Internet orders

[250BOB]

I know I am thick but I would have thought that the best place to buy Japanese trains was Japan.

My only experience of internet orders from Japan has been with music CDs and that works fine.

Even if you can't read Japanese you have a picture and a price.

Bernard

Hi Bernard,

Certainly I would be very nervous about purchasing directly from anywhere abroad, never mind Japan.........if it is faulty and has to be returned, that scenario would fill me with dred..

Bob

[Mike Bellamy]

just a thought and i appreciate this would take a little more time but couldn't you friend remove from stock on the website those items he's taking to the shows and put those left back in after wards?

Can you imagine the volume of stuff he would take to a show, removing all that from a website would take ages....then he has to put most of it back again, I would imagine.

In fact, it would be the same as closing the web site for 4 days. Most of the stock consists of specialist items for American Narrow gauge where he is the sole UK supplier. With such a limited market he cannot afford to carry large stocks of things where he might only sell one or two each year but there is always the hope that a chance viewing at a show might result in a sale - because of this he has in the past taken everything with him. Once the bar code reader idea is set up, it will be easier to separate out show stock from internet stock and with the increasing costs of van hire and fuel, some smaller one day shows now have a much reduced offering based on whatever will fit in the car instead - and as you might expect the first time we did this, customers were asking for things he had left at home

 

Mike

[Kenton]

Can you imagine the volume of stuff he would take to a show, removing all that from a website would take ages....then he has to put most of it back again, I would imagine.

 

Potentially losing lots of internet orders in the meantime when there is still stock to be sold - not very business like.

[Metr0Land]

Going back to the OP asking if he's been unlucky, then in my experience the answer has to be 'yes' and 'no'!!!!

 

(I'm ignoring here the perennial issue surrounding bulk orders, paid for by credit card/debit card/paypal/cheque where only some items are in stock and the retailer has to charge the whole amount, and what to do about the outstanding item/s).

 

With most of the businesses like Kernow and Rails of Sheffield there are always occasions where things 'fly off the shelves' or were low on stock when I ordered. In both cases I've had experiences where these have been solved amiccably and quickly, either in terms of (partial) refund, or where I was happy to wait. In both cases I'm more than happy to give them my business in future, as they alerted me quickly and were keen to resolve things.

 

What this boils down to is - how well does the business address problems?

 

I've had 2 dealings with firms who won't get my business again because they seem to me to be advertising items which are out of stock, AND are likely to stay out of stock because the item is either deleted or has out of production for some time, with no realistic idea of when it will appear, AND who appear tardy at giving a refund. (In both these cases I'd given them a bulk order and only part of the order was outstanding).

 

In short, I'm more than happy to support the little guy and try to understand his problems so long as he understands mine.

 

With regards to your specialist Japan items it would seem you are in a cleft stick. If he's advertising things which repeatedly turn out to be not in stock, then I would look to be going elsewhere - though I accept you have few options with your particular needs. Is he going to learn to do things better/differently if you as a customer keep doing things the same?

 

(I'm not for a moment implying you're at fault here - 1 of the 2 items I alluded to above is from a seller of specialist items where there isn't a great deal of alternative for the items I currently have outstanding).

[shortliner]

There was a German firm - Japan Model Railways - at Glasgow show last year who seemed to have a very good stocks - their website is at http://www.japanmodelrailways.com and phone 0049 2307 240938 Note in the back of the showguide says they are distributor for Tomix, MicroAce, Modemo, and plastic kits by Doyusha and Arii , and other railway related brands from Japan

[Skinnylinny]

Speaking as someone who works at a medium-sized model and hobby shop as an internet order processor, it is, quite frankly, depressing how often I have to send out emails telling people that we don't have the item(s) they've ordered in stock. Unfortunately, when tills were bought for the shop, e-commerce had not been thought of, so there was no need for barcode scanners. Indeed, many of the products we sell don't even have barcodes! Any item being sold in store gets put through the till as a price and a manufacturer, or, more often than not, another manufacturer whom we use to fill in for that one if we don't have a button on the till for them!

 

As we don't just stock model railways, but a huge range of obscure plastic kits, R/C cars, dolls house stuff etc., the number of manufacturers/suppliers we have to deal with is certainly over 150. The cost of supplying several (at least 3) new tills, plus barcode scanners, plus the required software, plus consumables (labels for items that don't have barcodes, as we sell a large number of spare parts) plus of course the networking specialist to come in and sort it all out, and then training the staff (five of whom use the mail order system, but all of whom would need training on the new system in order to be able to work on the shop floor) is prohibitive, certainly in the several tens of thousands of pounds range, far too much for us to budget spending in one go. And, of course, you need to do it all in one go, or it's all useless.

 

That said, I have no say in how the shop is run. I appreciate that it must be frustrating for a customer to see something obscure on our website, go "Ooooh" and buy it, only to be told it'll be in in a week, but we simply don't have the space or money to keep the complete range of, say, Corgi diecast vehicles, or a much more obscure brand, in stock, on the off chance someone will want them. Surely it's better to at least be able to order it and get it in a week, than not to be able to get it in at all?

 

In the long run, the margins on which a shop like ours are run are fairly slender, and if the customer wants the cheapest prices around, we'll have less money coming in to spend on updating our systems... Which means we're pretty well stuck, with no way to expand much if we can't keep up-to-date with stock levels, and no way to get up-to-date with stock levels without spending money we don't have yet...

[roundhouse]

I had an interesting experience from a well known place in the South were they have all the scanners / barcode readers etc and a live website. I saw they had an item of stock in and as I was going to be in their shop on saturday I emailed them last Thursday asking if they cuold put one of the items by for me to collect (I couldnt phone from work hence the email). They still had stock of the item shown on their website on the Friday evening.

 

No email came so went to the shop but the item had sold out by then.

 

I did get an email reply 4 hours after leaving the shop. Whilst in the shop there were numerous telphone calls but the staff seemed very off handed / indifferent with those callers and it wasnt a very quick service in the shop despite a fair number of staff being about and not many customers in the premises.

 

I now relaise that had I ordered online and had it posted I would probably have the loco or it would be in a couriers warehouse awaiting a suitable redelivery time!

 

So my experience is that depsite all the technology it also takes keeness from those at the business.

 

I will certainly be more likely to buy from others, such as Kernow or Hattons who have given a very good service in recent times and also use a delivery service that I can get to pick up the goods on my way to work.

 

Ian

[Guest dilbert]

I have the reverse problem - my local hobby shop doesn't stock British Outline RTR or kits - it is about 10kms away from where I live and is good at providing the basic stuff such as glues, plastics and ABS profiles, paints etc...

 

My principal UK outlet is 100s of kms away and is a bricks & mortar setup with a major Internet facing business - the actual location is irrelevant. With few exceptions, all the stuff I order amounts to effectively pre-ordering even if at the time of order, the selling price is unknown.

 

When goods become available, I receive a request for a PayPal payment and to the selling price that is advertised on the website. In order to keep Int'l P&P costs to an acceptable level, one of two things happen : either the items are placed to one side for future delivery (as the shop in question is providing a service in this respect, and if this approach helps with their cashflow then that's no problem...) or, in the latest PayPal payment request they will include P&P charges because the amount of goods I have already paid for has reached an agreed minimum shipment value level. Within 24 hours of the payment, I know that the goods will be on their way, what to expect and when I can expect the package - nominally this is within 3-5 working days. This works well for myself and the only problem that I have encountered was with a duff loco and this was sorted quickly and effectively. The dependence on assumed stock levels is null and I don't need to to receive automated delivery emails, because I already have the PayPal txn history.

 

With the cottage industry I take a different approach and maintain my own stock levels. Some of these cottage players most likely have another fulltime job and have family commitments, may only get to the Post Office once or twice a week and/or may have to produce items to satisfy the order - so it can take several weeks for the order to finally arrive. There are the odd occasions when I do run out of certain bits 'n pieces, but then that is down to my mistakes in the management of my inventory... dilbert

[Black Sheep]

I work for a small specialist bookshop which has recently started trading online.

 

As a result of putting items on the site to test everything is working properly we didn't manage to remove them all before going live.

 

When someone ordered one of these items an apology was emailed out and a refund processed within 48 hours.

 

If something is on our site we either have it ready to dispatch or can have it dispatched within 48 hours.