Podium RC
 

Has anyone brought parts from this company (Podium RC) and if so what was your experience??

Cheers

Gary

Ordered some T3 bulkheads a while ago and payment was done. about a week passed by and I had hear nothing from them and no delivery had happened. so I gave them a call and they were still waiting for the parts from their supplier to be delivered to them.

Knowing already CML didn't have any and couldn't get any they gave me a refund straight away.

Still a call about the delay would be nice. I don't think listing everything like they do is the right way about it. or if they do post expected delivery times.

they don't seem to keep muich in stock, when you order from them, they order from the distributor, so if the distributor hasn't got the part then you don't get it. I also found they don't tell you what is going on, you have to contact them :thumbdown:

Yea there local to me and ive seen them at meetings and there not brilliant i think they just list every things ever made.

A

Same as above - i ordered a Corally motor, weeks passed, nothing arrived. After maybe 6 weeks or so it did eventually turn up.

They did return my emails though to be fair unlike some companies.

Like Ash says, they just list all parts and order in to suit.

They list everything on their site including parts that you know have been obsolete for ages on some cars.
I got the impression that they hold no stock at all and as others have said just order things from distributors as you order it from them.

Im getting pretty fed up with this company, ordered an axle three weeks ago, heard nothing so rang them last friday to see whats going on, the women said it was "out of stock" and were oredering from the supplier, she told me on friday she would get straight back to me an never did.

This is one shop I will avoid from now on and would recommend any other oopler to stay clear unless you want a six week wait!"!!

they sound like they are dropshipping!

utter crap - total waste of time.

took 9 weeks to refund me after not fulfilling an order.

I can understand supplier chain issues, but wouldn't it make sense to make this clear when the customer places an order? most other suppliers manage to give stock level indicators on their websites.

their communication is abysmal too. avoid!

I found that their Kyosho stock list was wrong and that a rather large amount is no longer in stock with any Kyosho warehouse. Best bet would be to shop elsewhere to see if other shops can get the products first before you contemplate using them.

I've got a feeling their website makes it pretty clear, doesn't it say something about only having parts info from suppliers, not that they have them in stock?

I have taken this from Podium RC website and as far as i can see they have done nothing wrong as all worded in this statement;


Perhaps people should read terms & conditions before placing a order with the shop;


Delivery, Privacy, Copyright and Terms & Conditions

Delivery

Shipping And Handling - Postage & Packing fees to UK, Europe or the Rest of the World detailed in the shopping cart.
Delivery Schedule - As we list items that we have available to us from our suppliers as well as what we have in stock, we are at the mercy of our suppliers on these items. After November 2007 the web site will be upgraded to list what is in stock and what is available to us from our suppliers. In stock items are dispatched within 2 working days. Items not in stock will be dispatched as soon as they come in to stock. Normally stock is received from our suppliers every 7-14 days. If the item is not in stock with our supplier then we need to look at each item on an item by item basis. You WILL NOT be charged for any item until it is ready to ship.
Back Orders - If your item is not in stock, we will back order for you. You will only be charged Postage & Packing once per order. Should some items be in stock they will be dispatched and the back orders will follow without additional Postage & Packing.
Returns and Guarantees

Guarantee - We aim to please and provide peace of mind when you make your purchase, if you are not satisfied with your purchase please return it to us within 7 days with the receipt and in its original packaging and condition and we will provide a replacement item or, if you prefer, refund you the purchase cost of the item. The purchaser is responsible for the postage cost of returned items. If you do need to return any goods, please ensure that the package is securely wrapped as it may not be possible to offer a refund or replacement on goods which are damaged during return transit to us. All items are securely and carefully packed by us for shipment, we are not responsible for goods damaged or lost in transit to you, please contact Royal Mail for compensation in this instance.
Limits on Guarantees - guarantee is subject to fair use policy. Any used item will be looked at on an item by item basis.
Returns Policy - If you are not satisfied with your purchase for any reason we will be delighted to offer you a replacement or a refund to the value of the product(s) subject to the details set out in the Guarantee section.
Payment

We accept credit card payments using the Protx secure server. If you are shopping from the EU or other countries outside of the UK simply place your order and your credit card company will convert the transaction into your own currency.
We accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro & Solo, PAyPal, Postal orders and UK Bank cheque's. We do not charge for any item until it is ready to ship. Back ordered items are not charged until they are shipped. We additionally accept EUROCHEQUES in £ Sterling. To pay by mail just shop as normal and select "Money order" at the Payment options. When we receive the order we will get in touch with you to arrange payment.
Tax Charges - All prices indicated are inclusive of VAT (UK TAX).
We reserve the right to refuse/cancel orders, prior to payment being received (including credit card processing).
Refunds will be by the same method as payment. Delivery will not be included in any refund and is subject to the goods being returned in a merchantable quality within 28 days. Faulty goods will be exchanged, subject to the fault being a manufacturing fault and not wear and tear. Non delivery will be refunded/replaced after an investigation in to the where about's of the goods.

Privacy Policy - Newsletter

The newsletter will only be used by PodiumRC.co.uk to keep you informed of new features and promotions. No e-mail addresses will be passed on third parties. To unsubscribe from the Newsletter click the unsubscribe link in your next newsletter. We will try to keep to a maximum of 12 Newsletters a year.
Privacy Policy - Sales and other correspondence

We know that when you shop online, you want to be assured that your name, address, and any other information that you give to us is kept safe and secure. Information is collected lawfully and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Information is collected solely for the process of fulfilling your order. PodiumRC.co.uk do not pass on your e-mail address, home address or any other details to any third party. 'Cookies' are used on this shopping site to keep track of the contents of your shopping cart once you have selected an item, and to store your details if you select the 'Remember Me' Option.
Pre-Orders

You are able to Pre-Order items. As soon as they arrive with PodiumRC.co.uk we will dispatch them. We can not make any firm commitments to delivery dates on Pre Order items.
The pre-order system: You place the order as normal, including you credit/debit card details. When we get the items delivered to us, we send these parts on to you. Only when the new item is ready for despatch will we debit your credit/debit card. Other payment methods on an individual basis. Note, we only hold credit card details for up to 6 weeks on PRE Order items, should we take longer than 6 weeks we will contact you again. This will be to confirm you still wish to receive the item and to renew your credit/debit card details.



Crtpromachine

I have been waiting over four weeks so far for one part

(So much for the 7-14 day delivery!!!)

I totally agree regarding reading T&C, but...
"After November 2007 the web site will be upgraded to list what is in stock and what is available to us from our suppliers."
As far as I can see they don't appear to have done this:confused:

exactly this.

As I also work for a mail order company I have come to find if you don't put it right under the visitor (to your site)'s nose they miss it. We've had loads of areas on our website we've had to add really simple things just to avoid mistakes. ie, you go to create an account and it fills your email in from the previous page and asks for a password. many customers say they haven't got a password. of course it's asking for you to create one.

My 1 bit of praise was once I had asked for a refund it was done near enough straight away. They do get a list of parts which are discontinued from their supplier so updating their site would be a good idea.

yes similar experience they said they had some blue mips in stock but nothing arrived and after 3 weeks they did refund me.

so they took your money before they had the goods then?

which is totally different to the terms and conditions isnt it?

As small shop myself I feel I have to stand up for some shops out there, I started my shop with a friend as we felt in our area there was a lack of decent support for all the local racers and decided to go ahead with it, now 4 years later I now run the shop on my own while still trying to work and earn money to pay my private bills, the margins in this trade are not always as they great as they may seem to the general public and dont always allow me to draw a wage from the small profits I make, I find myself working 12 hours+ days just to satisfy my customers and try to be as honest as I can be, nothing worse than try to bull sh-t customers as it will inevitbly back fire on me and customers wont come back, when orders come in I try to let people know if its out of stock with the distributors or not and wont take money off people till the part arrives, somehow cant seem the point of it, the deal hasnt been done till the part arrives and can cause major hassles with paperwork and trying to keep track of it all, so best to not take payment till it arrives, simple and easy for me and the customer, now the bit that gets me worked up when distributors dont fullfill back orders and leave me and the customers waiting for weeks on end, prime example is I ordered a couple of micro cars for someone for a birthday and nothing has happened for nearly two months now and still waiting, the birthday has come and gone and left my customer feeling let down not by me but the trade in general, we really try to do our best to get the parts to you all on time but sometimes it all fails by either the suppliers or manufacter and there is nothing we can do about, this one of the reason I have held back on running a online ordering system and if I do it will only show the parts in stock with me so you can see whats in and only whats in stock, to try and keep everything updated with the thousands of parts available from all the suppliers is just madness and takes up so much time that it just isnt worth my time to do that, my customers know that I will try and order every week and keep the supply chain moving and keep you all racing including myself and that is what its all about, sorry for going on so long but I felt its worth while putting my point across regarding shops in general, I know its a bit of a rant or whinge whatever you want to call it but I feel so passionate about that I cant abide hearing people putting another shop down good or bad, Podium RC have been going for quite awhile and do an excellent service out there and the current climate it isnt easy for anyone in this trade and when you consider a lot of you out there are quite happy to use suppliers from abroad and then moan when a UK shop struggles to get you the parts you need, all I can say is support you local model shop, talk to them properly and we will all be happy, so lets keep smiling, keep racing or bashing, support each other in the problems we have trackside and have some fun, THIS IS THE BEST HOBBY IN THE WORLD!!!

Well im unsure about podium rc, who hardly ever respond. But I do agree with you as when i worked for Ripmax the profit margin was almost non existant. Its a tough industry to be in but if you get a lot of custom then the more chance of a bigger profit, and thats where customer skills help big time, as you yourself know. The more you come across the more repeat business you get. Still we are all here for one thing and thats to try and promote the sport and enjoy.

Never had a problem with Podium, I think they have always stated that they list everything, but don't hold all the stock.

I've known Dave and Lisa who run Podium a few years now and they are genuine people, maybe times are tough and suppliers are letting them down on holding parts also, its a vicious circle really as to who holds the stock....

I think you will find most mail order shops hold "everything" :)

I am sorry to hear that there has been some bad experience with us.

I am Colin, the third member of PodiumRC (the web master and accountant, so no one really sees me!). I have to thank ConceptRacing, as what is said there is very true. I do not know the set up of ConceptRacing, but we are lucky to have 3 of us to spread the long days between. Again like ConceptRacing the running of an RC shop does not pay all of us.

I will explain the background as to how we came about, which will give you an idea as to how we operate.

Anyone who knows Dave will be aware that he has been in to RC cars for a fair while. While racing the Xray T1 he was frustrated by such a good car having a lack of spares. As spares were so bad he thought he could do better and came to me to ask about a web site. We bought Xray parts through an RC Shop at a discount and sold them at RRP. This worked and we had a good stock of Xray parts, until the shop we were dealing with ceased trading. This left us in a where we had to make a decision between opening our own shop or finding another RC shop to supply us (Centrepoint the Xray distributors at the time would not supply on line only shops). There was no way we could sustain a shop with just Xray, so had to find a way of breaking in to a crowded online market to support the shop. We looked at the competition and saw they were they were selling what they had in stock, and so saw a gap.

We have tried to be as upfront as possible and say that we do not hold everything in stock. We do hold a large amount of Xray, but also Hudy, Losi, AE, Hong Nor, Parkzone, Hangar 9 and more. This has been built up for the track side sales and what has been popular on line. The listing of everything has the benefit that should someone be looking for an obscure part, they stand a chance of finding at least a price from ourselves. We have been commented on for being the only web site to have some items listed. There are also a great number of items that we have only ever shipped one, making it prohibitive from keeping these items in stock.

The downside is, we are very much at the mercy of our suppliers for these items not held in stock and also current products. Distributors give us lists of current products, that can have items that are not yet in production, or have gone out of production some time ago, but the distributor still has them listed. Distributors are a business and look at their stocks with a ‘just in time’ supply idea. Also they are not going to sit with stock that they are very unlikely to sell much of.

I will look at what has been said here, and I will be looking at anything that specifies delivery time scales.
The Aug 2007 upgrade has been done. We do have a system for showing what is in stock. This is only available to members logged in to our Xray web site. We are looking at it for the PodiumRC web site and have it in place ready to be switched on. The problem is, trackside sales make a mess of our stock control. The stock levels are out of date after every weekend racing and the web site shows items in stock when they are not. Think how much more disappointed you would be if we said we had items in stock, that we did not. The only current solution we have is to give up selling track side, which will leave a lot of disappointed people on a Sunday. We will continue to work on this, as I do see it as a major benefit to our customers and would see an increase in our sales, IF IT WAS RELIABLE.

We do not take money from people who pay by credit/debit card until we are ready to ship. We do not have any choice with PayPal, so will make a refund without any quibble if we have not shipped (provided you have given us a few days to ship).

I will take part of the hit for communications problems. Having received nearly 2000 e-mails per day, mostly spam, we have been trying to find a good spam filter. This has had mixed results and has been the cause of some e-mails getting deleted as spam by the filters. Lisa also prioritises sending parts out and will attend to e-mails when she can.

The ordering of items that are out of stock with the distributor (like CML, HH, Ripmax, HPI, RCDisco, etc.) does cause a dilemma. Bear in mind if nobody orders the part from the distributor, then the distributor will not order the part from the manufacturer. So if you sit waiting to find when the distributor will get an obscure part in, then you are going to be waiting until someone else orders the part. If it is a popular part, then it will just be a case of waiting. The only way round rare or obscure parts, is to look for someone who does have it in stock, or bite the bullet and order it with the expectation of waiting. I know it sounds hard and I would like to offer a better solution, but there is no other option.

We do not currently stock KYOSHO and have not for a long time. We do have Kyosho hot ups from other manufacturers. So take this as a case of mistaken identity, unless proven wrong. We do intend to start Kyosho, orion and sirio in order to sell sirio track side.

I do hope that we are seen as genuine. Dave is an out an out racer and a very active member of our local RC Club.
PodiumRC was set up as Dave was frustrated with the supply of parts and thought we could do better. Something which I do believe we have been very successful with Xray and have made great steps forward with other manufacturers. This does not mean we have not been disappointed with our performance else where.
As it has been pointed out by other shop owners and reps, this is not an easy business, but still it has to be run as a business.

Comments are welcome if there are other areas that you feel we could improve. We will be continuing to work on those areas mentioned above.

You make very valid points, myself, I 90% of the time ring the model shop I wish to purchase from prior to ordering to ensure they have the item in stock ready to ship. Obviously almost certainly would if I was desparate / relying on something, it isn't difficult. People who just order stuff without checking need to take some sort of ownership for their own actions and then they would relise there is more they could do to help themselves. ( I have seen the post regarding the MIP bits and this seems to be an exception). Most other problems could be easily resolved by good communication. An e-mail regarding stock could quite easily be incorrect before the send button is even clicked,let alone recieved. Where as if you phone, ask, if they have it and you say you'll have it and pay - You're sorted. I do use online shops who have excellent stock control who have never once failed to supply the items I have ordered, this does build trust and you are confident that the items will be on your doorstep often the very next day. Podium, as said, don't list stock levels, so I would always ring if there was something I wanted from them. I certainly wouldn't slate them in a public forum.

It's nice to see Podium reply to the criticism they have recieved. This certainly makes me feel that they are a genuine operation and it seems when better systems are in place, spam email, they will be able to offer a more consistent level of service to their customers.

Most of us keep quiet if we get great service however if the service is bad we shout it from the rooftops and in this case although the service wasn't perfect there were mitigating circumstances. Hopefully the shop and it's customers can learn from this and move forward together.

Hi Colin (Podium RC)

The reason I started this thread was this-

I ordered a part via the Podium RC website (the part in question was a rear axle for an FTX fantom), this was order on the Podium RC website and paid for via PayPal on the 27 Aug 09.

From this point on I heard nothing from your company and eventually rang up to see where my part was, Im guessing it was Lisa I spoke to on 7th Spoke to find out if my part had been sent off???

She mentioned there had been an issue with the supplier and that she would get back to me the same day with the new delivery date (I heard nothing from Podium RC)

Eventually on the 16 Sep I recieved a call from Lisa saying the part was discontined and offered me another replacement part for double the cost, Due to the way my order was handled I asked for a refund which being fair was promtly paid.

I think the point I am trying to make is it shouldn't come down to the buyer to have to chase up for parts that are ordered, and if there is an issue with the ordered part the buyer should be made aware.

By responding to this thread it shows that you do care about your customers and hope you sort your issues out

regards

Gary

I've bought quite a few parts from Podium RC and they have always responded to my emails and phone calls.

PodiumRC
 

We have listened to what you have said, and we have now added an 'In stock' note to our products (example http://www.podiumrc.co.uk/product-270031.php). This appears just under the add to basket line.

The rest of the web site has yet to be changed to reflect that this In stock notice has appeared and we will be reviewing how well it works. We would also like to add that the stock control process is not 100% accurate (as we sell track side too) so there may be some discrepancies. Error rates will be monitored to improve the service.

With regards to a spam filter looking into Postini which was purchased from Google.

http://www.google.com/postini/

Who hosts your email or do you provide it in house (will check the mx record later...)

Currently Death2spam (contained in the MX records), but we have tried a few . Postini is a new one on me, so we will look at giving that one a try.

I have just reset my oople password and D2S listed it as spam! So D2S is too efficient, even though we found spam jab even worse. We have also had some filter that pulled out next to nothing and our inbox was just overloaded.

i've bought from Podium via the Xray site before & found the service to be perfectly acceptable :thumbsup:
where parts have to be ordered in no money has been taken until shipped (for free) at a later date :thumbsup:
i've also bought stuff trackside as well, spot on :)

the only stuff i've ever had to wait for has been a tad obscure & has always arrived before it became a problem so no complaints here :)

times are hard all round at the moment & to expect any shop to stock everything is a bit unrealistic!