Hobby Search

[JR 500系]

Sales have started... but it is quite boring... Nothing much really.

 

This is worth it though: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10116551

[cteno4]

As usual a few small bits there of interest but many were sold out by the time I got around to looking this evening!

 

Jeff

[Das Steinkopf]

Sales have started... but it is quite boring... Nothing much really.

 

This is worth it though: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10116551

What the usual selection of Moriya Studio train marks that nobody wants to buy.

[bill937ca]

I placed an order with HS tonight and I noticed the newsletters are now split into Model Train N and Model Train HO/Z.  If you are interested in HO or Z you need request the new newsletter.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/newsletter/104

[JR 500系]

Just a quick shout out...

 

Received an email this morning regarding a quick sale on HS to start today, 6th Feb at 12pm Japan time.

 

Sale is on!

 

I am happy to say I can fully avoid this sale!   :)

Edited February 6, 2017 by JR 500系

[VJM]

Hmm... me too.  Lots of reasonably nice stuff, but nothing I actually want.

[katoftw]

Nothing for me.  Prices aren't that great either.

[marknewton]

Something for me, though. :)

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10343986

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[IST]

At this time I won't buy anything. Nothing really interest me.

[nah00]

I could possibly turn a small profit buying an FEF-3 and reselling it here....

[bill937ca]

2017/04/27 Regarding our operation during the "Golden Week" Holidays

We will be operating according to the Japanese calendar.
We will not be operating between 3rd May (Wed) ~ 5th May (Fri)
and orders received during the holidays will be shipped after 8th May (Mon).
(Note: All dates are in Japan time GMT+9)

We will be accepting orders during the holidays, but are likely to see
delays in shipment and dealing with mail etc. after the holidays.
We apologize for your inconvenience, but we greatly appreciate your
understanding of this matter.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/infodetails

Edited April 27, 2017 by bill937ca

[velotrain]

Bargain Sale will start from 12:00PM of 9th May., Japan time[GMT].
We have many bargain items, so don't miss this opportunity!

 

11 AM EDT

 

What I've never understood is just how to find the bargain items on their site?

[bill937ca]

Bargain Sale will start from 12:00PM of 9th May., Japan time[GMT].

We have many bargain items, so don't miss this opportunity!

 

11 AM EDT

 

What I've never understood is just how to find the bargain items on their site?

 

The Bargain Sale will appear at the appointed hour near the top of Model Train N Store navigation column on the left side of the screen.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/rail/

 

It's not time yet.  :)

[velotrain]

I don't understand why the Category value is always being reset to All Categories, which seems like a pita.

 

I'm certain well over 90% of all customers shop in only one, or two categories at the most.

 

About a month ago I suggested that the value remain set to what each customer last used.

 

What I can't comprehend is just what the possible downside to that might be?

 

Time to bug them on this request.

[cteno4]

charles,

 

depending on the system they are starting with, adding the programming to set the category for search to the one you are in can potentially be a lot of work and also get you into monkeying with deeper code that can cause other bugs. this happens with a lot of systems and sub search selections like this. HS does not have a team of programmers like amazon or ebay to always do this level of programming and with it being a potential pandoras box of accidentally making new bugs its usually much wiser not to get into some of these things, it can get costly. Maintaining these systems ends up being way more costly than the development.

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

It has began!

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/list/758/0/1

 

And I am glad to say loudly : SAFE! Nothing much that really interested me enough to hit that cart button, but there are a few good bargains...

[velotrain]

charles,

 

depending on the system they are starting with, adding the programming to set the category for search to the one you are in can potentially be a lot of work and also get you into monkeying with deeper code that can cause other bugs. this happens with a lot of systems and sub search selections like this. HS does not have a team of programmers like amazon or ebay to always do this level of programming and with it being a potential pandoras box of accidentally making new bugs its usually much wiser not to get into some of these things, it can get costly. Maintaining these systems ends up being way more costly than the development.

 

jeff

 

Jeff -

 

I was a programmer, systems analyst, and tech trainer for over a quarter-century, so feel the need to disagree with your questionable "worst-case" analysis.  While we clearly can't know the precise platform and languages used by HS, I think the issues here are generic enough that it doesn't really matter just what their environment is.

 

Since your user name is displayed at the top right of the screen, it obviously has access to the customer profile.  That being the case, it can initialize the Search Category field with the default value from your profile.  The customer has the option to change the default by using the existing function and pull down menu.  Minimal coding required.

 

The default value for Search Category would be set at the time a new customer registers on the site.  This could potentially tie-in to triggering Newsletter selection.  A change during any particular site visit could be temporary (as it is now), or permanent - as HS chooses.  No doubt they do periodic maintenance work on the system, and these minor changes could be implemented then.  I really don't comprehend why you're suggesting all sorts of potential dire consequences.

 

Charles

[cteno4]

Charles

 

I to have done similar things in my career. Many of these systems these days are very prepackaged and just modifed by the folks setting them up without the knowledge, resources, and or funding to do customization/reprogramming like this. Some packages are open source and easy to research and modify with lots of available examples, others are much more proritory and not well documented for digging in. Like you say we do know and I was just pointing out that it could be something doable of it's the right system and programmer or something out of the question for something this minor if not an open system or they have deeper programmer resources.

 

It's not dire conveniences but the potential for introducing new bugs adding a new feature, you should know this equation from your system analyst vs programmer days depending on how well the programming is and the skill of the programmers you are using.

 

it appears it's not worth it to them to take up your suggestion, so a moot point anyway.

 

Jeff

Edited May 9, 2017 by cteno4

[velotrain]

>  it appears it's not worth it to them to take up your suggestion, so a moot point anyway

 

As John Paul Jones said, "I have not yet begun to fight!"

 

 

I have found that persistence pays with them - I managed to get a refund for that really crappy "rubber rail".

[kvp]

The HS site seems to be an off the shelf program that has only skin modifications, but the code is kept as it is. If they want to use future upgrades, they should not modify the code. This is the same as with the JNS site code that is a standard forum software. It would be very easy to add filtering to disallow first posters posting any links and thus making posting spam very hard, but the site code would be changed and future upgrades would just either overwrite it or would have to be carefully merged or in the worst case the feature reimplemented every time. Essentially it's just not worth it to tamper with the existing code. HS could just post this request to the programmers, but having a filter that auto resets to include 'other awsome offers' from the HS store is actually a nice feature from the seller's viewpoint. Actually this is what ebay does implicitly in case of a 0 result search.

[cteno4]

And commercial software templates like this usually does not add requested features until enough customers have requested it as others may not want it to behave that way on their site. Every feature costs them $$ to add and unless they can see a clear benny to more sales (or major enough to boost the price) it won't happen. With web software as well that has to live into the future much (like a commercial storefront) you also have the permutation delema with platforms, OSs and browsers. Keeping everything happy as all these change rapidly is a juggle so small features can be a nightmare.

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

How 'bout them sales huh?

[Darklighter]

How 'bout them sales huh?

 

I'm very disappointed in HS: Not a single Moriya Studio train mark is on sale!  :(

[Suica]

How 'bout them sales huh?

Breaking News: All the cool stuff is sold out.

[velotrain]

Breaking News: All the cool stuff is sold out.

 

So this means that the Cassiopeia Add-On Set A was the only cool stuff?