Hornby 2018 - the full announcements

[bart2day]

But is this unique to Hornby ?

This forum is full of release dates that are not accurate across every vendor.

Projects have targets, but for all kinds of reasons the dates change.

Why the worry, it’s a train, it’s early or it’s late. Your not going to be late for work because of it.

Fair enough.

[Ozexpatriate]

... it says in catalogue “available “under the GWR 153 ...

/sarcasm=on/ Well, there's never any errors in the catalogue /sarcasm=off/

 

Bit of a tempest in a teacup this. March is only a few weeks away.  Of course people can be upset if they were planning a birthday present for someone, but clearly this isn't something to get worked up about.

 

Even the best run companies fail sometimes. Yesterday LEGO was advertising a 'free' item with a certain level of purchase. (It was a limited 'while supplies last' offer that has only been available for a few days) Apparently they ran out of the promotional item and didn't get their website fixed in time. Personally I found it frustrating when they substituted a much lower value promotional item for the one that ran out. Their customer support offered a token gesture that wasn't really commensurate either.

 

Stuff happens, even to the best.

[Oldddudders]

/sarcasm=on/ Well, there's never any errors in the catalogue /sarcasm=off/

 

Bit of a tempest in a teacup this. March is only a few weeks away.  Of course people can be upset if they were planning a birthday present for someone, but clearly this isn't something to get worked up about.

 

Even the best run companies fail sometimes. Yesterday LEGO was advertising a 'free' item with a certain level of purchase. (It was a limited 'while supplies last' offer that has only been available for a few days) Apparently they ran out of the promotional item and didn't get their website fixed in time. Personally I found it frustrating when they substituted a much lower value promotional item for the one that ran out. Their customer support offered a token gesture that wasn't really commensurate either.

 

Stuff happens, even to the best.

Sorry, Michael, but being reasonable has no place in a thread like this. Kindly desist forthwith.

[Robin Brasher]

R3662 GWR 153 diesel unit marked as available in Hornby 2018 catalogue but not due until March 2019.

 

Hornby is just following prototype practice. The Swanage Railway's service to Wareham that was due to start in April this year has been postponed until Spring 2019 because their diesel multiple unit and single unit will not be ready until then.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Robin Brasher

[The Stationmaster]

/sarcasm=on/ Well, there's never any errors in the catalogue /sarcasm=off/

 

Bit of a tempest in a teacup this. March is only a few weeks away.  Of course people can be upset if they were planning a birthday present for someone, but clearly this isn't something to get worked up about.

 

Even the best run companies fail sometimes. Yesterday LEGO was advertising a 'free' item with a certain level of purchase. (It was a limited 'while supplies last' offer that has only been available for a few days) Apparently they ran out of the promotional item and didn't get their website fixed in time. Personally I found it frustrating when they substituted a much lower value promotional item for the one that ran out. Their customer support offered a token gesture that wasn't really commensurate either.

 

Stuff happens, even to the best.

 

Ah, give 'em a chance Michael - this thread was starting to get boring so a chance of getting it locked probably wasn't a bad idea     

[Geoff Endacott]

I wonder when they are going to introduce the diesel electric class 87.

 

Geoff Endacott

[Francis deWeck]

R3662 GWR 153 diesel unit marked as available in Hornby 2018 catalogue but not due until March 2019.

 

Hornby is just following prototype practice. The Swanage Railway's service to Wareham that was due to start in April this year has been postponed until Spring 2019 because their diesel multiple unit and single unit will not be ready until then.

Well, shock horror here. Will nobody lend them  unit, e.g. 'Daisy' sat in a siding on the NYMR?

[dibber25]

Well, shock horror here. Will nobody lend them  unit, e.g. 'Daisy' sat in a siding on the NYMR?

 

The delay is connected with modifications to comply with requirements to run on Network Rail and apparently also related to availability of spare parts. 

[surfsup]

I wonder when they are going to introduce the diesel electric class 87.

 

Geoff Endacott

 

 

Did you know it also comes in Virgin Trains East Coast guise as well... 

[Francis deWeck]

The delay is connected with modifications to comply with requirements to run on Network Rail and apparently also related to availability of spare parts. 

Ta.

[bart2day]

Just a quick question about pricing:

 

Why does the price of reliveried models go up every year when the sunk costs of research, tooling etc would have been more than recouperated by then? Take the Hornby HST. The retool of the power cars was done around 2012/2013 but every HST release since then has gone up by around £20 a year. Do reliveries cost Hornby as much as a retool? Surely not. Shouldn't the price of models that are using 'old' tooling be going down or at least staying the same in real terms each year, not up? I can understand high prices for new tooling such as the 87 or IEP as the sunk costs need to be recovered but for tooling 4/5/6 years old why do prices go up when the only cost is the parts and Labour?

 

Isn't this the reasoning behind why computer hardware get cheaper as it gets older.

Edited February 10, 2018 by bart2day

[classy52]

Just a quick question about pricing:

 

Why does the price of reliveried models go up every year when the sunk costs of research, tooling etc would have been more than recouperated by then? Take the Hornby HST. The retool of the power cars was done around 2012/2012 but every HST release since then has gone up by around £20 a year. Do reliveries cost Hornby as much as a retool? Surely not. Shouldn't the price of models that are using 'old' tooling be going down or at least staying the same in real terms each year, not up? I can understand high prices for new tooling such as the 87 or IEP as the sunk costs need to be recovered but for tooling 4/5/6 years old why do prices go up when the only cost is the parts and Labour?

 

It's called fleecing your customers (Hornby & Bachmann) and/or making up for a badly run business (Hornby by all accounts), take your pick.

Remember that big old porky pie about manufacturing in China will make things cheaper, instead everything has gone north not south (actually not even stabilised) and not just with Hornby but Bachmann as well e.g. Bachmann Class 66 tooling is about 8-10 years old but we now pay nearly double for it and the specials are never below £169.95...go figure.

Now Smithers...release the hounds.

[Robin Brasher]

Perhaps Hornby does not sell as many models using the old tools so it has to charge more per model to make the same amount of profit.

 

Hornby may try and charge a higher price but market forces force the price down when the demand for models from old tools goes down and they turn into Hattons bargains.

[Fenman]

... Shouldn't the price of models that are using 'old' tooling be going down or at least staying the same in real terms each year, not up? I can understand high prices for new tooling such as the 87 or IEP as the sunk costs need to be recovered but for tooling 4/5/6 years old why do prices go up when the only cost is the parts and Labour?

...

I am curious: Hornby has made losses every year for ... well, ages. Do you think that’s a sign of a company which is charging too much for its products, or too little?

 

Paul

[bart2day]

I am curious: Hornby has made losses every year for ... well, ages. Do you think that’s a sign of a company which is charging too much for its products, or too little?

Paul

I can't really comment on that but it might be more to do with mismanagement and poor business decisions than pricing. I'm just wondering why pricing in our hobby seems to fly in the face of certain economic principles.

[Legend]

It’s cost base is out of proportion to its sales . If Oxford can sell Mk3s at £34.95 and make a profit hopefully Hornby can get to that position . They’ve got The Oxford guy to try and do that.

 

But I suspect the price is set because they know enthusiast will pay it. Well up to a point anyway.

[Brit70053]

It needs to be remembered that, some time ago, the Chinese Government legislated that factory workers wages would increase by 20% for each of the next five years. I've not kept track, but would reckon we are now in year four or five of this annual increment and that the 20% increase each year is effective on a higher base figure than the previous year. This must surely have some impact on pricing which is outside of the control of Hornby, Bachmann etc.

Not saying this accounts for all the increase in prices of existing or new models, but it must be kept in mind when trying to understand why things have become more expensive.

 

Regards,

 

John

[Clearwater]

Remember that big old porky pie about manufacturing in China will make things cheaper, instead everything has gone north not south (actually not even stabilised) and not just with Hornby but Bachmann as well e.g. Bachmann Class 66 tooling is about 8-10 years old but we now pay nearly double for it and the specials are never below £169.95...go figure.

Now Smithers...release the hounds.

Try costing up the labour time of a model at UK wage levels and then see how much cheaper China would be. The fact that Chinese prices have risen merely highlights how cheap it was to produce in China 10/15 years ago.

[MarkSG]

Why does the price of reliveried models go up every year when the sunk costs of research, tooling etc would have been more than recouperated by then? 

 

Because the largest factor in pricing is what the market will bear.

 

Another factor is to avoid making first-run models look over-priced by comparison. If repeat production runs are significantly cheaper than the first, then people who bought the first will be disgruntled. And that may affect sales of other new models, particularly if customers develop an expectation that they'll get it cheaper if they wait for a later batch.

 

Development and production costs are only relevant to retail pricing insofar as they set the floor, below which a model will not be profitable. They have practically no relevance to the upper bounds of the price. Essentially, you have two limits:

 

A - the price below which you cannot make a profit

B - the price above which you won't sell any

 

So long as A is lower than B, you can make money. And the bigger the gap between A and B, the more freedom you have to set prices in order to maximise profit (which isn't the same as the price which will maximise sales). But if B is only slightly higher than A then your freedom of movement is severely constrained. 

 

Also, pricing strategy is made across a range, not just a single item. As far as model manufacturers are concerned, the floor price (A) is higher for new models than it is for repeat production runs, because a lot of development costs are front-loaded. But customer willingness to pay (B) remains broadly the same for both (assuming the quality remains unchanged). So if your profit margins are lower on certain items, particularly new designs, then a good pricing strategy will balance that by taking a higher margin on other items.

 

Taking a long-term perspective, the expectation of repeat production runs with higher margins can justify keeping prices down on the first run. So, sometimes, new models are cheaper than they might be if you were taking a purely cost-plus approach to pricing. 

[truffy]

Remember that big old porky pie about manufacturing in China will make things cheaper, instead everything has gone north not south

 

And then the Chinese economy went into inflation.

 

TBH, it would be nice to see some of that manufacturing brought back to Europe. Communications between engineering and manufacturing might improve, so those little whoopsies don't creep in, and shipping times would plummet.

[jjb1970]

The big advantage of bringing production back in house would be flexibility in manufacturing that would come from owning the process. That doesn't necessarily mean returning manufacturing to the UK as even with increasing costs in China I am not sure many companies would see UK model production as being sensible (though it is not impossible).

[Oldddudders]

 shipping times would plummet.

 

Undoubtedly, but that would deny the infinite pleasure enjoyed by some who enjoy monitoring the SS Bloated on its way from the Far East. In the RTR sector, anticipation is very much part of the experience. 

[jjb1970]

Given gestation times of RTR models the shipping time from Asia to the UK is irrelevant.

[Caledonian]

Given gestation times of RTR models the shipping time from Asia to the UK is irrelevant.

 

Indeed. Hattons are quoting six weeks on the boat for their little bundles of joy, which is hardly significant in the overall scheme of things

[The Stationmaster]

It’s cost base is out of proportion to its sales . If Oxford can sell Mk3s at £34.95 and make a profit hopefully Hornby can get to that position . They’ve got The Oxford guy to try and do that.

 

But I suspect the price is set because they know enthusiast will pay it. Well up to a point anyway.

 

A big difference is of course that Oxford's overheads are but a fraction of Hornby's.  Anyone running their business from a private house and renting a relatively small unit on a South Wales trading estate will have pretty low overheads before they even factor in UK labour and distribution costs let alone an expensive managerial hierarchy and south east England wage rates and business premises costs.

 

So even though prices - for what are basically discretionary purchases - are actually more based on what the market will bear rather than cost plus you can afford to price down in order to get into the market if your overheads are low.  And if you use your low overheads to help you work on a quick turnover based on low prices you could establish a quite profitable business model, as Oxford have done with their diecast business.