Zoukei-mura 1/32 Fw 190 A-4

[Rob]

Well … it's not as if it was their fault, of course. From their perspective, you're basically asking to buy a separate sprue from them. Though ¥3600 seems a bit much — I don't know how large that sprue is, but from Asuka you can get six or seven 1:35 scale Sherman sprues for that kind of money.

I don't know. I look at it this way. I spent damn good money on that kit. You can't tell me that every once in awhile some sprues get messed up and they go into a big bin and eventually they get remelted. I can't believe that many people would take the time to email them saying their dog ate their propeller. There's such a thing as customer service. I for one think all these kits are way overpriced. Maybe they just lost my business. Maybe not. But good customer service sometimes decides that

 

[Edbert]

You both have good points.

I think they could sell it at cost (plus postage), we shouldn't expect them to take a loss for something they had no control over, but $36USD is really high, that is well above full-retail or MSRP.

I dunno about the 190, buy my 109 and J2M3 from ZM had a lot of sprues. The entire kit was over $100, that included full-color manual, PE, clear bits and the box was really nice too. That should mean each sprue would be about $10-15, at full retail price

 

[Rob]

You both have good points.

I think they could sell it at cost (plus postage), we shouldn't expect them to take a loss for something they had no control over, but $36USD is really high, that is well above full-retail or MSRP.

I dunno about the 190, buy my 109 and J2M3 from ZM had a lot of sprues. The entire kit was over $100, that included full-color manual, PE, clear bits and the box was really nice too. That should mean each sprue would be about $10-15, at full retail price

 

[Rob]

I don't know you spent $130 on a kit there should be some part of a company saying we are glad you bought our kit. We appreciate your business thank you very much. Like I said I would have paid postage no problemo but spending that much money on a bunch of plastic? That's not very good customer service my opinion

 

[TimM63]

And Revell will send you a sprue completely free. Go figure.

 

[Jakko]

You can't tell me that every once in awhile some sprues get messed up and they go into a big bin and eventually they get remelted.

That's what normally happens, AFAIK: badly moulded sprues just get ground up and put back into the hopper that feeds the moulding machine.

There's such a thing as customer service.

I don't know how it works in the USA or Japan, but here in the EU, if there's a problem with a product you bought (like, say, a missing or damaged sprue to a kit), then whoever sold you the product is the one legally responsible for correcting the problem — not the manufacturer. Of course, the seller can turn to the manufacturer to fix the problem for you, but technically needs to do that for you, not just refer you to the manufacturer (though that last bit is what often happens). And, naturally, the manufacturer can be lenient or decide to be customer-friendly and fix it for you when you ask them direct without going to the seller first, but they aren't required to.

I for one think all these kits are way overpriced.

There's an expression in Dutch: Wat de gek ervoor geeft — literally "What the fool gives [pays] for it". We're talking about a hobby, which can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be. Manufacturers will charge whatever people turn out to want to pay for their products, because they clearly have the money to spare for this lark.

All of that said, as I mentioned earlier I do think the ¥3600 is rather a lot of money for a single sprue. Looking at the instructions for their Fw 190 kit, though, I see they cost substantially less than that, so I'm guessing that price does include postage: