Interested in Your Opinion

[YankeeVictor400.com]

Hello everyone,

I tried posting this in the Vendor section of MAF, but apparently, that section does not allow polls. Moderators, if you need to move this, please do so. Thank you, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

You probably know I have been trying to find ways not to charge for pre-orders until they are ready to ship. I have been using pre-order forms, which work okay for a small number of orders, but can easily become overwhelming.

I've found a way not to charge Credit Cards until the order is ready to ship, but in doing so, I lost the ability to offer any other payment methods, such as PayPal and Apple Pay. I know older stores manage to offer the same service while continuing to offer other payment methods, but that's not possible with my platform. Hence, I am curious to know what most collectors prefer.

Thank you,

 

[Redrado]

I would argue it’s better to just pay later, for the only reason being that some brands take way too long to deliver from the date they announced the release. This specially becomes an issue if you placed an order also containing an already available model.

The store I have been a client for 11 years, scalemodelstore.com from the Netherlands, uses a clever reservation system to avoid this. Basically you reserve a future release, free of charge, and when available you have a two weeks to buy it or you get a penalty. That time period is extendable depending on your customer history (the more models you have bought the more you can extend it without penalty). You can also reserve available models following the same criteria. It’s all made in-web and related to your account. Their policy is this if you wanna have a look.

This helps both customers to secure models, and the store to not have to deal with the usual delays. The thing is, that I believe their website is programmed by themselves (they don’t use any third party builder) so they are able to modify their web as they wish, which I assume is not your case, but maybe it helps and you can implement it too.

 

[Danio1988]

I regularly shop at Aviation Retail Direct here in the UK and the pre order process just does my head in. You do a pre order and then they take the money from your account, but if it’s after 90 days and you still haven’t received the model they will send the payment back to you and then when the model becomes available, they say they are ready for payment and you can sometimes think (like I have many a times) that I’ve already paid for it.

I do a lot of internet shopping and places like Amazon don’t do this and if it’s a pre order item, they take the money and will release the item when it becomes available which to me makes so much more sense.

This reason has put me off shopping with ARD and I prefer to order elsewhere, however sometimes my hands are tied and I have to order through them, but the pre order process I just find ridiculous.

 

[Charter]

In fact Aviation Center Berlin doesn't charge the fee until the model (or the batch of models) Is available and ready to be shipped! Great thing.