Red Arrow Hobbies - still in business or not?

I'm just curious if anyone has had a bad experience recently with Red Arrow Hobbies? I placed an order back on Jan. 24th and have not seen or heard anything from them and I've tried sending a few follow up e-mails to them to ask the status of my order, but I have not heard anything back from them at all. And then I tried calling the number listed on their website today, but it rang several times and then finally picked up and it sounded like a fax machine beeping at me. If anyone knows any information about them, please share, I'm hoping to resolve things with them, but I may just have to go to Paypal to request a refund through them, if I cannot get in touch with anyone at Red Arrow to work things out? Thanks in advance for any information.

Scott

Its best to call Dave. He could be at a launch today. He is one of our dealers and we still ship him product.

I ordered from him twice last year... Both in Sept.
The first order came in about a weeks time.
The second order was a fiasco.
I ended up cancelling the order after the second week of Dec due to no product / backorder issues.


JD

I ordered tubes and such 3 days ago, got my order yesterday.

Dave is a great guy to work with. He can be a little slow but you can't argue with most of his prices. Email and call him and he will get ahold of you. He is a one-man company.

sredlin said:

I'm just curious if anyone has had a bad experience recently with Red Arrow Hobbies?

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Oh man, YES. Worst customer service next to Comcast. He took money for product he didn't have, didn't reply to emails, posted on his facebook page how horrible it was for businesses that HE was trying to order from wouldn't reply, and I finally emailed that I would cancel my order if he didn't reply and he canceled it and sent me a refund without even trying to make things right.

I'll never order from RAH again, and I'll be happy to tell anyone who brings them up about my bad experience.

Sadly, that's the reason why I didn't order from him on a recent order. I understand it is a one man operation, but it doesn't matter how good the price is if it takes weeks or months to get your order when I can pay an extra $10 on a $100 order and have it in less than a week.

Thanks everyone for the information, it sounds like there's a big range of experiences here, some good, some bad. At this point I guess I'll plan on trying to call again on Monday and see if I can get in touch with Dave and figure things out? I'd prefer to work this out rather than having to ask Paypal to process a refund without giving Dave a chance to make good on the order or refund it or whatever.

Scott

My one experience with Red Arrow Hobbies was emailing them about product availability and never getting a reply.

I used to live close to RAH and used to stop in every other month or so, plus I have ordered from them several times and it eventually came out OK, but Dave seems to have way too much trouble dealing with SNAFUED orders.

It will probably get fixed eventually, but expect to really have to work at it -- you will have to email and email and email again, call and call and call, snail mail, etc.

sredlin said:

I'm just curious if anyone has had a bad experience recently with Red Arrow Hobbies? I placed an order back on Jan. 24th and have not seen or heard anything from them and I've tried sending a few follow up e-mails to them to ask the status of my order, but I have not heard anything back from them at all. And then I tried calling the number listed on their website today, but it rang several times and then finally picked up and it sounded like a fax machine beeping at me. If anyone knows any information about them, please share, I'm hoping to resolve things with them, but I may just have to go to Paypal to request a refund through them, if I cannot get in touch with anyone at Red Arrow to work things out? Thanks in advance for any information.

Scott

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I have ordered from them perhaps 8-10 times over a period of years, including at least 3 in the past year. Never a problem. I even made a mistake on my order, called, and they fixed it for me -- no problems. All of my orders were for building components, however. If I was ordering reloads or motor hardware I would definitely call and check if I was in a hurry for the order. I don't think it is reasonable to be upset that you didn't get an answer to your Saturday call. Call them on Monday, and I am confident you will be served.

NikeMikey

This was my experience a while back: https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?63797-An-order-from-Red-Arrow-Hobbies
Some other people in the thread reported similar.

FWIW I don't consider "just call them" a really reasonable requirement to get ahold of a web vendor, unless they were to specifically say so on the frontpage or something. If someone has a web business I assume they'll respond to web communications.

My experience with Red Arrow was...ok.

Basically, everybody else I have ordered from (over 7 different vendors) emails you either an order acknowledgement or a shipping alert, or both (and a number also send a personalized thank-you). You can tell the rocket biz is almost like an extended family.

Red Arrow was the only one that never sent me any emails--my order arrived 30 days after I placed it...and one of the items that was available on the web page turned out not to be available.

Having said that, their prices are good and they have some items not available elsewhere. I think they will have to work on their inventory management and their web store / ordering stuff, in order to keep up with the rest.

Dave is a Great guy, if he has the stuff in stock it goes right out the door. I think he probably needs to work on inventory and customer service a bit, like a lot of small business these days getting a hold of merchandise can be a huge challenge.

See these two threads:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?63797-An-order-from-Red-Arrow-Hobbies

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...t-about-availablity-and-ship-times-for-motors

So, nearly a year later and still the same crappy service. Not informing the customer that something is out of stock so the entire order will wait in limbo for weeks or months perhaps, until that item arrives. Or until the customer who is finally tired of waiting without any word, finally is successful in reaching Red Arrow by phone eventually.

And ignoring yet again that what RAH is doing in this regard is ILLEGAL, in violation of FTC rules.

- George Gassaway

I ordered a Hobbyline 24/40 and 29/40-120 with RMS 18-38Delay Drilling Tool and I got my items one at a time between June and Late Sept. Then they screwed up and sent someones else's stuff to me when I got my final piece there was a mailing label to send the wrong items to the correct person and I paid the shipping, at that point I was so happy to be done with them I sent the package off for them instead of trying to deal with them any longer. The first time I called them was after 2-3 weeks with no information about my order and was told they were waiting on the RDDT, when I said ship what you got they did only it was just the 29/40-120 evidently the RDDT wasn't the only thing being waited on. Hope that the Universal Delay Drilling Tool and 38mm EZ-load upper retainer ring made it the the right person.

No orders for Red Arrow Hobbies from me, he may be a great guy to deal with in person or his storefront but his mail order sucks.

NikeMikey said:

I have ordered from them perhaps 8-10 times over a period of years, including at least 3 in the past year. Never a problem. I even made a mistake on my order, called, and they fixed it for me -- no problems. All of my orders were for building components, however. If I was ordering reloads or motor hardware I would definitely call and check if I was in a hurry for the order. I don't think it is reasonable to be upset that you didn't get an answer to your Saturday call. Call them on Monday, and I am confident you will be served.

NikeMikey

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Well I'm not too disappointed about not getting my phone call answered today, so I'll try again Monday and hopefully everything will get resolved. Thanks for the information.

Thus the reason I typically order from Apogee or Hobbylinc. The common denominator in all these threads is that people who are on a first name basis with the owner get okay service, others get the service they get. It doesn't matter that I don't now and probably never will know Tim Van Milligan or the CEO of Hobbylinc, but I still get good service.

I've ordered from RAH a couple times, but that was many years ago. I never had a problem with my orders.

This topic re-surfaces every few months. That tells me all I need to know.

op:

kelltym88 said:

I've ordered from RAH a couple times, but that was many years ago. I never had a problem with my orders.

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In all the threads I've read about them there are several people that report similar to you. A lot of these people say that they get on the phone to the owner and apparently that is the best way to ensure you get all the information about your order (if it's in stock, if shipping is delayed for any reason, etc.). So I'm happy for you that you're getting the rare good service also.

It's amazing to me that this man has stayed in business as long as he has by treating a significant portion of his customers so badly. If he can do that and his business survive, then good for him. My guess is that if he did reply to emails quickly, or sent them out himself as soon as an order had to be delayed, then he'd make a LOT more money and be much more successful. I know he'd still have my business, which he's already lost forever.

Not only has he lost my business, I'm making a point to chime in on every thread like this and share my experience.

I have dealt with RAH on site at launches no problems , he is my Loki fix

RAH was at December launch with tons of motors I'm sure they are still around

have never done a web order

Mushtang said:

.

Not only has he lost my business, I'm making a point to chime in on every thread like this and share my experience.

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You make this statement as if this "chiming" would be a side of you none of us here at TRF have ever encountered before.

I don't really understand all the people making excuses for RAH. I ordered items showing in stock last March and after never receiving anything started calling. Got a nice lady (owner was never there) who had excuses and promises but in the end never did anything. Based on people here defending them I let it go well past Paypal dispute limit, my mistake, never again.

Real time order inventory! Just saying its possible to do, you think a web based business would make that a priority. Is saving a few bucks worth the roulette game? It should never take more than 72 hours to ship anything you have in stock. If you have one shipping day that's acceptable if you get all your weeks orders out at that time.

Most importantly COMMUNICATE we are easy going people, if there is a problem most of us will understand, just give us the chance too.


Turn this into a positive note, and name a couple vendors that I know can do it.

Chris Rocket Supply

Buy Rocket Motors

GiantLeap

Apogee

ERockets

Back in then day and hopfuly again soon, Semroc

I didn't mean to leave any one out I had to stop typing at some point.


TA

bradycros said:

You make this statement as if this "chiming" would be a side of you none of us here at TRF have ever encountered before.

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Everyone at TRF has already heard me say that I'm forever done with RAH? I had no idea. I thought it was only the people that had read the previous anti-RAH threads where I'd mentioned it.

Apparently it bothers you, so I'll go ahead and let you know that I'm going to mention it again the next time a thread is started about RAH. You're likely to be bothered by it again.

Mushtang said:

Apparently it bothers you...

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Not at all.

Most people who have issues with Red Arrow Hobbies appear to be buying via the internet, people without issues seem to be the ones buying at his brick and mortar store or at launches. Dave may be a great guy, but his business will go so much better if he improves his internet sales and shipping and inventory management. I get that supply problems crop up, I understand backorders, but the vendor needs to notify the customer that the items are backordered so the customer can chose to cancel the order or wait. Its not about the person is about the business, successful businesses have happy customers (except WalMart who everybody seems to hate, even though they only shop at WalMart), good pricing will only get you so far.

I agree, the issue seems to be internet stock status, and then poor communication. Next time I order from him, I will call and check stock status first. my last order was held up because a paper coupler was not in stock. after a couple weeks I called and he shipped the order right away with a phenolic coupler instead. pretty annoying, but I did get a bunch of reloads at a good price from him.

Never had an issue with my orders.