Podium RC

[PodiumRC]

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.

[Dazzler]

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.

[NeilD]

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.

[gaza121]

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

[qatmix]

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.

[mikeyscott]

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...)

[PodiumRC]

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.

[showtime]

i've bought from Podium via the Xray site before & found the service to be perfectly acceptable
where parts have to be ordered in no money has been taken until shipped (for free) at a later date
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!