There is a dealer in the southern USA who acted like once the model had left the shop, it was no longer his problem. Every time there was an issue, it was deal with Marklin.
I have to thank the staff at Marklin USA, notably Ken Brzenk, who stepped in to deal with the issues that this dealer would not handle.
If you order something from a dealer (anywhere) and it arrives defective, I would expect that dealer to exchange the item on the spot.
The problem is that if the distributor (Marklin USA) orders 25 from Germany and your dealer receives 3 of those, all being special orders (advance orders) and your model is defective or damaged, the dealer can try to return it to the distributor for an exchange, but the likelihood is that the other 22 that stocked have already been allocated or shipped out to other dealers. If you are lucky, they might still have one or two on hand, but if not, the only option was either a refund or to wait up to 4 months for the model to be returned to Germany and then repaired or replaced and shipped back to America in the next quarterly order. It was only several years later that Maerklin started providing more regular shipments from the factory.
For orders in Canada, it was Gordon Book & Co and they were even worse, because to begin with, their orders were perhaps 1% of the volume of the US distributor, meaning that in many cases, items ordered were special order and there may have only been 3 or 4 others for the whole country, especially if you were not ordering DB or NS models. At Kangourou, we had perhaps a dozen models in the display case, occasionally we ordered new items to have a stock model, but most of the business was special order for customers.
I can't tell you how many personal models I ordered from Switzerland or Germany because we could not get one from Toronto. Either they had not ordered it or on occasion, it seemed that the one that had been allocated to us ended up going to another dealer. G. Book seemed to have an unusual system for keeping track of who ordered what. Almost like it was ordered for you, but if somebody else wanted it along the way, they got it first.
The plan B was always to check with Walthers, who was then the actual distributor in the USA, to see whether they had the model in stock. A few years later when they set up the Marklin USA joint venture, it became a little easier and by then G. Book was no longer the Canadian distributor and Canadian dealers had to go through Marklin USA as well. A few years after that, dealers in North America were allowed to order direct from the factory and this meant that dealers could now return warranty issue models direct to Germany. The problem was that it would cost us $30 to send each model individually to Germany, so some dealers preferred to wait a while and send either monthly or bimonthly shipments to save money.
As a DJ, when I buy records or CDs, I liked to inspect them before paying. In many cases, I would play them at the shop to ensure that the record was not warped or that the CD would not skip.
Over the same time period as the Maerklin issues I describe, more and more records were no longer available from Canadian sources and we had to rely on imported copies from USA or Europe. I also had the pleasure of working in a vinyl shop. We would order somewhere between 2 and 10 copies of a given record. 2 if it was unknown and 10 if we believed it would be a hit. Often, if a record was well received, we would place a follow up order and hope that we could get another 5-15. Many times, we would scramble and try to locate copies from other distributors because our main supplier was out.
Just like the situation with trains, we developed a network of suppliers in UK and Europe, so we usually made the initial order from NY distributors and the records were shipped to our NY State address. I would pick them up, bring them through customs, we would then listen to them, price them and put them on the shelf and that night, a follow up order would be placed and we would hopefully receive more copies a few days later. I also discovered that if a US record was a hit, it was often licensed for other countries, so if we could not get the US copy, we would start looking for Italian, German, Dutch or UK copies to be released.
Back to trains. If a dealer does not want to be the agent of the company, you are kind of left high and dry. Distributors who don't adequately care about their customers are one reason why people shop online. Why would I buy from a shop where I have a reasonable fear of sh*t service (either from the shop or from the local distributor) if I can buy the same item from Amazon or from Germany and get better service?
A model train today can cost up to CAD$750 (500 EUR) for an average model. To me, the dealer is the agent of the company. He represents the company to me and he should represent me to the company. Too many times, the second part of that relationship is forgotten or even both parts are forgotten, because the moment that item has left the store, his focus is on getting new models to sell, because that is how he makes money. There is no money in it for the dealer in representing a brand that in many cases represents less than 2% of his revenue (compared to plastic models, North American trains, games, etc that would be found in a general hobby shop). It is a sad reality.
Those who are in Europe and have local model train shops should consider themselves extremely fortunate. They have dealers who maintain stock of locally popular models, who invest in their inventory and who are going to be better "brand ambassadors" than what happens in North America.
I would be so thrilled to be able to walk into a shop that had the selection of a Schweickhardt, Kramm, Lokshop, Roundhouse, etc... That is not my reality.
Here is my recommendation:
Step 1: Contact dealer
If not satisfied,
Step 2: Contact distributor
If not satisfied,
Step 3: Contact Goeppingen
If at any time you are not satisfied, return the item and order it from somewhere else in the network.
Not all dealers stamp the little warranty card. Matter of fact, some recent models have come only with the manual and no warranty card.
Some dealers only proof of purchase is a sales slip that lists the amount and the department. For example, toy trains are category 05, so the sales slip would shop
Category 5, $500 plus tax and the date, without specifying the make and model of the item.
If you are lucky, the dealer gives you an order confirmation or invoice that lists the make, model and details of your purchase/order.
I wonder how the law would interpret a sales slip like that in a warranty claim?
Good luck to each of you and hope that all your models are in original condition.
Regards
Mike C
