Ebay or Shopsmith Store

[mikelst]

My experiance has also been that items in stock ship fast. others can take for ever. I've had a lathe duplicator bit on order since before christmas. Other items have arrived in days.

Mike

[dlbristol]

I have done both, and had good results. However, I would be really reluctant to buy things that are difficult to ship from Ebay again. My Planer was not packed well and not treated well on the way. I had to do some work to get it back into good shape. It was still a good deal, but not as good as I thought to begin with. Some things are difficult to ship. Use only highly rated buyers and ask lots of questions. One thing about SS, is they are very good about taking care of any shipping problems. Out of stock items can take a while, but on balance, I go with SS unless I find a very good deal.

That said, I find Ebay to be fun.

[JPG]

If I were to order tonight, I would EXPECT it to arrive FRIDAY AM. This HAS been my experience. However Items backordered are a different result. They DO ship the BO parts with NO shipping charges. I have never had to nudge them to ship a partial order, and ship BO items later. They have also sent BO itemS by separate shipments. There are no concise answers to your questions, It all depends......

[tmillie]

Thanks for the tips, advice and opinions. This next question could be answered by doing a little research, but frankly, I like to discuss it with you guys on here.

Where are shopsmith items and the Mark V's manufactured, where is the plant, do they have a retail shop at the site of manufacture? Have you guys ever been there? Taken a tour, etc?? I think that would be fun little trip, maybe not for the ladies, but none the less, fun for us!

[bucksaw]

I buy off eBay for Shopsmith parts most of the time if I can find them. I know it's nice to buy from Shopsmith if it makes sense but if I need a bandsaw or other major accessory for one of my Shopsmiths, I look to eBay first. I own 2 Greenies and an early 80's and personally would never consider a new Shopsmith, but that's just me. I'd rather buy used and refurbish the item. I've also used Battles Hardware in Whittier, Ca for parts. They have been a dealer for at least 50 years and will ship to an US location.

[iclark]

Where are shopsmith items and the Mark V's manufactured, where is the plant, do they have a retail shop at the site of manufacture? Have you guys ever been there? Taken a tour, etc?? I think that would be fun little trip, maybe not for the ladies, but none the less, fun for us!

re country of origin: if you search this forum for the key word China, you will find many discussions on this. shopsmith was a wholly made-in-America business but at least some of the accessories are now imported.

as to the retail stores: at one time there were SS stores acorss the country (not sure if this was the current SS company or its predecessor). this got down to just the retail store at the factory in Ohio, but that one closed last year.

there was an owner's weekend with tours, exhibits, and classes at the factory last summer. I wasn't able to go but several members of the forum posted trip reports here.

Ivan

[robinson46176]

as to the retail stores: at one time there were SS stores acorss the country (not sure if this was the current SS company or its predecessor). this got down to just the retail store at the factory in Ohio, but that one closed last year.
Ivan

I bought my 510 new from a Shopsmith store in Indy in 1988. I made several trips back there for little added items.
I'm only about 20 miles south east of Indy but SS was on the far north side and about an hour away.
Dayton Ohio is only about a 2 hour drive for me and I was dropping in there fairly often until it closed.
This is kind of a sore spot with me (not blaming SS) as I'm sure some silly fool bean counter "proved" to them that the store was not making them any money. Many (not all) bean counters are pathetic at reading the numbers with any logic at all. You cannot operate a business with blinders on and many bean counters have tunnel vision.
"The numbers" NEVER reflect how many new units that were sold just because the guys running the store were excellent PR guys. Or how many new SS's were sold because guys like me felt comfortable buying one knowing I could, in a pinch, jump in the truck and drive there to get what I needed.
Be honest... How many of us would feel really comfortable buying one today if we were to give great importance to having new factory parts at hand for the years to come? Don't get me wrong, I have enough SS loyalty to walk in and buy a new one if I had extra loose cash (or even a strong urge) but I'm not the average possible new customer. I don't worry as much about parts supplies but most guys do and have to. The average possible new Shopsmith customer doesn't know them the way we do and many of them have doubts from hearing all of the silly horror stories that we also hear but know to be generally silly tripe.
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One of many parallels to this thought process occurred some years ago when several big chains decided (based on bean counter reports) that their catalogs were not making enough money and they decided to do away with them. What they or the BC's never saw was that many many folks like us "used" those catalogs to shop even though we maybe didn't order from them. For years my wife and I sat down with the catalogs and looked for what we wanted, read the descriptions (which were usually honest) and made our buying decisions. We then put the catalogs away and drove to the store of choice and made the purchase. Nobody EVER asked us if we came in to buy based on seeing the item in the catalog or in an ad etc. BTW, we are no longer customers at any of those stores...
Many things in business bring in more money through the back door than through the front door. many BC's are not very good at watching the back door.
We operated our stores for over 20 years. We sold and serviced a lot of vacuum cleaners. New cleaners were the gravy but the service and supplies paid the rent and kept the lights on. We kept one whole wall (pegboard) as a huge display of sweeper dust bags and filters. We had bags on that wall for almost every major sweeper ever made and a lot for some that most people had never heard of. The word got out and we had customers come in from all over Central Indiana looking for bags that they had not been able to find for years and we almost always had them. Very few of them ever left without either buying some product or service even if it was maybe completely unrelated to the bags they came in to find. Maybe they didn't even buy anything that day but they did often come back later for some product or service. Getting them in the door is half the battle.
I have never known of a bean counter that would not have looked at that wall and the direct sales from it, that would not have declared it a money loser because we had so much stock there that did not even turn once a year. Tunnel vision... It was an impressive eye-catching display unlike anything most folks had seen when hunting sweeper bags and filters. People told their friends and their friends told their friends etc.
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I fear that SS will never know how much that factory store really made for them... It is fine and good to hire bean counters but just let them count the beans and let someone with long experience running a similar business advise you on running the business and interpreting the numbers.
Look at the big picture.
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I have bought a "lot" of SS stuff off of ebay and my experience has been good in every case. I had a problem long ago on a laptop on ebay (which finally was resolved OK) but I have never had a problem with SS stuff. I even bought some SS stuff from Shopsmith themselves on ebay. Since much of what I have bought over the last few years was more or less complete machines I did pick most stuff up in person and enjoyed the "visit" with every one of them.
My ebay feedback rating is 100% and I don't hesitate to deal with someone at 98% but when it drops below 96% I look "VERY" closely at the deal and read quite a bit of their feed back first.

[JPG]

I have had one disaster and several questionable results re purchasing SS parts on e-bay. The questionable ones were due to lack of full disclosure by the buyer not blatant misrepresentation. All were overcome(rust removal/repaired), but some disappointment was experienced.

The disaster was just that. I purchased a 'collection' of parts that were stated as "A 9+ out of 10 condition". The description went on and on about how good care the seller takes of his shopsmiths and that he was just 'parting them out'

The quill spring was broken. The control sheave was totally worn out. All steel parts were rusted. The speed control worm screw was BENT! . . . .

The seller was quick to refund including original shipping and offered to refund return shipping.

This is apparently how he kept his 100% rating by totally refunding before buyer gave a negative response.

I noticed the same stuff was posted again a week or two later.

CAVEAT EMPTOR If the BS is too long in the description, move on by!:eek:

[bergdahl]

I ordered an on/off switch from Shopsmith last November 2008. Still on back order! I also recently ordered a speed reducer...again not in stock. Don't have any idea when that will come either. I love the machine...but getting parts and accessories are a challenge.

[fjimp]

I ordered an on/off switch from Shopsmith last November 2008. Still on back order! I also recently ordered a speed reducer...again not in stock. Don't have any idea when that will come either. I love the machine...but getting parts and accessories are a challenge.

I do not wish to sound unkind or make light of your concern. I am self employed owning my own insurance agency. I find that purchasing many of the basic business tools and supplies I am accustomed to purchasing anyplace at the drop of a hat must be searched for and sometimes unavailable for months at a time. My greatest prayer is that business will come to realize we cannot rely on the financial wizards of the day. Nor can we count on politicians to rebuild our society or business needs. We the people of the world must take control of our future and take the necessary risks to build a sound future for our children and grand children. My father was a young adult during the great depression he learned the hard way who and what he could depend on. He never in his life trusted bankers or politicians. I truly wish he were still around so I could hug and thank him for all of the teachings I discounted in my youth. fjimp