Frequensie
Student
First time feedback thread, but I'm going to try to be thorough here as there were a lot of unknowns prior to the purchase I ultimately made, and as KC himself is not a native English speaker, I figured it would be helpful if someone provided a breakdown of how everything went. As you can see from my profile I'm located in the SF Bay Area so this review will cover a process where local pickup was not an option, but the delivery was still within the same state (California). As this was only a single purchase I can't say if the following is a "typical" non-local delivery process for KC, but I just haven't seen it described in detail anywhere so this is what I encountered. This is obvious from context later in the review, but KC doesn't do all the deliveries himself or in-person, as that would be a bit mad.
To get started, I ordered a Namco Noir Cabinet (with no particular specificity beyond that a red model was preferable). KC asked for payment up front, and indicated that he would send over some photos of the stock he had available, which, at the time, meant he had 3 units he could show me. Given his storied reputation here and other venues I didn't think much about this upfront payment, so I didn't feel too much trepidation about that.
After a few days of him digging through his stock for the photos we settled on a unit; he even offered to mix-and-match a main cab and a marquee from another one, as the original didn't have any art in it, which was nice.
When we entered the process of arranging delivery is where the problems began; by the end of this you may question my description of this as "positive feedback", but try to be understanding as it was both my first time ordering from him in this capacity, and his English proficiency is really not where it ideally needs to be to describe nuanced processes.
On August 4, after selecting a unit, I tried to get a sense of a rough ETA of when it might arrive, to which he essentially told me his "freight guy" would have to come pick it up and that he would arrange for it to come in my "free time", but did not provide a timeframe of when that might be. Several days later on August 8, I started throwing out my weekly schedule to give him a sense of when I would theoretically be available, like August 12 or 13 (just for context, I work fairly irregular days week-to-week so this was the most notice I could reasonably give without KC giving me a firm day for which I could take PTO or something). He responded to this on the following day with a comment that he would "let me know [when it's coming] a day before". Since he did not elaborate further I assumed he meant the same days I had mentioned, so I left it at that.
A (relatively) brief timeline of what followed process-wise:
However, and this is a big "however", at no point did I have the impression from my interactions with KC that he was being disingenuous or trying to scam me out of money or anything like that. It genuinely seems like whoever this original delivery person was just did not come through in the way he was supposed to. I don't know if the original timeframe of a week or two was unrealistic to begin with, as it was my own first time and KC did not really have the ability to convey to me a detailed explanation of what a 'reasonable' timeframe would be for a in-state delivery of this size. I wouldn't have minded if it took longer so long as the eventual delivery was punctual, in all honesty.
To end the review, I will say the unit I received is exactly the one that had been pictured, was in better condition than I expected, and all aspects of the basic hardware (monitor, speakers, LEDs, etc.) functioned without issue. It was an empty cabinet so there was no game board to test, but I did it with a test computer I had lying around and the stock I/O cables and boards. When it comes to availability, accessibility, and inventory, KC's really the best game in town in the western US, especially for modern hardware, so in that respect I do have to hand it to him for being a conduit of these items here. Naturally, if you're located close enough to him that local pickup is an option, that is almost certainly a better idea, and I'm told that KC is a very nice fellow in-person, but this is not an avenue most people in the home arcade scene can make use of.
If I can offer any constructive feedback, it would be two things; 1. a person who can field inquiries in fluent English would be a massive boost in customer service, and 2. even if you can't explain it incredibly well, it's always better to set a clear and realistic expectation of time needed at the outset rather than trying to meet a deadline that you know isn't going to pan out. If that means 3 weeks to a month, then that's what you have to say.
Don't let this be an indication that you shouldn't order from KC--you should, because chances are it's one of the best ways to get a used, decent-quality item of this type at a reasonable price relatively on-demand in this region of the country, especially for someone just starting out. You will, however, need to be very patient, and to the extent possible very flexible. If you can do that, you'll be very satisfied with what you get.
To get started, I ordered a Namco Noir Cabinet (with no particular specificity beyond that a red model was preferable). KC asked for payment up front, and indicated that he would send over some photos of the stock he had available, which, at the time, meant he had 3 units he could show me. Given his storied reputation here and other venues I didn't think much about this upfront payment, so I didn't feel too much trepidation about that.
After a few days of him digging through his stock for the photos we settled on a unit; he even offered to mix-and-match a main cab and a marquee from another one, as the original didn't have any art in it, which was nice.
When we entered the process of arranging delivery is where the problems began; by the end of this you may question my description of this as "positive feedback", but try to be understanding as it was both my first time ordering from him in this capacity, and his English proficiency is really not where it ideally needs to be to describe nuanced processes.
On August 4, after selecting a unit, I tried to get a sense of a rough ETA of when it might arrive, to which he essentially told me his "freight guy" would have to come pick it up and that he would arrange for it to come in my "free time", but did not provide a timeframe of when that might be. Several days later on August 8, I started throwing out my weekly schedule to give him a sense of when I would theoretically be available, like August 12 or 13 (just for context, I work fairly irregular days week-to-week so this was the most notice I could reasonably give without KC giving me a firm day for which I could take PTO or something). He responded to this on the following day with a comment that he would "let me know [when it's coming] a day before". Since he did not elaborate further I assumed he meant the same days I had mentioned, so I left it at that.
A (relatively) brief timeline of what followed process-wise:
- On August 12, the first day I originally thought the item might arrive, I asked what the status was, to which he replied "[It won't be tomorrow], I'll let you know tomorrow". Get to the afternoon on the 13th, and was told he could do it Monday or Tuesday, the 16th/17th. I only had Monday available, but told him I could also do any day Thursday through Sunday.
- Then, on August 15, a day before the second date I expected the item to arrive, he texted me saying that the guy who was supposed to deliver it would not be able to make it on Monday, and thus needed to move the delivery to Thursday. I agreed to this.
- Then on August 18, I asked just to confirm if we were still on track for a Thursday delivery like we had agreed. Here I was told that he was working on it and "might need to change the date but definitely this week". 12 hours later I got a follow-up saying it would need to be done on Saturday now. On Friday I got another follow-up telling me it would now be Sunday morning, and that the shipper would call me when he was on the way.
- Then on August 21, he asked me to call him and I was told that the original shipper could no longer complete the job and he would try to figure out a solution to have it done by Sunday. As you might guess at this point, this did not ultimately work out.
- The next day I was told that instead his daughter would come to drop it off "this week" (August 23 - 30). Once again no specific day was provided, and that he would tell me a day or two before it would arrive. On the 25th he told me it would arrive on Friday, which is when it did finally arrive. Everyone involved was very apologetic for the messy way it had turned out, and I thanked them for their effort and help moving it over to my building's loading area.
However, and this is a big "however", at no point did I have the impression from my interactions with KC that he was being disingenuous or trying to scam me out of money or anything like that. It genuinely seems like whoever this original delivery person was just did not come through in the way he was supposed to. I don't know if the original timeframe of a week or two was unrealistic to begin with, as it was my own first time and KC did not really have the ability to convey to me a detailed explanation of what a 'reasonable' timeframe would be for a in-state delivery of this size. I wouldn't have minded if it took longer so long as the eventual delivery was punctual, in all honesty.
To end the review, I will say the unit I received is exactly the one that had been pictured, was in better condition than I expected, and all aspects of the basic hardware (monitor, speakers, LEDs, etc.) functioned without issue. It was an empty cabinet so there was no game board to test, but I did it with a test computer I had lying around and the stock I/O cables and boards. When it comes to availability, accessibility, and inventory, KC's really the best game in town in the western US, especially for modern hardware, so in that respect I do have to hand it to him for being a conduit of these items here. Naturally, if you're located close enough to him that local pickup is an option, that is almost certainly a better idea, and I'm told that KC is a very nice fellow in-person, but this is not an avenue most people in the home arcade scene can make use of.
If I can offer any constructive feedback, it would be two things; 1. a person who can field inquiries in fluent English would be a massive boost in customer service, and 2. even if you can't explain it incredibly well, it's always better to set a clear and realistic expectation of time needed at the outset rather than trying to meet a deadline that you know isn't going to pan out. If that means 3 weeks to a month, then that's what you have to say.
Don't let this be an indication that you shouldn't order from KC--you should, because chances are it's one of the best ways to get a used, decent-quality item of this type at a reasonable price relatively on-demand in this region of the country, especially for someone just starting out. You will, however, need to be very patient, and to the extent possible very flexible. If you can do that, you'll be very satisfied with what you get.
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