Hornby model shop Tiers system

[ruggedpeak]

I think the points about competition are interesting, and what we've seen re Rails and Hattons etc

 

My guess is that Hornby are fighting yesterday's war, Hornby's approach is arguably stuck in the 1980's too, with a bit of internet stuck on. It is entirely normal these days for key suppliers or partners to also be key competitors. Reacting just because a retailer commissions their own models is a recipe for disaster since it is both the present and future of the hobby.

 

John Lewis and Amazon may be an outlet for trainsets and a few lines like Argos used to be but that is a totally different segment from the model shops.

 

So I think they need some people in key posts who understand the model sector in 2021 and aren't trying to recreate the halcyon days of Yellow Pages adverts. And that does not just mean going  digital/interwebby!!!

 

 

[PeterStiles]

3 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

One thought, but John Lewis..

 

I don't expect John Lewis to be in Tier 1. Why would they need to be? I don't see them wanting or needing to be able to take pre-orders of stock or to worry about the sort of things we're concerned with here?

 

 

 

 

[Ighten]

9 minutes ago, Simon Lee said:

 

Quite honestly it's pretty poor, more like an Argos or Screwfix few items on display lots of floorspace to wander around after you have looked at the 3 or 4 display cases, and re examined the low value scenics they actually had on display.

 

If they assessed the staff member we dealt with then Hattons deserve the low rate, he constantly refused to make eye contact or acknowledge my partner who was paying for my Christmas presents, when she asked him a question or passed comment he either ignored her or answered me. The whole experience was like a bizarre twist of the Fawlty Towers Hotel Inspector episode involving Bernard Cribbins.

 

By contrast at Chester Model Centre we were both made welcome and treated well, despite not purchasing anything as they had no stock of what I was looking for. 

 

If we are on that area again then certainly WMC will be our first port of call.

 

 

 

 

 

TBF the only good thing re Hattons now is the own brand stuff(Genesis look mmmmm compared to Hornbys) the odd decent price and the trunk system(even the website is a bit messy).. The shop as I said earlier is in all practical terms non existent now and I think people seem to be under the misconception its like the old shop.  As you say the experience is exactly like a screwfix so under those reasonings I can see exactly why its Tier 3.. 

 

However does that excuse a tier system - well I suppose it does if your protecting smaller stores during a time of messed up production and stalled shipping but we will have to see if they remove it when normality returns

[adb968008]

8 minutes ago, PeterStiles said:

 

I don't expect John Lewis to be in Tier 1. Why would they need to be? I don't see them wanting or needing to be able to take pre-orders of stock or to worry about the sort of things we're concerned with here?

 

Yes but...

 

Quote

Those who have been nominated to Tier 2 tend to be the types of outlet that will also include heritage centres or museums. Those outlets designated Tier 2 must also be able to offer help, support and advice for their customers and are willing to promote Hornby products. Tier 2 retailers will include those on-line retailers who are also prepared to offer help, support and guidance to their customers.

Back in the 1990’s this was a similar requirement, back in the 1990’s Hornby had a service dealer program (I was registered in it, in 1993). This was a form of Tier for customers, based on a retail shop that sold, and a retail shop that also provided service.

 

That was much clearer and easier for the public to understand.

Whilst a service dealer had to repair any Hornby product, often those from the supermarket, they benefitted the ability to showcase a much broader depth of product... it was a sales channel from High St to Hobby specialist.

 

Where did you buy your 2nd, 3rd, 4th.. models from ?

Edited May 26, 2021 by adb968008

[spamcan61]

3 minutes ago, Ighten said:

However does that excuse a tier system - well I suppose it does if your protecting smaller stores during a time of messed up production and stalled shipping but we will have to see if they remove it when normality returns

Amazon aren't a smaller store.

Edited May 26, 2021 by spamcan61

[GeoS]

If a shop is devoting significant space to Corgi and Scalextric, is it really what you want a model railway shop to be doing?

[Ighten]

1 minute ago, spamcan61 said:

Amazon aren't a small shop.

Not sure what you mean - the main user of Amazon is Hornby itself and one or two other shops who use it as a storefront rather than have there own website

[RedgateModels]

Just now, GeoS said:

If a shop is devoting significant space to Corgi and Scalextric, is it really what you want a model railway shop to be doing?

 

Why? The best shops when I was a kid (Gee Dees, Skills etc) all stocked other products other than trains. Trains4U cavers a wide range of products and is still my go to place for mail order etc

[melmerby]

12 hours ago, Tim123 said:

TrustFord, previously Dagenham Motors and Polar Motors, owned by Ford Retail.

I stand corrected.

Just looked it up and it is an "arms length" company with its own board but wholly owned by Ford.

 

[Dunsignalling]

57 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

 

Become a competitor is more like it. It's pretty clear from the press release that thou shalt not commission products that are in competition with Hornby's territory.

Catch 22, as Hatton's didn't (presumably) know Hornby had begun to develop generic pre-group coaches until it was too late. The same probably applied to the Rails Terrier. Who was to know that a wholly unimproved model made from tooling bought in from another manufacturer many years before could be so pivotal to Hornby's soul. 

 

That makes it pretty certain that someone else will tread on SK's over-sensitive toes and (as before) we'll only know if claims that Hornby's version was already well advanced are half-baked if the production models once again turn out to be!

 

John

Edited May 26, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

 

John Lewes also shut their Birmingham store - again a bit odd that it didn't work out in the UKs 2nd largest City (IIRC) but does work for them in smaller places like Reading.

 

Ikea also shut their Coventry store - yet generally speaking it seems to have a large fan base and is extremely popular with certain demographics quite a lot of which live reasonably close to Coventry.

I was surprised when John Lewis announced the Birmingham shop was to close as when ever I visited t was busy and people were buying stuff.

(AFAIK it didn't have a Hornby concession)

It was in total contrast to House of Fraser's (Rackhams) moribund store which seems to be carrying on well past it's best by date.

 

One of the problems with physical stores like JL is they can be like a 3D version of the Argos catalogue and I admit that I have browsed items in the shop only to order them from their online shop* but I have carried out smaller items.

 

 

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

Some people seem to be fixated about JL and its very simplified range of products and service.

 

As someone has already mentioned, Edinburgh is a major tourist centre.  In fact I think I have seen it described as the second most visited city in the UK and if not at that position it will be very high up the list.

 

John Lewis is a major (still) and well known department store and many visitors, especially from outside the UK, will go for a stroll around.  Just as they would go for a stroll round Harrods if they were in London.

 

So the promotion of a few complete train sets would seem to be entirely appropriate to tap what is currently a closed market for Hornby.  

 

It is not supposed to be a model railway store in the sense that anyone here would understand.  It is I would suggest to sell high quality tourist tat - for want of a better term.  As such it is on a tier of its own.

[Monkey28]

14 hours ago, Ouroborus said:

It seems a strange thing that Hornby view a stores website as a big thing when Hornby's own Amazon store is poorly laid out and doesn't list many of the items that it actually sells.  If running a website is so easy but such a deal breaker, time to get its own house in order first.

 

I think back my previous and current local model shops.  The former didn't have a website, the latter does.  Both had/have an owner who was at the end of a phoneline and would move heaven and earth to get you what you asked for.  

 

Given the choice between an owner who says 'leave it with me and I'll see what i can do' versus a website that simply says 'out of stock', i know which i'd rate as Tier 1.

 

Hornby's own website is awful despite management promises of improvements so I don't think there in any position to give anyone a lecture their website 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Monkey28

[Ian Hargrave]

49 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Amazon aren't a smaller store.

 Indeed not. But it will be interesting to monitor their Hornby section for stock levels and items for sale over the coming weeks. If the tier system takes effect there should....theoretically.....be a dwindling of these. If they increase then we have a marked dual standard to contemplate 

[MrTea]

2 hours ago, Markwj said:

Did hattons know what tier they were in and the implications before or after the 2021 launch. The difference being they took pre orders knowing they may have difficulty fulfilling them being in tier 3 or did Hornby bring in the tier system after orders had been placed?

Also were they prompt in cancelling my pre orders when they knew which tier they were in?

 

I've always liked ordering from Hattons over the years. I have fond memories of brown paper parcels arriving very promptly from Smithdown Road in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

I don't know if anyone's got the latest Railway Modeller (I haven't had chance to check other mags yet) but I think the answer is hiding in plain sight with regards to Hattons' current relationship with Hornby.

 

They have 2 double pages of advert in the June issue (12a-15a) and out of approx 60 products featured on the first double page spread there are only 4 Hornby products (1 loco, 1 train set and 2 turnouts) featured! Most tellingly, of the upcoming products featured on p12a there are NO new Hornby products, the majority are Dapol or Heljan across 00, N and 0 scales. I seem to remember they've previously featured upcoming Hornby products e.g. A2/3 in this area.

 

The second double page spread covers their second hand/buy back service.

 

Q: Of those who had pre-order with Hattons, did you have to put down a deposit or pay in full? Or was it payment when the goods arrive with the retailer?

[Markwj]

1 minute ago, MrTea said:

 

I've always liked ordering from Hattons over the years. I have fond memories of brown paper parcels arriving very promptly from Smithdown Road in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

I don't know if anyone's got the latest Railway Modeller (I haven't had chance to check other mags yet) but I think the answer is hiding in plain sight with regards to Hattons' current relationship with Hornby.

 

They have 2 double pages of advert in the June issue (12a-15a) and out of approx 60 products featured on the first double page spread there are only 4 Hornby products (1 loco, 1 train set and 2 turnouts) featured! Most tellingly, of the upcoming products featured on p12a there are NO new Hornby products, the majority are Dapol or Heljan across 00, N and 0 scales. I seem to remember they've previously featured upcoming Hornby products e.g. A2/3 in this area.

 

The second double page spread covers their second hand/buy back service.

 

Q: Of those who had pre-order with Hattons, did you have to put down a deposit or pay in full? Or was it payment when the goods arrive with the retailer?

It was always payment when goods arrive no deposit or anything so I did not lose out financially but a pain to locate stock and reorder with another retailer.

[Dunsignalling]

29 minutes ago, MrTea said:

 

I've always liked ordering from Hattons over the years. I have fond memories of brown paper parcels arriving very promptly from Smithdown Road in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

I don't know if anyone's got the latest Railway Modeller (I haven't had chance to check other mags yet) but I think the answer is hiding in plain sight with regards to Hattons' current relationship with Hornby.

 

They have 2 double pages of advert in the June issue (12a-15a) and out of approx 60 products featured on the first double page spread there are only 4 Hornby products (1 loco, 1 train set and 2 turnouts) featured! Most tellingly, of the upcoming products featured on p12a there are NO new Hornby products, the majority are Dapol or Heljan across 00, N and 0 scales. I seem to remember they've previously featured upcoming Hornby products e.g. A2/3 in this area.

 

The second double page spread covers their second hand/buy back service.

 

Q: Of those who had pre-order with Hattons, did you have to put down a deposit or pay in full? Or was it payment when the goods arrive with the retailer?

The June issue adverts will already be reflecting Hornby's action, I'd think, which speaks volumes.

 

As for pre-orders, no money changes hands but, when placing one with a retailer who accepts it, I expect to get the model, and I consider that the retailer has a right to a similar expectation that I'll go through with the purchase.

 

IMHO the same should apply between retailers and manufacturers and if the latter accept x orders from the trade, they are under a moral obligation to fulfil them. If they cannot, they should either increase production levels to facilitate it or (if that isn't possible) make the position clear at the outset.

 

I have a certain sympathy for Hornby in that I get the impression that it was not they who first moved the goalposts, and they had already accepted orders prior to that. However, their subsequent actions and, even more, their attempted justifications for them have been "clunky" to put it kindly.

 

John

Edited May 26, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Free At Last]

A difference between Hattons, Screwfix, Toolstation and Argos is that Hattons' shop counter has not yet re-opened to the public.

[Edwardian]

I should have thought we'd all had enough of tier systems. Having been stuck Tier 3 since August last year until a week ago, I find the idea rather off-putting!

 

Recent history should have taught us the dangers of casually consigning Liverpool to Tier 3. But how soon we forget. 

 

This Hornby announcement smacks of management's Next Big Idea to get the company out of financial Queer Street; grandiose, over-complicated and ill-conceived, redolent of the Next Big Push that will break the stalemate of the trenches (or, more likely, simply prove to be another gargantuan effort to move General Melchett's drinks cabinet 6 inches closer to Berlin). 

 

 

[Phil Parker]

35 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Some people seem to be fixated about JL and its very simplified range of products and service.

 

As someone has already mentioned, Edinburgh is a major tourist centre.  In fact I think I have seen it described as the second most visited city in the UK and if not at that position it will be very high up the list.

 

John Lewis is a major (still) and well known department store and many visitors, especially from outside the UK, will go for a stroll around.  Just as they would go for a stroll round Harrods if they were in London.

 

So the promotion of a few complete train sets would seem to be entirely appropriate to tap what is currently a closed market for Hornby.  

 

It is not supposed to be a model railway store in the sense that anyone here would understand.  It is I would suggest to sell high quality tourist tat - for want of a better term.  As such it is on a tier of its own.

 

I've been doing a little digging with Hornby and it seems that that John Lewis space and staff support was provided for free, in return for the layout.

 

JL sell a limited range of sets, but put the name in a prominent location, in addition to a huge amount of press and publicity.

 

 

From this article in the Scotsman.

 

[spikey]

1 hour ago, RedgateModels said:

 

Become a competitor is more like it. It's pretty clear from the press release that thou shalt not commission products that are in competition with Hornby's territory.

 

Wasn't that in their T & Cs anyhow?

[spikey]

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 ...  Queer Street ...

 

Are we still allowed to say that?

[Edwardian]

Just now, spikey said:

 

Are we still allowed to say that?

 

If a word is allowed to have more than one meaning, perhaps.

[LimboBrit]

33 minutes ago, MrTea said:

Q: Of those who had pre-order with Hattons, did you have to put down a deposit or pay in full? Or was it payment when the goods arrive with the retailer?

Payment on shipping

[atom3624]

Same here, payment on shipping - no deposit.

 

Pretty poor show by Hornby here.

 

Al.