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The Slayer

Where have all the HK's gone?

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I have been flicking through e-pay (as you do) and noticed a lot of the 'old faithful's' have vanished - monique, stella, HHH to name but 3 - what is going on?? the only ones left are the expensive 'vintage ones!!'[:(]

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I noticed this too, though stella is apparently still trading (see the messages in the ebay forum here), but it seems strange that they've all suddenly vanished.

Ah well Slayer, it'll probably do you a favour anyway, hehe [;)]

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LOL looks like moniques done a runner 'wi da cash', check the flurry of negs lately.

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Worldwide distributors had a meeting in Japan recently.

Maybe they were all "reminded" that each country's distributors

had an obligation to prevent re-export of Tamiya goods

by their resellers.

(speculation [|)][|)] )

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Walawala_com has mentioned on his store site that the local supplier is out of stock... hmmmm. wonder if it is related

Mike.

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To be honest I never thought the sellers from HK had all that great pricing when you considered the shipping. Most of the stuff they had could be bought from big sellers like Tower for not much more and you would have it quickly too. Granted some of them had some interesting stuff not available here as well as offering new models before the US distributors but I still do no tsee the advantage.

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The advantage for me, being in Canada, is I don't have to wait 4-5 weeks to get something [V](usually the time it takes to get something that isn't in stock). I'd order from Tower but they slap an 18$ shipping charge and that is before duty and brokerage fees.[B)]

Mike

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Mike, for me who is in Norway, prices for modern kits including EMS shipping from a HK dealer is about half (sometimes less!) of the price I have to pay in my LHS - which doesn't have more than one or two Tamiya kits ([:(!]!!!) anyways!

So for me, it's an easy choise...

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Same thing for me, buying from a HK dealer costs me much less then buying here locally in Belgium (even including the high shipping costs and import duties). On a kit I win at least 30 percent if I buy it from a HK dealer. The problem is also that the LHS here don't have many parts in stock. If I want to order something which is not in stock it sometimes takes upto 6 weeks to get it... Not to speak about the new kits which take sometimes months before you can get one [8)].

ShowRide

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So it looks like we are (in the words of Spike from Buffy) ******ed!! does this mean that Jason and TRc are going too [:(]


Anyway what difference does it make if people sell stuff on to us anyway[?] as long as the suppliers are paid - who gives a stuff[?]
Jozza too right mate!!

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As an afterthought - why all the bad f/bk for monique?? never had a problem [8)] what are they up too....[?]

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quote:Originally posted by The Slayer

As an afterthought - why all the bad f/bk for monique?? never had a problem [8)] what are they up too....[?]


id="quote">id="quote">

Struck me as strange too, hence the done a runner joke. I hope thats not IDOT feedback that pushed them to think 'Suff this for a laugh'

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I'm with Willy.

My guess is someone at Big T has been putting the pressure on the Asia sellers to stop selling into other markets. Then its just simple economics really. All the european/american dealers start complaining they can't compete with asian internet sales so unless Tamiya does something about it they will stop stocking Tamiya kit completely and move on to other suppliers that protect their resellers profits better. From the eurpean point of view internet sales means its very hard to keep any level of stock when at any point some one in asia decides to 'discount' the price. European deallers are then with kits they can't move, without taking losses.

This type of thing has already happened in other markets, such as CD sales. And it controlled in other fields by putting 'regions' on DVDs and game console machines.

This is all just speculation of courses and its all chicken and egg stuff - ie if the kits were cheaper in europe people wouldn't buy them from the other side of the world in the first place.

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Rumor has it here in Canada that you can't race in Canadian TCS unless your chassis has a Borgfeldt decal on it (the supplier in Canada)...

Mike.

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A lot of people mention prices, but I don't buy from the HK dealers for the prices; I buy from them because the spares are more readily available than here in the UK, and in my experience it often takes longer for goods to arrive from the few UK shops who will order in Tamiya stuff than from the HK dealers.

I do tend to try to source from the UK first though, but the HK dealers just seem to have so much more of everything that's not available here...

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quote:Originally posted by The Slayer

No dont think so - one was from Mr Pushrod!!! he's ok... Strrrrrraaaanggeee[;)]


id="quote">id="quote">

I paid for on BIN a Type R Stock motor on the 20th of April. Waited for a couple of weeks or so and no motor, so emailed and was told that the tracking would be looked into. Waited a bit longer, still no motor and no word from monique so sent another mail, no reply. Have since sent a couple of other emails and got no joy, gave up on waiting and left negative feedback. Now I'm wondering if I can get my money back or another motor!

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quote:Originally posted by mjohnston39

Rumor has it here in Canada that you can't race in Canadian TCS unless your chassis has a Borgfeldt decal on it (the supplier in Canada)...


id="quote">id="quote">

Not surprised. Singapore has been doing that many yrs too.

Bit of a hassle when the fancy stickers fall off at the first sniff of motor spray... [V]

And for TCS 2004 in Oz... we can only use Futaba radios if they are 29Mhz, Futabas in 27 or any other band are banned.

('Cos same company distributes Futaba as well as Tamiya and nobody grey-imports Futabas in 29MHz...)

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quote:Originally posted by netsmithUK

My guess is someone at Big T has been putting the pressure on the Asia sellers to stop selling into other markets. Then its just simple economics really.


id="quote">id="quote">

To add fuel to the fire:

Tamiya goods are usually sold via various distributors. These distributors have paid goodwill to buy the rights to distribution for a certain geographical patch. Grey-importers impinge on these rights... thus devaluing the distribution licence. Tamiya cannot afford to allow this to happen.

As part of the rights... each distributor is not allowed to Re-export the goods outside their patch. Doing so (and you can be sure the other affected Distributor will be whinging quicksmart to HQ) will risk forfeit of the distribution rightsso no distributor would want to be seen breaking this cardinal rule.

On a different front... Tamiya does a lot of their own distribution too. As in:-

Tamiya, Inc

3-7, Ondawara, Shizuoka City, Japan.

Tamiya America, Inc.

2 Orion, Aliso Viejo, Ca. 92656-4200 U.S.A.

Tamiya Philippines, Inc. (factory)

Mepz II Mactan Airbase Lapu-Lapu City Cebu, Philippines

Tamiya Europe GmbH

Werkstr.1, 90765 Furth (Bay.), Germany

Tamiya Hong Kong Ltd.

Unit 306, 3/F., 28 Canton Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui

So yeah... they've already got a HK foothold... YET they've still got listed TWO agents in HK...!?

Fat Lee Leong Ltd

Oriental Trading Co.

So there's 2 distributors in HK when every other country only has 1 each. Most handy for 1 to blame the other when faced with re-exporting allegations. [}:)]

ok, enough scuttlebutt.

Hearsay suggests our local distributor has come back from Shizouka wearing a big smile on his face, which suggest something big's afoot.

Sounds like there'll be a 2nd prong to the anti-eBay battle too, and that's BETTER PRICING locally. And some of the numbers that have been suggested to my ears, all I can say is 'wow'. Can't wait to see them translate to the shelf stickers. [:P]

Well, we've only been warning them re grey-imports for the part FIVE years at the least... [B)] better late than never.

Only question mark now is... will each distributor & LHS pass on the savings?? At least now they can't complain and say Tamiya charges them too much, when obviously its just them that's too greedy.

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quote:Sounds like there'll be a 2nd prong to the anti-eBay battle too, and that's BETTER PRICING locally. And some of the numbers that have been suggested to my ears, all I can say is 'wow'. Can't wait to see them translate to the shelf stickers.

Well, we've only been warning them re grey-imports for the part FIVE years at the least... better late than never.

Only question mark now is... will each distributor & LHS pass on the savings?? At least now they can't complain and say Tamiya charges them too much, when obviously its just them that's too greedy.


id="quote">id="quote">

Most distributors and LHSs in Europe have a small tendency to greed to say it in a polite way [;)], not only in this hobby, but also in other markets, so I am pretty pessimistic that their price drops will be similar to the ones they will get from Tamiya but they will choose the easy way to go on complaining that internet sales are destroying their markets. On the other hand I am optimistic that there will always be better priced internet stores, if not from HK then even in our own countries, it seems to already work here in Germany, no real need for me to buy from HK anymore [8D]. If the ball stops rolling, no way to stop it, humans can only adapt to better situations, but never back [8D]

Cheers

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Interesting, just recieved this:

Dear mr_pushrod,

Just to let you know monique_r.store is now trading under the name of form-racing. I have been lucky and received goods from Monique_r store.I have also received items from form-racing and this is where I found its the same person, as the same name and email address showed up on my paypal statement. The goods also came from the same address in HK. I hope this info will be usefull to you.

Best regards *****

PS. I do have friends who have also lost money by this dealer.

Thought it only fair to share this information[:)]

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Agreed the - i actually find prices in Germany quite sensible compared to over here.... just you cant get vintage quite like Japan and HK over there, but does that count as re-exporting as these kits are old and been sold god knows how many times... interesting, looks like i will be getting any new stuff from here then...


In the UK the LHS are greedy - period!!! one shop i know off wants £200 for NIB XR3-11's eeeerr no they are only £110 - £130 frm HK or on here!! when the LHS stop this greed, maybe we will get sensible prices on Tamiya stuff.... [8)]

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Its a sad and all too common retail trait. I can only relay my experience from music business. Every time the distributors and publishers get price breaks the retailers just suck it up & the customer pays the same old wack. Remember 5 years ago the huge investigation into the price of CDs? Did you pay less after it?

Every Janruary you hear moans about 'Home taping' or 'CD burning' and now 'internet downloads' Notice its always the quitest time of year and they never say 'we've signed up bad acts and nobody is bying that rubish but our accountants told us to sign soap stars and reality TV wannabes as theres less to spend on publicity' This is not entirely relavant but out lines 'when things are bad blame anything but ourselves' aspect.

This sounds like a rant but its not, its just a statement of the way things are & I'm seeing big parallels with this Tamiya issue. No wonder the retailers are smiling! their margins just got bigger and we will pay the same old wack.

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ahhh... back to good old self again..

was getting worried..

note to myself, transfer cash to paypal account [}:)]

Stefan

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