Red Arrow Hobbies stealing money

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In my opinion the days of the big discounts are almost over. Vendors can't survive on always selling at the big discounts like they do. I can see a sale on certain items once in a while but everyday big discounts just won't keep them in business very long. How many of you guys would go to work Monday for 35% off your Friday wages. NONE
 
crossfire said:
In my opinion the days of the big discounts are almost over. Vendors can't survive on always selling at the big discounts like they do. I can see a sale on certain items once in a while but everyday big discounts just won't keep them in business very long. How many of you guys would go to work Monday for 35% off your Friday wages. NONE
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It's gotten to the point of "mattress warehouse lost our lease" in some cases. Set retail at 25% above real price, have a "sale"
 
And yet, in about seven weeks, the hordes will be lined up baying for black Friday pricing. Then eight to ten weeks later they will be wondering why they don't have their stuff.
 
H_Rocket said:
And yet, in about seven weeks, the hordes will be lined up baying for black Friday pricing. Then eight to ten weeks later they will be wondering why they don't have their stuff.
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That's because people still have hope. I found life got a whole lot less stressful when I gave up hope.
 
I don't know about that. Hoping there are folks out there who are willing to commit business suicide seems like the wrong tree to be barking up.
 
H_Rocket said:
And yet, in about seven weeks, the hordes will be lined up baying for black Friday pricing. Then eight to ten weeks later they will be wondering why they don't have their stuff.
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Gotta go with people only selling from stock. Madcow has done that in the past, and kept doing it since the RW take over for the hump day sales.
 
I think we should support your local field vendor. Solves a lot of the problems because you can pick it right up, no drama.
 
I took a stab at selling kits a few years back only to be asked why I wasn’t selling them at the same discount every one else was. I couldn’t produce the kits for the going rate, I may have been doing it for fun but I sure as hell wasn’t doing it for a loss. I don’t buy this make it up in volume crap either, this hobby just isn’t big enough to sustain that. Red Arrow has always been on the cheapest side and now look where it's gotten to. You can only afford to give it away for so long, it is going to catch up with you.
 
thobin said:
I took a stab at selling kits a few years back only to be asked why I wasn’t selling them at the same discount every one else was. I couldn’t produce the kits for the going rate, I may have been doing it for fun but I sure as hell wasn’t doing it for a loss. I don’t buy this make it up in volume crap either, this hobby just isn’t big enough to sustain that. Red Arrow has always been on the cheapest side and now look where it's gotten to. You can only afford to give it away for so long, it is going to catch up with you.
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I like this post!!!
 
Regardless of all that's been said, I think the main / biggest issue with this particular vendor is his lack of communication. Or, that when you do finally speak to him, you're given the impression that the matter will be taken care of. Only to require subsequent follow up calls when due dates are missed or delivery / tracking Nos not supplied. We shouldn't have to chase a vendor down who's repeatedly said "yes" to whatever we've asked for..

if you don't have what we asked for, call / e-mail & tell us. Can you offer a substitute? When do you expect delivery of resupply stock?

Be the man: tell us the 14 pcs of J1750WT aren't in stock, and won't be until November, but the J1820GBH is. And do it in a timely manner. You got the order, look it over.. don't wait a week to ponder your stock..
 
WYSIWYG onsite vending hard to mess up


as far as BF/BS sales they IMO have gotten out of hand , sales should be a way of selling off existing stagnate stock / over stocked stuff
 
The closest thing to a black friday sale in my little world will be a $5.00 flat fee shipping. Shipping costs have just got out if hand to do for free.
 
I too have had various levels of success with Red Arrow Hobbies. A couple of orders went fine, and my last one a couple of years ago (which will always be the last one since I'll never order from them no matter what) went similar to what started this thread. I posted about it here and several people agreed that they weren't great but several spoke up and said that if you call Dave on the phone that's all it takes and he'll take care of you.

Apparently that is no longer the case. Calling RAH gets you nothing anymore.

Any vendor that accepts payment without having product to ship is a crook, even if they're not actually breaking laws, in my opinion. In today's online business world your stock needs to be reflected on your web page and if you don't have something then the customer should be aware. At the VERY least the customer should be contacted and told which portion of their order would be shipped later, ship the in stock portion now, only charge for the product that you ship, and ship the rest of it later on your own dime. If that's too much, you should cancel the whole order.

Treating customers like crap for so long is just a horrible way to run a business. It doesn't surprise me at all that RAH is on the brink of going under.
 
dr wogz said:
Regardless of all that's been said, I think the main / biggest issue with this particular vendor is his lack of communication. Or, that when you do finally speak to him, you're given the impression that the matter will be taken care of. Only to require subsequent follow up calls when due dates are missed or delivery / tracking Nos not supplied. We shouldn't have to chase a vendor down who's repeatedly said "yes" to whatever we've asked for..

if you don't have what we asked for, call / e-mail & tell us. Can you offer a substitute? When do you expect delivery of resupply stock?

Be the man: tell us the 14 pcs of J1750WT aren't in stock, and won't be until November, but the J1820GBH is. And do it in a timely manner. You got the order, look it over.. don't wait a week to ponder your stock..
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I wouldn't call that a communication problem. I'd call that lying.
 
michigander said:
as far as BF/BS sales they IMO have gotten out of hand , sales should be a way of selling off existing stagnate stock / over stocked stuff
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I believe that's exactly what MadCow is doing now with it's Hump Day Happy Hour sales the last few months....getting rid of dead/slow/low turn stock to capitalize their offerings for the Christmas selling season.
 
Mushtang said:
I too have had various levels of success with Red Arrow Hobbies. A couple of orders went fine, and my last one a couple of years ago (which will always be the last one since I'll never order from them no matter what) went similar to what started this thread. I posted about it here and several people agreed that they weren't great but several spoke up and said that if you call Dave on the phone that's all it takes and he'll take care of you.

Apparently that is no longer the case. Calling RAH gets you nothing anymore.

Any vendor that accepts payment without having product to ship is a crook, even if they're not actually breaking laws, in my opinion. In today's online business world your stock needs to be reflected on your web page and if you don't have something then the customer should be aware. At the VERY least the customer should be contacted and told which portion of their order would be shipped later, ship the in stock portion now, only charge for the product that you ship, and ship the rest of it later on your own dime. If that's too much, you should cancel the whole order.

Treating customers like crap for so long is just a horrible way to run a business. It doesn't surprise me at all that RAH is on the brink of going under.
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RAH hobbies should take down the website if he can't fulfill orders. This would be the best thing to do. Besides taking money for something you do not have in stock is worse than stealing. Any honest business will never take money for product they do not have in stock. And will have excellent communications. There are many vendors out there in our hobby that have excellent control over their inventory and communications. Buyer beware for RAH, there are many other great vendors out there, take advantage of them. We're a specialized group and rely on our vendors for product and support and our vendors rely on us.
 
There are two easy keys for this.... if someone's website looks like it was written in 1996 with the geocities editor, and or doesn't update quantity, do not order from them.


Exemption- Loki ;)
 
DavidMcCann said:
There are two easy keys for this.... if someone's website looks like it was written in 1996 with the geocities editor
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There are at least a couple of reliable vendors that fail this particular test... I won't name names.

As for RAH, I've never done business with them but as many others have said, the situation is simple. If you don't have product, don't take people's money, unless you make the situation clear and give them the option. If something unexpected causes you to be unable to deliver, then you offer the customer a refund. Small vendor, part-time hobbyist, one-man operation, doesn't matter. Business is business.
 
rockdoc said:
... Besides taking money for something you do not have in stock is worse than stealing. Any honest business will never take money for product they do not have in stock...
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In some businesses it is fairly common to take orders for things not in stock. Where I used to work we didn't sell to end users directly. We had a distributor that sold our products in the aftermarket. They would often take orders for parts that they didn't have in stock, but needed to be shipped right away. They could access our inventory and planning system and see if we had stock or if we were scheduled to produce it soon. If we had units that could ship they would sometimes have us drop ship (ship directly to their customer) for them. We billed the distributor, they billed the customer, but we shipped to the end customer.

It wouldn't surprise me if the keychain cameras people buy from China don't get handled that way. The seller (in China) never touches them; he just arranges for the factory (somewhere else in China) to ship them to the buyer.
 
Drop shipping is a lot different than selling kits that don't exist anywhere, and you don't even have the stock to cut them yet.

If something is a pre-order, it should be made 100% clear. The page you're buying off of should say "this product does not yet exist, you'll be waiting for it" I used to order custom guns and knives and they were VERY clear about deliver times and such. That doesn't happen in rocketry. And if you press a vendor about it, they say "everyone knows!" Then why's it an issue to be open about it? And, not everyone knows. Not everyone comes to this forum. It should be on your site.

</rant>
 
Zeus-cat said:
They would often take orders for parts that they didn't have in stock, but needed to be shipped right away. They could access our inventory and planning system and see if we had stock or if we were scheduled to produce it soon. If we had units that could ship they would sometimes have us drop ship (ship directly to their customer) for them.
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In my opinion that is the same as having it in stock. It's on a shelf somewhere and by ordering from them I can expect to have it shipped to me in the next couple of days.

RAH will take money for a product that they don't have on a shelf, they'll then order it from another company to be shipped to THEM, before they ship to the customer.

An earlier post in this thread let us know that RAH takes money for an order but uses that money on something else - probably paying bills - and thinks they can fill the order in the future when they can place a stocking order with some other money. It's just not right, and likely illegal. It's enough for me to not ever want to order from them again, and I'm more than happy to tell others how bad RAH treats customers.
 
Brings this old quote to mind, from Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." :wink:
 
As many negative comments as I read here I really wonder how much business they do any more. I certainly wouldn't place an order with them. Now excuse me I need to open a few new accounts at Wells Fargo. Oh, I'm back already. They were nice enough to open all the new accounts I will ever need without me even asking... :eyeroll:
 
Kinda reminds me of that guy in High school we all knew. You lend him $20, but getting it back was a hassle. He never 'had it on him', but had beer at the party, gas in his car, a pack of smokes at lunch time, etc. Always a: 'sorry man, next time'. The trick was to drive him to the bank when he got his pay check, and get it from the teller!
 
One step away from a Ponzi scheme. Taking money for an order which you use to order the item from your supplier. A hairline away from taking money from new orders to fulfill someone else's older order. Boom! Ponzi scheme just like that.

Maybe Tim Van Milligan or whoever needs to come in like Chef Gordon Ramsay and whip that kitchen into shape reality TV style!

I was considering ordering from them but not unless things turn around. There are plenty of alternatives: Estes, ACSupply, BMS, and Apogee whenever I order cross-border.
 
Cabernut said:
One step away from a Ponzi scheme. Taking money for an order which you use to order the item from your supplier. A hairline away from taking money from new orders to fulfill someone else's older order. Boom! Ponzi scheme just like that.
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If that's what a Ponzi Scheme is, that's what he's already doing. See the original post in this thread. When RAH was told to refund the money they said, "Well I dont really have enough in the account right now to send that money to you but I should by the end of the weekend." So they've spent the money on something else, otherwise they'd be able to fulfill the order. I suppose there's a small chance the OP's money was used to buy product from China that will take months to arrive on the slow boat and in the mean time there's no additional money for a refund, but with RAH's reputation I seriously doubt it.
 
Apparently he runs a 'home brew supply' store as well. My issues arose from him also buying out "an old storage unit", and most his time was spent with that endeavour than dealing with my order.
 
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