trainz auctions moved

Reading it they seem to be moving auctions that were on their own website to this new site. I think they will still have auctions on ebay. No...I did not sign up for the new site.....if they go to it only I'll miss out then.

The new site appears to be a captive site for Trainz. It has some extra bells and whistles besides the auctions, and the auctions are somewhat more extensive. The site was a mess the first day - I sent a pretty nasty e-mail to the webmaster - but they have gotten it to where it seems to work right and the server responds quickly. The old Trainz auction site is as dead as Elvis, as far as new auctions go - at least for the moment, I think you can still access records of your own past transactions. 

 

Signing up is an easy process. They have three levels of membership with various add-ons included, and if you are an existing customer of Trainz you get a free upgrade to the middle level. The top level is of no use to me so I didn't bother figuring out exactly what you get for your 45 bucks a year - free is good enough for me. I've bought a lot of stuff from Trainz auctions over the past year or so; they've messed up on a lot of descriptions but they've always been willing to make it right so I'll at least have a look at their new operation. 

I did not know until this past week that Tranz runs atleast 3 shipping points across the us. I would guess that they have more and I just don't know different at this point. I have had shippments from a place just North of Boston and some from Omaha and of course Atlanta.

Like SW Hiawatha says descriptions and "testing" are iffy. i have gotten items said not to work or missing components that worked fine with nothing missing and then just opposite. Items listed as excellent were scratched or broken. That said, getting items at blowout prices even with the buyers premium precluded complaints. Buyer beware.

 

Then there was the same item offered at Trainzauctions and eBay simultaneously. Which bidder wins? Its a jungle out there.

 

Pete

Hello Pete,I find it hard to believe that the SAME EXACT item was listed on ebay and the trainz auction site at the same time,that's just not a good buisness practice,and they seem like an honest outfit to me.And if it did occur,I would think it had to be in error.Can anyone on here tell me of another auction site that tests thier items,and goes through half of the checking of the item as Trainz does?If so I'd love to buy from them also!!!Also,what do you guys think of the 15% buyers premium that Trainz charges on thier auctions?Do you mind paying this,or would you rather take your chances at Mauer's or the other online auction houses that charge the buyers premium,and do no testing of the items at all?

Never tried the auction. And now that I know they add 15% on I doubt I ever will. But I have bought a lot from them from their site and Ebay. Always made good on any issues. Always minor. And I once called them about a NIB Tmmc starter freight set on Ebay and talked him into delisting and selling to me at a very fair price. And have not seen another listed for that amount since. Funny thing, they did once send me someone else's order worth several hundred dollars in addition to a $19. replacement. And if I had not told them, they would of had no idea because there was no paper trail. Not all that organized it seems but if you consider the volume of used and NOS that they process they actually so very well.

This new website: is it called "Dash Trains"?  I just received an email on this, but did not follow through exploring the site.  The location of this site is in Georgia, which is where, I believe, Trainz is located.

 

Bill

http://trainzauctions.com/

 

this will explain, it to those that did not get the email,  I can not copy and paste

the email

Page is very exact of how to proceed to this web site :  https://trainz.infusionsoft.co...379/9f0ff709a1aec1a0

 OK, but the free middle choice is waved for the first year only?? What does it cost for the next year? Will I get a bunch of junk emails and sign up for other stuff like phone calls that I don't want??

 I'm on the fence. I've had great luck with all my purchases through them and have got great deals, fast delivery, etc.

I don't understand what you are saying here. I just checked trainz and they are still on Ebay.

Ebay will buy Dash & that will be the end of it.

I heard that Trainz will continue to do thier regular auctions on ebay as usual.But they are going to be moving more of thier product over to the DASH website,as they continue to grow and offer a unique auction schedule,not seen before.This way,you'll know what day your scale/area of collecting ends on.Postwar auctions will end on Saturdays,MPC on Sundays,HO on another day,and so on.They are also developing a unique train search engine,where you can locate product by SKU,model number,road number,etc...It's all an attempt to make things easier for the train enthusiast,and I'm sure it will have some bugs to be worked out,like any new software like the I phone 4 and 5 did.I was also made aware that more extensive testing and clearer,accurate,yet simple descriptions are also part of the change.I believe it is an attempt to give the train enthusiast an overall better internet buying experience.Let's watch and see!! And you may be right,ebay might buy DASH and try to crush them.They are the GIANT!!What a brilliant thought!!Feebay will not like this at all!!!(LOL!!!)

So far I am not impressed with the DASH site.  I prefer the old Trainz auction site.  I found it much easier to use.

I just signed up.  I can say the site is pretty slow, if they don't improve that it's likely to cost them.

 

I also note that they add a 15% buyers premium as well.  Sounds like eBay in reverse, the buyer pays the fees!

Agreed. Clunky with a capital K and just about useless with a tablet.

 

Pete

Not impressed with the new site. Find it very un-friendly to use, its disappointing!

The site was a mess the first day - I sent a pretty nasty e-mail to the webmaster - but they have gotten it to where it seems to work right and the server responds quickly.

LOL..I sent them a rather nasty email too on the first day as the site was terrible! The search functions were wacky, 0-8-0 item descriptions had a picture of a Dreyfus Hudson and it took 30 seconds for a page to load..and I'm on a 25mb download connection!

Another deceptive practice that Trainz is doing on the Dash site is every auction in the O Gauge Modern category states "Free Delivery Available"..but when you click on the shipping tab there is no free delivery..only free pickup?? 

I doubt I'll be going back.

I miss the ability to sort by price.

I like the Dash train site. They have been doing a lot of changes to improve. It's free to put your inventory into and track what you have. The old Trainz auction site was slow. Give it a little time they are working on making it better.

Scott Smith

I see there are a lot of questions and uncertainty about what we are doing with our auction platform and Collector-Model Trains. So with this rather lengthy post I will address to the best of my ability.

 

Is TrainzAuctions dead? No. TrainzAuctions will still be TrainzAuctions, now they'll just be at DASH. We'll be pointing the domain name (www.trainzauctions.com) over within the next week. We have to wait for everyone to finis checking out on the old site first.  There are ads and links all over the internet, so it's easier to just move the domain than fix all the links.

 

Will Trainz.com still sell on eBay? Absolutely, we list items to the market that makes the most sense for that particular item. 

 

Is DASH a captive site for Trainz.com? No. We have a very strong partnership with DASH but they are building a community and marketplace around model trains that is open to all, we just happen to be the first. The biggest thing we have done for them and for you is shared our database. We have by far the best database of model trains and parts in the world. We have been building it over the past ten years by capturing and creating a catalog of every item. That catalog is now public information on the Collector-ModelTrains site in their catalog tab. We hear eBay bashing all the time, well, now Dash is here, we think it is the answer for us and for you. With all the data and information we provided them, it will make it easier for you to sell your trains there if you want to do-it-yourself.

 

Is DASH a mess? The DASH guys are in the learning phase right now. They're constantly monitoring the performance of the site in relationship to the traffic. They're deploying new servers and making code changes every day. We're a tough first seller to have hosted on the site due to the amount of traffic that we bring with us. Trust me when I say those guys aren't getting a lot of sleep right now.

 

Is the old TrainzAuctions site dead? Not yet, but we will close the doors on it soon.

 

Is Trainz.com a multi-location national powerhouse? We wish. We're all in Buford, except for a few remote Customer Service and Sales reps. When you receive packages from other states you're actually receiving something from one of our partners. 

 

Tested or Not? We run a business, so we have to balance our responsibility to our customers with our responsibility to our employees. That's marketing speak for we have to make money. Quick tested means we powered it up and checked the bells and whistles. Some items go to our repair shop for more extensive testing and repairs when it financially makes sense for us to do it. All of our listings have an Operational Status included to help make things a little more clear. The bottom line is that if we say something works, we'll back that up.

 

Description errors abound? Not really. We process and sell around 200 items a day in a normal month. We do make mistakes, but we learn from them. Our returns, refunds, and credits typically account for less 2% of our total sales. We track it every week. We recently gave every department within the company an opportunity to define their own goals for the next year, and every single one chose reducing that number. 

 

Is the buyers premium a scam? We don't think our customers are dumb. We fully disclose the buyers premium at every opportunity, and fully expect you to adjust your bids for it. The buyers premium helps us be more competitive on our consignment deals. We thought about selling consignment items with a buyers premium, and items we own without, but just thinking about that can get confusing.

 

Does Trainz.com double dip on markets? Yes and no. We list our new products on multiple markets, but our "collectible" items we only list to one market at a time. When you see something on both places at the same time it means someone in IT messed up, or we really have two of them. Juggling 200 new items a day isn't easy, and we're constantly finding new ways to mix things up. We're also constantly working towards making improvements to keep it from happening again.

 

What happened with the roofs? There are three or four people checking in deals in our receiving department every day. A lot of our collections are packed and boxed by our sellers or consignors, so everything isn't always where you think it should be, and sometimes things just aren't there at all. One day someone unboxed the cars and a few days or weeks later someone else found the roofs in another box and just figured the cars were missing. It's a big warehouse with lots of people milling around, no one person is aware of everything.

 

Is Trainz.com anything like a circus? Some days, Yes, but most of the time it is a well choreographed play - it has to be with the transaction volume we do. Southwest Hiawatha… We'd love to have you over to watch the show. Drop us a line, and I'll pick up the plane ticket and we'll provide all the popcorn you can eat. Actually, I am serious, contact me at 866-234-1800 and I'll have you as our guest for the day and you can see and judge for yourself.

 

What happens to the free DASH Club membership after a year? We're not sure yet. Right now we're focusing our efforts on getting DASH off the ground, once we're happy with how things are working we'll have that conversation with the DASH guys. The one thing I can assure you of is that we will always make sure our customers are taken care of.

 

Is DASH or the old TrainzAuctions better? We obviously think DASH is the answer. These guys are laser focused on providing something that works for the train collecting community at large. DASH is taking all the feedback it is receiving into consideration, and we're passing along all the feedback we receive. With time DASH will only get better. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 Thanks Scott G for the reply. And thank you for all the deals so far too.

I'm going to miss the old site too. I guess anything new takes some time to get used to.

I wish some of you would get to the website and bid on some of these trains. I can't afford to win all the stuff I want to bid on.
Scott Smith

Scott thanks for the nice, responsible response.   I sure appreciate someone admitting to mistakes, a new learning curve, and honesty.  In the internet age that can be a rarity.

I like Trainz.com, and I've bought from them on EBay; if they had a retail

store (they don't, do they?) I'd make a little day trip up to Atlanta and shop.

 

The "tune up" thing (like a "buyers premium"), though, is just infuriating, and has

already affected my bidding on their items. I have skipped two big-ish items lately because of that. If that remains, I will probably just move on, as it -seems- to be replacing testing. Quick-and-dirty testing is just fine; you're not buying this from L, M, A and so on.

 

The reasonable s/h price level is a great positive for me - until lately (see above) Trainz had been becoming my "default" eBay dealer. 

 

I do not intend to use DASH, etc. One site is enough. I also have enough RR stuff.

I don't like the buyers premium either; however when I realized that they are taking consignments it is the only way they can run a profitable business.

Scott Smith

Scott the new auction site is so slow and it's hard to navigate ..

So what's with the "Free Delivery"?? All I see is "Free" local pickup 

Chuck,

 

The "Free Delivery" is not right. We reported that to Dash last week and they fixed it, I thought, I checked a bunch of listings and it was changed. Unfortunately I see listings tonight have it on there. Their software is seeing the $0 pickup option and somehow translating it into Free Delivery. Some of these Modern O listings tonight are  actually some of the first auctions we posted, so I think the fix didn't get applied to all of our listings. 

 Oh boy Scott, I don't know what I did wrong. After searching for ten minutes I haven't even found anything for sale yet. I think I'll need to research their search engine a bit.

 Are your auctions on a separate page?? Is there an easy way to see what's for sale?

It's also worth noting that DASH is experiencing the highest site load they have thus far. They're working on getting things back in line as I type this.

No i haven't signed up either, I had bought quite a few MTH and Lionel steam engines from them on eBay over a 5 year period, then I tried one of TRAINZ "other" NON-EBAY auctions about 2 to 3 years ago.  Had a horrible experience... the auction didn't end at it's posted time, my highest bid wasn't honored..

 

After writing in three times to complain, I got one ridiculous explanation about insufficient number of bidders (no reserve auction ??) and never got a response at all to the other two emails.   I have never bought another item from them, and I doubt I'll ever spend another dollar there !   Good luck    

The site is still too slow to make it worth using.  I tried to log on Sunday evening (5/26/13) at 6:53 CST and while I was waiting for the site to load, I connected to the OGR site and went to a page on the forum and was reading it before the DASH site page finally loaded.  They really need to address this problem.

 

Don't like the new site for the auctions at all.  I wont be back.

I have to say, I have bought from Trainz on ebay and while the sale was fine, I wouldn't call it stellar.  It took two requests to get a total with combined shipping and communication was slow.

 

I still can't grasp why a buyers premium applies to all auctions on the dash site, and 15% to boot.  What is has to do with consignments boggles me.  I have purchased things on consignment from hobby shops without ever paying a buyers premium.  Typically, on consignments, consignor pays a portion of the total to the consignee for the service.  This is the way it worked when I consigned things in the past.  To try and pass that on to the buyer is poor business.

 

While some of the auction prices are appealing, add in that fee and they become very uninteresting quickly.  Then couple that with an extremely poor performing website......

 

Should have had it right before switching it on for the public.  Again, another poor business practice.  At some point, you have to listen to the customer, because I doubt you can sustain things this way.  Being is business is a tough balance, been there.  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

I had a very positive experience last evening with Trainz/DASH auction Site. The only problem I ran into was my wife who didn't understand my need for another engine and some more cars! I tried to explain "you can't have too many trains" but I forgot I used that one before!

Bill Berresford

Well, they may just be doing that.  Good luck!  I can tell you from experience that when someone quotes you a great deal on an ecommerce website to function a specific way, run away fast and find someone who quotes you a realistic price.  You get what you pay for and there is a reason ebay is still around and attempts at competition have failed.  While ebay has it's faults, it works very well and is simple in form and function.  Search function in this being key and ability to sort and drill down to the desirable items second to that. 

eBay has had a really long time to iron out their kinks, anyone who has been part of the eBay market since the beginning will gladly tell you they didn't always get it right either. Anyone remember AuctionWeb? It took a lot of iterations, and a good number of failures, to get where they are today. Some will even probably say they still don't always get it right.

 

Like all things IT we had to make some calculated guesses about the load we would generate over the first few auctions. We took all of our numbers based on the marketing we were doing and passed them on to DASH. We were spot on for the traffic we generated for the first few days, and then everything went off our forecast. The O Gauge auction Sunday night was without a doubt the biggest miss of all.

 

The DASH guys haven't skipped a beat so far, and they're still analyzing and tweaking to make sure they get things running as best they can. I'm sure if they had an eBay sized budget they would have spent hundreds of thousands generating load tests and hundreds of thousands more deploying for 200% of the estimated load. Unfortunately they don't have that type of budget, and neither do we, in the small business world, we have to do things a little differently.

 

I'm not trying to dismiss that we missed, because we absolutely did, and in the future I can assure you that we will not make that particular mistake again. We want the feedback to continue as well, we're tracking, reviewing, and prioritizing every single suggestion and complaint. For now we will continue working through the issues, and once we have things running smooth we will start delivering on the features and enhancements that people are asking for.

 

 

This past Sunday I was considering on bidding on an engine with a starting bid in the low $400.00 range. At a 15% "up-charge", that amounts to an automatic $60 plus before deciding on your initial bid!!! I could accept a 5% premium charge, but 15% is "over-the-top"  Maybe a sliding scale would be in order, especially on higher priced items. Presently, ebay will be my first choice when it comes to auctions.

I'm not sure why the 15% is such a big deal. Just do the math and figure out if its too much or not before bidding. For the most part the starting prices are lower than what you find on the Bay or even the sell/trade forum here even with the 15%.

 

Pete

I won some items this past auction and I see the 15% and what bothered me was another fee for the dash site and was directed to join dash for free when the trainz auction moved?

Hi folks. I have been too busy running the team making improvements to DASH to respond in this forum. My apologies on being "radio silent", but I assure you that we really welcome the feedback and challenge of making DASH all that it can be for the community.

 

Working with Trainz as our initial partner has been terrific.  They are a great operation.  They have also presented some challenges simply because they have such a great volume of super items, and because they have such an excited audience for those items. A little like jumping into a moving car racing down the highway.

 

Have we messed some things up?  For sure, and for that I and my team apologize. In particular, the site performance during last Sunday's O Modern auctions was really bad.  We have made a number of enhancements to the system since then, and I expect us to never see that sluggishness again.  We've tried to also be very responsive to people that contact us who might have had issues registering (please type your email address into registration carefully!)

 

We are committed to continually improving your experience on DASH, and I hope you will recognize the changes as we continue to roll them out.  I wanted to end on a positive note to say that our data shows that, despite our rocky performance on Sunday, we've successfully signed up thousands of users and have closed hundreds of successful sales.  I hope you take advantage of the free upgrade offer from Trainz and join today.  Thanks again for your feedback and support.

I have a question for Scott.

Does that Scott@trainz.com email go to you or just to customer service?

If that is not it, is there a way I can contact you directly off of this board?

I have an issue with an order that I would rather not air out in public.

I assure you I have talked,( and talked) with customer service.

Thanks

Hi Scott,

 

I enjoyed speaking with you the other day.  BTW, the server issued I spoke of then carried over to today but hopefully is resolved now - I can sure use the sleep.

 

Why am I on the forum instead of sleeping?  In a word, stupidity!  For the past 45 minutes, I've been trying to 'sign up' on the DASH sight but without success.  As a long time customer of Trainz and Trainz on 'The Bay', I thought I'd tag along to your new auction site...   I fill out your online form, click 'submit' and end right back at a blank form - frustrating!   Maybe I don't understand computer operation and should just stick with fixing networks and servers...  BTW, is there a phone number I can call at DASH to register?

 

Since I'm on a roll, I should mention that I've been to the DASH site a few days ago and I'm on it right now.  Your page load time has not improved at all.  But then I only have a 30 mip download speed.  And to think, I used to believe 14.4 was slow.

 

 

I had my eye on 3 or 4 larger items on DASH but was not able to bid during your last auction.  Perhaps I can figure it all out, get registered and hope that my bids make it through quickly in your auction 5 days from now.  Is the '3 second snipe' going to be a possibility on DASH?

 

Thanks for letting me 'bend your ear'.  I like the new site, I like some of the starting prices I'm seeing (even with the buyer's premium) and I'd love the opportunity to bid.

 

Best,

Dave

(in the Buckeye capital)

FOOTNOTE:

 

I made it!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally got registered on the DASH site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to contact Social Security tomorrow and relinquish my benefits under Part-A and Part-B since I cannot seem to change my DoB on the DASH site to anything prior to 1983...

 

Now if I can just 'snipe' the 2 items I have proudly placed on my DASH 'Watch List' come auction night; life will be good!!!!!!!!!!

 

SCOTT, if you read this; please upgrade my account on DASH based upon any 'Frequent Flyer' miles I may have on account with Trainz - THANKS!!!

 

Best,

Dave

Dave and Scott, we've taken care of the "Frequent Flyer" discount.  To change the DOB Dave, just click in the field on the My Account / Edit Profile screen and backspace over 1983.  You can replace the date by just typing.  (It drops down a monthly calendar, but unless you pick a date, it doesn't update the date field...I'm guessing that is the issue you have run into.)

 

Keep looking out for more enhancements on DASH.  We really do pay attention to the feedback submitted and we'll do what we can to make DASH work great for everyone.  The best way to get through to us for support questions is either the Contact Us form on the site or, if one of us is online, you can click to start an online chat with us.

Big difference noted:  a)  Trainz auctions,  had usually,  quite assortment, on the

accessories lines, either PW, or Modern.  Notice that has diminished !

b) viewed a 13 inch, Comet Passenger set for 153.00 -   I just purchased the 18"

    brand spanking new (un opened box), for quite less than this,  and NO , fees

    just shipping !!!

c), what little purchasing I did do with Trainz auctions, previously, I had no problems,  with Bidding, products, or the simple 15%, or arrival of product.
   Currently this change,  is to time consuming , or a) or b).

Moving on to other Avenues !!

thanks

 

In addition to making sure their physical server(s) has the needed hardware "horsepower" and having a fat enough bandwidth pipe, I would hope they also have this site virtualized using clustering with load balancing and high availability services.

Hey John. DASH runs with a high-availability architecture.  Load balanced across several servers.  Our team is very experienced with high-performance systems design and management, and we see a bunch of places to improve.  We are working across a number of these things now.  Improving performance is a top priority for us and you will see continual improvements in the coming weeks and months.  At this stage, there tends not to be a "silver bullet" that makes everything licketeddy-split, but there are a number of things we will improve that will add up to a much faster end-user experience.

 

Thanks again for your patience and know that we are working really hard to make everyone raving fans of the site.

Just curious; where is DASH's data center located?  Do you also have a colo for it?

 This dash site is confusing me. I thought I could go to the catalog tab and look for or mark items I've always been looking for. When I did that, I got nothing useful. Either that's not what it's for, or it's the worse search engine I've ever used.

 At least I now have the link to the Trainz auctions.

A note Scott at TrainZ:  I have purchased many items on Ebay.  Your company has always made good on any problem that I had. I will continue to bid on your listings on Ebay.  I do understand that Ebay's seller costs can eat into your profits.  It is too bad that Ebay does not recognize how much business you bring to Ebay.  They should offer your company a better deal to keep your listings on Ebay. Ebay and Pay Pal work for me. I have not tried your new auction site.  I have however purchased directly from your website many times with good results.  I do like "make an offer" on Ebay. It gives both the seller and the buyer the opportunity to negotiate a fair price.  This way the seller does have to "give a way" the merchandise if there are few bidders.

There are still issues with using this site.  I just tried to do a search for "Lionel Legacy".  It took 25 seconds to return the answer.  I find this unacceptable if you plan to use the site.  Personally, I still like the old Trainz auction site better.

I just wanted to make a comment about the performance of the search on the DASH site.  While we have made some significant improvements to the overall responsiveness of the site over the last week, we recognize that the search performance is slow.  We are aware of that and over the next month or two will optimize the search performance a great deal.  Thanks for the feedback!