General Discussion (Model Railroader)

 Are there any good train auction sites other than EBay? I work with N-scale and have used Ebay to buy and sell. But no one does buy-it-now unless its just junk or most of the time accessories (trees and people mainley). And if you email people about doing a buy-it-now they dont answer, set the price so high it is unreal, or just flat out tell you they are selling for the money. And we wont even get into all the fees involved.

On page 3 or the June 2009 Model Railroader magazine that I just received is a full page ad for an online auction wite just for trains. It is WWW.GOMOTORBIDS.COM/TRAINS  I hope this helps. We are in HO and use evilbay and like you find poor communication from some sellers and wildly inflated shipping/mailing costs to Canada.

S Hawkins:

On page 3 or the June 2009 Model Railroader magazine that I just received is a full page ad for an online auction wite just for trains. It is WWW.GOMOTORBIDS.COM/TRAINS  I hope this helps. We are in HO and use evilbay and like you find poor communication from some sellers and wildly inflated shipping/mailing costs to Canada.

 

 

Good Morning,

I tried this site last month and all does go well until the shipping part.

They only use Courier Services and not the postal system so it my case for one piece of rolling stock the courier charges were more than double  the final total of the auction.

Here is another site to try as you deal more with the indidual seller and can come to some common ground on how you want your purchases shipped.      hoyardsale@yahoogroups.com.       Sorry, I don't know how to make the link,    (somebody help )

But to speak up for E-bay, I have made over 360 purchases from that site and 99.5% of them have been successful.  You learn to avoid certain sellers as they really do gouge on their postage.. Be sure to re-read and study the auction (total description and terms of sale and shipping ) before bidding.  (Know what you are bidding on and it's condition to avoid any surprises)  I only use sites that take Paypal and if you do this you'll not likely have any problems.

Johnboy out...............

Yahoo N scale yard sale

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NScaleYardSale/

 

S Hawkins:

On page 3 or the June 2009 Model Railroader magazine that I just received is a full page ad for an online auction wite just for trains. It is WWW.GOMOTORBIDS.COM/TRAINS  I hope this helps....

 

Unfortunately, great as this site is, for those of us living in the UK this site won't allow registration for anyone living outside the US or Canada.  So even though there's a beer car I like the look of, I can't bid for it.

Ian

good grief, didn't we just do this thread a couple days ago?

Is there a eBay / Craig's list alternative:
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/152449.aspx

http://www.modeltrainsyard.com/

http://www.ioffer.com

http://www.ecrater.com

Take a look at www.trainboad.com . I have used it to sell and buy with very good results. The best thing is there are no fees.

 

sadie, checked out this site....prices aren't bad but shipping is $9.50 just to start then goes up from there. Almost as bad as eBay

The high cost of shipping fees on e-bay is the fault of the sellers. 

If the goods are going to Canada some vendors will use the USPS First Class International others insist upon using the Priority Shipping which is more expensive and others insist upon using Express Priority which is even more expensive. 

I contact the vendors to make sure I will not get burned on the needless higher fees. As the buyer pays the postage the vendor is not out of pocket.

One postive event arising from the increase in fees is I am shopping more and more at some of the one-line shops. Good news for those shops, bad news for e-bay.  Also note that many of the stores on e-bay also are actual train/hobby shops and you can deal directly with them by passing e-bay.

 wow yahoo yard sale

I have to check that out

 

K

thank you all for the responces. i am so tired of ebay. had a lady this month take a week and a half to send me my item. she said the paypal cleared 3 day after it actually did. when i turned in for no item. she came up and said she emailed me and persued to chew me out. if she emailed me i would like to know what my new email is.

When shipping items to Canada, there are only two reasonable choices using the US Post Office:  there are basically two reasonable options:  Priority Mail International @ $19.00 USD for 6-10 day delivery and First Class Mail Internationl for a package with total dimensions equal to or less than $36 in. and weighing less than I lb.  Thre are small, medium and large flat rate boxes the Post Office offers but the rates for shipping are higher.

Anything other, including UPS and Fed Ex are a whole lot more expensive.  Add to that maybe $4 to $5 for handling charges (buying USPS-acceptable shipping packages, e.g.) and you can see that shipping internationally can get really expensive.  Canada is expensive, but Europe and Australia are a whole lot more expensive.

 not to defend anyone but ofter paypal money goes into a black hole and even though it is gone from your account, it is not yet deposited in the seller's account.  they were having a big hassle with this a while back and e-bay just played dumb.

i have bought and sold over 700 itmes on ebay back when i was in business and i stopped because of the paypal b.s.

also, there are a lot of people out there who thrive on adversarial relationships and ebay has it's share.  you know the kind, their wife is always at the neighbor's, their kids will not mind and their dog won't come when they call it.  so, they take it out on ebay.

grizlump

G'day All, If anyone wants a list of E-Bay sellers that are all honest, good to deal with and have a good range in n scale that I've used with for the last 5 years plus you can e-mail me on our home e-mail marg_den@bigpond.net.au and I'll help out.. Just head the e-mail train list. I live 20ks North of Townsville in Queensland, Australia. No hobby shops up here nearest is Cairns 340ks North or Brisbane 1200ks South so on-line shopping is it. Never had one problem to date, everything has made the long trip from The States where I get 90% of stuff in great shape. Postage for most items is around $15/ $20 U.S. but most rolling stock /locos is way cheaper than buying out here anyway. There are 2 Sellers that rate a special mention one is Mike & Annie O'Brian at sales@xtrains.com. Terrific people very honest and will help as much as possible. The other is Robert Turner in Florida (rlt600pa@yahoo.com). Bob makes the best HO/N Scale buildings and structures plus cars,trucks, horse drawn items you'll ever see. I don't get bugger all off any of the sellers I recommend. I think if sellers do the right thing and are good to deal with they should be promoted by those in the hobby. Regards to All Denis May (Aussie Denis.)

MRRSparky:

When shipping items to Canada, there are only two reasonable choices using the US Post Office:  there are basically two reasonable options:  Priority Mail International @ $19.00 USD for 6-10 day delivery and First Class Mail Internationl for a package with total dimensions equal to or less than $36 in. and weighing less than I lb.  Thre are small, medium and large flat rate boxes the Post Office offers but the rates for shipping are higher.

Anything other, including UPS and Fed Ex are a whole lot more expensive.  Add to that maybe $4 to $5 for handling charges (buying USPS-acceptable shipping packages, e.g.) and you can see that shipping internationally can get really expensive.  Canada is expensive, but Europe and Australia are a whole lot more expensive.

This e-bay vendor want $38.90 to ship a IHC 2-10-2 to Canada

 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110340822259&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

That certainly is expensive in my books