Hobby Link Japan

[Roadkill2525]

I've been looking to order some stuff from HLJ and want to know how the service is?

[Gregg]

Fantastic!!!!

I order from them a lot!

And Scott is a great guy to boot.

Order as much as you can, seriously, saves on shipping.

I use the standard shipping, I forgot which one it is, will check

Get in a week or so

but then, I'm closer :-)

Maybe I just go pick it up in person?

Seriously, you can't go wrong with HLJ

[crispy]

I'm with Gregg! You can't go wrong. Fast shipping and great customer service if something does go wrong.

I once got a Ferrari body that was cracked. Took a picture emailed them and within a week or two I had another replacement body. No questions.

That's where I get most (95%) of my Japanese stuff.

Chris

[Zoom Zoom]

Great service; but you must realize how they work their orders or you could be frustrated beyond imagination.

If you make an order for items not in stock, they do NOT hold the rest of your order until that item(s) come in stock. You must carefully decide when you place the order which box to check; to wait X amount of time for items to arrive (and hope the stuff they have in stock now is still in stock when the others arrive), or cancel items not in stock, or cancel the whole order.

Generally on new items, they'll get restock pretty quick. You might order something that shows in stock and find it to go out of stock during the time between you placing the order and them actually filling it. That stuff usually comes right back in.

But if you have an order peppered with new stuff and older items that aren't in stock, there's no guarantee they'll all ship together. There's a good chance something you want that's there today will be gone tomorrow in someone else's order while waiting for something else.

It's frustrating that they do not hold anything for your order until out-of-stock stuff comes in. I brought this up in person w/Scott Hards at the IPMS Nat's, he told me that's simply how they operate. I don't particularly like it, but I learned how to play the "game". I only pre-order items, or only buy items that show "in stock". I don't bother ordering anything there that's not in stock. You might have better luck getting items/faster email service to find out if something's in-stock, or how long a wait for restock, from Rainbowten or Hobby Search. They're not as big as HLJ, but also have great service. And they're faster to ship items once the order comes in.

HLJ can be at times painfully slow to ship an order. You can sometimes wait 2 weeks for them to process the order, the payment, and actually get it out their door. Sometimes it's only a day or two, but most often it's about 3-4 days of waiting for an order to ship.

I had a box crushed by UPS once; sent photos, the kit had some minor damage, not "terminal", but they shipped me a completely new kit and I have the crushed-box kit (Hasegawa Miura, only got some minor chassis damage and to a chrome part or two) to build later with a few repairs. Great service...but you have to know the ins and outs of dealing with their order system. Ship via SAL; it's much cheaper and takes about 10-14 days to reach you once it's shipped. Longest I waited for an order was about 3 weeks from submitting the order to getting it in hand.

Edited August 7, 2008 by Zoom Zoom

[ericmaxman]

Great service; but you must realize how they work their orders or you could be frustrated beyond imagination.

If you make an order for items not in stock, they do NOT hold the rest of your order until that item(s) come in stock. You must carefully decide when you place the order which box to check; to wait X amount of time for items to arrive (and hope the stuff they have in stock now is still in stock when the others arrive), or cancel items not in stock, or cancel the whole order.

Generally on new items, they'll get restock pretty quick. You might order something that shows in stock and find it to go out of stock during the time between you placing the order and them actually filling it. That stuff usually comes right back in.

But if you have an order peppered with new stuff and older items that aren't in stock, there's no guarantee they'll all ship together. There's a good chance something you want that's there today will be gone tomorrow in someone else's order while waiting for something else.

It's frustrating that they do not hold anything for your order until out-of-stock stuff comes in. I brought this up in person w/Scott Hards at the IPMS Nat's, he told me that's simply how they operate. I don't particularly like it, but I learned how to play the "game". I only pre-order items, or only buy items that show "in stock". I don't bother ordering anything there that's not in stock. You might have better luck getting items/faster email service to find out if something's in-stock, or how long a wait for restock, from Rainbowten or Hobby Search. They're not as big as HLJ, but also have great service. And they're faster to ship items once the order comes in.

HLJ can be at times painfully slow to ship an order. You can sometimes wait 2 weeks for them to process the order, the payment, and actually get it out their door. Sometimes it's only a day or two, but most often it's about 3-4 days of waiting for an order to ship.

I had a box crushed by UPS once; sent photos, the kit had some minor damage, not "terminal", but they shipped me a completely new kit and I have the crushed-box kit (Hasegawa Miura, only got some minor chassis damage and to a chrome part or two) to build later with a few repairs. Great service...but you have to know the ins and outs of dealing with their order system. Ship via SAL; it's much cheaper and takes about 10-14 days to reach you once it's shipped. Longest I waited for an order was about 3 weeks from submitting the order to getting it in hand.

The EMS and SAL is only to limited countries, am I right? I am aware that SAL is cheaper, but what are the exact difference?

[Zoom Zoom]

The EMS and SAL is only to limited countries, am I right? I am aware that SAL is cheaper, but what are the exact difference?

SAL and EMS are for US shipments; not sure about to other countries.

SAL is "surface air lift", takes longer to get to destination. EMS is an overnight air service, once it's shipped it's only a couple days and it's delivered, therefore it's much more expensive, shipments are also tracked. Boxes over a certain dimension/value will be shipped only via EMS; friends ordered a case lot of Fujimi kits and they were automatically shipped EMS; the per-item shipping cost was a bit higher than SAL but not ridiculous, nor approaching what the US retail for the kit would be in a hobby shop.

[ismaelg]

My experience with Hobby Link Japan (HLJ) has been very good. I have received orders from them FASTER than from some mail order retailers in the US. Personally, my treshold is at least 3 kits per order. Less than that and shipping is considerable per item. Still, shipping is reasonable considering my kits go halfway around the globe and can get more frequent flyer miles than me

The only drawback if any, is that many items are usually out of stock or backordered. Other than that they are great.

Thanks,

[LVZ2881]

I have ordered from them a couple times. No complaints here at all regarding their service, though I wish they would be faster charging my card, so I can get a total in dollars and be budgeting my account.

usually order 3-4 kits plus some aoshima wheels at the same time..