Not sure if anyone here would actually know, but I'm curious as to what brought about the N Gauge Society starting up it's shop for members.

Anyone know the history?

Jim F

I would presume that one factor would have been that before the internet it would have been hard for members to buy or even find the items they wanted.  So, what better way than to have a single place to get the items that you need?!

Of course, not everything is in the shop, but the principal is there. 

Quite simply as a service to members.

As Tank says at a time pre-internet it was a useful one stop shop.  Even with the advent of the internet it is still possible to get some hard to find items from the NGS shop (even easier with online ordering for most items now available).

Also it gives a retail platform for the NGS's range of kits, transfers, nameplates, bits and RTR etc.

Cheers

Mike

(NGS Product Development Officer)

The NGS is a very long-lived organisation  that dates back to the mid 60s and had it's origin closely tied with another venerable institution,  Railway  Modeller magazine.

However, there are many folk here who are actually involved in the running of the NGS, so they can take it from here....!   

The NGS shop is also something of a one-stop-shop for kit builing supplies. I can get the wheels, buffers, nameplates and transfers for a kit all with a single order rather than having to contact several individual suppliers (and pay multiple postage costs).

The shop may also help cottage industries by being able to buy a batch of parts in one go so that the manufacturer does not have to keep the stok themselves. I do not know if this is actually part of the shop's aim or merely a happy by-product.