Hornby model shop Tiers system

[Phil Parker]

17 minutes ago, cbrooks122000 said:

Actually Hornby did that with their Blue Merchant Navy, I waited 3 years for them to deliver. Do you honestly think that if it wasn't model railways that they would get away with it. Go away and read why BSA/Triumph folded in the 70's it was all to do with being late with all their models, giving the Japanese a foothold, which eventually killed the company.  Their Trident was about 5 years late going to production, by which time the Honda 4 had arrived.

 

And that is relevant to model railways how? I think you'll find that the idea some other company is going to ride over the horizon to replace Hornby or anyone else with a range is fantasy. There are newcomers, some who have been around for longer than the 5 years it takes to develop a Trident, and they haven't destroyed anyone like the Japanese bikes destroyed the British motorbike industry.

 

The point you are missing though, is that another poster actually wants those long announcement times. So which one of you is right? You can't both be.

[Phil Parker]

13 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

As I understand it Rapido operate on a totally different business model in that customers have to pre-order and ONLY when a certain threshold has been reached does production happen. Even then there will be a cut off - if you haven't pre-ordered before such and such a date then you will find it hard to get hold of them as the exact amount Rapido order from the factory is basically the number of pre-orders they have received.

 

All very different from Hornbys model which basically involves placing an from the factory for a specific number of models before the customer even knows the model is going to be made.

 

Rapido are only just moving to making stock - if Hornby went this way, then there would be no stock for the shelves of model shops. Which, bearing in mind this thread, would solve all of the problems. No Tiers and just direct sales. No train sets in the shops for newcomers in the hobby, which would mean it would gradually die out. Happy days!

[Widnes Model Centre]

41 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Apart from those who told me they just couldn't get X, y and z for a while - I'm thinking certain accessories.

 

That certainly hit the buffers from memory? Difficult to track certain items? 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Widnes Model Centre

[The Stationmaster]

5 minutes ago, Islesy said:

All that was left in my draw were some old Extra Strong Mints, a couple of TTS Decoders and a list of potential new models…

Ooh , so that's where the 'Titfield Thunderbolt' came from -  complete with an aroma of old moth balls Extra Strong Mints and a TTS decoder. 

[JohnR]

16 minutes ago, Islesy said:

All that was left in my draw were some old Extra Strong Mints, a couple of TTS Decoders and a list of potential new models…

 

Which TTS decoders? I'm after a Class 20 one, and might have to raid your old office.....

[The Stationmaster]

10 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Rapido are only just moving to making stock - if Hornby went this way, then there would be no stock for the shelves of model shops. Which, bearing in mind this thread, would solve all of the problems. No Tiers and just direct sales. No train sets in the shops for newcomers in the hobby, which would mean it would gradually die out. Happy days!

But if the contents of their newsletters always apply to whatever they announce Rapido have long been selling to retailers should the latter care to place an order.  Doesn't guarantee the item will be made, doesn't mean the retailer will actually invest in holding stock beyond meeting their own pre-orders but it does mean retailers could order stock.  So rather neatly it avoids Rapido holding stock themselves.   But to work that way needs careful approval and quality control procedures to ensure that what is run for each model matches their spec.

[APOLLO]

An hour ago Oliver Cromwell was £132 at Amazon, 7 in stock. I was thinking about it.

 

Now £173.26 with 4 in stock. (Dispatched and sold by Jadlam)

 

No thanks Mr Bezos / Jadlam. 

 

Brit15

[Phil Parker]

11 minutes ago, cbrooks122000 said:

Funny you are not the first person to say that in a particular industry, then a few years later the firm goes "legs up". I think they call it complacency. Personally, if they can't produce it within a year don't put it in the catalogue, but then perhaps I am different. I used to work in software and electronics where a year is an awful long time, plus the fact that if I can't get the latest model it is not the end of the world.

 

So, how do you respond to those posters in Bachmann forums now complaining about the 3 monthly announcements and demanding the firm go back to the longer lead times?

[CUCKOO LINE]

42 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Rapido are only just moving to making stock - if Hornby went this way, then there would be no stock for the shelves of model shops. Which, bearing in mind this thread, would solve all of the problems. No Tiers and just direct sales. No train sets in the shops for newcomers in the hobby, which would mean it would gradually die out. Happy days!

Surely the real issue is when they announce a product they already know how many they,ve got in production so shouldn't,t be rocket science to work out an allocation when people try and order and guarantee within reason that amount. 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, cbrooks122000 said:

Actually Hornby did that with their Blue Merchant Navy, I waited 3 years for them to deliver. Do you honestly think that if it wasn't model railways that they would get away with it. Go away and read why BSA/Triumph folded in the 70's it was all to do with being late with all their models, giving the Japanese a foothold, which eventually killed the company.  Their Trident was about 5 years late going to production, by which time the Honda 4 had arrived.

What really gave the Japanese the foothold was the British manufacturers giving up on smaller bikes.

 

They all thought that when lads wanted to trade up  from the Honda or Suzuki 250s they learned on, they'd come running back. Even before the magnificent CB750 came along, anybody lucky enough to have ridden a CB450 rapidly realised it could match anything 200cc bigger made in the UK, even if you did need to buy a better set of shocks!

 

By contrast, BSA/Triumph developed a cracking little dohc 350 twin that went like a 500 but could be chucked around like a 250, and didn't drink petrol like a Jaguar (as the fast Jap strokers did if you used the beans) then failed to put it into production. 

 

Johnsorry

Edited May 27, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Colin_McLeod]

2 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

No they're not. No consideration having been exchanged.

 

It depends on the wording of the contract.  Two parties are in a state of contract when consideration and service/supply have been agreed.  Payment of consideration usually comes later.

[CUCKOO LINE]

26 minutes ago, cbrooks122000 said:

I think from what I am learning is that they think about making a product, put it in their catalogue. See how many orders they get. Then they decide how many to make looking at breakpoints for production costs. If they don't have enough to meet the market, then tough. Funny though, other than for a few models, there does always seem to be ones around. I think you can still get the Blue Merchant Navy and a lot of the A2.3 models.

There does seem an element of worrying too much about what other people are doing and trying to get one over on them than concentrating on their own business plan and sticking to it

[Bernard Lamb]

16 minutes ago, cbrooks122000 said:

 

 

As to Hornby, I think as they have started making a profit, complacency is setting in. From my point of view they have lost the modern image market, Bachmann make better models. Even Heljan with its latest class 86 has improved. Dapol models are also getting a lot better. So if these manufacturers turn that technology onto their steam locos, Hornby could have an issue. 

Nah. Hornby are going to knock out a few special editions and make a killing. A Britannia named Canute and an A4 named Ostrich for a start.

Bernard 

[Roy Langridge]

25 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

It depends on the wording of the contract.  Two parties are in a state of contract when consideration and service/supply have been agreed.  Payment of consideration usually comes later.

 

Indeed, I am puzzled as to where this concept of money having to have changed hands for a contract to be valid has come from. In my business I have had £100Ks worth of contracts, with penalty clauses etc. that are valid and enforceable long before any money changes hands.

A contract is based on a formal agreement (not necessarily written) between two parties for the exchange of things between the parties - money does not even have to be one of the things.

Roy

[Widnes Model Centre]

 

Still suffering from a bad back with lots of trapped nerves. Plenty of time unfortunately to think what has happened. No startling revelations, no insider information but just thoughts.

 

For as long as l can remember, Hornby have never had a Back 2 Back ordering system for trade customers. I seem to recall when we first opened one did exist. Hopefully some retailers will remember.

 

The current system of announcements in January. We get a preview of the new items about half an hour before  Andy Y puts them on here. We then jump onto here and can see all the details with R numbers etc. In previous pre Covid years we could and would travel to Margate to see them in the flesh. This could be over a period of a few days depending on how many retailers were attending. Ordering was through our rep and he would go away with a whole bunch of papers. Airfix, Hornby, Scalextric, Humbrol and Corgi. I presume at the end of the week he would have seen al his customers and had order forms from non attendees  sent to him. These order forms were huge as they contained every single item on them sold by Hornby. Presumably they were then entered into an order system. Then we would wait....... well you know what would happen, you would wait too.

 

January 2020, Centenary Year. Not only did Hornby make announcements but they even said a lot of stock would be delivered that same year. Uhh, no way, better get our orders in.

 

Now using my imagination. We put our orders in, via email using these huge forms Hornby have. I have just looked at one and there appears to be over 1200 lines just on the Hornby Railways form. Every retailer sends one of these forms. They then land on the sales assistants desks and they input the information into a computer. That’s how it seems to work. I presume then and only then can they see that 1,947  Flying 66’s have been ordered. Now work out who gets what. How many did we make? 

 

Then we get get an email confirmation of what we have ordered, if we can actually remember what we ordered.

 

Phil Parker has mentioned today that Hornby will soon be making their plans for the 2023 range. Logic says that 2020 may have been even earlier due to Centenary items. But this years releases would have been 2018. 

 

Had Hornby or any other manufacturer foreseen a pandemic that would see us spending our beer, cinema, sports, restaurant money on our hobby they might have made more.

 

Anyone asleep yet?

 

We can order off a number of suppliers using B2B and if l order 10 items and there is only nine available it will tell me. That B2B System immediately tells our suppliers what we have ordered. 

Not so with Hornby in my opinion due to the manual entry system.

 

The B2B system would at least tell Hornby what volume has sold. What it wouldn’t stop is one retailer ordered 2,000 and taking the lot. 

 

Hornby would still need to have an allocation policy to ensure as many retailers as possible got some stock.

 

Some companies would just sell the lot to the first buyer and announce that everything was sold out.

 

Thanks for reading this if you have got this far, look forward to either being agreed with laughed out of the forum.

 

Always good to end on some sort of realisation. Is it actually a ‘Computer Error’?

 

[Phil Parker]

Barry's post seems to sum up the current position perfectly. Looking at the comments on this thread, there is no perfect solution to keep everyone happy and no amount of discussion is going to find one.

 

The thread is now so far off topic and heading in so many tangents, I think it's time to either clean it up or lock it. Since cleaning would require dozens of off topic post to be removed, I'll lock it so they are preserved for posterity.  If anything material changes, we can reopen it.