I found an item here that I want that’s going for about $25 less than everywhere else. Anyone have experience with these people?
Err…Nevermind. After more research I found out they are in China. Shipping will negate any savings.
Often times the shipping charges from China are much less than those of businesses much closer. I think I read somewhere that the Chinese government subsidizes shipping in order to increase overseas sales. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it makes sense.
But my-oh-my do they have low prices on Trumpeter 1/32 aircraft… pretty much 50% less than US sellers. Could be worth an order just to see how long it takes to arrive.
Rob, it does seem that with shipping the item would be about $10 cheaper than the cheapest I’ve found it stateside. However, that isn’t worth the extra delivery time I anticipate.
Dre, they have some insane prices for sure, but I was hesitant because I’d never seen them mentioned. Adding the fact that its on the other side of the earth worries me a little bit. I still haven’t built up the nerve to order from China; despite the positive experiences with Lucky Model and HLJ.
Professor, just looking at their shipping calculator a $76 order to Virgina would run about $42 in shipping charges. That’s eating up that 50% savings right quick… and they estimate between 7-35 days in transit.
Gotta think this one through before I click the order button.
That’s interesting. I didn’t use the sites calculator, but google shopping implied that a $47 model would ship for $65. But that’s an estimate I guess.
They offer 3 levels of expensive shipping- the slow boat (15-35 days), a moderately quick boat (5-10 days) and the sampan of speed (now).
In general I avoid buying anything from China- but it’sdifficult, because just about everything you see in retail stores comes from there.
I am going to go experiment with their shipping calculator for giggles later. I wonder if it is anything like Lucky Model. For some reason their shipping is all over the place. For one 1/48 kit shipping will be $35 and for another $20. I know it isn’t box size because I know that some of these kits are similar in size.
I’ve ordered from Hobby Link Japan and have had excellent shipping times; so it may depend on the shipping method used. I tend to buy mainly cheap aftermarket items like gun tubes from China via eBay and shipping is very fast, but it’s a small-sized envelope and comes air mail.
I’ve ordered probably about $2000 (not all at once) worth of items from China and never once had any problems in getting my orders. Shipping time was about what it would be in the USA. A few items within 3 days! ALL of these had very low shipping cost and about half were shipped at no cost.!
I’ve found shipping from Eastern Europe is also very reasonable. However I havent had a free shipment yet.
Contrast that with Britain and Canada where shipping are absolute deal breakers. Often the shipping is more than the merchandise.
Not sure what is going on here. Gov’t subsidy, low labor costs?
Just to update this old thread… I placed an order with this site because of the stupidly low prices offered and received everything I ordered in great shape and securely packaged after a 3-week wait.
If you can stand the long shipping times and wondering where your goods might be then this is a great place to save some money on Chinese-made kits. Even with the inflated shipping charges, I still spent less money on my total order than I would have on one item bought state-side by itself.
Chexcked it out,looks like it might be another option in the future.