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Where do you shop online for bargains..


Komedy

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Hi all

 

I love getting bargains and as modeling isn't a cheap hobby I'm interested to know where some of you shop online for good prices, eg eBay Sellers, China, Japan etc...

 

Ta in advance

 

Warren

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How long is a piece of string?

You can get bargains or get stung by any of them. Be prepared to wait as a cheaper option will come around sooner or later.

Just keep your options open and your ear to the ground.

At the end of the day, the vendor needs to cover costs and/or make a profit (hopefully if it's a business)

Just remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

 

Overseas shipping can be expensive even if the purchase price seems cheap. An importer/wholesaler will get cheaper unit costs as they buy in bulk. Sometimes the UK price is cheaper than shipping from Japan.

 

Caveat Emptor

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Amazon can be a surprising source of bargains. What I do is maintain a "wish list" of models I'm interested in - prices can fluctuate quite a bit, with no rhyme or reason.  So for example, in the last 6 months I got the latest Hasegawa Emily for £50 where it was generally retailing for over £100, an Academy B29 for £30 and the Special Hobby Skua for £12. These prices are often short lived (sometimes only a day), so you a) need to pay attention and b) have a pretty good idea of what the normal price should be. Note that none of these were advertised as sale items. I suspect it might be dealers off-loading surplus stock.

 

I also have got some great bargains from dealers at kit shows - but again, its important to be aware of the real market value. It is not unusual to find dealers selling particular items for more than they can be had for online. This isn't a dig at the dealers - they may well have bought the kit at a time the price was higher, or their particular boxing has collector value.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

 

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58 minutes ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

How long is a piece of string?

You can get bargains or get stung by any of them. Be prepared to wait as a cheaper option will come around sooner or later.

Just keep your options open and your ear to the ground.

At the end of the day, the vendor needs to cover costs and/or make a profit (hopefully if it's a business)

Just remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

 

Overseas shipping can be expensive even if the purchase price seems cheap. An importer/wholesaler will get cheaper unit costs as they buy in bulk. Sometimes the UK price is cheaper than shipping from Japan.

 

Caveat Emptor

And (above a certain value limit) add the near-certainty of paying VAT and the Post Office's fee for collecting and passing the VAT on to HMRC. Which, I presume, will also apply to a currently exempt category of parcels coming into the UK, ie those from the rest of Europe. The tax and levy will apply to them after 31 January, or perhaps the end of the year (not sure). 

Edited by Lothian man
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9 minutes ago, ckw said:

Amazon can be a surprising source of bargains. What I do is maintain a "wish list" of models I'm interested in - prices can fluctuate quite a bit, with no rhyme or reason.  So for example, in the last 6 months I got the latest Hasegawa Emily for £50 where it was generally retailing for over £100, an Academy B29 for £30 and the Special Hobby Skua for £12. These prices are often short lived (sometimes only a day), so you a) need to pay attention and b) have a pretty good idea of what the normal price should be. Note that none of these were advertised as sale items. I suspect it might be dealers off-loading surplus stock.

 

I also have got some great bargains from dealers at kit shows - but again, its important to be aware of the real market value. It is not unusual to find dealers selling particular items for more than they can be had for online. This isn't a dig at the dealers - they may well have bought the kit at a time the price was higher, or their particular boxing has collector value.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

 

Sometimes the same kit comes up more than once in the search depending on how the various sellers have described it in their postings. Always worth searching again using different 'keywords' such as maker name and kit number and various parts of the description, certainly for an expensive kit. 

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Depends on what I'm looking for.

If I'm looking for kits that have been around for a while, the second hand market is today my main source of plastic (with some resin added in). Ebay of course, although prices there can vary a lot. Swap meets and modelling shows are even better when it comes to prices but depends a lot on the venue. Even flea markets can be a great source for kits, I've bought several at similar venues at incredible prices.

 

If we're talking new production kits then it depends on where they are made. For Far East made kits, I buy from shops in their own country and a number of dealers have very reasonable postage costs. Of course there's the matter that you may have to pay VAT and handling fees on top of that, so this must be taken into account. The fact that several kits are easily available there while they are hard to find here make these shops even more interesting. Choose carefully the coutry where the shop is, Chinese kits for example are cheap enough in China and Hong Kong while in Japan they are quite expensive.

To avoid being stung by handling fees the other option, at least until Brexit happens, is to buy from continental Europe. There are several shops in Poland and the Czech Republic that have very good prices and not only on kits made there: even some Japanese kits can be found for good prices in Poland. There are also a couple of German and French large shops thatoffer good prices, maybe not all the times and not on all kits, but often have some incredible bargain. These are often my go-to places for European made kits but not only,

Last but not least, there are also a couple of online shops in the UK that often have discounts on many kits and can offer great bargains.

Now some of the shops I buy from have a presence on Ebay in addition to their own website. Others only have their website. In general with the larger shops it's wise to check if they have a discount or bargain section. Some sell off older stock from time to time and even shops that are generally on the expensive side (thinking of a certain very large UK one here...) have stuff on offer at good prices.

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Here in Australia there are a couple of groups for buying and selling kits on Facebook so maybe there's something similar where you are. I've had a few bargains from these groups. Ebay doesn't seem to be as good for bargains as it used to be (too many sellers on Ebay now seem to be trying to sell things for more than they're worth, not less!) but if you keep an eye out there are bargains to be had from time to time. There are often Zvezda and other Russian and Ukrainian kits on there at good prices from Eastern European sellers. HLJ has some very good prices on the likes of Hasegawa and Luckymodel seems to have good prices for Kinetic kits (and from time to time has some good special offers) but you'll be risking the VAT/import charges problem with them.

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Here in the US (I know, not much use for you Brits...) I use Scalehobbyist, which consistently has the best 'regular' pricing; Lucky Model out of Hong Kong for the best sale bargains; and eBay for oddities. 

 

One I use less and less frequently is Squadron, whose overly-frequent 'sales' feature the same few hundred loss leaders every month - all useless stuff, like 1/35 modern German sub-machine guns and ruined architectural features, 50 cents off all six million flavours of Vallejo paint, and dried-up Humbrol acrylics.....

 

Then again, I also try to go to brick-and-mortar hobby stores when there's one in the city I'm visiting. I always go in with the intention of buying a kit, though depending on their stock that day I might come out with only paints and accessories, but I do feel the need to support local businesses if possible. 

Edited by Paul Bradley
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19 hours ago, Paul Bradley said:

Then again, I also try to go to brick-and-mortar hobby stores when there's one in the city I'm visiting. I always go in with the intention of buying a kit, though depending on their stock that day I might come out with only paints and accessories, but I do feel the need to support local businesses if possible. 

It never hurts to get friendly with your local hobby shop.

There are times when I can offer some screamin' deals on kits because we have bought stuff out of collections or there is some minor damage to the box or it's contents. (Bad decals say.)

Or it may just have been hanging around for too long.

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  • 5 months later...

Ebay works for me,must be patient and watch shipping.

Normal suppliers I like Scalehobbyist for finding low prices. Dragonusaonline has good sales.

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On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2020 at 10:45 AM, Komedy said:

I love getting bargains and as modeling isn't a cheap hobby

Have you tried golf or computer games? Now your talking expensive, even hobbies like fishing can rack up the costs, it's all about having the gear....

 

I reckon modelling has to be one of the cheaper hobbies out there but certain areas can be regarded as more expensive - compare car modelling to aircraft - prices of kits and add ons are a couple of notches up with autos.

 

Dave

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  • 8 months later...
On 1/22/2020 at 11:12 AM, Giorgio N said:

To avoid being stung by handling fees the other option, at least until Brexit happens, is to buy from continental Europe. There are several shops in Poland and the Czech Republic that have very good prices and not only on kits made there: even some Japanese kits can be found for good prices in Poland. There are also a couple of German and French large shops thatoffer good prices, maybe not all the times and not on all kits, but often have some incredible bargain. These are often my go-to places for European made kits but not only,

Hi Giorgio,

 

What about hobby stores in Italy? Could you suggest a few that also have an online presence, and from which we can shop for example, some MOLAK enamel paints (apart from kits of course)?

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Anybody tried OnBuy.com yet? I bought some paints from a retailer on there and was very happy with the transaction. It's a bit like a grown up version of eBay without the auctions.

 

Duncan B

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On 3/29/2021 at 2:57 PM, Shalako said:

Hi Giorgio,

 

What about hobby stores in Italy? Could you suggest a few that also have an online presence, and from which we can shop for example, some MOLAK enamel paints (apart from kits of course)?

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

 

Hi Bill, how are things ?

IMHO Italian shops tend to be at the high end pricewise. The biggest one is Mister Kit that can be roughly described as the Italian Hannants.. not as large, much smaller but it's the kind of place where you can find everything. And that everything is generally not cheap.... Another good shop is Steel Models, more focused on tanks than aircraft. Interesting is also Italian Kits, that only has a few kits but is also a manufacturer. Astromodel often has bargains, they are local distributors for a number of brands and are the producers of Lifecolor paints so may be interesting.

I'll see if others come to my mind, also keep in mind that I don't know if all of them sell abroad, I know Mister Kit does but never checked the others.

Regarding Molak paints, I'm not sure they are available anymore, I'm afraid all you can find are old production tins.

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

 

 

Hi Bill, how are things ?

IMHO Italian shops tend to be at the high end pricewise. The biggest one is Mister Kit that can be roughly described as the Italian Hannants.. not as large, much smaller but it's the kind of place where you can find everything. And that everything is generally not cheap.... Another good shop is Steel Models, more focused on tanks than aircraft. Interesting is also Italian Kits, that only has a few kits but is also a manufacturer. Astromodel often has bargains, they are local distributors for a number of brands and are the producers of Lifecolor paints so may be interesting.

I'll see if others come to my mind, also keep in mind that I don't know if all of them sell abroad, I know Mister Kit does but never checked the others.

Regarding Molak paints, I'm not sure they are available anymore, I'm afraid all you can find are old production tins.

Hi Giorgio,

 

Things are fine (so far!) and thank you for your reply. I hope things are doing well on your side.

 

Molak paints, in my opinion are from the last guality-enamels that were ever produced and this comes from my experience of using these colours to produce some adversary paint schemes, which are some of the most difficult ones but, thanks to Molak in the past I had managed to achieve very good results (unfortunately, I do not have these builds anymore😞).

 

I will try the model shops you have suggested since Molak was an Italian paint manufacturer and they might have some still left at some corner, gathering dust!. Along with Model Master, DBI and the old Humbrol paints, these were the best enamel paints and a very good base for mixing colours to achieve certain results and also, very good for weathering effects.

 

Again, many thanks.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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20 minutes ago, Harry Callahan said:

Hi mate

 

My kits i mostly buy at ebay at private sellers, often i get a good price, my materials and tools i buy at www.modellbau-könig.de or at www.sockelshop.de , both are in Germany

Hi Werner,

 

I have bought a few times from Der Sockelshop and their services are excellent. You can also find from time to time some bargains, particularly for aircrafts' aftermarket sets.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Most of the stuff I buy these days is second-hand off eBay, as new prices are becoming less and less affordable for me. Once upon a time, there were lots of bargains to be had on eBay, but sadly, there's an awful lot of people asking new prices for second-hand stuff, sometimes considerably more than full retail. It takes an awful lot of time and effort to sort through the chaff, but being on a very limited budget, I kinda have to. More often than not I get outbid, but I'm patient and eventually it pays off.

 

As far as new stuff goes, I regularly check MJW Models, as their prices are pretty good and they frequently have some good bargains. But most manufacturers have put up their prices beyond the point I'm prepared or can afford to pay, so they don't get any of my money.

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