I've made various orders with HobbyKing and the longest it ever took was about 2 months to get some six-dollar motors, and the shortest it ever took was 4 days to get some batteries, from the US warehouse I assume. Usually, when something takes longer it's because it's a hot item and it goes out of stock and you're in a queue... whenever you place an order you can be sure there's a ton of orders ahead of you. I think complaining about 8 days to ship things is being a little over-sensitive. Remember, the mail-order standard used to be 6-8 weeks to ship things from busy mail-order houses like Tower Hobbies, and they are in the US. So just be patient, or cancel your order. It will get here eventually, just know that up front.

Originally Posted by TangoPIC

(it has been at the warehouse for a day according to USPS tracking)
.

And you really believe USPS?
Two days ago I got a package from California delivered by USPS.
On the USPS website it says the package still on the way while on the Slovakia PO it say delivered....
I have made tons of orders from HK and only ones returned back an item, got a credit to my account minus shipping, it make sense... after all they paid for the shipping back.

Just my two cents...

I have made quite a few orders from Hobby King as well. I expect long shipping times and only order things that I know I will use in several weeks (months?).

Recently I placed an order for some lipos, a charge adapter, some servos and a few other miscellaneous parts. I also wanted an extra batter to fly with immediately. The batteries I ordered from HK were under $6 each. I bought one for immediate use from my LHS (I assure you it is no better than the ones coming from HK) and it cost me over $30 for ONE battery! About the cost, including shipping of my entire HK order!

If you want it fast, you pay the price, if you can wait awhile or anticipate future needs then HK is great for pricing and saving a few bucks.

Just my humble opinion and experience.

Jim

When i was a youngster I remember shipping was a typical 6-8 weeks. And that was here in the states. Lets not all forget this stuff is on the other side of the world And may get stuck in customs for a few days as well. Times have changed and shipping has gotten a whole lot faster compared to 30 years ago. But if you want something in that 5-7 days pay the extra $30 bucks. hobby king is a great buiness and doing the best they can im sure. I imagine they have employees working round the clock 24/7 .

Originally Posted by LiQuid*Xion

When i was a youngster I remember shipping was a typical 6-8 weeks. And that was here in the states. Lets not all forget this stuff is on the other side of the world And may get stuck in customs for a few days as well. Times have changed and shipping has gotten a whole lot faster compared to 30 years ago. But if you want something in that 5-7 days pay the extra $30 bucks. hobby king is a great buiness and doing the best they can im sure. I imagine they have employees working round the clock 24/7 .

When I was a kid its was always "please allow 28 days for delivery"..... That always seemed like a lifetime when you were 8

When I was a youngster Hobby king did not exist and I doubt rc helicopters existed as well

HK ripped me off to the tune of $280. I will never give them the opportunity to rip me off again. They aren't that cheap and there are too many other vendors with better service (HeliPal). Just so you will know. I hope it doesn't but it could happen to you!
-------------------------------------------------------
Ok, CORRECTION. HK sent me an email which lead to my discovery that my paypal account was credited the $192 on 3/12. It wasn't handled the way I was expecting but I did receive the refund. Now I am completely done with HK. This little adventure started 12/7/11 and ended 3/12/12. I have found HK to be very slow to act and to respond. The items they sell are often second rate or defective. I consider HK too risky for me to do business with regardless of how inexpensive their stuff may seem - there is a hidden cost.
-------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: I am willing to give HK the benefit of the doubt in my particular instance. The one major problem I had was basically no one's fault which is a bit difficult to swallow. It seems, mind you, two days after I removed the extremely negative post about my experience with HK from my blog, I started getting email from them - too coincidental.

Originally Posted by arbilab

Hobby King has a LOT more than a random number of customer complaints. As well as an extensive archive of emails from "support" just like the one quoted in OP.

I would be reluctant to do business with a seller having so many outstanding dissatisfaction claims. Hobby King is also accused of employing a team of shills on RCG but of course this can neither be confirmed nor denied. One has to read the entire body of contention and decide for one's self.

But you deal with Xheli? They also have many complaints on CS!

something similar happened to me, but it was swisspost that messed up. Took 2 months to get here and my package arrived....soggy
my batt was dead (only worth $9) and my parts were ok as they are in sealed bags but still, pretty dodgy on the shipping side =/.

Originally Posted by Essex2visuvesi

I have over €5,000 worth of orders to Hobby King in the last 2 years and never yet had a problem.... guess I'm lucky

Delivery times are no better or worse than any other far east supplier, usually 2 and a bit weeks. Products have been OK, reasonable quality and fit for purpose.
Only issue I had was some B grade batteries that lasted only about 10 cycles with quite poor runtimes, but then you get what you pay for

The problem we are seeing here is that if someone gets a good service they say nothing, so you only hear the bad things. when you take into account the volume of orders HK must process every day, they are bound to have a few unhappy customers.

There is an old saying in retail industry
"A happy customer tells no-one, but an unhappy customer tells everyone"

I dunno, I don't have multiple pages of orders, but every time I've dealt with them, I've never had any trouble, and any time I did, it got resolved...my only complaint about Hobby King is the amount of time it takes to get anything from their overseas warehouse(s). U.S.A. orders are at my door in a week, which is on par with any of the others...their prices can't be beat.

I've never had an issue with HK but I DO try to use USA vendors whenever possible because of shipping times and costs. I still buy batteries from HobbyPartz, and I love the EXI helicopters from X-Heli, but they haven't hand anything in stock for months. Not being able to buy EXI 450/500 stuff from X-Heli has almost convinced me to drop out of R/C helicopters, the jury is still out on that one.

I haunt the vendor forum for kicks at work , it amuses me . I stick with the big 3 American retailers and have yet to be burnt. If I have to order from china I use Amazon. Try bad mouthing them on Facebook

Originally Posted by Skrogg

I haunt the vendor forum for kicks at work , it amuses me . I stick with the big 3 American retailers and have yet to be burnt. If I have to order from china I use Amazon. Try bad mouthing them on Facebook

Either not shore what hes on about or hes trolling HK....

Originally Posted by metalbenderusn

I've never had an issue with HK but I DO try to use USA vendors whenever possible because of shipping times and costs. I still buy batteries from HobbyPartz, and I love the EXI helicopters from X-Heli, but they haven't hand anything in stock for months. Not being able to buy EXI 450/500 stuff from X-Heli has almost convinced me to drop out of R/C helicopters, the jury is still out on that one.

Forget xheli, look into the Tarot brand, it's a trex clone as well, which means you can buy parts for your exi too. But I just buy align parts now, little by little I've upgraded my exi pro. But I still wish I would've just bought an align heli to begin with.

Anyway don't quit helis because of xheli, they ain't worth it man!

I've ordered quite a bit of stuff from HobbyKing and have had nothing but good experiences. Sure, some of the orders take awhile to arrive but that's more than made up for by their amazing prices. If I could, I would buy everything from my local hobby shop but they don't have any stock and what they do have is four times the price of HobbyKing.