Mission Statement
Should I assume that everything is in stock at Hobby Rails?
Like so many other online stores, we have adopted a “Just In Time” policy when it comes to order fulfillment. That means that once you place your order the clock starts running and we begin the process of getting your order out to you. Many times the merchandise to complete your order is sitting on our shelves but there are times when we need to procure the merchandise to fulfill your order from one of our distributors.
Online stores that claim they have everything in stock sitting on a shelf waiting for your order are probably misleading you as there are over 100,000 model train items and it would be impossible to carry all of them in stock. We all buy from the same distributors and get the same wholesale prices. Having a large static inventory gathering dust is a burden to any e-commerce store and asks us to assume a huge cost of doing business that usually gets passed onto the customer in higher prices. Not having to bother with that problem allows us to offer you great prices.
We always strive to get a customer’s order fulfilled as quickly as possible but there are times when products become unavailable in the supply chain. This is when we can use our vast experience in the model train business to go that extra effort to search that product through our many secondary sources. If we can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.