'Genesis' 4 & 6 wheel coaches in OO Gauge - New Announcement

[GWR-fan]

6 hours ago, kevfisher said:

Best of luck longchap - and hope you get to see them. I too was well impressed the the quality and look of the coaches.
..
But unfortunately for me Hattons have decided to cancel my preorder after 18 months with the good old
.... "We have now received our finalised numbers for these models and due to the popularity of this project, I am afraid that we are having to cancel your order as we are unable to fulfill it."
I could try reordering - but with a Dec23 eta, and this cancel causing a bit of a bad taste ...  I may just have to put up with the Hornby ones..

 

Could you please advise when you received this email as after an enquiry a week or two ago about an order that had not been sent,  I was advised that I only had one open order on the books and that was for six Genesis Southern coaches.  Nothing was said about my pre-order on twenty GWR coaches and a few departmental coaches.  Perhaps I may receive such a cancellation email as well.  The items still show as pre-orders but not as open orders.

 

Last year I purchased a rake of the Hornby version in case of a potential cancellation.  Perhaps I have jinxed myself.   Personally,  I prefer the Genesis version.

[kevfisher]

I received the cancellation email yesterday morning (30th) - I was so disappointed/angry.
- very wary about reordering - 16months plus eta - what's to say it won't happen again...
.. I agree that perhaps it's the sets they are taking down - maybe to fulfil more individual coach orders.

Hopefully yours will arrive - and lucky me has won the Hattons 'you did not want the coaches Really'... lottery..☹️

Edited August 31, 2022 by kevfisher

[Venator]

I loggedin to my Hattons account to check on the status of my orders in response to the RM web discussion above. I note a number of items I have pre ordered, including the 4 packs of SE&CR and SR coaches, now say sold out on preorder.  It is dissapointing when people have waited for many years only to be told they cannot now have the item a few months before its actually released. I have x16 SE&CR coaches on order and x8 SR and I really hope Hattons will fulfill this given I've had some items on preorder for almost 2years. I'm hoping no news is good news!

Edited August 31, 2022 by Venator

[Kelly]

2 minutes ago, Venator said:

I loggedin to my Hattons account to check on the status of my orders in response to the RM web discussion above. I note a number of items I have pre ordered, including the 4 packs of SE&CR and SR coaches, now say sold out on preorder.  It is dissapointing when people have waited for many years only to be told they cannot now have the item a few months before its actually released. I have x16 SE&CR coaches on order and x8 SR and I really hope Hattons will fulfill this given I've had some items on preorder for almost 2years. I'm hoping no news is good news!

 

I'm guessing they've been under supplied by surprise or there has been a problem with the production causing less than expected acceptable models. Equally costs could have increased to make the batch sizes difficult. All speculative of course though. 

 

Hopefully they'll do further runs and satisfy customers. I guess the Hornby offering will still be available to fill some of the gap.

[amdaley]

42 minutes ago, Venator said:

I loggedin to my Hattons account to check on the status of my orders in response to the RM web discussion above. I note a number of items I have pre ordered, including the 4 packs of SE&CR and SR coaches, now say sold out on preorder.  It is dissapointing when people have waited for many years only to be told they cannot now have the item a few months before its actually released. I have x16 SE&CR coaches on order and x8 SR and I really hope Hattons will fulfill this given I've had some items on preorder for almost 2years. I'm hoping no news is good news!

 

I logged on to my Hattons account as well & noticed (sold out on pre order) attached to one of the orders for the Genesis coaches.

I asked Hattons about this & here is the reply I received.

"Sold out on pre order means that we are not able to place any more pre-orders for the item, but as you have done this and had it confirmed you should be ok."

"It just means we are unable to take any more pre-orders for that item."

Hopefully we should be ok ?

 

Tony.

[Venator]

1 hour ago, amdaley said:

 

I logged on to my Hattons account as well & noticed (sold out on pre order) attached to one of the orders for the Genesis coaches.

I asked Hattons about this & here is the reply I received.

"Sold out on pre order means that we are not able to place any more pre-orders for the item, but as you have done this and had it confirmed you should be ok."

"It just means we are unable to take any more pre-orders for that item."

Hopefully we should be ok ?

 

Tony.

I think so if we haven't had an email like the sort others have recieved.

[woodenhead]

There appear to be lots of GWR and Southern coaches to pre-order still on Hattons' website as of today, that seems at odds with cancelled pre-orders.

[HExpressD]

5 hours ago, Kelly said:

 

I'm guessing they've been under supplied by surprise

Shhhhh, you can't say this! Someone suggested this in the Hornby retailer thread and they got shot down quicker than a doodlebug

[JohnR]

17 minutes ago, HExpressD said:

Shhhhh, you can't say this! Someone suggested this in the Hornby retailer thread and they got shot down quicker than a doodlebug

 

That might have been me. I certainly have some sympathy for them in this regard too, and they are telling customers as soon as they are aware, unlike Hornby. 

[NHY 581]

I have spoken to Hattons today, prior to placing an order.  Essentially, yes, it appears production has fallen short of received orders, in that the manufactuers cannot produce sufficient quantities of certain coaches. Hence the emails being sent out to some customers who have pre-ordered. 

 

What is currently shown on their website as available to pre-order should still be okay. 

 

In particular, there are still some  of the lit examples available where the standard ones are 'sold out'. 

 

 

Rob

[ChrisN]

I have just had my LNWR Full Brake cancelled, but have been offered the lit version.  I have three other LNWR coaches on order.

[wainwright1]

Perhaps if the bright red SE & CR coaches are sold out, Hattons might consider doing some more runs in the original dark red livery and the later Wellington  Brown ?

[phil-b259]

9 minutes ago, wainwright1 said:

Perhaps if the bright red SE & CR coaches are sold out, Hattons might consider doing some more runs in the original dark red livery and the later Wellington  Brown ?

 

I imagine those livery ideas have been noted.

 

However there is only so much factory capacity - and with whats already been announced its going to be a year or two before anything else can be added to the production queue

 

While I doubt Hattons like cancelling orders, the truth we modellers have to acknowledge is that Hattons were taking a gamble with their Genesis coach imitative. Onn paper the sound of 'generic coaches' matching no known prototype is an unlikely success when the market in general has been moving towards more faithfully detailed models of actual prototypes for over two decades now.

[Ozexpatriate]

On 31/08/2022 at 09:45, woodenhead said:

There appear to be lots of GWR and Southern coaches to pre-order still on Hattons' website as of today, that seems at odds with cancelled pre-orders.

I received this yesterday:

Quote

I am emailing you in regards to pre-order XXXXXX for the following items;

 

H4-46Pack-101 - Pack of 4 coaches (4BT, 4T, 6C123, 6BT) in GWR chocolate and cream

H4-6CL-101 - 6 wheel composite lavatory (1st/3rd) 42 in GWR chocolate and cream

 

We have now received our finalised numbers for these models and due to the popularity of this project, I am afraid that we are having to remove these items from your order.

The point of pre-ordering is to help the manufacturer manage their volumes. There must be a substantial problem if they cannot get enough production to fulfil very long-standing pre-orders.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The point of pre-ordering is to help the manufacturer manage their volumes. There must be a substantial problem if they cannot get enough production to fulfil very long-standing pre-orders.

 

Hattons are of course not the manufacturer here. The world has changed a good deal since Hattons opened their books to pre-orders in the autumn of 2019. We don't know but it may well be that they have been under-supplied by the actual manufacturer. I would imagine they are tearing their collective hair out.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I would imagine they are tearing their collective hair out.

Based on responses on RMweb, they are missing out on a lot of potential revenue.

[PhilJ W]

It might be the factories in China having to reduce capacity. China is suffering a severe drought at the moment and the flow in its major rivers is as little as 20% of normal and this has caused hydro-electric plants to shut down.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

It might be the factories in China having to reduce capacity. China is suffering a severe drought at the moment and the flow in its major rivers is as little as 20% of normal and this has caused hydro-electric plants to shut down.

I believe it is the Yangtze that has the drought-related hydro-power issues. It flows into the sea near Shanghai.

Most of the model railway factories are in the Guangzhou area (aka Canton) on the Pearl River and Shenzhen 'next door' (near Hong Kong).

 

Having said that, the knock-on effects of the pandemic in China have likely reduced a lot of manufacturing capacity, particularly in a non-critical space like the manufacturing of toys. While I don't think Guangzhou has had the level of lockdowns that Shanghai experienced I did find a report from April where it was closed to arrivals from other destinations and another highlighting weakened manufacturing there. 

 

Whether or not this has any material bearing on this thread, I cannot say, but it seems probable.

[The Johnster]

Well, I didn't pre-order, but am now wondering if any will be available from the initial production run for me to buy when they are in stock at Hats.  Not the end of the world and I can still satisfy my 4-wheeler requirments from Ratio kits, to the extent that I decided to pass on the Hornbys, but one feels a little between a rock and, if not a hard place, another rock.  It was a good initiative from Hats, and undermined IMHO by Hornby, so they deserve success with it, but it's been horribly delayed and if there are going to be issues around sufficient supply, things do not bode well for the project. 

 

A while ago we were talking about the ability of commissioning to enable suppliers to react quickly to the market and possibly undercut the big established players with smaller production runs; apparently not in this case.  I suspect it isn't Hats' fault, but pressures on manufacturing facilities in China which are unable to provide the amount of product they were contracted to without even more delay.  One concludes that, while commissioning can be an effective market response, it is not a guaranteed success and subject to the vaguearies of the Chinese economy, climate, and continuing covid problems.  The established players are prone to this sort of thing as well, remember the Bachmann 94xx, which was put back loads of times and suffered from the loss of an assembly plant to fire! 

Commissioning is no different.

 

What's the answer?  Perhaps not to announce the model and start taking pre-orders until manufacturing is in progress, but that means having to second-guess the demand without having the indictator of pre-orders.  Perhaps a pre-pre-ordering system, in which you semi-formally register interest, information useful to the commisioner when assessing demand, and are then given the opportunity to pre-order at a later stage?  Problem with that is that it is getting into a blurry wishlisty area; glad I only buy the stuff and don't have to worry about that sort of thing, I'm not good with handling stress!

[TheEngineShed]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Well, I didn't pre-order, but am now wondering if any will be available from the initial production run for me to buy when they are in stock at Hats. 

 

 

My preorders have not been cancelled.  I suspect they now have accurate counts of what is to arrive in the next couple of months.  If what you want isn't already marked as sold out on preorder, it is still available.  I would not wait till they are actually in stock to express an interest.  By then, it may well be too late...

[melmerby]

16 minutes ago, TheEngineShed said:

 

My preorders have not been cancelled.  I suspect they now have accurate counts of what is to arrive in the next couple of months.  If what you want isn't already marked as sold out on preorder, it is still available.  I would not wait till they are actually in stock to express an interest.  By then, it may well be too late...

Neither have mine (yet) and I ordered the GWR pack 101 the same as Michael (in Portland) as well as a Southern pack in Olive Green.

[Coppercap]

I have now had part of my pre-order cancelled. Note: it went in the Spam box.

[Michael Hodgson]

Do we know the basis of whose order gets cancelled if they have been undersupplied?

I would hope it's last in, first out.

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, Coppercap said:

I have now had part of my pre-order cancelled. Note: it went in the Spam box.

I don't have a "spam box".

Mailwasher marks items that are probably spam or may contain malicious code for me to delete,

N.B. messages aren't downloaded from the server until they have been "washed" of any undesirables

[Free At Last]

21 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I don't have a "spam box".

Mailwasher marks items that are probably spam or may contain malicious code for me to delete,

N.B. messages aren't downloaded from the server until they have been "washed" of any undesirables

My version of Mailwasher doesn't look in my Gmail spam box.