HLJ - freight costs

[eyckles]

I Only had one bad experience with HLJ. About 1,5 years ago when both Lotus 79 from Tamiya and Hasegawa released, they send the kits to me in different boxes and had to pay 2 x shipping fee and 2 x custom taxes. They released at the same day and where shipped on the same day. In my opinion. There shipping and handling process is crap. That's just messing with other people's money and they should improve it by checking the outstanding orders from there customers and look if they can combine. If it's possible to combine the shipping, then they have to do that even if they have to wait for a couple of weeks. Personally i don't care if i have to wait for a few weeks more to receive my goodies. That's why they also haven't reorganized there parts division. It's been before the earthquake and they aren't back in business. The other problem with HLJ is there payment system. They don't gave you any notice when you have to pay them, they just process the payment by them selfs and that is a bit of a problem for me. I still order stuff from HLJ, because i can't find it elsewere, but when i do i go some where else.

Atb,
Lesley

[Marianitem]

I don't understand why you have so many problems with them. I'm not here to defend them but I found their service very good so far. I filled a cart with in stock items, selected SAL shipping, selected "notify me if out of stock", and one or two days later they sent me a payment request confirming all costs. I made the payment and they shipped.
My rules are: pay only if I know how much is it, SAL service, notify if out.of.stock. I haven't had any problem yet with any store.
Do you guys differ from my procedure? Did you have different steps as I do?

Again I'm not telling all this to defend that store. I just want to know you guys had such bad experiences.

[RonCla]

Originally Posted by Marianitem

I don't understand why you have so many problems with them. I'm not here to defend them but I found their service very good so far. I filled a cart with in stock items, selected SAL shipping, selected "notify me if out of stock", and one or two days later they sent me a payment request confirming all costs. I made the payment and they shipped.
My rules are: pay only if I know how much is it, SAL service, notify if out.of.stock. I haven't had any problem yet with any store.
Do you guys differ from my procedure? Did you have different steps as I do?

Again I'm not telling all this to defend that store. I just want to know you guys had such bad experiences.

I've always payed by credit card and the charge doesn't show on my computer till after I have actually received the goods. I don't know how that comes about but its probably due to delays in the processing system somewhere.

I have always placed the costs of shipping secondary to dealing with companies that are reliable and package the goods in sturdy boxes.

HLJ have never let me down in that respect. The only issue I have is the on going strength of the japanese yen

I too have received sheets of decals from HLJ in a small box where I thought a envelope would have been sufficient but then just recently I received a decal sheet from a different retailer in a envelope and it had been damaged in transit.

There is room for improvement in HLJ shipping department practices though, as I, like others here, have had one item shipped in the morning and another shipped separately a few hours later. That is an issue HLJ needs to

address as it is just adding unnecessary costs to the purchaser.

[willimo]

I am not trying to defend HLJ either but I think it's weird that a lot of y'all are portraying it as some sort of deceptive way for HLJ to make more money, and I don't think that is the case at all. HLJ is very transparent about how their ordering system works and they acknowledge the limitations of it throughout the site. They have also been making improvements over the years - some of which are pretty dubious and some even a step backward. Their system, if I recall, used to rather simpler and clearer.

For the most part I think their biggest problem is how strong the Yen is, it makes their goods expensive (remember when they were consistently the cheapest source, even including shipping?), and I think makes their shipping expensive too (which is why it's cheaper to ship out of Hong Kong - remember, there are a lot of other factors with greater weight than distance when calculating shipping price).

They are also really honest about how they describe what's in stock, future releases, and discontinued. A lot of Japanese manufacturers can't make their minds, pushing back release dates, discontinuing items then making more, suddenly stopping production for no reason, and these aren't things that HLJ has control over or necessarily knowledge of.

In any case, I also only use them as a last resort these days, or when their sales make prices on things less than they would be elsewhere. I also try to only choose in-stock merchandise. And I also try to choose whatever source is best, and it isn't HLJ very much anymore. As consumers we have choices about where we buy, and if you don't like HLJ, don't go there. If you don't like their PayPal thing, don't use it.

It can be frustrating that they ship the way they do, especially when it catches you by surprise, but I really, really don't think it's intentional. I think there are plenty of improvements that HLJ can make, especially when they aren't as price competitive as they once were, and hopefully threads and comments such as these will help motivate them to make those changes. Let's hope - because other than the weird shipping, their service is fantastic.

[jano11]

HLJ Pros and Cons from my experience:

Pros: Good packaging
Cons: - awful product availability system
- very high shipping costs
- will not combine shipping, they'd rather split it (this was better 5 years ago)

This shipment splitting policy is very funny especially when they ship one order in 2 packages, both sent the same day! It looks like they do this in order to increase the number of packages shipped and to achieve a better position in their relationship with their carrier, which is lousy policy with regards to their customers.

Anyway they were top of my list 5 years ago, nowadays I only order from HLJ if I can't find a specific item anywhere else for a long time.

[drunken monkey]

Originally Posted by willimo

remember when they were consistently the cheapest source, even including shipping?

I was just thinking that when I saw the thread.
Once upon a time, the default answer was HLJ because of the very weak Yen and in my case, a very strong Pound.

[RonCla]

My latest experience with HLJ is on the 5 Feb I placed an order for 4 items shown as being out of stock from Tamiya, MFH, Shunko and S27.

On the 10 Feb I received the shipping notice. All of the items had been obtained and freighted to me in a single box.