Wig-Wag Trains

[chuck geiger]

I have settled on using Midwest Model Railroad, simple and easy to order. I love N Scale Supply, hate the website.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Lombard deserves a shout out too.

If I can't get it curbside at MBK or locally at somewhere semi-local like Mainline or Yankee Dabbler, Lombard and Midwest are my go tos.

[jagged ben]

I disagree. I have zero problems navigating the site, and it's responsive. Yes, I will agree that the cut-and-paste to fill out the order form page is clunky, but certainly not debilitating.

What do you consider the model for a "good" MRR site? Better not say M.B. Klein, which in my book is a case study in "trendy" where the form overshadows the function. It takes me considerably longer than NSS to find specific product, only to end up with "0 in stock" by the umpteenth click-through. Annoying.

So true.

[jagged ben]

Try first selecting a scale, then, in the filters, under 'stock status', select 'in stock' before you make any further selections.

And then wait forever for 30 items to load that I'm not interested in.  And then figure out 30mins later that there are actually other items that should be showing up but aren't, because someone didn't enter data in the scale field, or something like that.  Where are pre-orders again?

There's really something to be said for N Scale Supply's old style human oriented pages.  Wanna find out if somethings carried? Go to the catalog.  Wanna know what's new?  Go to the newsletter.  Trying to figure out if something is a pre-order, in stock, or sold out?  It's obvious. 

Nothing's perfect but I'm with Mike here.  A lot of 'improvements' just aren't.

[Chris333]

MBK's site was sweet and I used it all the time. Then they changed the site and now the whole thing is garbage.

[Rivet Miscounter]

I know it has less to do with usability, but I do want to give props to NScaleSupply and MBK for their amazing product photos, historically.   For years NScaleSupply was THE go-to when I wanted to see what something really looked like.  I'm not privy to all of the mentioned sites to know if there are others with similar quality pics.  I think the manufacturers have stepped up their game as far as having good photos, so maybe that has normalized across the board some.

The major issue I have with MBK is their insistance on showing Out of Stock items by default.  At every turn you end up getting search results with OOS items even when you think you've selected the proper filter.  It's flat maddening.

I bought just about everything from George & Deb for well over a decade.   A literal ton of n-scale probably.  Worked a few shows with them...they're good folks.   I had a time where my train spending was close to zero so that's when we sort of lost touch, and yeah their new/"dual" websites are pretty useless now....when I was pre-ordering everything it didn't really matter to me.  I also think that having to do a brick & mortar storefront took the wind out of their sales (sic) some.  But that's just my take.  I would have no problems ordering from them again, but there are other/better/easier options that will make it unlikely.

Lombard has recently become my go-to for N-scale, for the most part.   I travel to the Chicago area frequently so aside from web orders I also get to peruse their wares in person fairly often.

[mark.hinds]

... though his brother's former site wasn't much better.  ...

Surprised to hear you say this.  While HogTrainz is pretty bad, IMHO, BLW's website was the best, with no other I've seen even close.  He had a "new releases" section in case that mattered to a customer, but the main portion was the best part.  The latter was entirely hierarchical, meaning that I could quickly zero in on what was of interest, such as Atlas SD9s, or whatever, without doing a time-wasting "search".  No need to switch from mouse to keyboard; very efficient. 

MH

[mark.hinds]

... What do you consider the model for a "good" MRR site? ...

BLW's back when the owner was still keeping it up.  The hierarchical arrangement of product allowed quick, efficient searches, without taking my hand off the mouse.  No need for a time-consuming, error-prone "search".  MH

[John]

MBK's site was sweet and I used it all the time. Then they changed the site and now the whole thing is garbage.

I remember when it was a bunch of word docs linked together and Ed was a college student

[Mark5]

I know it has less to do with usability, but I do want to give props to NScaleSupply and MBK for their amazing product photos, historically.

In terms of MBK that is definitely historical - in recent years they often don't even bother with photos and post the manufacture's "artwork" (drawing).

[Point353]

Again, my general open offer to help businesses in this hobby with some free consulting stands.

Here's your first customer.
(Despite what the website may lead you to think, he's still in business because I see him at the Springfield/Amherst show each year.)

http://www.tomstrains.com/

[Rossford Yard]

Speaking of N Scale Supply, like Rivet Miscounter, I often use their website to check what is really new and I have shopped there when in Denver.  The other day I noticed that Steve Savicz passed away this week.  The last time I was there, I accidentally dropped my credit card, and he looked me up via my email with them and called to alert me about it when I was only 5 miles away from the shop, making it easier to go back rather than get a whole new card.  Everyone there is very helpful in person and their stock is as good as almost any shop I have seen.  I bought a few rare (to me) structure kits from mfgs other than Walthers for variety.

[chuck geiger]

Oh no...Now I feel bad a great guy.

[Mike C]

  Has anybody looked at the Tonys Trains website ?  The header takes up over half the page !  Makes the site seem "cramped" .   Mike

[lock4244]

Speaking of N Scale Supply, like Rivet Miscounter, I often use their website to check what is really new and I have shopped there when in Denver.  The other day I noticed that Steve Savicz passed away this week.  The last time I was there, I accidentally dropped my credit card, and he looked me up via my email with them and called to alert me about it when I was only 5 miles away from the shop, making it easier to go back rather than get a whole new card.  Everyone there is very helpful in person and their stock is as good as almost any shop I have seen.  I bought a few rare (to me) structure kits from mfgs other than Walthers for variety.

I saw that too, not even 50, very sad. I've never visited NSS/RMTS but I do buy from them online and never an issue, and I get the feeling in dealing with the kind of folks that go above and beyond to get you what you're looking for. Their website is a little antiquated but it works reliably, so I can't complain. In fact, no drop down menus that disappear faster than lightning if the mouse scrolls off it for a hair of a second. I find those annoying and appreciate they don't use those.

Lombard is one of the better websites to shop on imo. They and NSS have taken over from MBK as my preferred place to shop online. I liked MBK's website two iterations ago, but the current one not so much. Their habit of showing out of stock items is pretty annoying though, I personally would prefer it they dropped not in stock items as a default. However as they sell out I see the TWX 4427's are disappearing. Do they disappear when not in stock at MBK only when they are certain they'll not be able to get additional or is it just random? Too many items have sold out too fast at MBK for me to keep favoring them... I hate panic buying a single item.

Hiawatha Hobbies website seems pretty good but I've not purchased anything from them... yet.

Midwest also a nice user friendly website that I've not purchased through yet, but that'll likely change.

Just got my first order from N Scale Warehouse today, another nice website to navigate through.

I used to do a lot of business with Wig-Wag but stopped maybe 7-8 years ago due to a little falling out that was really their fault... shipped me some Japanese dudes' order and I was pretty pissed about it because I accepted and paid duty before opening the box because how would I know it was not my order. That one was on them. However they refused to reimburse me for the Canadian duty, and if I'm being honest I was spending in the neighborhood of $5-8k there a year so I figured they'd make it right without question since the error originated at their end. Instead was told that I shouldn't have paid the duty until I knew it was may order. In my business I wouldn't dream of doing that to a customer who was at the receiving end of my mistake, but I guess they see it differently. I was disappointed. That their website was unique was never an issue to me, I was used to it and had no navigation problems with it.