I am an Athearn customer ( or maybe was ) since the mid eighties. About a month ago, I walked into my hobby shop here and discovered that Horizon Hobbies ( Athearn carrier ) is MUCH slower at getting the product to the shop. I used to order Athearn from the Walthers site and BAM, it was on my doorstep in 7. Why must I now have to go to a retail outlet to order Athearn ??? This makes NO sense at all. Case in point- I recently was online at Horizon site to place order, WRONG ANSWER, I was not an authorized outlet. What gives ? Why would a company want to shut out the customer like this ? Maybe I will switch to a different brand.
Don’t know what your problem is as there are many places to get Athearn. Horizon has done much better at production than the old days. All the old cars have been reissued as well as many totally new ones.
Perhaps its YOUR HOBBY SHOP? I have order GP38-2 shells and plastic handrails direct from Horizon and had them in 4 days.
You do understand how hobby shops makes special orders correct? YOUR order will be placed with that weeks orders usually on Mondays or Tuesdays.
Also realize some hobby shops makes their orders twice a month while others once a month…Then there are screw ups…The owner forgets to order and in order to cover his rear he “blames” the distributor.Why? Who want to make a customer mad or loose a customer over his “mistake”? This is why I order my own “special orders”.I am fed up with hobby shops ordering systems…In fact 98% of my shopping is done on line because its cheaper and faster.
I have visited 4 different LHS’s in two states, ( Ma & NH ) in the past few months, and there are plenty of Athearn products on the shelves, new and old. Items I have seen in MRR mag one month, are there the very next week, so it sounds like you may have a local hobby store issue with ordering…
MOST HOBBY SHOPS stock what they sell. One can see, smell, and touch product.
INVENTORY cost money, but it’s the KEY to their business. YOU see it, buy it, and take it home.
MAIL ORDER is sold sight unseen, and Discount sellers resort to carrying fast moving items (to work on someone else’s money). If they have it, they move it. Back-orders are un-profitable, wheras cancellations are not. Guess what?
ORDER 10 products, MO. ships 3 (in stock), ships 3 (back order) 1 mo. later, and cancelles the rest. - and this from a forum favorite discounter (not mine).
In the final analysis, one buys where (and when) something is obtainable,or loses out. WALTHERS’ Terminal Hobby shop is a retail/mail order outlet, and has a ‘Mother’ inventory, but only products that ‘mother’ stocks.