Hobbyist Haven

[Rockin' Rob]

I'm just letting everyone know that I ordered stuff from hobbyist Haven on the 19th of June. I still haven't received my stuff I ordered. My tracking seems to be froze in one spot in LA. They won't respond to emails. Very shady

 

[Rockin' Rob]

This is an update on hobbyist Haven. After several nice emails to support and one not so nice email to support they have neglected to answer. So yesterday I got on this forum and lo and behold after I posted this I got an email from none other than hobbyist Haven! Wonder of Wonders. They were nice. They explained the situation. Very apologetic. It's stuck in customs inspection for some reason. Okay I said. Great! That's all I wanted. THAT, and to have a human reply back.

 

[Edbert]

I've never heard of them so did some looking up.

Your package is stuck, I thought in Louisiana until you said Customs, but stuck in LA usually means they shipped from Asia.

They do not have any storefront or brick-and-mortar presence, but their HQ is in Delaware, maybe for tax purposes. They sound like a website-only business who is just a dealer, that is not a problem for me, there are vendors who do the same. Squadron and Scale Hobbyists are two of my main vendors and they do not have a shop as in ye' olde hobby store. Sprue Brothers do, but most of their business is mail order. Just saying that being an online only store is fine with me, but not if orders are sent to me from overseas sellers, that just means you're a middle-man.

I have recently sworn off on purchasing anything from overseas, Australia/New Zealand and Japan being exceptions. The long delays and expense are bad enough, but now I am getting unexpected bills from FedEx and DHS for tariffs. A $5-10 charge is not a deal killer, it is the $20-30 tacked on charges for "servicing fees" that made me to decide I only order domestic (with few exceptions) for now.

Please avoid any politics about tariffs, I do not want to go there. But as long as there's no free trade with Europe and much of Asia I'm no longer wanting anything shipped from there. Just my opinion but, Hobbyist Haven should ship to US customers from their Delaware warehouse like the tier-1 vendors I listed above do, even if it was made in Ukraine or wherever.

 

[Rockin' Rob]

Yes sir. I research them a little bit too and found out the same things. I don't think I'm going to order from them again because I did order from them earlier. Before this Fandango. And I watched the shipping. I live in Phoenix. It came from overseas. Japan or china, who knows? It hit la Customs. Went to two places in California. Hopped on a truck and drove right by me all the way to I think Illinois. Then it bounced around there and then it finally got on a truck and drove all the way back down to Phoenix. Nope. That's middle man stuff and I bet I can find a cheaper elsewhere. Sorry guys y'all lost my business.

 

[Rockin' Rob]

Just my opinion but I think we need more American entrepreneurs getting on board the gravy train. Just saying America. There's big opportunity out there right now for someone that wants to grab it by the nut hairs. Man I wish I was younger

 

[Edbert]

Just my opinion but I think we need more American entrepreneurs getting on board the gravy train. Just saying America. There's big opportunity out there right now for someone that wants to grab it by the nut hairs. Man I wish I was younger

The three companies I listed all do very well for me. I know very well that many of the product they sell were made overseas, and I have no issue with buying overseas product in general. But I want them shipped from a dometic warehouse, Canada counts (I love masx.com) too, where me the end-user doesn't have to deal with the delays and extra costs.

I cannot say which of my "big three" online resellers is best, they all have a good side. I keep a "watch list" and "notify me" on all of them.

Source	Pro	Con
Scalehobbyist	Almost always the best price	Website hard to filter/navigate, and some items are not stocked like 3rd party decal sets
Sprue Brothers	Awesome website and large product list	Often the most expensive, but their service overcomes that for me
Squadron	Fantastic community supporter (podcast and such)	Not really anything, maybe lots of ads on the website but they are all related to models so...meh

 

[Rockin' Rob]

Thank you. That's all good to know. Especially for newbies like me