Tracking Hobby King Inventory

I am rather new to the R/C world. I actually got started after reading a lot of material here and wanting to build my own drone. So while researching my first scratch built flying machine (a 450 Trex) I found Hobby King. Oh the cheapness... But the backorders are killer. Furthermore their customer support is not helpful at all with the backorders.

 

So I built hobbyking-watch.com. Basically, I scrape the inventory data for all hobby king products nightly. Then I chart it. So if you want to know if the product you are looking at is a sell out risk, hobbyking-watch.com can answer that. If you want to know if a product will be back in stock soon, it can try to answer that as well. 

 

For example: the NX-4006-530kv Brushless Quad Motor. Which is my #2 organic search term. Apparently a lot of frustrated quad people out there. And I can see why, its woefully out of stock and has been that way as long as I have been tracking the product.

 

Another example: the 9x transmitter. many people recommend it, I wanted it (before I said screw it and bought a DX8). However it seems that it is very hard to get. The international warehouse has not been restocked as long as I have been tracking. The US warehouse has been restocked twice, selling out the same day. 

 

Anyway, I am interested to know what you guys think. If you have feature ideas or find bugs please hit me up.

Tags: backorders, hobby, king

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on April 19, 2012 at 11:33pm

You can backorder the 9X from the US warehouse.  You're never going to get one otherwise, they sell out within minutes every time they get any in.

Hobbyking already has an email notification feature, but a lot of stuff sells out so quick that even with email notification you can't get parts.

Don't know how useful your site is, but it looks nice and it seems you've got great scraping skills!

.

How about scraping this forum and moving it to a usable platform?

Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on April 20, 2012 at 6:53am

Last I checked you could backorder from the US warehouse, but not the China one.  The US warehouse was an extra $10 for the 9X I ordered.

Sucks to pay an extra $10 just to get into a queue, but it beats waiting around for an email and trying to rush to the site just to see it sold out before you could get there.  That's no way to live.

Permalink Reply by anzel360 on April 20, 2012 at 7:21am

... I thought diydrones seemed like an over grown wordpress install...

Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on April 21, 2012 at 1:54pm

They're using something called Ning.  I can't believe they're actually paying somewhere between $25-60 a month to use such an inferior product.

.

The website is passable, but the forum interface really sucks ass, and I certainly wouldn't pay for either considering there are so many free solutions out there that are worlds better.  As far as a CMS or forum platform, Ning isn't anywhere close to being in the top ten.

Permalink Reply by Andreas on April 20, 2012 at 12:18am
Only one way to deal with HK: You order whether it's back ordered or not and wait. Trying to time things is impossible. If you need parts A and B, part B will be out of stock once part A is back in stock.

This sucks if you need/want everything right now. But by just placing my orders (sometimes having even multiple in the queue) I got everything I needed, including 9x and hard to get plush escs.

HK has trained me well and it seems normal that my money is taken ad the order might sit in queue for weeks ;)
Permalink Reply by anzel360 on April 20, 2012 at 7:20am

Seems like HK desperately needs a competitor. And xheli seems to have all the same problems as HK, in fact I am pretty sure they are an HK re-seller.

Permalink Reply by Joel Venable on April 20, 2012 at 7:59am

I snagged a 9X on the evening of April 12, and it still showed as in stock the next morning.  It did finally sell out though...


DistributorPermalink Reply by Dany Thivierge on April 20, 2012 at 11:54am

That is why I always place several orders every weeks to keep the 9X in stock here at Canada Drones... 

Not easy to get them otherwise.  I know I charge more but the units are tested.  

Back to your scrapping tool, it's really nice! good work. 

Dany

Permalink Reply by Dwgsparky on April 20, 2012 at 1:52pm

Just in case you need a reference for a GOOD supplier. Send your order to Dany at Canada Drones.

Very helpful and he does exactly what he tells you he is going to do. No B...S.... just good service. I wish all suppliers would take lessons from Dany... He is my preferred supplier of choice. Thanks Dany

Dwgsparky

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