The Perils of Pre-Order

[The_Ghan]

I've mentioned before the dangers of pre-ordering trains, especially months in advance.  The good old Dr Yellow was delayed for months.  Pre-orders stated in April or May and the train was only released a week or two ago.  Over such a long time the Yen can, and did move markedly.  In my case, it is now worth 10% more than when I placed my pre-order with HS back in August.  So, imagine my surprise then, when I received a shipping notice a few days ago from Hobby Plaza Bigman telling me that my order from 5th May has been fulfilled and shipped.  What what what?  I didn't even remember placing the pre-order, but I must have.  I now have two Dr Yellows in the post.  What will I do with two?

I'm now recording all my orders in a spreadsheet.  Previously I was waiting for items to be delivered before entering them into the spreadsheet.  I'm also not going to pre-order so early anymore.

For those of you who are interested, Hobby Plaza Bigman offer the same discounts as Rainbow Ten.  I'm goin to be purchasing more from them over the coming year.

Cheers

The_Ghan

[keitaro]

lol we all feeling it mate.

i wish the yen would backflip on it's value lol.

i have way to much on preorder i hope the yen doesn't keep rising. (i keep telling my self don't order but i keep doing it lol)

[linkey]

You don't want to know what my pre-order is consist of :(

But I too have created a spreadsheet of my pre-orders and I write in the date that they have been shipped out. So I can keep track of them even if they are not sent via EMS, if it is an urgent item I require I will make sure it is under the EMS shipping, but wanting to make sure I have the funds so some items have been sent via SAL.

If you want to see my pre-order list I can post it up on here later on :P

[KenS]

I did that once, but I caught it after a couple of weeks and was able to cancel the second one.  After that, I started keeping a list on my website.

At least with a Dr. Yellow you can hold it a year, and then likely ebay the extra one for more than you paid.

[cteno4]

ive done it ordering it when something new comes out, forgetting that i had pre ordered it! usually pretty easy to unload them though! could be worse, you could have thought you pre-ordered it then by the time you figured out you had not it was sold out!

jeff

[The_Ghan]

While the temptation is there to make a profit on my own mistakes (and I see there is already a 50% markup on eBay ... and it's sold out on HS), it wasn't ever my intention to do so.  I'd rather offer it here first.  Once I've received both sets I'll sort something out.

Cheers

The_Ghan

[keitaro]

While the temptation is there to make a profit on my own mistakes (and I see there is already a 50% markup on eBay ... and it's sold out on HS), it wasn't ever my intention to do so.  I'd rather offer it here first.  Once I've received both sets I'll sort something out.

Cheers

The_Ghan

you could always keep It :p

i would love 2 have two, have a dedicated siding for them and program sweeps down the shinkansen lines every 30 mins or so

[jappomania]

normally I send all pre-orders to R10 (until now) so Mr.Nao automatically advise me if I send a double order
(for future release I need to replace my "train pusher"  )
the only trouble for me was the SAL "lost package" and the fake friends.
It's happened that a couple of boxes was declared lost, I've bought again the same items and after 2-3 months the lost packages was received back from R10 because Italian postal service declare that I refused delivering (but I've never seen it), otherwise I bought something for a friend and he never paid me.. (but the locos are still in my storage)
I think I have something that I can sell...
the real perils is the real relase date, if all your pre-orders are released the same month the C.C. is burned, for that's reason I have an emergency C.C., I think I need it if all the 300 series (MA and Tomix) are delivered in march..  ugh! I forget the E2 special..

ciao
Massimo

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm trying to stop pre-ordering until all my open pre-orders have been shipped and delivered. There's just been too many surprises recently, and since I have a lot more monthly costs for a few more months, I really shouldn't be getting those surprises :)

Only have 3 trains left on pre-order now, and they should all be taken care of by March.. The urge to pre-order new stuff is strong though...

Must..

Resist..

 

[linkey]

The urge to pre-order new stuff is strong though...

Must..

Resist..

 

I failed :P

[The_Ghan]

...

Must..

Resist..

...

Hmmmm!  The Force is strong in this one ...

[Martijn Meerts]

Linkey, I'm fully expecting MicroAce to announce the Imperial Train within the next months now that I'm trying not to pre-order, and everyone's going to be re-releasing trains I've been wanting to get for a while ;)


Ghan, the dark side.. It's so tempting!

[The_Ghan]

... and I want to collect Joyful trains too ... 

Cheers

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

I FAILED!

Ended up ordering/pre-ordering the Sankei Studio Ghibli kits I didn't have yet .....

Annoyingly, I ordered the in-stock Spirited Away kit before I noticed the Howl's Moving Castle kit was in-stock as well, so I ended up with 2 orders. Can't recombine them, and trying to cancel them just shows me an error page. I've specified SAL for shipping though (first time using SAL, oh dear ;)) so it's not really that bad to get 2 packages. Also interesting to see if they arrive same-day or if there'll be several weeks in between =)

[linkey]

I FAILED!

Ended up ordering/pre-ordering the Sankei Studio Ghibli kits I didn't have yet .....

Annoyingly, I ordered the in-stock Spirited Away kit before I noticed the Howl's Moving Castle kit was in-stock as well, so I ended up with 2 orders. Can't recombine them, and trying to cancel them just shows me an error page. I've specified SAL for shipping though (first time using SAL, oh dear ;)) so it's not really that bad to get 2 packages. Also interesting to see if they arrive same-day or if there'll be several weeks in between =)

Most likely to be two different days apart. I had that expreience before hand.

[bill937ca]

Annoyingly, I ordered the in-stock Spirited Away kit before I noticed the Howl's Moving Castle kit was in-stock as well, so I ended up with 2 orders. Can't recombine them, and trying to cancel them just shows me an error page. I've specified SAL for shipping though (first time using SAL, oh dear ;)) so it's not really that bad to get 2 packages. Also interesting to see if they arrive same-day or if there'll be several weeks in between =)

HS may combine the orders.  This has happened to me before.

[Martijn Meerts]

Bill, we'll see.. Shipping with SAL was only about 7 USD, so it's not like it's going to kill me ;)

[keitaro]

Annoyingly, I ordered the in-stock Spirited Away kit before I noticed the Howl's Moving Castle kit was in-stock as well, so I ended up with 2 orders. Can't recombine them, and trying to cancel them just shows me an error page. I've specified SAL for shipping though (first time using SAL, oh dear ;)) so it's not really that bad to get 2 packages. Also interesting to see if they arrive same-day or if there'll be several weeks in between =)

HS may combine the orders.  This has happened to me before.

I had an preorder and paid for it then I ordered another model that came out same time as a spur of the moment they noticed I had the 2 orders and emailed me asking if I wanted to combine together.

if they notice they will do the same but they will be pretty flat out so i wouldn't blame em if they ship without noticing as they have a week of orders to catch up on and alot of restocks they probably have to post up.

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm not too worried, just a shame they won't allow order recombinations of 2 items that are in-stock but haven't been sent yet. On the other hand, I don't know how their system works, so maybe it's not as easy to implement as I think it is :)

[linkey]

The good thing for me so far is that I haven't added anything to my current reserve listed items from the later part of 2011. So far it is a waitng game for when the items are released and ready to be shipped out. But also saying that I had a look at the KATO D51 498 and the C62's and got me thinking of just waiting for them so I can buy them later but they will be on my wishlist. :)