buying from hobby king

[westgatg]

just wondered if when buying from hobby king are there any additional fees that you have to pay to get the goods, such as customs charges etc.

[waveydavey]

You might get away with it you might not. There is a place where you can change the declaration to customs but I've never been caught for it. Don't buy a load of 6S 5000's at the same time that sort of thing.

[Andy from Sandy]

Use the DE warehouse and VAT will be added so nothing more to pay. I think Germany has a 19% VAT rate so it is actually slightly cheaper paying them than our taxman who adds 20% VAT.

[waveydavey]

Didn't think of that

[mrmurder1975]

ive had 90+ orders from hobby king and customs have never caught one. thats not to say they never will of course. its a gamble we all share when we order from hk. i always just leave the the customs declaration at the default value and its been fine. be aware,most times they take a while to ship your orders,so if you are in a hurry,shop somewhere else,and the customer service sucks beyond comprehension! if you order batterys they are shipped via singapore post,the tracking is good,but you can expect to add at least a week to the transit time in my experience. also,the ems option, although quicker (just) than regular registered airmail, seems to get caught by customs and incur charges more often than not. the average for me with regular registered airmail is around 11 days from order (assuming they don't keep it for a month before shipping it,like they have with me once or twice) to arrival at my door.

[Spanner]

My first experience of HK was 4 turnigy lipos from the DE warehouse this week, they took less than a week to arrive and no vat etc to pay.

[BenScoobert]

all payments are in USD so you get a crap exchange rate from paypal, about 5cents below middle price so about 3% more than the HK site is showing
No vat from germany but things are about 30% more from there, but postage is less
parcels from eastern warehouse are a coin toss on customs and VAT, if you're lucky you won't pay it, royal mail add £8 admin if you do end up paying it

[Scratch]

My first experience of HK was 4 turnigy lipos from the DE warehouse this week, they took less than a week to arrive and no vat etc to pay.

Same here, ordered 2 turnigy lipo's from German warehouse on Tuesday evening and they arrived following Monday.

[ghost2212]

93 orders so far and I've never been caught, If you split the parcels up into smallish amounts then i doubt you will ever get caught. I managed to get a small plane kit through and many other stuff at points. The maximum value order I got through was $130 but it was marked down. I think two 5000mah 6s's is the maximum amount of batterys I would try and get through in one parcel.

Even if you do get caught its still normally alot cheaper.

[Flying_Amp]

4th order from HK arrived today, 14 days after being sent (i never use EMS) never been charged yet, orders consisted of 450 heli, and ZYX unit, and 2 orders of li po's 4 in the first and 5 in the second (2200 3;s)

[Mark_T]

My first experience of HK was 4 turnigy lipos from the DE warehouse this week, they took less than a week to arrive and no vat etc to pay.

As per the comments above, you did pay VAT, but it was included in the original price.

[ryeates3]

a month for my 1st order not impressed . Nothing in the tracking section mailed them but no reply, opened a support ticket tried to call but always closed and never on line. Maybe my 1st time will be my last time. Will try to call them tonight if not pay pal claim.

[sacko]

You tracked it on the Royal Mail or Parcel Force site?

Sounds like its at customs.

[Mark_T]

My last order never had active tracking at any point, but it turned up 10 days after they claimed it had shipped so that was OK.

Does the order actually show as 'shipped'?

[snoop1050]

when ordering via hobbykings main warehouse in HK split the orders into small 999gram or less packages and change the declare rate so the total is below £15 including postage. (about 20-22$)

its only $3.99 for royal mail aslong its the package is 1kg or less and its much cheaper than getting hit with royal mail/parcel force handling fees.
the first order i did with hobbyking with EMS got hit with a parcelforce 14.50 handling fee :@ duty/vat was only like £5 aswell....
orders should onlt take around 11 days if you use the royal mail option

ive broke links in the head of my heli and for align parts in this country it would be around £5-£7 delivered but from hobbyking for unofficial parts that are exactly the same anyway its only 5$ including postage...... which is about £3.66

some parts just arent worth replacing with proper align ones especially if its 2 plastic eyes and a tiny metal bar (i would always use align feathering shafts though)
the 450+ size helis are usually in stock at the german warehouse but most of the time non of the replacement parts , servos , motors , escs are