My Experiences Buying Miniatures

What follows is a summary of my experiences with these mail-order vendors. Each score is ranked from 1-5, with 1 being unacceptable, 3 being "average," and 5 being exceptional. These are fairly arbitrary, and represent my impression of ordering from these vendors. Specifically, a 2 indicates that I was unpleased, and a 1 indicates extreme displeasure. These scores should also be judged against the number of transactions done with the vendor. When actual orders have been tracked, they will be included. Each vendor has an overall rating, which is my general impression of the vendor, not an average or related in any way to their specific scores, and includes criteria not specifically scored here.

Brookhurst Hobbies: 4/5

Number of orders: 4
Speed: 5/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 3/5
Seems something is always out of stock.
Communication: 4/5
Early on, they responded to e-mail poorly, but since a phone call always got me a satisfactory response, I now always use that method of communication and have had very good results.
Order: $60 of Peter Pig. Called to place the order at about 4:00 Eastern on Friday, 6/15/2001. Employee I talked to was very courteous and friendly. Read order back to check accuracy and asked how I wanted to handle any back orders. Stated that it might be early enough to get in the mail that day, and package arrived Monday, 6/18, postmarked 6/15. Very nice. Order was short one pack (of 14 total) which I wasn't charged for. I had asked for everything they had in stock to be sent immediately rather than waiting for back ordered items, although there wasn't anything indicating this had happened on the receipts I received. I called Tuesday, 6/19, and was told that the pack was not in stock, and since it was just a single ($3.75) pack, they had not backordered it. He said they are supplied once a month, and I should just reorder it in a month.
Order: $60 of Peter Pig. Called to place the order at 3:30 Eastern on Monday, 7/2/2001. Employee I talked to was moderately courteous, and sounded like he was quite rushed. I had to ask him to read the order back to me (which was correct nonetheless). He asked if I wanted to back order anything, and I told him no. Order arrived Thursday, 7/5, the day after the July 4th holiday. It was sent USPS Priority with Delivery Confirmation, and was postmarked 7/2, the same day I ordered it. Order was short four packs (of 15 total) this time, including the same pack missing from the previous order (yes, I know it hadn't been a month yet).
Order: $60 of Peter Pig. Called to place the order at about 4:20 PM Eastern on Monday, July 16. Employee was moderately courteous. I had to ask him to read the order back to me, which was correct. Asked if I wanted to backorder anything, I said no. Order arrived Thursday, July 20, sent USPS Priority with Delivery Confirmation. This time, I received only $25 worth of the order-- over half the order was missing; two tanks and three infantry packs. The same pack ordered in every order was still missing, even after waiting a month.
Order: $25 of Peter Pig. Totally different stuff to make up for the missing items in the last order. Called to place the order at about 4:00 PM Eastern on Friday, July 27. Order was taken by Larry W., who was very polite and read the order back to me to check correctness. Order arrived Tuesday, July 31, with one pack missing.

Eureka Miniatures: 5/5

Number of Orders: 3-4
Speed: 4/5
Despite being in Australia, I consistantly get my order around a week later. One order took two weeks, but Nic explained up front the molds for the items I ordered hadn't been made yet and there would be a delay.
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Orders have always been filled with exactly what I've ordered, and a free sample.
Communication: 5/5
Nic always responds within a day or two of my e-mails, excellent considering the time difference.
Notes: Eureka is my favorite company to order from. They have a decent website, they appear to cast their licensed ranges so nothing ever gets back-ordered, and communicate well. I simply have had no single negative experience with them despite several orders.

Gauntlet International: 4/5

Number of Orders: 1
Speed: 3/5
Was shipped from Russia during May Day holidays; I expect shipping speeds to improve once Gauntlet relocates to VA, USA, in June, 2001.
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Communications: 5/5
Excellent e-mail response
Order: "Modern Africa" rules. Ordered May 1, 2001, and received May 17. Craig noted with the initial order that there would be a delay due to the May Day holidays.

Liberation Miniatures: 4/5

Number of orders: 1
Speed: 4/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Communication: 4/5
Placed order via e-mail late Wednesday, June 5th. Received confirmation of order on Friday, June 7th. Complete order received Saturday, June 22nd.

Peter Pig: 2/5

Number of Orders: 1
Speed: 2/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Communication: 1/5
Very slow or no reply to e-mail, and no reply to message on answering machine.
Order: Order for about $130.00 worth of miniatures. E-mailed order late Friday, April 27, 2001. Received an e-mail on Wednesday, May 9, apologizing for the delay and stating the order had been passed on to the workshop. An e-mail inquiry about my order was sent Monday, May 21, and received no response by Thursday, May 24, when I called and left a polite message on their answering machine, which never received any response, either. Miniatures arrived May 29, the Tuesday after the Memorial Day holiday, and appeared to have been postmarked May 21.

Piquet, Inc.: 4/5

Number of Orders: 3
Speed: 4/5
I know there have been product availability issues in the past, and that they appear to have improved this.
Accuracy and Completeness: 4/5
All my decks from the Piquet master rules were incomplete-- I notified Brent at Piquet and received complete decks a few days later.
Communication: 5/5
Brent, the Piquet owner, is quite active in the Piquet mailing list and seems to respond well to e-mail.
Order: For Blitzkrieg/POA2 and Forgotten Heroes. Submitted order through online form May 3, 2001. Received products as ordered May 14.
Order: For Theatre of War. Submitted order after 8:00 PM Eastern Tuesday night, September 14, 2001, paying extra for two day service. Order was received Friday, September 17, via USPS Priority and was postmarked September 15.

Silver Eagle Wargaming: 4/5

Number of Orders: 2
Speed: 3/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 3/5
Have had a few items back ordered, which arrived together in a later package.
Communication: n/a
I haven't really had any need to communicate with this vendor.

Wargames: 5/5

Number of Orders: 4-5
Speed: 4/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Communication: 4/5
Phone seems a quicker way to receive a response. I always received satisfactory responses.

Wargames Foundry: 3/5

Number of Orders: 1
Speed: 3/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 2/5
Some packs out of stock and backordered, and one pack left off the order.
Communication: 2/5
No e-mail communication with customers, which is very inconvenient given the time zone differences.
Order: Placed an order on December 4, 2001, for the Darkest Africa Best Sellers special offer, plus a few packs of Sikhs. There is no shipping charge on the special offer, but when I included the extra packs, shipping was charged on the online shopping cart. I called Foundry and spoke to a representative who assured me that shipping would not be charged. I received the order about two weeks later, short five packs; however, they listed it as being short only four packs, leaving off a pack of Sikhs, plus they had charged me shipping. They included a pack of Azande Musketmen for free since they had promised not to charge shipping, which I noticed was actually short a figure, and made me wonder if they were giving me a QA reject pack. The backordered figures arrived about a week or so later, still short the Sikh pack. These were Christmas presents, so I wasn't able to sort all of this out until after everything had actually arrived. I called during the half-week after the start of the new year, and received the Sikh pack about a week later. The figures themselves were of only moderate casting quality, with several having detail obscurring defects.

WarWeb: 4/5

Number of Orders: 6
Speed: 5/5
Accuracy and Completeness: 5/5
Communication: n/a
I haven't really had any need to communicate with this vendor
Order: For two old Osprey books listed on the website. Order was placed Tuesday, May 15, 2001 and was received the following Thursday, May 17, 2001!
Order: For two packs of 15mm Old Glory jeeps. Ordered via web on Friday, July 20th. Arrived Wednesday, August 1st via UPS Ground. The longer delay may well have been due to Historicon.