Ordered a bunch of stuff from Train World, one item was defective from the get go. Said OK, will send defective item back, they said in there paperwork to ship it to vendor as first resort. So I finally did all the things needed to ship back to Bachmann but cost of shipping is like $17 when item is only $99. Kinda at point that there are a few hazards to online stuff. Now been buying from them for over 20 years and this is the first time with a problem.
I’ve had a few disapointments. The way I see it, the savings I got from online shopping in the last 15 years compensate largely for the few bad experiences I’ve had.
Simon
I think you should reach out to them and have them send you a return label to ship it back to them. If not, I would dispute the entire charge with the credit card company. Despite them telling you to reach out to the manufacturer, shipping charges are very high for the consumer. If you dispute it, I am sure it will get their attention. The very least give you a credit for the shipping.
A standard scam manufacturers use is to put a notice in the packaging saying DO NOT RETURN THIS PRODUCT TO THE STORE – call our customer service or return for warranty instead.
Do not fall for any version of this scam.
Any time I have ever tried it, I have gotten lies, runarounds, and extra proposed costs (not counting my time).
Send it back or have the shipper file insurance if received defective, and do not buy from suppliers that restrict defective returns.
This is the one great cost of purchasing on line vs. the LHS. On probability, one is not likely to get a defective item, all things being equal. So, most of us have accepted that we save a few bucks and we incur greater risk of receiving something we can’t use and that we must pay to ship back…somewhere.
I have probably returned, or eventually sold to get rid of, five items for one reason or another. I had to pay the shipping to acquire them, and the one engine I sold ended up costing me just a bit more than shipping to me when all was said and done. It was a Bachmann Class J 4-8-4 that never ran well.
The others went back to BLI for warranty or my-cost-repairs. I can’t recall, but I’d bet its north of $300 by now. But I can tell you that I’m still way ahead, with on line purchases of over 20 locomotives to date, over what It would have cost me to purchase at local hobby shops where their prices are non-negotiable and inflated by close to 20%.
Oh it is still a bargin but it was an item I was eyeing and should have skipped seeing the outcome. I guess we shall see.
I have the opposite problem, I find PWRS has high prices but the fact I can pick the stuff up and save on shipping comes into play.
Anytime I have to send stuff back I always ask for a shipping label. More often than not I get it, sometimes I don’t. When I have been turned down I ask if they will provide me with a label at my expense and charge me for it. Commercial shippers get a much-reduced rate than the over-the-counter public gets so it is worth pursuing with the company.
Well, it doesn’t matter if you bought it from an LHS, an online dealer, or directly from the producer. If there are no spare parts to fix it, you just wasted your money either way.
OK, I know shipping costs are up but $17 seems steep. What carrier? What service? Maybe not?
Bachmann will repair or replace it, and return it at no additional cost.
They do have some parts, and, when they replace a dud, they save the duds for other useable parts. So even parts not shown on their web site might be available for a warranty repair.
$99 from TrainWorld so it is something with a $150 MSRP?
In 50 years at this, bought in a store or online, my dud rate has been so low I just do whatever it takes within reason to get a repair or replacement.
Over the years Bachmann has been pretty good to deal with.
Broadway, not so much.
Athearn, Bowser, Intermountain, Walthers all great to the limit of parts and/or replacement product they had available.
Sheldon
You have this backwards. The LHS price is not “inflated”, which implies excessive profit.
Based on their costs to aquire the product, and provide the services they provide, it is amazing any of these shops can stay in business these days.
The discounters have eliminated the middle man and eliminated a lot of the “services” to provide their super low prices.
Many brick and mortar stores have eliminated the middle man as well, but still provide the traditional services, while still offering some level of discount pricing.
Now you might not need those services, and you might be willing to take the risks of not having those services, but “inflated” was a poor choice of words there.
As for negotiable prices?, I hope we never devolve into a culture where every trip to the store for every little thing is an exercise in horse trading.
I too shop where the deals are good, but fully understanding what I am not paying for…
There is thread going on right now that started about domestic vs overseas production. Dealer purchase discounts are now the topic, I will not repeat what I have posted there.
Sheldon
Perhaps annoying, but have you called the vendor to explain the issue? The problem is there’s to solve. They might do good by sending you a shipping label or a replacement item. Vendors know that their reputation is made (or destroyed) often through reviews.
There is another thread about a defective NCE powercab. The OP is in Canada and he said postage is $20-25 and a brokerage fee (I assume to get it home) of $40-60
China subsidizes postage, at least what I have ordered off Ebay, never costs more than $1 postage. The USPS is a quasi government agency that sell bonds to the government on which it defaults on. Post pandemic service is still poor. At 5:30 tonight, my mail carrier is still delivering in my neighborhood and I received mail that was supposed to arrive Friday and Saturday
Ebay has a deal with the Post Office and you can send things you sell cheaper if you buy postage from Ebay that from the po. Amazon has a deal with everyone which makes Prime more than worthwhile.
Regular citizens don’t get that deal. Citizens of Canada, since I don’t understand their system, I can’t really comment, but paying $80 to send and receive you own Powercab is excessive. That is a country problem not a company problem.
I just told him to move to the U.S. Nothing good ever seems to come out of Canada. [:P]
Rich
Don’t we already have enough complainers?
Chinas’ mail is heavily subsidized but not by who you would think. If I say more my hair will burst into flame.
Universal Postal Union:
https://www.upu.int/en/Universal-Postal-Union
Much of the China > N.A. shipping is through the 2011 ePacket agreement.
Regards, Ed
Bingo. I was in and out of the retail hobby business from mid 1980s to 2006 when my health crashed bigtime and my working days ended.
I have little experience with internet retail, but that bit quoted below, yep.
At the time I was in retail we didn’t have the sales volume of hundreds of an item to order direct from manufacturers, assuming they sold direct to retailers.
Wholesale price for most everything hobby, model kits, paints, trains, was typically 40% off MSRP no matter which distributors.
Except Lionel trains, their wholesale price was 20% off MSRP.
What came out of what we sold a thing for was: the money to pay for it or another one to sell - so there goes 60% of the selling price right there.
From the remaining 40% was taken; money for the costs of the physical store, lease, utilities, et cetera; money for wages of store employees; owners took varying amounts to pay their morgtage and groceries, at one store they had other income so they took only 10% of the selling price; money was taken out of the selling price to save up to have enough to buy product for the Christman surge; and probably other stuff which I am forgetting.
And at one franchise I worked for, the owners marked most everything at 5% below MSRP because shop was not on the really wealthy side of town.
As well as MSRP there was sometimes a “street price” which was lower than MSRP and was the customary selling price.
[quote user=“ATLANTIC CENTRAL”]
You have this backwards. The LHS price is not “inflated”, which implies excessive profit. Based on their costs to aquire the product, and provide the services they provide, it is amazing any of these shops can stay in business these days. The discounters have eliminated the middle man and eliminated a lot of the “services” to provide their super low prices. Many brick and mortar stores have eliminated the middle man as well, but still provide the traditional services, while sti
Hello All,
Most of my motive power is made by Bachmann; both diesel and steam.
The quality of some of these have been less than acceptable- -even new out-of-the-box units.
I always fill out the registration card and send it back to Bachmann as soon as I receive the unit.
For out-of-warranty locomotives, Bachmann charges a flat $45.00 fee, and you still have to pay the shipping to them.
Repairs that are “in-warranty” are covered for no charge other than the cost of shipping to them.
In both cases, Bachmann covered the return shipping cost.
I had a problematic USRA 0-6-0 w/DCC & smoke. I bought it used so it was out-of-warranty.
The first time I sent it in I was charged the standard $45.00. It ran well for a short time and then developed another problem.
I sent it back to Bachmann for a second time.
The factory technician called me and said the problem was “terminal”.
Unfortunately, they were out of that particular livery (paint scheme).
He offered to send a new-in-box replacement with a different livery, retail $175.00. Because I had already paid the $45.00 out-of-warranty fee there would be no charge.
Yes, I had to pay shipping- -twice- -back to Bachmann but in the end, I got a brand new unit.
Hope this helps.
One reason is because Bachmann tends to produce the same product over and over again for years, up to decades. They obviously have different runs, but also are not coming up with new versions of the same loco, with different details, or different obscure locos every year or two. Their cost per unit produced is probably very low compared to most compaies.
Just out of curiosity, what is the $99 ‘defective’ item, and what is the problem with it? It might be something someone else has encountered and found a simple solution to.