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Squadron has become a joke IMHO.  They are constantly running “sales”.  I get emails a couple of times a week about their latest one, you go to their website and usually everything decent is out of stock (aka “available to order”), and in most cases their “sale” prices aren’t that great.  Occasionally, you may find something that you actually want that’s actually in stock and at a good price, but it’s more miss than hit for me.  I rarely go to their site any more.  They seem to be more a book store than a kit seller these days.

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3 minutes ago, Dave Williams said:

Squadron has become a joke IMHO.  They are constantly running “sales”.  I get emails a couple of times a week about their latest one, you go to their website and usually everything decent is out of stock (aka “available to order”), and in most cases their “sale” prices aren’t that great.  Occasionally, you may find something that you actually want that’s actually in stock and at a good price, but it’s more miss than hit for me.  I rarely go to their site any more.  They seem to be more a book store than a kit seller these days.

I agree with all that, Sprue brothers is my go to or ebay.  Squadron is hard to navigate and rarely has anything of interest to me.  This was different, IMO..lots of 48th scale cold war-modern jets, Hobby Boss n Trumpeter kits that I've not seen on sale before.  Like I said, I'm not an expert on the kit  market by far but it might be worth a look.  

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I get Squadron emails daily touting their "sales".  The "80% off" items are usually old magazines or similar.  You won't find in-demand kits or recent releases marked down much if at all.  I sometimes check it out but, if you miss today's sale, don't fret it will be back next week or even tomorrow...

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2 hours ago, Napalmakita said:

Well, I guess Squadron has established it's karma pretty solidly here😁.  Just trying to spread some love...btw, any feedback on the Hobby Boss F18 D?  Decent build?


I’ve seen some people get good results. There’s no clear winner in the legacy Hornet department, but after reading reviews I settled for Kinetic. Simple version I think is Hasegawa is best for fit/buildability, Kinetic for detail, and HB is a mix of the other two. The Kinetic kit isn’t that tough to build though, so I went for that. 

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6 minutes ago, ESzczesniak said:


I’ve seen some people get good results. There’s no clear winner in the legacy Hornet department, but after reading reviews I settled for Kinetic. Simple version I think is Hasegawa is best for fit/buildability, Kinetic for detail, and HB is a mix of the other two. The Kinetic kit isn’t that tough to build though, so I went for that. 

I was leaning on that direction.  Thanks for the input

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I will say that I have taken advantage of some of their book sales to fill out my collection of Squadron In Action and Walk Around books, even if it’s  subject I’m not currently interested in. At $2-$3 each I can’t resist. It also helps that Squadron is local so I can pick up the order at Squadron and avoid any shipping fees.  

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On 4/25/2020 at 10:22 AM, Dave Williams said:

Squadron has become a joke IMHO.  They are constantly running “sales”.  I get emails a couple of times a week about their latest one, you go to their website and usually everything decent is out of stock (aka “available to order”), and in most cases their “sale” prices aren’t that great.  Occasionally, you may find something that you actually want that’s actually in stock and at a good price, but it’s more miss than hit for me.  I rarely go to their site any more.  They seem to be more a book store than a kit seller these days.

It is very annoying when the website shows the item is available to order then after you click then " out of stock". Why not let me know in advance so I don't waste my time or got my hope up. Dai 

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I unsubscribed from their email list a while back and truthfully had forgotten all about them. I was getting the emails and automatically clicking the link and browsing the inventory (such as it was), and suddenly realized that I didn’t want anything from them except to reclaim the time I was wasting on that activity.
 

Their “unsubscribe” function is effective...

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12 minutes ago, andrew.deboer said:

I unsubscribed from their email list a while back and truthfully had forgotten all about them. I was getting the emails and automatically clicking the link and browsing the inventory (such as it was), and suddenly realized that I didn’t want anything from them except to reclaim the time I was wasting on that activity.
 

Their “unsubscribe” function is effective...

Bahaha...that's one more 👎.  Thank you for playing

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I remember when the monthly Squadron mailer was anxiously awaited. Then filling in the order form that was included and mailing my order. Finally, waiting weeks for my order to arrive. That was the way things were done for years. Even after the Internet started to make its presence felt, the Squadron mailer was always fun to page through.

 

Now, I don't even bother checking their website anymore. They have become a joke in these days of accurate inventory reporting and high in-stock online shops like Sprue Brothers. Its a shame. They used to be an important part of the scale modeling community. My how the mighty have fallen.

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In the past, I couldn't wait until I got the monthly flyer, I would use a highlighter to mark all the stuff I wanted and then phone in my order. Back then shipping took about 7 to 10 days and when I got that package it was like Christmas. While I was on deployment, my wife would mail me the flyers and I would mark it up, some times I would have her order the stuff for me, other times I would wait until I got home and put in one hell of an order. For 20+ years Squadron was my go to place for everything model related.

 

Now, I only go to their site to see if there is a new In Action book out about once every month or so, and when there is I order it through Amazon.

 

Personally, I think they lost it when they stopped doing the monthly flyer and made ordering such a PITA on their website.

 

BTW: Who remembers Squadron Shops? There use to be one a few miles from my in-laws house so every time the wife and I went up to visit her parents it always included a trip to the Squadron Shop, boy, talk about walking into the ultimate model shop.

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They lost it for me when they went to their new inventory system with little "physical" inventory.  It seems like nearly everything is "available to order", but little is in stock except for the new hot kit, etc.  And I still can't prove it, but I swear during their "big sales" more stuff magically becomes "available to order" rather than "instock".

 

We modelers are often looking for esoteric stuff.  Having the 4 most popular kits in stock isn't going to last very long.  Half of us probably own all 4 already!  I much prefer Spruebrothers approach of, if it's listed, its ready to ship. 

 

And their "available to order" is a joke.  I was looking for a kit of the Dragon Zumwalt Destroyer (the name has some meaning in our family), and it's listed as "available to order" on their site.  To heck it is!  It's barely available on Ebay, is out of production, and no way of getting through Dragon. 

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3 minutes ago, ESzczesniak said:

They lost it for me when they went to their new inventory system with little "physical" inventory.  It seems like nearly everything is "available to order", but little is in stock except for the new hot kit, etc.  And I still can't prove it, but I swear during their "big sales" more stuff magically becomes "available to order" rather than "instock".

 

We modelers are often looking for esoteric stuff.  Having the 4 most popular kits in stock isn't going to last very long.  Half of us probably own all 4 already!  I much prefer Spruebrothers approach of, if it's listed, its ready to ship. 

 

And their "available to order" is a joke.  I was looking for a kit of the Dragon Zumwalt Destroyer (the name has some meaning in our family), and it's listed as "available to order" on their site.  To heck it is!  It's barely available on Ebay, is out of production, and no way of getting through Dragon. 

Words mean something don't they...it seems obvious but the way people act today it's like they simply accept the manipulation of word play

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1 hour ago, GW8345 said:

In the past, I couldn't wait until I got the monthly flyer, I would use a highlighter to mark all the stuff I wanted and then phone in my order.

...........

Personally, I think they lost it when they stopped doing the monthly flyer and made ordering such a PITA on their website.

 

I too was a "highlighter"...  🙂

 

They still do a monthly flyer, I think you have to request a subscription.  I've been getting the new format flyer for years but rarely go through every page.

 

I miss the "Open House" they used to do in conjunction with a local show.  It was awesome roaming through miles of aisles in their warehouse.  I think they still do it but admission is now linked to a fee payed with your contest entry.

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In this and other modeling sites with a forum, starting a topic about Squadron is guaranteed to hit the same issues every single time.

I don't think any of these responses are mean-spirited. Squadron should read these and address the business mechanic to win back our trust.. So many customers with the same problem? -And for years now.. No change.

This much ire has to have hit their bottom line to get someone to notice by now?

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3 minutes ago, DrGlueblob said:

In this and other modeling sites with a forum, starting a topic about Squadron is guaranteed to hit the same issues every single time.

I don't think any of these responses are mean-spirited. Squadron should read these and address the business mechanic to win back our trust.. So many customers with the same problem? -And for years now.. No change.

This much ire has to have hit their bottom line to get someone to notice by now?

Interesting.  I honestly had no idea about the reputation they'd established.  I've never ordered from them, I was just flipping through the hundred emails I had one morning and thought I'd share.  Your right...seems like getting on the good side of the masses here would be a positive business move.  

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