You want O gauge stuff? He’s spectacular. Lionel, MTH, Williams, whole lot of it. Can get almost anything from those lines.
Looking for older (Pre-DCC) HO or N stuff? He has a good selection. Much more HO than N, but still decent in N. (I’m talking Riverossi, IHC, 1990’s-2000’s Bachmann, a few BlueBox loco’s and cars, etc…)
You want something newer, or HO with DCC/Sound? Go elsewhere.
Anything recently done Atlas, Athearn, Bachmann, all Scaletrains or Walthers products, he can not get.
About 40 Miles away is a different LHS, and he can get almost anything you want. (Except ESU decoders?) Not worth the trip that far for standard supplies though.
And my Amazon example? I’m not a Prime customer. Prime is indeed a rip-off IMO. But living “in the sticks” like I do, local shops simply can not compete.
WM, Amazon, eBay, and online stores gets 90-95% of all my purchases. Across all catagories.
Closest real hobby shop is over 45 min away by car, by public transit it might just as well be the moon. Haven’t been to the two that still exist since they got new ownership but I can tell you I was not impressed with the way people were treated before. Even all the so so hobby shops are gone, lets face it, they can not compeat and you still loyal to one, good for you and maybe your shop is great but I have been to shops all over the country and that is not the norm. In fact I am surprised at how badly run small buissness are on average but that dose make the gems shine. 33% of small buisnesses close within 2 years, 20% the first year and only half are around after 5 years (research by banks).
I have visited over 50 hobby shops coast-to-coast over the last twenty years.
The vast majority of them are clean, friendly, and well run.
There are some that are awful, but these are rare.
Game stores on the other hand… these are nearly all awful, but simply rake in the money. Too bad train stores don’t have the equivilent of a Friday Night Magic money cow to milk.
rrebell is the only person I have talked to with so many bad hobby shop/train store experiances. I have not been to shops all around the country, but I have been in more than my share here in the east, I have never been treated badly.
Were some shops cluttered or poorly stocked? Sure.
Were some clerks less than knowledgeable? Sure.
But I was treated poorly by anyone.
There were two different shops around here years ago, both had owners who were a little burned out, but I only knew that becuase I had known them for many years when I worked in this business. They never treated customers badly.
Well it looks like we are nearing the end of a saga. Last return from Bachmann was DOA, only moved an inch maybe, proubly from broken wire as they replaced motor. Train World is taking it back and issuing store credit and return shipping label of original item with the damaged box and paint pealing off the handrails (all done by Bachmann at their repair shops). This was really all on Bachmann and they never offered a replacement or other offer.
I’m assuming that one of these was the fellow that ran Peach Creek. He was a gruff fellow, but I understand that he had a good reputation.
I often wonder if people who have experience in retail positions have a higher threshold for “bad treatment” than people with little or no experience. I’m not sure I’d say I’ve been poorly treated anywhere, in any type of store. Likewise, when I was a professional book selling guy, I don’t recall intentionally treating anyone badly (even though ten plus years later I can tell you two people I really wish I had).
I’m joining this conversation very late but I’ll throw my two cents in anyway.
Glad to see rrebel seems to have gotten a satisfactory response.
I have one simple rule that I adhere to strictly regarding any company I do business withm, not just model railroading vendors. They only get one chance to do me wrong. If they fail to give me my money’s worth and refuse to correct problems, they won’t get a second chance. I cross them off my list and they are dead to me.
I find the conclusion to this dilemma interesting. I would never expect a retailer to refund me money for an item where the manufacturer could not fix the defect.
I would have thought the legal liability would fall to Bachmann…and perhaps they will refund TW eventually.
All of my manufacturer returns have been adequately repaired, so the idea that consumers hold the retailer monetarily responsible for the defects an unaffiliated company created and could not repair is interesting to me.
Maybe that’s why retailers are disappearing. Being held up to standards they can’t meet.
I have had some good experiences with Bachmann in terms of purchasing new steam locomotives that proved problem-free. But, I have never had a good experience with Bachmann repairing or replacing a steam locomotive.
I have to admit, things seem to have been better in the service department back in the heyday of the Spectrum Line when Lee Riley was in charge of product developement.
They had more product in stock and quickly replaced those items they could not easily fix.
Not sure what the future holds for any of these companies with even less inventory of product or parts?
But like I advised the OP early on, I would have just bought another one then had the return/repair battle.
But that may be my one character flaw, an unwillingness to “settle” fo less than what I want, as long as I can afford it.
And it seems to me, that, if Bachmann (or any manufacturer for that matter) cannot provide warranty service, they would be legally obligated to refund all expenses involved in the purchase and warranty attempt of said defective product.
Warranty provides “Repair or replacement” of defective items, and if neither is an option, then no choice but to buy said defective item back.
Otherwise, the manufacturer best have a good attorney “on-call” to assist them breaking their end of the warranty contract with zero alternative options.
Oh Bachmann said it was fixed and it is proubly a brken wire from motor replacement but by this time I was done. As far as TW is concerned, they buy so much from Bachmann that I am sure they will at least break even.