Also, try this:
August 9th Aristo-Craft e-mail indicated a factory direct sale on 2-bay hopper cars. Motivation was there is an abundance of them to choose from at $37.00 each.
Same 2-bay car is listed on TRAINWORLD’s site for $67.00 each.
Anyone confused as to what is possible among are two competing agencies for business – one the manufacturer and the other the long-time sales arm for the same manufacturer.
Wheeeeee.
Selah,
Wendell
Not sure how you get the $37 price. They are listed as Sale $39.99 on the Aristo site. Does anyone know if these have metal wheels? There are NO Specs at all on the Aristo site anymore.
They dont come with metal wheels, but you may be able to find them at one of the few dealers that remain.
Ive heard the metal wheels have dried up a while ago. Thats a good price for the cars, get them while they
last.
Nick
For metal wheels, try Al’s Discount Trains on e-bay. Enough for 5 cars (20pr) at $119.00 and free shipping. Al’s Discount Trains use to be San-Val Trains.
Chuck
Nicholas Savatgy said:Done.
...Thats a good price for the cars, get them while they last. Nick
Chuck Inlow said:Glad I still have plenty of Aristo wheels in-stock. I paid about half that.
For metal wheels, try Al's Discount Trains on e-bay. Enough for 5 cars (20pr) at $119.00 and free shipping. Al's Discount Trains use to be San-Val Trains.Chuck
If you want to see high prices try to get the black wheels.
I just paint mine.
It can’t be a good sign when Aristo sells large lots of stuff to one distributor who then undercuts all the dealers (Evans box car), and then Aristo undercuts all the dealers themselves (2 bay hopper)… I can’t believe any of this is good business for anyone.
It smacks of desperate cash flow problems.
I sure hope it gets better. I have a particular loyalty to the dealers I buy from, they give me excellent customer service, and I want them to succeed. When you eliminate competition (factory direct only) I worry about how I will be treated when there is only one place to buy Aristo.
Greg
I share the concerns about the sales tactics of Aristocraft.
For large scalers not living in the USA there is another problem. Shipping from the US to Canada is getting expensive and we have to pay brokerage charges, even when we use the postal services. To go around that, many Canadians have orders shipped to an American address (UPS store or such) and pick up the goodies themselves. If you are lucky, you don’t even have to pay the sales taxes when you cross the border.
Our friends at Aristocraft make this impossible by refusing to send orders to any other address than the address on the credit card. Offers to pay with a money order are refused. Emails with questions and suggestions go unanswered. I just placed a $ 800 track order with a competitor for this reason and I told them that. Aristocraft doesn’t seem to care.
Henk
Hello Henk.
At least you have a common land border. Try driving to the USA from anywhere overseas.
BTW, and if AristoCraft would accept Pay Pal, have you considered using Pay Pal as the currency exchange medium. With Pay Pal you can specify a delivery address that is different from your home address.
I am an authorised mail order CC merchant with the banks here in Australia. I find the Pay Pal charges are decidedly less than the banks charge, so I use Pay Pal as often as possible for both buying and selling.
Yes Tony,
I love using PayPal. I buy and sell on eBay and use nothing else. Aristocraft doesn’t accept it however. Of course they have the right to do stupid things, but I would like to know why.
Henk
Hi Henk:
What brokerage fees? I never pay brokerage fees when items are sent through the United States Postal Service and then through Canada Post.
Of course, the couriers are an impossibility as they charge a cross border brokerage fee.
Tony Walsham, you are overseas from the USA but you live in a tropical paradise. Something like Gilligan’s Island? You can’t have it all you know! Tell you what. During January and February you come over and live here in Ottawa, Ontario Canada and you can snowshoe over to the local Post Office during the snow blizzard to pick up your Aristo Craft train order. Sounds like a good idea? Actually, that was the type of winter we experienced here back in the 1960’s and 1970’s but these days our winters have been a walk in the park. Hope these mild winters continue. The Americans just south of the border now have far harser winters than we do as for some reason the heavy snows now seem to track south of the Canada U.S.A. border. Those border state Americans must think things are really bad up here!
On the CBC radio today, there was an interview of a scuba tourist operator where apparently a client may have come across a treasure ship.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-10/an-tongan-shipwreck-may-be-pirate-treasure-ship/4189676
Neat to learn of the old European Empires and their tall sail ship world exploration days.
Greg, Aristo still haves to provide good customer service to compete with USA Trains and AML 1/29 product lines regardless of their direct sales model.
Norman
Norman Bourgault said:
................What brokerage fees? I never pay brokerage fees when items are sent through the United States Postal Service and then through Canada Post.
…
More annoying is the habit that parcels now seem to always end up at the post office with a note in the mailbox at the residence that the item can be picked up the following day. I don’t know if that is an elective procedure i.e. the postie doesn’t feel like ringing the doorbell and processing the charges with his handheld gizmo or if they figure we “really need” that trip to the PO to get out more often. 
PS if you’re tired of the weather in Ontario - steaming, oppressive heat in the summer; bone chilling winters with freezing rain - you can move to a better climate even within Canada, I did! Thirty years was enough! 
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:Well, they have to do that with us because we're always out at work :( during delivery hours. But then, our local post office is about 200 yards away as the suburban crescent wanders :)
More annoying is the habit that parcels now seem to always end up at the post office with a note in the mailbox at the residence that the item can be picked up the following day.
Two orders with the “new” Aristo now…Top notch service. Wether going direct was a good or bad idea time will tell, but they appear to have the order system down perfect straight out of the gate.