Model Railroading order Fulfillment times?????


N

NP2626

Guest
I have been a customer of M.B. Klein/ModelTrainStuff for many years, actually since 1st Place Hobbies went out of business. However, it has been a while since I ordered anything from them! Last thursday, the 5th of December 2019, I placed and order for a few Mox Nix parts I needed. They finally fulfilled this order, yesterday the 10th of December, 2019. This is four business days to complete and order. Has this been normal for this company? Most of the other Hobby business I do business with fulfill an order within 24 hours!

Who are you using for general model railroading supplies?
 
I use them on occasion. Yeah, going a few days just to get acknowledgement that your order has been received and being processed is kinda a poor business model. OTH, they are the dominant on-line model railroad supplier and are prolly swamped right now for Christmas orders.
 
I haven't ordered from Klein for a couple of years. This time of year, their ordering dept. is probably busy.
Lately, I've been ordering from Cherry Creek Hobbies - good prices and service. They don't have the selection
as Klein, but I'm happy with them.
If they don't have what I'm looking for then I use TrainWorld.
 
Anything online for me has been Model Train Stuff as they are a bit less expensive. I think they're just busy as that does seem a little long. When I ordered N-scale track in September on a Sunday, I had confirmation on Tuesday IIRC.

And don't expect it to ship as quickly as it would normally. I have stuff from vendors at work whose expedited shipping (2 business days) is taking longer as UPS and Fedex seem overwhelmed.
 
Mark and Patrick - with the trend of ordering on-line increasing rapidly - UPS, Fed Ex and the Postal Service are operating at maximum capacity. Whether they can keep up with the demand, we will just have to wait and see. IMO, service is going to slow down, until they can figure it out. Then with the Holiday rush - they are operating at 2 - 3 times that as the rest of the year.
 
Christmas time is not the best time to measure a vendors fulfillment times.

I'm a contractor for Amazon and even with Amazon's over the top "customer first" approach and Jeff Bezos' deep pockets, there are times even Amazon can't meet demand.

Amazon once paid me $75 to drive 23 miles round trip to make one delivery on Christmas Eve. Amazon will spare no expense to get their packages to the customer on time, but even Amazon can fall behind.

Even during off peak times Amazon will often pay double, triple or more for routes that are getting close to being late.

Furthermore, Amazon is not the vendor to measure others against.

Jeff Bezos' Amazon is willing to lose money just to keep ahead of any and all competition. They are in a unique position of having their own nationwide network of fulfillment centers, distribution centers, delivery trucks and contractors.

You have to hand it to Jeff Bezos, many "experts" said he was crazy to spend billions to build his network, but he has made it payoff.
 
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Mr. Muffin's Trains impressed me! Even with this Pandemic they exceeded my expectations. I placed an order on the evening of April 27 and UPS dropped it off early afternoon on May 2nd!

Living in southeast Baltimore I do have the advantage of being in the northeast corridor, but I can't get it until the vendor gives it to the carrier.
 
It is usually a week to 10 days for MTS to get stuff to me. I ordered again last night...Hopefully by the middle of next week I'll have it.
 
MB Klein or Model Train Stuff (MTS) as it is known today. (Hard to teach an old dog new tricks)

Their philosophy of selling at substantial discounts means they have to sell in volume and keep over head low. It's easy for "skeleton" crews to fall behind.

It's a trade off.
 
I just placed an order with Model Train Stuff (Klein) and the email acknowledgement was sent a day after I placed my order and a notice that the order was shipped came four days after the order was placed. I place another order with a popular on-line hobby shop a week ago and the order was shipped the next day.

I'm getting great service from All Electronics.

Greg
 
Everybody is different. For me, lowest price is most important.

When I order train stuff I don't worry how long it takes and I never pay for expedited shipping. It's probably going to sit in the box, for God knows how long when I get it any way. When it arrives I usually take it out of the box and look at before putting in back in the box.

My best friend Rodney from Tasmania is the other side of the coin. He always pays for expedited shipping, he wants his stuff ASAP!

To each his own.
 
I agree with you Louis. Still was almost $9.00 for shipping on the stuff I ordered, but not the $26.00 expedited shipping was. I also don't usually pay to expedite. Free shipping would have been nice, but I still paid less for what I got with shipping than local (they would have to order it as well). So either way I'd wait.
 



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