I have ordered direct from Walthers many times. I don’t like to pay full price but when I am looking for something that no one else has I always check Walthers. They keep so much stuff in stock often they will have what I am looking for. Never ordered fm walthers from an LHS as I have no LHS down here in the Florida Keys. My wife and I are planning at trip up to our previous home in Pensacola, FL soon. I plan on spending allot of time checking out the two main HS in town.
Terry[8D][:D][:D]
You guys are lucky that have an LHS that actually gives a discount. I think the main focus on our one and only hobby shop is radio controlled cars. I’ll give them a call in a day or so and see if they ordered it. If not, I’ll buy it online at someplace like Trainworld or 1st place hobbies. I hate paying the high shipping cost so maybe I’ll wait til I can add in another item or two.
Probably not. I want install the thing soon… 
JaRRell
You order direct. there should be an option for that. They are very fast with shipments, and they haven’t dissappointed me yet.
Wow, thanks for this thread being started and replied in. I’ve been looking all through Walthers website and plan on ordering me one of there catalogs. Great to hear they have good products and good customer service. The one thing I don’t like is some of the products they have listed on their website don’t have pics so you can see what it looks like. I’m heading out to my LHS this weekend to do some ‘shopping’. I’ve been there before and they have 2 double sided isles full of HO scale model railroad stuff. One side has nothing but rolling stock from all kind of different manufacturers.
Needless to say I could easily spend a couple hours in there and spend every penny I had before I walked out. I’m dangerous in a hobby shop.
You are lucky to be located so near a “dangerous” hobby shop. The nearest dangerous one for me is a 6 hour drive away.
Ditto on the ordering from Walthers. Great service and friendly people. Got a bad batch of light bulbs once, wrong size and packages brokern open. Contacted Walthers. They were very apologetic, sent out a new order with the proper size and let me keep th old ones because they didn’t want to trouble me with sending back one item.
Top Notch.
I’ve ordered from Walthers two or three times and have been happy with their service. Usually it’s in my hands in 4-5 days. Would like it even better if the prices were cheaper. I usually only buy from them direct when things are on sale and the cost of shipping still makes it a deal.
Tom
Walthers is also handy when one is looking for detail parts that might not be available elsewhere. Like Tom, sometimes their sales fliers have some really good deals. In those cases, I usually add some other odds and ends that aren’t pricey enough to order separately.
There seems to be quite a bit you can’t see. I usually make note of the manufacturer and go to their website if I really need to see the product. A lot of times it’s even the same product #.
That’s where having the Walthers catalog comes in handy and is invaluable.
Tom
Select ORDER DIRECT and it comes straight to you from Walthers. I do this all the time. I find them very quick, and have never had a single problem with their quality or service (knock on wood).
Trevor
Of course having a Walthers catalog seems to increase the time spent in the reading room (ie: bathroom).
there used to be a hobby shop called brass whistle in rockford il. if you bought so much stuff for a price. they would give you A walthers catalog for nothing. very nice people. he died,she sold out and now they are closed. the lhs needs our business to survive but we also need them to survive. why did it matter ? they still charged you the shipping on your orders and added a profit for themselves or they would go broke.and when you went to there store and got the chance to talk to him you’d thinkof model railroading as a way to hobby. now days if you don’t want to spend money on special track not just atlas they laugh at ya.discount maybe , markup yes.
i used to order from Walthers all the time. They always shipped to my house. Then I discovered that I got the same price at my LHS including sale price if any. Now I don’t have to pay the shipping. That saves alot when my order is small. In California I get taxed whether I order direct or through the LHS. The only thing is now I don’t get there monthly cataloge. I can still see it on the web. I get the order just as fast as if I had ordered direct. Check it out with your LHS.
Bill
In most cases, you will always do better buying from your LHS. Walthers is $$$ selling to retail customers. HS’s get quantity prices that we will never get. And if the LHS is customer oriented ( some are not, we all know that ) he will give you a very fair price. Remember, you will not only pay retail price from Walthers, but shipping and handling, and sales taxes in some states. The LHS can spread out the shipping costs over his customer base for any given item, which allows him to give you a portion of his quantity price as well as the shipping savings spread.
However, some people cannot wait, or they have a lousy LHS, or it is too far away, so that leaves you with fewer options.
If I order from my LHS he won’t send any orders until he has $500.00 worth. I might wait several weeks before he will send it to Walthers. Me I order direct rather than wait.
Mine probably has the same policy. I’d better check, it may be June before I get the item.
Jarrell
Hello from down under,this being my first post.I’m looking at buying some items from walthers and wondering if anybody has had any experience with overseas shipments.Thanks
My orders from Walthers are always placed by phone, shipped direct to my humble abode and (by using the code on the sales flier) free shipment. The nice part is that the customer service rep can check the availability of what you want in real time, so I’ve never been stuck with waiting for backordered items.
Can’t beat that for keeping this customer happy!
I’ve ordered from Walthers directly without problems on numerous occasions, they even suggested that I contact one of their distributors for an itemthat was out of stock for them if I chose not to wait, I did and was very happy with the results. Their distributors are listed in the bacak of their monthly flier they send to “their” customers.