I work part-time at a real brick and mortar train shop...N-scale exclusively(except for the HO and On30 we special order, and some Large Scale). We've got spin racks with Cal-Freight and Sunrise and BLMA detail parts. They don't fly out the door. N-scale is like 1/144th plastic modeling....most people don't see the need for details that can't be seen without bi-focals or magnifiers. Yeah, I know 1/350 photo-etch for ships sell like crazy, but those guys are a different breed anyway. They may spend a year or more on one model. HO is like 1/72 scale plastics. Detail parts abound and sell like hotcakes. Photo-etch for 1/48 and 1/35 scale armor and resin parts and turned metal barrels, etc. ad infinitum, gosh you can litereally spend more on detail parts than the kit costs, and the guys are tickeled to death it's available. Thank God we don't do plastic cars...those guys are dog nuts. Buy a $80 quart of real automotive paint to paint their model with, and most aren't that accurate to scale anyway. Detail parts in N-scale are a limited market, at best, and as the RTR model improve, the market gets more limited. BLMA, and TrainCat and others are providing you with detail parts at extreamly low prices, and S&H (priority mail) costs about the same from 1/4 ounce to 16 ounces. By the way, on S&H, you should know that corrigated shipping boxes have over tripled in price over the past two years. We can't absorb it, nor can anybody else, so expect to pay $5.25 S&H on your order, so we can put it in a free US Postal Service priority mail box to send to you. Otherwise, you'll have to pay for a $1.00(or more)for a box to ship it in, plus whatever kind of shipping you want. We recycle packing peanuts, but they cost money too, so does bubble wrap, and packaging tape and gas to go to the post office. We pay shipping from the maker or a distributor, that's money we don't make. When we try and give 20% off retail, that cuts into our profit. Heat, lights, water, telephone, rent, taxes on inventory...we'd make more running a Chinese take-out resturant, so would Chuck. I'm not asking you to kiss our feet, just understand what the LHS, e-tailer, and especially the "cottage" manufacterors go thru. They could make more money casting pewter dragons...
