Must? No. I’ve rarely pre-ordered a loco and always managed to get what I needed.
But you do have to be aware of when items are arriving at dealers and be Johnny on the spot. It helps to have a list of good dealers and be ready when items ship. In some cases I reach out to the companies offering the items for updates to track when they will be arriving at vendors.
If you want your LHS to be there for you then you indeed must place your orders through your LHS and do not shop online.
Besides, isn’t it just polite to let your LHS know you are wanting a particular unit? The marginal cost to your LHS of adding your order to theirs is very small compared to the marginal gain in revenue. Usually costs you nothing.
Mind you, it’s a bit disappointing when they forget to call you and you see your order sitting in their display case …
And if you don’t have a LHS, many of us don’t anymore, there are a lot of great online vendors such as Lombards and Spring Creek Hobbies, both of which tend to have more stock than many other suppliers. Lombards has a real time inventory you can search through but Spring Creek, you can call them or email them to see if they have what you need.
If you are looking for Santa Fe, UP, or PRR, etc…, sure. Take that chance of not pre-ordering. Probably find a few laying around somewhere.
If you are looking at, say Rapido’s new RS-18M in the WNY&P paint like is in my avatar? If you didn’t pre-order that, your chances at finding that just laying around somewhere are slim to none.
Oh look - Slim just walked out the door. Bye Slim!
(I will show myself out now while ducking the flying tomatoes…)
When new releases first hit my LHS, I try to be the first person to see them. Some locomotives and cars may sell out through there, but tend to linger around for awhile on evilbay and various online hobby shops.
Just don’t wait too long.
It is best not to be in a rush.
At times, I have been in somewhat of a rush and then accumulated items that I later decided I did not need, and sold them at a modest loss, far too often.
It has taken me many years to know exactly what it is I want to have on my layout. I tried many engines from everybody, and now have gone modern with Scale Trains modern units in BNSF.
PRR8259:
I’ve noticed that any Rivet Counter ET44’s and Dash 9’s in BNSF’s Phase 3 Scheme fly off shelves very quickly.
Modern Era BNSF is very popular.
I’ve heavily bought and sold HO MR equipment on Ebay since 2000. I’ve found that anything I wanted would come up for sale sooner or later. Check the feedback and transaction quantities of the seller, and go from there. Actually, Ebay is better than ever these days, especially for the buyer.
Many online shops simply havent updated their inventories, and not removed discontinued items.
seconded. Ebay’s MBG heavily favors buyers, sometimes I want to quit selling on ebay. But there’s really no where else to sell…
Charles
I’m just getting around to posting an update here. Well, I had to return the Kato set I bought. After running the train at a slow, break-in speed for about 20 minutes in forward and reverse, I increased the speed and the locomotive started making a whiney-grinding noise and it was fairly loud.
I haven’t bought anything new yet, since I was a little miffed and disappointed by this, especially since it was a Kato and supposed to be top of the line.
I have been both a buyer and a seller on eBay for years. I cannot figure out who eBay favors…buyer or seller?
Rich
The system works just as any business would buying and selling used stuff. The difference is the used merchandise shop is virtual.
Amazon works in the same way, mainly for new stuff though.
The money back guarantee was invented to increase sales and prices a seller can charge by removing uncertainty from the buyer’s decision making process. Brick and mortar businesses figured this out long ago. These features are for the benefit of the seller because they benefit the buyer.
Of course any system can be gamed by the unscrupulous. For honest buyers and sellers the MBG system creates a transparency effect but without the need for actual full disclosure, which facilitates sales at true market value without a discount for lack of information in the buyer’s hands.
Buyers rule any market, that’s axiomatic.
The market is determined by supply and demand. Right now for example, in the U.S. at least, there is a shortage of housing supply, so it is a seller’s market.
But that is not the issue here. The issue is, who does eBay favor, the buyer or the seller.
That is terrible news. Kato is top-of-the-line for running quality in N scale, but everyone does make a dud every now and then.
I hope this one experience does not spoil model railroading for you.
Please continue to post here.
-Kevin
You can have sellers with no buyers.
Until a buyer buys there is no market and no price. It’s always a buyers market and supply is only ever temporarily restricted. A “sellers market” is always illusory.
eBay favours the seller by making sellers more credible than they otherwise would be. That benefits buyers. My point is that eBay assists both buyers and sellers which is the key to its success.
Economists refer to the disparity in information available to buyers and sellers as friction. Market friction produces demand and supply curves that do not neatly intersect at a single point as the theory would predict in a perfect market. Instead you get an area of possible prices. Some pay too much while others pay too little.
Stock markets and commodity markets are examples of minimal friction markets.
eBay mimics these friction free markets as does Amazon.
Both sides benefit when friction is reduced but only in general. In general friction results in lower prices obtained by sellers but less satisfaction on the part of buyers. That’s how open markets developed in the first place. Open markets automatically generate close to theoretically ideal pricing.
Mike… Our hosts have asked us not to discuss eBay policies on their forums. No need to “Spike” this thread. The OP is a newbie here and does not need this in his thread.
-Kevin
I didn’t raise the issue. The point of my posts is to correct the misinformation about how eBay works. It is not a discussion of eBay policies, rather the reverse.
The OP was expressing frustration about lack of supply in the market. eBay was proffered as a solution to that frustration, which it may be. Then the question arose about whether using eBay was reasonable, safe in fact. It is safe for the reasons I suggest although I have never used it myself because I prefer to buy from my local retailer who provides me with expertise I don’t have, yet.
In fact my retailer is very low on used stock. I’ve got to know the owner and he has explained the model railroad market to me. There has been a Spike in demand and of course the supply of used inventory is necessarily limited by past supply and demand curves (a phenomenon well illustrated by the market for “antiques” and “collectibles”). Supply is both fixed by past demand and retention by buyers. Sadly, Estate sales are the most common source of supply to the used market although that does support the idea that once bitten by this hobby you tend to remain with it for a very long time. I count myself fortunate that when I got really interested there was a surplus of supply of good condition used stuff and a corresponding lull in demand which changed very rapidly starting in about a March of 2020.
I studied economics many years ago. It still surprises me how few people understand markets even though daily life involves us all in several markets every day.
You always have a chance of getting a lemon. Recently I got one, had bought two before at different times of the same engine, only difference with the third was different livery.
AS far as markets discussion, you left out timing and since we do a lot of just in time and the chain broke their are many items NA and many that are over supplied. Then you can throw in a plot twist or two, Example: I bought all the frog juicers I needed because I knew of the chip shortage, fine but something happened to the owner and they decided to shutter a lot of the buisness, now lucily they decided to keep the juicer part going but they could have and still could shut down compleatly like what happened with Jordan.
Byron, where were you in 2004 when I started on my first HO scale layout? [swg]
When I review my current and past loco roster, I have sold more locos than are currently on my layout. As you suggested, it was more than tempting to purchase a lot of equipment early in my model railroading pursuit that were not a great fit later as I discovered more about my preferences and interests. So the urgency that I felt when just starting out turned out to be inefficient. [:(]
Rich