N Scale Supply Denver Colorado

[unittraincoal]

N Scale Supply in Denver (Arvada) has opened a showroom to the public. It is quite possible the best selection of N Scale in the United States! Absolutely Amazing! Tons of inventory and older hard to find items... All I can say is WOW!
They are open on Fri and Sat, but are going to expand hours very soon.... Many of you have probably seen their website....

[peteski]

WOW! Almost like the good ol' days at Caboose Hobbies.

[unittraincoal]

I think they have more N Scale than our old sorely missed Caboose Hobbies ever had... They are very friendly like the Old Caboose too...

[basementcalling]

If you can get to them in the late summer snowstorm raging in Denver and eastern Colorado today.

[Tom L]

Many years ago, they were a retail operation with regular hours but then went online only. It’s was a nice store back then, too.  Nice to see that they are opening up a few days a week. They have a lots of used stuff, as well

Temps back in the 70s and 80s in Denver by the time they open on the weekend!

Tom L
Wellington CO

[Chris333]

Back before the internet. My first friend to get it. I went over there and printed out a bunch of NSS website for reference.

Who knew I would one day have the internet myself...

[ednadolski]

Many years ago, they were a retail operation with regular hours but then went online only. It’s was a nice store back then, too. 

I remember when Scott had the small (5x7) Mike Danneman DRGW layout set up on display.

Ed

[learmoia]

I believe they went back to 'Open Store' for State sales tax reasons, and stopped shipping within Colorado.  If they shipped within the state, they had to follow local tax laws for each municipality, vs simplified sales tax rules for out of state 'Internet' sales.

~Ian

[ednadolski]

I believe they went back to 'Open Store' for State sales tax reasons, and stopped shipping within Colorado. 

I still get my shipments just fine.  The website used to have a page with more details about how the tax issue was resolved, but I don't have the link.

Ed

[Rossford Yard]

Have stopped by there twice while in Denver for weddings or biz, and never fails to impress. I agree it is probably a go to place, maybe the go to place for N scalers.  They have lots of all the new stuff, and a lot of details, which are hard to find and perfect for those of us traveling trying to find things we don't normally see on shelves.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Next time someone is there PLEASE ask them to make their website half as nice their store. I KNOW they have great stock but browsing and ordering is a terrible experience.

It reminds me of what I built for MBK over 15 years ago.

[C855B]

Next time someone is there PLEASE ask them to make their website half as nice their store. I KNOW they have great stock but browsing and ordering is a terrible experience.

It reminds me of what I built for MBK over 15 years ago.

You're in the web design biz, so you're biased. I have no issue with NSS' site. It may not be pretty, but beyond the annoying back-and-forth between the inventory listings and the manual-entry shopping cart, it's simple and just works, and no f'in Javascript. I'm not looking for fine website design when I shop, just ease, clarity and completeness.

If there is anything I can point to for how their site is superior to almost everyone else's, it's the completeness and accuracy of inventory status. In a word, honest. Too many online stores, including MBK's new site until recently, poorly track what is and isn't available. That said, with MBK I want to throw my mouse at the screen after spending a bunch of clicks drilling down to "the" item I need, only to discover it's out of stock. Infuriating.

NSS' service is OUTSTANDING in my book, website included. They may not have the absolute best price on a lot of items, but they have been my first choice for most everything N scale in the past, oh, 15 years, because I know I'm going to get it if the site says they have it, and their communication in all circumstances has been perfect. And they handle pre-orders, even cutting me slack when I've missed an ordering window. I wouldn't be too fast to change something that works consistently well even though it is clunky by today's standards.

[Chris333]

So you must hate that MBK ruined their site.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

You're in the web design biz, so you're biased. I have no issue with NSS' site. It may not be pretty, but beyond the annoying back-and-forth between the inventory listings and the manual-entry shopping cart, it's simple and just works, and no f'in Javascript. I'm not looking for fine website design when I shop, just ease, clarity and completeness.

If there is anything I can point to for how their site is superior to almost everyone else's, it's the completeness and accuracy of inventory status. In a word, honest. Too many online stores, including MBK's new site until recently, poorly track what is and isn't available. That said, with MBK I want to throw my mouse at the screen after spending a bunch of clicks drilling down to "the" item I need, only to discover it's out of stock. Infuriating.

NSS' service is OUTSTANDING in my book, website included. They may not have the absolute best price on a lot of items, but they have been my first choice for most everything N scale in the past, oh, 15 years, because I know I'm going to get it if the site says they have it, and their communication in all circumstances has been perfect. And they handle pre-orders, even cutting me slack when I've missed an ordering window. I wouldn't be too fast to change something that works consistently well even though it is clunky by today's standards.

I suppose I may be biased, but I'm trying to find a list of what are the latest arrivals and it's impossible to find. I can drill into individual product lines and see there, but I, and I think many other people, would like to keep tabs on what's new.

Same thing with ordering. I'm 100% serious: I created a "copy and paste" order form for MBK back in the day. We made a bunch of money with that sucker, but there's no way I'm dealing with that on my phone (which is where something that consumers expect in 2020).

The stats back me up: https://www.outerboxdesign.com/web-design-articles/mobile-ecommerce-statistics

Outdated looking and feeling websites are the modern day "dusty shelves, litter boxes and stale cigarettes smell".

I WANT to support many of the places that have dated web presences: N Scale Supply, BLW, Des Plaines, etc... but when I can just go to one of these URLs, see the new hotness and hit "buy", guess who's getting my impulse purchases:
https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/search?search_query_adv#/filter:custom_scale:N/perpage:96/sort:sortable_date_created:desc/filter:custom_scale:Multi
https://lombardhobby.com/n-trains/
https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/model-trains/n-scale-model-trains
https://midwestmodelrr.com/product-category/n-scale/
https://www.fiferhobby.com/whats-new/

The tools are out there and they're not nearly as expensive or as difficult to adopt as they used to be. Places need to step up or they're going to become statistics.

[wcfn100]

I suppose I may be biased, but I'm trying to find a list of what are the latest arrivals and it's impossible to find. I can drill into individual product lines and see there, but I, and I think many other people, would like to keep tabs on what's new.

 

https://www.nscalesupply.com/Newsletter/CurrentNewsletter.html

Jason