Online hobby stores / Where do you buy from?

[CM9000]

I hate engineers. so I must hate myself...

back on topic: if I cant get it through my lhs, I go through the fs section here or vendor.or I drive to work and make/ design it on my spare time.

I do my best to avoid ebay.. but when its hard to find and I cant make it (yet) I go through evil bay. ive stopped buying from private sellers on FB for a few personal reasons. and I haven't been on craigslist since 2010.

for wheels.. I haven't really had the chance to drop a dime on any SSD wheels yet. but I also don't want to have to buy 6 sets of wheels for one truck if the tire doesn't like the terrain. so I stick with glue on wheels.

I guess my point would be.. support the lhs's and the vendors on here before you outsource.

 

[2mtech]

I guess my point would be.. support the lhs's and the vendors on here before you outsource.

I'd support my LHS if they acted like I exist and they care that I could spend my thousands of RC dollars a year there instead of sending it to Ukiah or Champaign.

Good point, though...I've never been disappointed by our vendors or individuals I've done business with from here!

 

[Techno Duck]

RPP, Amazon, AsiaTee’s and a bunch of sellers on eBay. I think RPP has the best selection and website layout. Downside is as a CA resident I have to pay sales tax. With the usual 15% holiday sales it’s a wash though. I recently bought a few things from Tower but the selection is still really limited.

I tried doing my due diligence and support the local shops. Asked around to see if anyone had something in stock which no one did. Kind of a hard business to stock all the obscure parts people want and be profitable. But as a consumer it’s easier for me and usually the same price to just go online. One of the shops by me actually had the ProLine tires I bought a little cheaper than what I paid online at RPP... whoops! Should have checked. Of all the shops in the area they have pretty good customer service... its just unreasonable to expect them to have everything I want in stock.

I had an interesting experience at one shop earlier this week., I stopped in without calling to see if they had the part, I also wanted to check the place out to browse. They offered to order the part for me direct, but being a Vanquish part it was not available directly. So it’s a 2 week lead time at the minimum, I had to pay upfront and had to come back to pick it up. Explained to them I live about 20 miles round trip away, so I was just going to buy it online (from a place with it in stock). The guy helping me jokingly called me a schmuck. I won’t be back there for anything, even if he was just joking.