HobbyLink Japan Reviews 

Shipping is really expensive, and I add to pay customs too. From an gundam at 150euros + shipping, I end up paying 200euros...

And of course it's not possible to cancel from this point.

Bad experience, will never purchase from them again.

Excellent range of Gunpla, and other scale models including Aircraft, Ships, Figures, Cars, Bikes and a list of other items too long to list here. Big names such as Hasegawa, Bandai and Tamiya well catered for as you would expect.
Well laid out site, and pricing can be changed according to your own currency. Orders fulfilled in pretty good time too.
Got a slight sting from customs-tax on receipt of my parcel, however a large percentage of that was 'handling/admin' from customs, and beyond the control of HLJ.
Overall pretty pleased, although I will be slightly more wary of UK customs charges in future...

HLJ was very nice before purchase, once the money goes out of your account into theirs, basically you are on your own after that.

HLJ way of contact is just email. even that, their CS team is very slow to respond, and when they respond, you get pass around and takes too long each process. i wish they take the courage to help the customers, their own customers better.

im not sure i will return to buy from HLJ again. my gundam is still in DHL, waiting for HLJ to solve the calculation.

One of the best suppliers for all of your Gunpla needs. Excellent prices and super fast shipping. I am very satisfied with their service.

- Send confirmation email to confirm order and then cancel order saying that it is system error.
- reject order without acknowledge.

They have failed to fullfil one too many pre orders for my taste, with no apology or compensation whatsoever. I have been a customer for many years, yet they continue to fail me. I will use them for in-stock merch, but for important pre orders, I'm going to AmiAmi now.

The parcel was shipped and about after a two and a half month period was available at the post office and shipped back as the post office never sent any notice.
HLJ takes no action, just witholds the shipping fee, no help filing a complaint at the postal office which is needed from both the shipper and receiver. Case closed, customers problem not theirs as I was referred to their fine print. Cannot recommend this webstore.

hlj used to be 5/5 but these years there are few things turn me down

1. avaliability. I used to be able to just preorder or buy instock item, but now almost everything popular is always out of stock or not enough to preorder, and they never restock.
2. After they start to charge GST, the price becomes way too much to compete with others.
3. they keep increase the shipping charge and it's always expensive than other online japanese store

An item that was stated as costing £47 has ended up costing me about £150 (TRIPLE), the site stated "free postage" on the item page, this is free postage to a "virtual warehouse". Then once in the virtual warehouse I was automatically charged the £47 for the item, and asked to select from a range of expensive postage services.

I felt nervous about the prospects of cancelling the order and getting my money back from what I'd heard about their customer service, so went ahead anyway, thinking, how bad could it possibly be. (what a big mistake that was)

All of the postage options were very expensive, no indication or estimate or even a warning there would be postage charges before this point, I imagine that they would say that putting this in their terms is enough, but it does feel very misleading, it should be much clearer. Postage estimates in advance would have been good.

On a positive note, I used FedEx and it arrived very quickly, and they included some Japanese gummy sweets which was a nice touch (doesn't take away the sting of being £100 out of pocket but it was a nice touch).

If price isn't a problem you could give it a try and hope nothing goes wrong, but if you are on a tight budget don't bother, it has cost me way more than I could actually afford, and way more than it appeared it was going to.

To top it all off somewhere along the line the import tax got messed up, and I was charged ANOTHER £50 in VAT + processing fees, FedEx claim this is because Hobbylink Japan made a mistake on the import paperwork and listed my item twice (doubling the import charge), FedEx said they could correct this import error for me for an admin fee of another £50.

It's been an actual nightmare.

So bottom line, I will not be using Hobbylink Japan again, and I massively recommend weighing up your options before you choose to use them. Don't ignore the bad reviews like I did

This is the third time ive bought 3-4 kits per order, and its a pleasure the service is quick and efficient and the parcels came neatly packaged without any damage, i would recommend them for your gunpla needs. They seem the best option for importing from Japan to South Africa. Thank you for the awesome service and getting me addicted to gunpla!

Excellent way to get the kits you need! Using the private warehouse function I was able to put together the order in manageable chunks as the kits came into stock. Good communication on delivery dates and arrived in great time.

Would highly recommend.

My airbrush got lost in transit, or stolen, most likely, for it didn't have a tracking number, got a full refund without problems after 2 months of waiting for the parcel to arrive.

Had trouble the other day when the items I wanted were not back to stock after 60 days of waiting to combine and save on shipping costs, received 85% of refund to the store credit for those I had in Private Warehouse in order not to spend 10 eur on shipping of a few bottles for paint. Still waiting for Procon Boy 0.5 to be back to stock, it's been 3 months by now.

Taxes may be crippling for some countries or EU, but they warn about it on the website.
Always check your customs legislation! It's not the shop that charges them but your country, based on the cost of goods and shipping.

Anyway, prices are lower than in Spain or elsewhere in the EU even counting customs charges.

Ordered a rather pricey item from HobbyLink Japan which levied a high shipping cost that I agreed to pay. I was then hit with a second bill over a month later from FedEx for even more than the shipping itself was worth on the grounds of item tax. This was not mentioned or warned of once during the entire browse, cart, or checkout procedure meaning I was lead to believe the price listed on their site is what I was to pay. I am now stuck with a £50 bill, the possibility of which was not even remotely made clear by HLJ, and due to them listing that it 'might' happen in a help section far, far, far away from any customer in checkout who would see it during purchase I am forced to pay it.

Shady as hell business practice hiding extra charges to appear cheaper than they actually are and would never ever recommend trusting such a company.

I had two items sitting in my private warehouse because one item was back ordered but then I saw the shipping and it was $44 to ship two MG kits. Even with the already lowered price it dosent discount at all with the added shipping, I thought I can save on shipping if I ordered two kits instead of one.

Since my first kit was in the private warehouse for over 10 days I was not able only able to get 85% refund as store credit for the first kit but 100% for the second.

I give two stars cause I did get help from costumer service to help cancel. But the return policy and prices are terrible. also website is very glitchy that logs you out almost click.

I bought a few items on Dec 2ed checked out I thought I was all good waited and waited nothing was showing up I emailed them come to find out my items were in something called a "personal warehouse" when I bought them it never said anything about going into any warehouse why on earth would I buy items in Dec and want them to sit some were and not be shipped? I wouldn't that would make no sense! by the time I learned what had happened I also learned they would want another 40 to 65 bucks to send me my Xmas gifts to be honest I didn't have it at that point as im on a fixed income so I had to go with out those gifts as if that wasn't insulting enough when I ask for a refund im now told no once its been over 10 days all we can give you is a store credit why would some one who doesn't want to pay inflated shipping costs want a store refund? so at this point they have my items I have nothing and no hope of ether getting my items or getting my cash back there is a word for that its SCAMMER...so buyer beware big time when dealing with these people im imaging they will just delete my account soon so there is no proof of their scams..

My order was processed quickly and there was no issue with the delivery.

these people are theives.. after they told me, via email..I had credit..they refused to provide it..I had to go through my bank- got money back on the end..which means what im saying is true
DODGY !!!!!!

HLJ suspended my account, remove all my warehouse items due to I logged a bug on PayPal side on not honoring my currency exchange using my credit card. I got charge the amount with PayPal exchange rate. This was not the case on the last couple payments. So, is that true that next time is there a problem like this happen? Don't report any customer issue and let PayPal continue to dishonoring their payment option?

Personally ive never had an issue with HLJ and ive been buying from them close to 8 years and ther has never been a problem. Ive always gotten my orders within a reasonable time frame. If there was one suggestion id make it would be to mimic play-asia and allow us to pay custom fees directly as in the UK our mail services bolt on handling fees for paying our customs duty for us which is usually £8-£10 which adds roughly £20 on top in costs on my orders.

I ordered a high price item from this retailer. When it finally shipped, I didn’t receive the usual order has shipped notification and I did not recieve a tracking number. Months later I receive an emails stating my item is being returned to seller. Come to find out that my item was mislabeled and misshipped to the leasing office with no unit number. I was not informed of the items arrival and because I received no tracking number I had no idea where it was. After much correspondence with the retailer, they have made it clear that I will not be refunded because it is the fault of myself that they mislabeled my parcel and it’s my fault that they don’t use a sign on delivery service for high priced international orders. In the end of this situation I am out an exorbitant amount of money and the company has been running me around for over two weeks trying to find a way to not refund me. I have had to involve PayPal and my bank at this point. This is highly unprofessional and a western, or American company would never dream of treating its customers so poorly. Last time I do business with this retailer. I highly recommend avoiding them.