Is there really a differnece in on-line stores?

Myself, I've never ordered from Roll Models nor Sprue Bros but have heard of other forum members making comments on how slow Roll Models is. I usually shop with Squadron, e-Hobbyland and when I have to Great Models which is the slowest of the three for they never seem to have anything in stock. I have even ordered figures from Pegaso in Italy and received the order within a week which is pretty good. Gas prices being what they are nowadays, on-line shopping beats a 80 miles drive into Tucson.

Scott

Well, if it helps I can tell you that my Roll Models order (what parts they actually had in stock) arrived within 2 days after my credit card was charged.  of course, my order was placed on March 17th and I only received it this past Thursday.  It took them until April 9th to raelize the 2 Squadron books I had ordered, because they listed them as IN STOCK, couldn't be gotten anywhere, so THAT is when they emailed me and asked if I wanted them to make substitutions or not.  More than 3 freaking weeks to realize their webpage sucks.  Well, actually I doubt they actually realize that.

Suffice it to say, that's the first and last time I'm doing business with Roll Models.  The only reason I ordered from them at all was that they listed those two books as in stock - the other two items I ordered were in stock at Squadron, and I saved a whopping 55 cents by getting them from Roll Models.  I could have placed and received at least 4 consecutive orders from Squadron in the time it took these jokers to fail to fill one single order.  I went to the trouble of informing them via email of my great dissatisfaction with their service.

To whom it may concern;   I have received my (incomplete) order.  I would like to take this opportunity to tell you something.  This was the first time I ever ordered from your company, and I am sorry to say it is also the last time.  The only reason I placed an order with your company is because your webpage listed these two books - which you now cannot 'obtain' elsewhere - as IN STOCK.  The other two items were available elsewhere at comparable prices.  I had to wait more than 3 weeks to find out that you could not fill my order.  I was not aware that the timeframe for Roll Models to fill an order was so long until it was too late - after I had placed my order!  The only good thing I can say about my purchasing experience with Roll Models is that the arrival of my order - such as it was - was a surprise, as I had all but forgotten by the time it arrived that I had ever placed said order.  While I cannot expect any one company to change its policies based on one single customer - especially a first-time customer - I want you to know that should I ever come by the knowledge that the two problem areas that I experienced considerable dissatisfaction with - i.e. the listing of items as In Stock when they are not in actuality available either in your own warehouse or anyone else's, and the protracted timeframe required to fulfill and ship an order - have been rectified, I will seriously consider once again placing an order with your company.  Until said time, however, I will entertain no thoughts of doing so.   Thank you for your time.

I doubt they will even read my email, but I was honest and straightforward with them about pointing out the deficiencies in their delivery model.

And pardon my French, but you live near Bound Brook?  Holy Crap!  You're pretty darn close to me.  I used to drive through BB on my way to work at Centennial Ave for years.  I used to come down Morning Glory and take Raritan Ave., until after Hurricane Floyd took it out - it's so depressing to think of all those homes that had to be condemned and are now gone - there's nothing on that side of the road at all now!  I hope you didn't have any trouble at home with the storm - especially with your current knee trouble!

alumni72 wrote:

And pardon my French, but you live near Bound Brook?  Holy Crap!  You're pretty darn close to me.  I used to drive through BB on my way to work at Centennial Ave for years.  I used to come down Morning Glory and take Raritan Ave., until after Hurricane Floyd took it out - it's so depressing to think of all those homes that had to be condemned and are now gone - there's nothing on that side of the road at all now!  I hope you didn't have any trouble at home with the storm - especially with your current knee trouble!

Yup I am in Piscataway. Didn't they leave just 1 house on raritan?  I always thought that was weird since it looked liked it was the lowest one on the slope. 

 We got lucky. Only a small amount of water came in under the basement door from the stair well outside filling up.  Bailed that out a bunch of times and drove like maniac to find a pump.  It's great whne the slaes people just kinda laugh at you when oyu ask where the pumps are.  Bought this giant roll of very thick plastic and nailed it to the side of the house with a 2x4 to keep the rain out of the stairs and it worked.  Next day my bailing arm hurt alomost as much as my knee

Roll Models is slower than molases, running up-hill, in january.  I ordered a PE set from them for my hellcat.  I thought maybe they had sent some employee to the chzec republic to pick it up - on foot.

When I need to do online ordering, I only deal with megahobby, towerhobbies, squadron and micromark.  All 4 of those places have what I need to me in about 3 days, sometimes less.

-Fred

One of my best experiences was ordering from squadron in texas a few weeks ago. Placed thw oreder sunday night (monday was a fed. holiday) and I had my order thursday afternoon. Being that it was from new york to texas, I was very pleased.

The one order I placed with roll models I also received within 1 week, so I can't complain about them.  

the problem i see with ordering from roll models aside from speed is you really have to know what your ordering  because not like squadron/greatmodels they have no descriptions nor pics  or reviews of the items

btw this is not a putdown of them because roll has a good reputation

also forgot discount models  out of michican  he is great for service  speed

but again  you can only order by #'s  so you must know exactly what you want

if ordering a regular model  you know more or less what your in for, but if ordering the resin conv kit or a p/e something your ordering blind

Chimera wrote:

Squadron has really been the only place I have ordered from, and have never had bad service or speed from them.  It is possible that Roll Models has to order your order from another place, and that is why it takes them so long?

I think that's always been the assumption.  When I finally got an email regarding my order, this is what they said:

 Hi Donald: We have not been able to obtain items SS4025 and 26. Do you want to substitute?
Enit

"We have not been able to obtain" - sure sounds like they go shopping to me.

Believe it or not, many online companies do not carry a large inventory but they list many items as "in stock". They base their product list on what is available through their distributor, normally Stevens International or MMD (aka Squadron) depending on location and what product lines they are ordering.

When you place the order, they then order the items they do not have on hand from their distributor. Many times the online company "batches" orders. That is, they wait until they have enough orders from various customers to reach a certain threshold (like a minimum dollar amount required) to order from the distributor. For example, if the distributor requires the online retailer to purchase at least $500 per order, the retailer will wait until there are $500 worth of customer orders to fill or batch those orders along with their standard monthly supply order.

Once the retailer you ordered from submits their order to the distributor, the distributor either has it in stock or is awaiting a shipment from the manufacturer. There may be an additional wait on something that is back ordered from the manufacturer or importer.

Since Squadron is both a distributor (via MMD) and a retailer, when you order from them, they generally have it on hand. Of course, if it is a hot item or something that is OOP but they still have a few left on hand, you could be unlucky enough to have them run out just before your order got filled.

could not have said it better

Thad

Good description Rob.

I will now finish the scenario that was started in the 1st post.  Got the Roll Model order today. 4 weeks. And 1 item, of course the one I really needed, is back ordered.  If it was not in stock... I should have been told... at some point in that 4 weeks... I should have been told.

Anyone from Roll Models out there reading this?

Marc,

The reason you were able to get your order from us (Sprue Brothers) so quickly is that, unlike most other online stores, we actually stock everything we sell (except pre-orders of course).  Since we have it, it is able to ship immediately.  Additionally, our website also shows you in real time (as far as I know we are the only one that does this AND shows it accurately) how many of the item we have in stock.  This lets you make an educated buying decision.

This is definitely the most expensive business model since we have to put up the money and buy all our inventory first, however we think it is worth it as it let you the customer buy with confidence that you will actually get what you order (we have a fill rate of over 99.9% - it is not 100% as every once in a blue moon we have a missing item).

Thanks again for your support!

Gordon

Gordon Kwan - Owner

Sprue Brothers Models LLC

wing_nut - you're not the first person to feel victimized by Roll Models, kudos to you for telling them exactly what they did wrong and how you felt about it, but ... quite honestly, I don't think they care. Their business model seems to be, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, we'll just keep doing the same old stuff instead of trying to improve because, as P.T Barnum says ..."

Maybe that's a little harsh, but I too don't plan to give them any more business, despite having a $4.50 store credit wit them. Which I got after finally receiving my Waldron sub-miniature punch and die set (which they are the only source for) and noticing the rather obscene shipping charge of $7.50 for a single, 2-ounce item. That did it for me, I called my credit card company and put a hold on the charge, then went back and forth with Roll Models about that, via e-mail, for more than a month.

They pointed out that their shipping charges are plainly posted on the web site. True ... sort of. But - the shipping calculator button on the on-line ordering form is very, very misleading and Roll Models told me it would be "too difficult" to fix that so it would accurately reflect what you were really going to be charged.

I asked for a refund of the shipping charges to be placed on my credit card. They finally did give me a refund - the aforementioned store credit. Anyone out there want it?

Gordon... I for one appreciate the way you run your business and will be a repeat customer when the time comes.  For any company to be in business today not to realize that there is a greater importance in customer service than in price, maybe not 100% of the time but more often than not, is in my opinion short sighted.  While I will not fritter way money, I am happy to have the possibility of paying a little bit more (please note this is not a comment on your pricing, which BTW was good for what I ordered) to have excellent service.  I am going to put a link to your site on mine if you don't have a problem with that.

mfsob... Thanks.  I am just voicing my opinion based on the service I got.  If there are others that got their orders in short order.... great... keep ordering from them.  I am not going to send them scathing emails or call them to tell them that I am not happy, they will simply not be in the list of stores I go shopping in when the time comes, unless they have something that cannot be purchased anywhere else. Loosing a customer is worse than getting a nasty email.

wing_nut wrote:

Gordon... I for one appreciate the way you run your business and will be a repeat customer when the time comes.  For any company to be in business today not to realize that there is a greater importance in customer service than in price, maybe not 100% of the time but more often than not, is in my opinion short sighted.  While I will not fritter way money, I am happy to have the possibility of paying a little bit more (please note this is not a comment on your pricing, which BTW was good for what I ordered) to have excellent service.  I am going to put a link to your site on mine if you don't have a problem with that. mfsob... Thanks.  I am just voicing my opinion based on the service I got.  If there are others that got their orders in short order.... great... keep ordering from them.  I am not going to send them scathing emails or call them to tell them that I am not happy, they will simply not be in the list of stores I go shopping in when the time comes, unless they have something that cannot be purchased anywhere else. Loosing a customer is worse than getting a nasty email.

Hmm, is it a coincidence that the guy from Sprue Bros. made only his second post in 3 years in this thread?

I ordered from Roll Models 3-4 years ago and they were very fast. It's my educated guess that perhaps times have changed over there. That's a pity, for I heard they were family operated.

tigerman wrote:

Hmm, is it a coincidence that the guy from Sprue Bros. made only his second post in 3 years in this thread?

Maybe it's just that he saw his company mentioned for the first time.  To be honest.... I don't recall ever seeing it before in this forum. 

Sprue Brothers is a great online shop!

I've ordered a bunch from him and never once has an order been incomplete or late. There's always one business day in between the day I order and the day I get the goods.. unless I order too late to get it packed for the UPS pick-up. The only reason I order anywhere else is if he doesn't handle what I need and can't get it.

I know other places do a good job, but way back, after trying a few places, Sprue is the one that works for me.