Originally Posted by
COBRARACING
This week do you have access in malta to hobbywing as if your thinking about hong kong you will be waiting for a long time as all new products are exclusive to a foreign company which wont allow supply to hong kong .
Rant mode ON.......
Hmmm, thought this had all passed well looks like we need to be looking elsewhere for our fix of cheap ESC's if this is the case. Hong Kong has allowed us all to buy, own and enjoy Hobbywing products. Exclusive agreements usually entail higher prices as we have seen with the SpeedPassion / King Golden connection. I understood that Hobbywing were spreading their 'wings' a little now that they had a supply agreement with the Canadians etc. I for one will not be held to ransom by a 'middle man' type of distribution company, the beauty of the XERUN series so far has been in the competitive nature of the pricing of these products.
Originally Posted by
redbones
That could work as a double edged sword. It will all depend on the pricing, meeting supply, and CS. So basically, HW is putting a sanction on HK?
My understanding was that Hobbywing were a manufacturing company along the lines of the usual Chinese practice basically building the equipment and selling as many units as possible to make a profit, by cutting out the Hong Kong connection and signing into the usual rapacious RC industry model of exclusive agreements with 'distributors' they will in the end sell fewer units as, unless the distributor has massive clout and advertising they will not sell sufficient units to allow the Chinese model of business to work correctly.
To say that we in the community would feel let down by such an arrangement would be an understatement. Lots of work has gone into (unpaid) by various community members to further the spread of Hobbywing products and by entering into a 'price fixing' arrangement is a little like biting the hand that feeds you. Pushing the HW prices up will only make the TEKINS and SPEEDPASSION ESC's more desirable as the local back up for these products country to country is something HW will never, in my opinion, emulate. Currently it is almost cheaper to buy a replacement ESC than it is to Ship the product back to China, pay for repair and then have it shipped back by DHL. Our last repair cost a whopping £42 for the two way shipping, new ESC was £47.
Do we get to find out who 'The exclusive partner' is, will there be product available at reasonable prices to all parts of the world? Will they end up like the Muchmore FLETA or the VENOM version selling few units with minimal backup/support. Look what happened to both of those.
I believe this is bad for the customer, ergo bad for Hobbywing.
Rant over .....
