MTH Find it locally on MTH sight

I do two

The loss of the MTH product locator is big for buyers. I was surprised that MTH had to "pull teeth" to get sellers to list their inventory on that site!

@Charles Richards posted:

I do two

I do three...

@Mill City posted:

I do three...

Hope it comes back - used it often

@SURFLINER posted:

Hope it comes back - used it often

I enjoyed the feature often myself, but I believe it's dead going forward. I suspect that it was a complete PITA to maintain, so not surprised it died along with the collapse of MTH. Sad...

I was just talking to a dealer (mostly MTH) earlier this week and this topic came up.

He, among many others, not happy about this.

I used that feature all the time when I was looking for an item. I am sad to see it no longer works. Problem was Dealers never kept it up to date. So many times I would call the dealer to hear him tell me he did not have the item. However that item would still be on the dealers in stock lists months later.

Agree, a useful tool for both customers and dealers. Hopefully Rich and Andy can resurrect it. @MTH

I might be mistaken, but I seem to recall Kadee once offering a product locator service...where to find specific R-T-R HO car releases.

However, I also seem to recall that service 'died' a similar death...lack of dealer participation, inventory upkeep, customer frustrations, etc., etc., blah, blah.

Speaking for the LHS at which I worked for about 20 years, it became a PITA.  We had no barcode inventory management system (WAY too much $$$$$, per the boss), so inventory mgmt was manual...pad of paper, pen/pencil, failing eyesights, seasonal ennui, employment turnover, etc.....combinations, thereof.  It had some brief success, but then.....oh, well.

As I recall for both Kadee and MTH that locator service was offered to the benefit of their dealers.  Kadee and MTH had made their money, dealers were now holding the stock.  Errors/lapses in the information began to frustrate consumers who would take their grievance out on Kadee or MTH.  After all, the locator was on their website.  It was the kind of grief you don't need when someone else is supposed to be doing the maintenance.  Ergo, .

So, I notice that Kadee has yet a dealer locator service...and I suppose MTH did too.  Now to locate a particular product, check the dealer websites, "Let your fingers do the walking"...as you go digital...pushing phone numbers into the cellphone, check magazine ads (usually 3-4 months out of date re inventory accuracy), ...more etc.,etc.,etc..

BTW:  Here's a tip for travelers...  Kadee products are pretty much a staple for hobby shops purveying model railroading items.  Their dealer listing is awesome.  So, if you're traveling to a distant city and have some time to explore shops, post the zip code, select a mileage radius your time will permit, and...voila!

FWIW, of course...

@jini5 posted:

"Problem was Dealers never kept it up to date. So many times I would call the dealer to hear him tell me he did not have the item. However that item would still be on the dealers in stock lists months later."

SOOOOOOOO true! Would have thought a service MTH provided to their dealers (and  essentially spoon fed them customers!) that they would have participated in it better. Lionel needs to do it.

@dkdkrd posted:

"As I recall for both Kadee and MTH that locator service was offered to the benefit of their dealers.  Kadee and MTH had made their money, dealers were now holding the stock.  Errors/lapses in the information began to frustrate consumers who would take their grievance out on Kadee or MTH.  After all, the locator was on their website.  It was the kind of grief you don't need when someone else is supposed to be doing the maintenance.  Ergo, .

So, I notice that Kadee has yet a dealer locator service...and I suppose MTH did too.  Now to locate a particular product, check the dealer websites, 'Let your fingers do the walking"...as you go digital...pushing phone numbers into the cellphone, check magazine ads (usually 3-4 months out of date re inventory accuracy), ...more etc.,etc.,etc..'"

There is a store in the central Midwest that I won't name, friends would tell me he had a certain MTH product in stock per his website yet EVERY time we'd call "I just sold it yesterday" or "We sold it over the weekend." Does he feel this gets him customers? We all don't even considered buying there now.

I can live with any magazine publication ad lag because they provide us seller leads when searching for products to purchase.

Sorely missed feature of the web site. Even if the dealers had sold the item in stock, if I kept calling, or emailing enough of them, more than likely, I'd find it. My knowledge of what hobby shops are out there is limited to the half a dozen or so BIG advertisers. The small, more obscure "local" shops usually were where I was successful! Now I have no way of finding anything after those half a dozen or so shops I know of.

The loss is a big one to the consumers. Sadly seems no one that can do anything about it apparently wants to!

The web developer MTH had for the Product Locator technology is long gone out of business and when they transitioned the current web site over to a new server, not all the Product Locator program navigated properly and became corrupt, so in order for it to be resurrected again it would need to be redeveloped.

It is true that it was a rather difficult process for dealers to keep their listings up-to-date because it became rather time consuming adding new items when you had to use multiple descriptions like road name, product category and sometimes decipher incorrect descriptions to just get one new them listed as "in stock".  It was even more difficult if you got several shipments a week while you sold the last particular item you had in stock daily.  The best we could do was update our list twice a month, which we did.

MTH hears us and has suggested they will get the Product Locator going again, but it isn't a top priority at the moment.  In the meantime, we have a LOT of MTH inventory in our store, most of it listed on our web site.  Better bet is to CALL or E-MAIL dealers for that item you are looking for.

I agree with everything that has already been said and now when I’m interested in a particular item I start by googling the product number and a brief description of what it is on the internet, then wait for the results which usually includes some retailers. Of course there are some listings that are dated but at least it narrows down the search and I always follow it up by either going to the retailer’s website and checking their inventory (if it’s listed) or contacting them by either phone or email.

The way I see it that’s about the best we can do - at least for now.

The MTH main website is in need of ... quite frankly a massive redesign from the ground up, and that's probably not a huge priority for them right now, let alone a sub-feature on the product website.

Which brings me to this question: What does the demand look like for a train product locator service? This is definitely a side project I've looked into over the past few years but never committed to (relative lack of demand vs development + hosting costs, along with all the other fun stuff that comes with trying to onboard users - which would be dealerships). Most of the big train websites (Trainworld, MrMuffins, etc) have very good SEO to drive traffic to them and as such looking up a model number in google will normally have them ranked near the top.