This is why I hate buying things online

There is another option that I don't see mentioned in this thread....asking, usually by phone, the LHS owner to order a product that is not normally stocked. My LHS owner makes a weekly, or at worst monthly order from one or more suppliers. My special order is tacked onto the order from the supplier that handles, or has access to, that product. When my order comes in, I am called and pick it up when I next go 20 miles into town for a number of errands, so travel cost is divided. The LHS does not charge for shipping or handling the special item, just MSRP and state sales tax. Furthermore, I get the advantage of face-to-face advice from a master modeler with many years of experience, especially valuable for a product that I, and he, wish to sample because we neither were aware of it before I read about here on TB. BTW, I am extremely grateful to all TB members around the world for sharing their experiences with new products and techniques.

 

I still don't see the problem.

Your LHS has chosen to not carry a particular product line. So you buy direct from the supplier, who charges a flat rate shipping up to $500.

Yet you make it seem like it's Scenic Express's fault that your LHS chose not to carry these products and so you can buy it for less. If anything you should be complaining to your LHS to carry more products or offer to order it for you from Walthers or directly from Scenic Express.

If they won't, that's certainly not Scenic Express's fault.

 

Scenic express is not the supplier. They are a storefront as well. The suppliers are Noch, Heki and Silflor and my problem is that Silflor in particular has no other US distributor so Scenic Express is a monopoly. I know Walthers carries some Noch and Heki, mainly the trees. And you will see those products occasionally at hobby stores.

And let's be clear also, I'm just bringing this up as a topic of conversation mainly. It's not like this $8 kept me up last night.
This is one of the reasons I prefer to use my lhs, not a cause for wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Also, I think part of the reason Silflor has no other distributor is that they really are relatively new and have a small audience. WS, Noch and Heki have been selling into the broader diorama space, the war game board space, etc for years. Heck, you can get WS products at all sorts of random locations.

 

I guess I shouldn't complain anyway. For many of these products, Woodland scenics does make an equivalent. In particular WS has static grass and high end tree material, but They don't make an applicator and those higher end products don't seem to be for sale in most LHS or even online.

That of course is a chicken and egg situation. More static grass would be on shelves if more people asked for it. more people would ask for it if it were on shelves.

Still, clearly I can order WS products at a LHS.

 

I can understand the frustration. Sometimes, an online source is the ONLY source for a given product, and some online retailers still make you go through all the motions of putting in all your shipping and payment information in before they'll tell you approximate shipping costs. I am not saying this is some sort of trickery or swindle or whatever, but it is a bit of an aggravation.

I had an experience with one particular online retailer (I will not name them - not an advertiser) that was the only source for a particular book and the shipping was something ridiculous like 10 dollars for a book that wasn't much over twenty. Now, as a co-owner of a bookstore I know that shipping books we have options to keep costs down, and I tried to get this particular retailer to consider something like media mail. No dice. I finally gave up and bought the thing, and put in my shipping info. I was then told that I couldn't use my business address as it wasn't my card's payment address. I said that I didn't want to use the home address because tweakers rip things off if they're not nailed down, and that this would sit on my porch for too long before I'd get home. I got the guy to agree to send it as an item I'd come pick up at the post office if I wasn't home, but then that wasn't honored either, so I got home one day and the book was sitting in a paper enveloped on my front porch... during a heavy drizzle. It got water-damaged a bit along the spine, and would have been way worse had it not had a spiral binding. I considered shipping it back but instead I just fanned it out in front of a fan and let it dry and the damage is hardly noticeable since I got on it right away. I didn't want to deal any further with it.

Contrast that with my favorite LHS. I see something I'd like to get. I email or call the owner. He either sets it aside for me or orders it. If he orders it I usually get it within a week. He'll email me when it is in and I'll go pick it up, and I get to swap lies and hang out with other model railroaders for a little bit. Yeah, I do end up paying closer to full retail than I might at lots of on-line sources but I don't have this sort of inflexibility or aggravation, and I also have a well-stocked LHS there so when I need rail joiners Tuesday night I can pick them up Wednesday after work.


I have not had aggravation like that mentioned above with TB advertisers. I think Charlie et al must screen them a bit to make sure we aren't hassled.

 

I know you are just blowing off steam.

Please remember, there are problems about LHS's, as well. Does the owner stock a full line of Scenic Express items for years in anticipation of someone coming in for a product in a particular scale? What did HE pay for shipping and lack of shelf space waiting for the specialized sale to someone walking in perhaps years later?

It is indeed a problem. The only solution I can see is to plan way ahead, make a larger order and YOU sit with the unused stock until ready for installation. OR, contact one or more of our advertisers and see what they will do for you with their shipments. I don't what what Scenic Express's practice is with retailers or e-tailers. Do they charge for shipping? to a retailer?

 

Donkey-

As you know, we have very few problems with our advertisers. I use one in particular who has my complete trust. If I order an engine, I trust him enough to open it, test it and then ship only if it works properly. I never receive it NIB but I also don't have to deal with the warranty repair department of Bachmann or Model Power (both of which are excellent, by the way, but still not my problem). I am also aware that he will also have shipping costs on orders and doesn't want to get me bent out of shape over the price. I just received delivery of Midwest cork Roadbed, probably a box or two (I forget) and a ton of the long cork widths to lay down in a yard area. I was asked if I wanted the cork products in their original long boxes or if the strips and sheets could be rolled up and shipped in smaller boxes and that it would be cheaper to ship and that he really didn't want to see my bill going up for shipping. My answer, of course, was sure. It was all received, no damage, no permanent curls or coils. He is happy, I am happy.

 

My understanding is that Scenic Express is a retailer-E-tailer themselves. An exclusive one as in, if you live in the US and you want Silflor, you will buy from Scenic express or you won't get it.

That's my understanding, I could be wrong.

I've noticed, and this is a LHS problem that in general the scenery selection in most retailers has become quite stale. Part of this is actually a good thing, the options in scenery have expanded so significantly with niche players and new techniques that the standard lazy susan of Woodland Scenics product that every LHS has is insufficient. Most shops out here anyway also seem to stock Grand Central Gems and a few stock Noch and Heki trees. In fact, premade trees dominate Scenery space it seems. But the static grass, the leaf flake and other basic items from retailers other than Woodland Scenics are often completely unavailable.

MRC/JTT is making a run at this, because MRC has the clout to put their product on shelves, but I wish we could see even more.

And really, I shouldn't complain too loudly. Another one of my hobbies is/was (Was, because it is too expensive for a guy that has been laid off twice in 3 years and lives in CA) Salt Water Fish/Reef keeping. Where instead of ordering a bunch of foam and synthetic fiber products, you're ordering living, breathing organisms collected (responsibly, I never bought anything that might have been harvested illegally or irresponsibly) in Fiji or Hawaii and shipped in a styrofoam box across the world. (although, those guys didn't charge much for shipping. It was probably built into the price). So we have it relatively easy.

Also, I wish that stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael's stocked more of these products. As I said above, many of these things have hobby uses outside model railroading.

 

$8 for shipping for 4 very small items 2 Silflor products and 2 NOCH products and they sent it in 2 boxes (with no explanation why one box was shipped later than the other) I opened the first box today and in it were the 2 items one Silflor, one Noch and the big heavy Scenic express Catalog that weighed more and was bigger than the products being shipped.

How much of that $8 is going to ship that catalog?

I mean, it's a nice catalog, good bathroom reading, but I ordered my stuff online for Pete's sake. Why would you send me a paper catalog and charge me $8 for the privileged?

 

"If At First You DO Succeed, Try To Hide Your ASTONISHMENT" is another option......:tb-ooh:

 

I need to blow off a little steam here about shipping on ebay . Right now I have a bunch of items on there for auction and I am selling items in lots of 5-6 or more N Scale cars at a very low starting bid. I am shipping them in Priority Mail packages and charging exactly what the post office charges. I fill the boxes. Usually it is a medium flat rate for around 11.00. I have these already packaged and ready to print my own address labels and drop off at the post office(so I don't have to stand in line at the post office). Then I get bombarded with people wanting me to combine shipping. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I already got a ton of time into listing these and packaging them. I'm not going to unwrap them and play games re-doing all the shipping charges just to save the guy 5 bucks on a hundred dollars worth of cars. Then there are the clowns that can't read. I state clearly that item ''Ships to USA Only'' . I always get a few that want to know how much extra it will cost to ship overseas or Canada. I don't want to because it takes to much time to fill out the customs paperwork at the post office.Not to mention it costs more now than I planned on. My post office is always busy with a long line. If I have all my boxes with pre printed (and payed for) address labels ,I can go right up to the front of the line and set them on the counter and walk out. I get the looks from the people in line too, but thats too bad , I got better things to do than stand in line for an hour.

There I feel better now.

 

Oh , and I don't even want to get into it about the deadbeats that sit there and bid and bid and bid on something ,and win it, then it takes them a week to pay or the ones that don't pay and always have an excuse like '' I was in the hospital'' or ''I got in an accident''.
Actually I think ebay sucks, but it is usually a quick way to get rid of stuff I don't want or need, not just trains too, I sell anything on there.

 

Ebay/PayPal fees take a lot of sales money. Lets say, if I sell a kit for $10 and there is $3.00 USPS express shipping. The Buyer sends $13 dollars through paypal but I only see like $12.35 due to PayPal fees. Then Ebay gets paid 25 cents to list and then takes another slice off the final bid. In the end I get my $10 sale but have to eat the shipping because that extra charge all went to Ebay/Paypal. So my $10 sales get cut down by $4.25 shipping instead of $3 because the guy who bought the kit lives in Washington state. After all of that I sold a $15 kit for $5.75.... not worth my while, I'll keep it if that is the best I can do.

Yet I keep going back and sell stuff there. There are literally no swap meets ever within 120 miles of here, so there isn't much choice. Ebay isn't what it once was, but every once in a blue moon you can still make a good purchase.

 

Well, I didn't want this to be about ebay, but if you're selling something on ebay and it isn't rare, and kitchy or valuable, don't you assume that it will go for a steep discount? I mean, if I want to pay $15 for a $15 kit, why would I as a buyer deal with the Hassle of ebay when I could just go to another online store?

 

I think this is, perhaps, more suited to the "E Bay Humor" thread, but here goes. A former office colleague - we retired within weeks of each other - does a lot of buying and selling on the UK version of E Bay. One night, he put in a bid for a guitar. To his surprise, he won. A few days later the parcel arrived. He thought it was either a VERY large guitar or it was unusually well packed. He opened it, and found not one guitar but two sitars and a saxophone. Having paid GBP25 plus delivery, he sold the items for GBP25 each. Yes, 'every once in a blue moon you can still make a good purchase'.

Regards,

Pete Davies