New Features of the Trainz website

We have been working on our new website and we launched it last week. It is loaded with new features and I want to provide you with an overview of what we have done:

New Search Functionality - Whenever you search for anything, our new search results pages serve you up not only what matched your search, but items that are close matches, and it displays them in the most relevant order. Also the search results are sorted by Manufacturer, by Era & Scale (O-Postwar) , then by sub-category (Freight Cars) within each scale, and by price range. All of these can be used in combination with each other to filter out exactly the results you may wish to see. You can also sort results in these filters by popularity, price, an how recently we added them.

Most Popular & Recently Added - On the home page we now have the top ten most popular, and most recently added items by era/scale. Since we usually add over 200 items/day this will provide you with a very easy way to see what we have added in your favorite scale and also to see which items has been viewed the most.

Faster Checkout & Personalized Account Access - Now you elect to create an account for yourself and log in quickly with your user name and password. Here you also have access to view order status, shipping tracking information and past orders.

Free Informative Articles - Click on the newsboy icon and let us know what scales you are interested in the future we will only notify you of interesting information in those scales. We are still building out this process. You will also get access to 19 different articles that we have written about toy trains, from collecting MPC Era reefers to our guide to using Fastrack and building scenery.

Shipping Pricing - We have also implemented a new method of calculating your shipping charges based on the total weight and dimensions of your order. Once you look up the price of any item by entering your location with zip code, then every item will be priced when you look them up. As you add more items, shipping charges will be recalculated based on all your items. We believe you will find this much better matched to your combined orders than our previous method. International, Alaska, Hawaii, next day and second day shipping are all now automatically calculated for you - you no longer need to email us for shipping costs.

Extended Hours Phone Sales Support - We have also concurrently implemented a network of train knowledgeable sales people to help you find what you need and to provide you with train expertise. Look for the blue "I'm Available" icon to be lit up on the homepage, which tells you we have at least one agent logged in.

We have a quite a bit more on the way including recommendations and product reviews. Stay tuned.

What do you think of it so far?