One of the most annoying things about buying hobby supplies online is that so many sites don’t tell you whether they have the item in stock or not. While I don’t mind if they take a few days to fulfill an order, I’ve had situations whether an item would go on backorder, months would go by and I would never hear from the seller again or it would take weeks for someone to fulfill an order. I have found this to be true of such major sites as Internet Hobbies, Whole Sale Trains, Internet Trains, etc. I’m about to place a large order for track and I don’t want to have my construction schedule seriously delayed by placing an order with a site that doesn’t tell you how long it will take to fulfill the order. The only sites I know of with are reliable on this point are Walthers and Standard Hobby. Are there others out there with good prices and a honest policy in terms of inventory?
In years of dealing with Klein’s (modeltrainstuff.com) I have only had one item not filled, so if they list it they almost always have it in stock. Don’t know how often they update, so it may be possible to hit a hot item that may be sold out before they pull your order. That should not be a problem with stuff like track.
I’ve found that with time-sensitive orders it’s best to call in your order rather than use the on-line shopping cart… and ask the question, “Do you have that in stock.” The good companies are very cooperative with that.
I ordered an old out-of-production GP-9 from M.B. Klein for a great price. The next time I checked their web site, that item wasn’t on it anymore. (They still had another one with a different road number.) I figure I got the last one, and they keep up to date pretty well.
Trainworld will tell you if an item is in stock, but you have to call them.
Try Cherry Creek Hobbies in Torrington, Wyoming at http://www.cchobbies,com for the best track prices I have found and the fastest turn-around time. His web site doesn’t indicate stockage, but you can get his toll-free number from it and call in your order.
My experience is that closeouts are the problem with the eventual fill rates. Regular supplies like turnouts and flex track are available up stream to your vendor and delay is based on the shipping time from their distributor or manufacturers. The problem arises when your needs happen to match the low inventory, restock or a scheduled manufacturing run that results in spot shortages throughout the retail chains.
Manufacturing has developed “Just In Time” models for inventory control that has been adopted by the retail industry with the result of temporary outages of the item you need. The “Crystal Ball” they use for this is sometimes foggy.
In answer to your question if your prefered supplier is out of stock, you may have to place orders with several vendors to secure their on hand inventory.
Will