing else is due in within the next week then they will ship it. If you want special instructions like ‘do not ship until order is complete’ you must tell them. Also if you are going to order the stuff from another shop after placing the original order you had best cancel that original order – just common sense.
I’ve ordered from them in the past from the UK, and have tracked my order, changed the order to two items of the same type instead of one, and had them hold it until the 2nd one arrives. I think Swanny’s right - they have certain policies, which they may not advertise well enough, and if you just leave them to it, it could cost you. Best practice is to monitor the status of your order from day to day.
As he also said, you should have cancelled the rest of your order with Great Models if you were ordering elsewhere. While you were ordering with Roll Models, GM were ordering in the stuff that they didn’t have in stock for you, in order to fulfil your order. You can’t really blame them for that, as that’s what any business would do with out of stock items.
If you simply want them to ship things that are in stock, you should just use their www.kitlink.com website, as that has live stock levels, and everything you can order can be dispatched there & then.
I’m siding with Swanny and mikeiw in defense of GreatModels Webstore. This is a great feature they have that allows you to check order status, request immediate shipment of in stock items, or hold your entire order until all items are in. I’ve ordered many things from them, changed items or quantities of items, added and cancelled items. For me they have been very responsive when I send an email though replies usually take two days as I live and work overseas, but they have a huge inventory and I imagine a pretty large customer list.
I buy 99% of my kits, tools, paint and other resources online because good LHSs are very hard to find here, and 80-90% of what I buy comes from GreatModels Webstore.
Check your order status regularly and don’t let them ship until items are in, if you ask them they’ll hold it. IMO they are the best online hobby resource, at least for model building.
I do monitor my orders on a daily basis. In both cases my orders showed stuff that was due to arrive in just a couple of days. And then they shipped without waiting for these items and charged me shipping. As far as I’m concerned this was an error on their part, and the lack of response to my repeated polite customer support emails asking them to address this is inexcusable. You can defend them all you want - but this isn’t the first time people have had problems with this shop. If you see repeated issues come up, then there’s something that company should be addressing if they want to keep business.
GreatModels could improve their communication… I mean, I see something available I assume they can get it for me… I’ve ordered things from their website that have never arrived (a P-66, some 1/48 scale fuel trucks, etc.). They could do a better job of setting expectations and communicating them when it comes to some of the products they offer.
I have a life to live. I frankly don’t have time to “monitor daily” relatively inconsequential purchases from an on-line hobby shop. I travel constantly, sometime internationally, often without Internet access, and I have more important things to do than “monitor daily” a Great Models order, forgodsakes.
The initial receipt did not say the missing items were backordered. It said they were out of stock, which is why I ordered them elsewhere and was surprised when they arrived thereafter from Great Models.
Reputable on-line merchants do not act this way. When I order 10 books from Amazon and five arrive, I know the missing five will arrive eventually and that I won’t be charged shipping for them, since Amazon considers the job of keeping in stock stuff it advertises as being for sale as their responsibility. I know that it’s not always possible, but at least they aren’t gonna charge you shipping as a result of their stocking problems.
I have to agree with Stephan on the “I have a life to live” comment - on-line shopping can be convenient, sure … BUT … these kinds of problems are all too common on every single one of the on-line hobby sites I have tried to date. It seems like some of them use their (generally) grossly inflated shipping charges to enhance the revenue stream, shall we say? $4.95 to ship a single sheet of decals through the regular mail? My momma didn’t raise any fools …
To state upfront that orders “may” be shipped in two to three weeks tells me that an on-line shop is disorganized, understaffed, dishonest, or a combination of all three; to state things are out of stock and then ship them and charge you for shipping again is unethical at best and criminal at worst; customer service requests that are ignored tell me that they don’t like to be bothered by the people who are enabling them to earn a living. If the same problems keep cropping up with the same on-line shops, that should serve as a warning to the rest of us.
That said, I try to order things through my local hobby shop. The wait is generally a week or less and she doesn’t mark it up 20 percent or more for “shipping and handling.”
Ahh, another rant about online hobby shop purchases; I must join in. I have used GMW a slew of times, and a bunch of errors have occurred. One time, they shipped me a single bottle of Mr. Color Thinner and charged me, yup 6.50 for shipping. Now this was an error on their part. They have also, on multiple orders, shipped me a single item separately and charged me an additional 6.50 for it. These were other errors on their part. Now, I have called them each time, and they credited me the amount in error; in fact, they gave me 2x the credit once, so I actually got the Mr. Color Thinner for free. The person who answered my call, however, honestly didn’t believe me when I told her what had happened, but I assured her that I was not lying.
In any event, I have been able to get them on the phone each and every time a boo boo has occurred, and they have made good on it. In general, I really like the layout of their site. Yes, things appear “in stock” that aren’t sometimes. But overall, they have filled ~95% of my orders, and their prices can’t be beat. I imagine and hope that they’re working on the glitches. Someone should email them this thread! Love Squadron too, a little more reliable, and they ship super quick. But the LHS is nice for some things - go there and grab it, no guessing. Just a little more dinero. I bet GMW will fix these problems as it will no doubt lead people to hesitate a bit to use their services. Adios
P.S. try calling them about order problems. I know it’s a pain, but I have always gotten through. Emails are far too easily ignored [:)]
I would have to agree with Stephan and mfsob. I had the same type of problems with Great Models, unanswered emails and stuff that I just never got. Now I mainly deal with e-hobbyland.com and Sprue Brothers.com I found that Great Models prices were not that great anyway.[2c]
i too have had it with great models. i order 2 things about 4 weeks now and went to see were or what the status was . one was bineg searced for. now here is the catcher when i order it said it was both in stock. now some 6 weeks later i still havent got what i need. so i order what i needed from spruce brothers and all ready got what i need from the. and i am still waiting for one pice from great models to get here. i still have a lot of stuff on backorder with them . i may just cancle and ask for a full credit to my accout. if i can get it from some one else that what i will do no more great models for me
I would highly suggest Tower Hobbies. They may not have QUITE the selection of GMW, but their prices and shipping charges are excellent, and the speed of their shipping is the best I’ve seen.
I buy from Tower and Squadron, they both do a pretty good job of letting you know what they have and you will get them within a week.
The flip of this is that this is way things are going because businesses don’t want to carry as much inventory. In many cases, suppliers order your stuff when you do, and if they charge you up front, us your money to buy them from their supplier (The Dell Business Model). This allows them to reduce carrying charges, and risk. The down fall is that it increases the amount of time it takes to fill an order, and you can’t always fill an order completely. With the exception of pre-orders, I like the practice that Squadron uses of not back ordering, you place your order they ship what they have and you are done. The only complaint I have with it is you don’t know what they didn’t have until the shipment arrives. Probably the best one I’ve worked with is at ModelExpo where you can actually follow your order and get a shipping notice when it ships, etc…
Well as usual everyone is making some good points. Some of the things aid I agree with and some I do not.
I agree the first order should have been cancelled… even before the second was placed.
I disagree with having to monitor an order as suggested. Their website states that back ordered stiff may take months to become available. I don’t know if it ever really takes that long but am I expected to be checking their site daily for an extended period of time? I do nearly 100% of my Xmas shopping online for the past few years so I order from a ton of places and I haver had to do that with any of them.
I disagree with a policy of just sending back ordered items without checking first…how hard is it to send an email…and charge shipping each time. They do have a box to check asking to have in stock items then cancel the balance of the order. But that has not worked twice for me. Both times I never heard they were sending the stuff and I happened to notice the charges in my account when viewing it on line. I called them up and they said no problem, be happy to cancel the shipping which they were able to do that day…BUT…then 3-4 calls and as many weeks each time to get the money credited back to my account. I have my own business and I know how long a charge back takes and it isn’t 3-4 weeks.
Someone mentioned business school. They need to get with the times… these days customer service is most companies primary concern. GMW acts in a less than reputable manner and I try to avoid dealing with them if at all possible.
See, this is weird to me. I’ve been ordering from them for years, and have never had a single problem. When I do need to contact their customer service, either by phone or email, they’re prompt and friendly. shrug Guess it’s different for everyone…
Hey, come on guys. Rollmodels is supposed to be extremely reputable to deal with. Also, I haven’t had any bad experiences with Greatmodels, becaus ei order only from their www.kitlink.com site. [knock on wood]