Preorder email

[TrainMan2001]

8 hours ago, Wolf27 said:

All those who are stating they will not buy from Hornby again are just sh*tting in your own nest. What are you going to do when Hornby announce something that you have been wanting for years? Do you want Hornby to fold and disappear? Perhaps stop your reliance on places like Hattons and look elsewhere.

The way Hornby's going, we could probably find what they make elsewhere, and probably better quality, too.

[Jon Harbour]

13 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

 

Other retailers also happily ship overseas...

 

Yes, but not many of them will 'hold on' to pre-ordered once they arrive to assist overseas customers with reducing shipping costs. Before Hattons introduced the trunk, I might have four items on pre-order, perhaps three of them would be wagons costing around £16.50 once the VAT is knocked off. Let's say for arguments sake they arrive with the vendor a week apart - I end up paying four lots of shipping costs, which will probably out-weigh the VAT savings. That's why Hattons are such an attractive option to pre-order from when overseas. With the saving in shipping costs, I can order more stock. If each piece is sent on at the time of arrival the portion of my spend with a vendor that actually generates revenue for them is reduced.

[Jon Harbour]

6 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Let’s face it, none of the box shifters tested locos before shipping.

 

 

 

 

Not 100% true... pretty much all of my locomotives coming from Hattons or Rails have had a 'tested' sticker on them - often with a signature or initials of the tester. Admittedly, that is a slightly more recent development....

[Joseph_Pestell]

7 hours ago, Retro_man said:

 

20 hours ago MV Wilson quoted an announcement from AJM Railways:

 

"An Announcement from www.AJMRailways.com Gentlemen and Customers I will begin with 2 apologies, the first and most important being to my Customers (many of whom are members of this Group) in respect of the way recent events have and will affect my future ability to supply in the manner you have become used to and the second apology is for the time it has taken to convey this to you. As some of you already know, Hornby decided to "Band" retailers back in January. Now 4 months later they have finally given explanation to why and how each account is banded. In this announcement, they describe Band 3 retailers such as AJM as "retailers who dont have a shop or if they do it may be of such a standard no one would want to visit it". Other criteria would include bad credit history, manufacturing competing products and not stocking the full range of Hornby Brands (eg Airfix etc)."

(My bold).

 

The first post in this thread regarding pre-order cancellation emails was on February 10, 2021.

 

So very likely that Hattons and other shorted traders placed all their retail customer pre-orders with Hornby in good faith as in previous years, and then these orders have since been cancelled or modified by Hornby per the above announcement.

 

I do not believe there is a shortage of supply, just Hornby changing the destination of the products.

 

 

 

So Hornby will put retailers without bricks and mortar premises open to the public into Tier 3 and cut their supply.

 

But they will supply via Amazon.

 

Go figure.

[Markwj]

Back in Feb I contacted Hattons to ask if my pre-orders were safe and received this reply. I guess at this point hattons would have known which tier they were in and what they may or may not receive from Hornby. I don’t know if the person replying to my email would have known about the tier system. 

 

Hi Mark,

 

Thanks for getting in touch.

 

I've checked, and can confirm that all of your pre-orders are still in place and confirmed - the only product you won't be receiving is the:

 

Mk4 FO first open (accessible toilet) in Intercity Swallow 'Coach L' -

 

As Hornby have advised us that this item has been cancelled from production.

 

I hope this helps, and if there is anything else that I can assist with, please don't hesitate to get back in touch.

 

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

A neat summary here, Unfair Contract Terms Act (UCTA) 1977 (netlawman.co.uk), of the applicable legislation.

 

I don't think that there is any doubt here that Hornby is in breach of contract with respect to certain retailers. There was offer, acceptance and consideration long before they introduced their tier system, because many of the items concerned were 2020 releases.

 

None of the circumstances pertain that would justify this breach of contract. Any clause in Hornby's T&Cs would therefore fall foul of this legislation.

 

UCTA was brought in to conform to EEC law. I don't think that it has been in any way changed since B****t. 

 

So, game, set and match to the retailers who have been affected. A claim for loss of profit and a claim for damage to the reputation of their business. The amounts involved could easily put Hornby under.

[PaulRhB]

7 hours ago, TrainMan2001 said:

The way Hornby's going, we could probably find what they make elsewhere, and probably better quality, too.

Really? Who else is making a W1 and APT? . . .

 

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

A claim for loss of profit and a claim for damage to the reputation of their business. The amounts involved could easily put Hornby under.

Is that what people want to take down Hornby and then badger the other manufacturers that they should then duplicate Hornby’s announcements because they were going to be a sure fire success for them?
LGB slightly over extended itself and had the rug pulled out from it by the banks when their banks friendly protection usually afforded to German companies was swept away and has since re-established itself with investment bank owners aimed primarily at collectors with prices 70-80% higher. Is that what we want from Hornby, it’s brand name is attractive enough to survive again. 
 

Unless there’s a signed contract for these items or money has actually been paid, making a contract of sale, I doubt the contract law above applies. 
 

I’ll be very disappointed if this mess leads to me missing out on the APT I saw as a kid but ultimately I’ll be a lot more sad for the normal workers at Hornby if some internet campaign loses just them their job. Andy & Phil have asked for a statement and to be honest even that will be one viewpoint but the two retailers representatives who’ve posted suggest it’s not such a big problem elsewhere so it does hint that something has gone seriously wrong somewhere between Hattons communicating with Hornby about what they can guarantee. 

[Ian Hargrave]

4 hours ago, Jon Harbour said:

 

Not 100% true... pretty much all of my locomotives coming from Hattons or Rails have had a 'tested' sticker on them - often with a signature or initials of the tester. Admittedly, that is a slightly more recent development....

Which I imagine only applies to overseas customers. Although if you specifically ask ,Rails will check before posting to the UK which was the case when I received a Heljan 47xx a couple of years ago.They had a number of QC issues if you recall.

[Joseph_Pestell]

22 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Is that what people want to take down Hornby

 

investment bank owners aimed primarily at collectors with prices 70-80% higher. Is that what we want from Hornby,

 

it’s brand name is attractive enough to survive again. 
 

Unless there’s a signed contract for these items or money has actually been paid, making a contract of sale, I doubt the contract law above applies. 
 

 

 

Until this latest fiasco, I would never have wanted to see Hornby go to the wall. Now, it would not bother me in the least. I think we would be better off leaving space for others with better business practices.

 

It is what has already happened at Hornby albeit not quite to the same extent as at LGB.

 

I think that you are right that someone would emerge to buy the Hornby brand from a liquidator. But then what? It only has so much value without any tooling. There is no guarantee that the various Chinese producers would play ball with the new owners of the brand.

 

A contract involves offer (Hornby announcing the new goods), acceptance (the retailer placing the order) and consideration (the price agreed). When the financial payment is made does not come into it

[GWR-fan]

17 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Which I imagine only applies to overseas customers. Although if you specifically ask ,Rails will check before posting to the UK which was the case when I received a Heljan 47xx a couple of years ago.They had a number of QC issues if you recall.

 

After purchasing a few hundred locomotives from Hattons I have never received a note stating the loco has been tested.   Rails also has never supplied a note stating the loco has been tested but for one returned loco I asked for testing to be done on the replacement.  I requested Rails to test a loco prior shipping that was a replacement for a complete dud of a loco.  Guess what,  the "tested" loco was barely better than the returned loco.  One store that prided itself on testing locomotives and issuing a certificate supplied me with two new locomotives that could not run due mazak embrittlement.  Odd that they tested fine in the store but two weeks later upon receipt were useless.  I have only ever returned one locomotive as if I strike an issue then I fix it.  

[PaulRhB]

28 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

contract involves offer (Hornby announcing the new goods), acceptance (the retailer placing the order) and consideration (the price agreed). When the financial payment is made does not come into it

It involves all three but it isn’t a contract until it is agreed and signed. Simply submitting an order is not a ‘contract of sale’ and you’d be very unlikely to make it stick in court, even if Hornby confirmed they had the order, unless they invoiced for it which is acceptance of it or accepted payment which by default makes the contract. 
Having dealt with this in a previous career with a major retailer I had to work both sides of these ‘contracts of sale’ getting the customer the product or compensation and showing why it was not a contract. I’ve also had to explain to a major model retailer/wholesaler why they couldn’t charge me the system price over the shelf price in their shop. I knew they could actually refuse to sell it instead and I’d have no grounds to complain but they didn’t. I had no contract at that point only the offer. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Bernard Lamb]

50 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Really? Who else is making a W1 and APT? . . .

 

Is that what people want to take down Hornby and then badger the other manufacturers that they should then duplicate Hornby’s announcements because they were going to be a sure fire success for them?
LGB slightly over extended itself and had the rug pulled out from it by the banks when their banks friendly protection usually afforded to German companies was swept away and has since re-established itself with investment bank owners aimed primarily at collectors with prices 70-80% higher. Is that what we want from Hornby, it’s brand name is attractive enough to survive again. 
 

Unless there’s a signed contract for these items or money has actually been paid, making a contract of sale, I doubt the contract law above applies. 
 

I’ll be very disappointed if this mess leads to me missing out on the APT I saw as a kid but ultimately I’ll be a lot more sad for the normal workers at Hornby if some internet campaign loses just them their job. Andy & Phil have asked for a statement and to be honest even that will be one viewpoint but the two retailers representatives who’ve posted suggest it’s not such a big problem elsewhere so it does hint that something has gone seriously wrong somewhere between Hattons communicating with Hornby about what they can guarantee. 

I don't think that any one wants people to loose their jobs. You mention Hornby, but as mentioned previously, the same applies to Hattons.

In a strictly business sense having a few outlets who take a large percentage of your production has to be a good idea. That leads me to thinking that this is political rather than commercial. 

I have a personal dislike of companies that indulge in what I regard as sharp and unethical methods. I see this move by Hornby as falling into that camp.

However I am biased. I worked for a boss who was Jewish and he instilled into us that certain Jewish businesses had a bad reputation and so we had to be cleaner than clean. The company became American owned and they followed exactly the same policy, but with an even greater desire to be fair and open and not to be regarded as greedy capitalists.

Bernard 

[Joseph_Pestell]

10 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

It involves all three but it isn’t a contract until it is agreed and signed. Simply submitting an order is not a ‘contract of sale’ and you’d be very unlikely to make it stick in court, even if Hornby confirmed they had the order, unless they invoiced for it which is acceptance of it or accepted payment which by default makes the contract. 

 

That is fundamentally wrong. Contracts don't even have to be in writing.

 

If Hornby did not want to accept the order for any reason, e.g. not having enough models produced to be able to meet the "acceptance" i.e. quantity ordered, they should do so on receipt of that order, not 18 months later.

 

I don't think that this needs to go to a court. If the retailers concerned group together, engage a lawyer, and speak to Hornby (and Hornby's lawyers), this can be resolved quietly and successfully. Going to Court would just make the whole process more expensive for Hornby and be damaging to its reputation.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Joseph_Pestell

[PaulRhB]

10 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

have a personal dislike of companies that indulge in what I regard as sharp and unethical methods.

I agree Bernard but the comment was about considering the wider picture because we don’t know who is to blame for this mess. I’m not impressed by either in the poor communication but it’s not the time to start internet campaigns that can affect jobs unless hard facts are known and it’s better to vote with your feet. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Legend]

9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Ive got to admit buying Hornby via Amazon is a little unusual, I buy all kinds of stuff there.

However Hornby on Amazon is nothing new. Ive bought stuff there for at least 4-5 years now, indeed Hornby's coach wheels were £6,50 a pack at one point and half everyone else's for nearly a year. Ive also bought model railways off Amazons Spanish and German sites too.

I live very close to an Amazon fulfillment centre, and as such I deduce Hornby must have local stock in the warehouse, as I have (and  can) order for same day delivery, even on a sunday... I once ordered wheels at breakfast on a sunday and they were running under my coaches before dinner.

 

it does make Amazon my “closest” local shop.

 

for example this one.. if I order before noon i’ll still get it today.

 

 

Nice price, Just ordered, lets see when it delivers.

 

i just typed in Thane of Fife and pressed buy it now because it was an obvious bargain .  I was alerted by Apollo’s post . I think he got his for £132 . I got mine for £134.50 . As others have pointed out there must be some price algorithm going on . I don’t subscribe to prime but I still got mine the next day . Excellent service from Amazon. Yes my buffer beam was loose and the reversing rod dropped off . Both were easily fixed , and I suspect it would have been the same had I acquired the model from Hattons  or any other retailer , we know there are assembly faults with these locos . 
 

I think I can still take the moral high ground , because it’s not obvious from the above that it’s Hornby that’s selling it . I think I bought it from Amazon  , that’s what the order says Amazon EURL   Anyway I’m quite happy now and if it exposes Hornby hypocrisy of not undercutting their retailer base through other channels all the better. It seems Hornby quite happy to sell stuff to Amazon while restricting supplies the the largest Model Railway retailer in the country . Doesn’t quite seem like joined up thinking . 

[sandwich station]

28 minutes ago, GWR-fan said:

 

After purchasing a few hundred locomotives from Hattons I have never received a note stating the loco has been tested.  

 

I have purchased locos from Hatton's that have come  with a sticker on the box stating that it has been testing by so and so but they were their own brand.

[PaulRhB]

8 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

That is fundamentally wrong. Contracts don't even have to be in writing.

Ok there are circumstances where you can prove verbal contracts but from experience to take this to court would be very risky unless you know exactly what the terms of trading say on this. As they haven’t and there’s no other retailers jumping in then they obviously don’t think it’s worth it. If Hornby’s terms say it is not a contract until x-y-z is confirmed then they are totally ok. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Matt C]

1 minute ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

That is fundamentally wrong. Contracts don't even have to be in writing.

 

But they have to be agreed by BOTH parties. If Hornby don't confirm the amount you have asked for IS the amount they will supply, you don't have a contract you have a request to supply. As I've said before, as far as im aware this is how Hornby operate. They DON'T confirm amounts until the item's are made ? Or shipped or have arrived at Hornby. The only people who know for sure are 1 the retailer who asks for stock, do Hornby CONFIRM you WILL get that stock at the time you ask for it ? 

And 2 Hornby who know at what point in the supply Process they CONFIRM the amount of stock a retailer will ACTUALLY get

[PaulRhB]

22 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

f Hornby did not want to accept the order for any reason, e.g. not having enough models produced to be able to meet the "acceptance" i.e. quantity ordered, they should do so on receipt of that order, not 18 months later.

I agree that is the root of this mess and while my order hasn’t been cancelled yet it seems highly likely it will be. So as someone who put in an order within an hour of the announcement why haven’t I heard first to give me chance to go elsewhere when my brother who made an identical order a couple of months later had his cancelled this week? Rails did this when the Rocket open coaches were cancelled and I never got an alert it had been cancelled and they’d sold all there Hornby allocation by the time I knew! I took that up with them privately and had other issues with notifications. 
So do I order elsewhere now just in case and cancel one later? Is that ethical in supporting shops? I used Hattons because we used them as kids when visiting grandparents nearby and after the debacle with Pecketts my local was very wary of ordering enough to guarantee supply as he thought it highly likely he wouldn’t get it all. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, Matt C said:

 

But they have to be agreed by BOTH parties. If Hornby don't confirm the amount you have asked for IS the amount they will supply, you don't have a contract you have a request to supply. As I've said before, as far as im aware this is how Hornby operate. They DON'T confirm amounts until the item's are made ? Or shipped or have arrived at Hornby. The only people who know for sure are 1 the retailer who asks for stock, do Hornby CONFIRM you WILL get that stock at the time you ask for it ? 

And 2 Hornby who know at what point in the supply Process they CONFIRM the amount of stock a retailer will ACTUALLY get

 

If your version is correct, there is only one way to trade reliably. Nobody orders anything from Hornby until it arrives in their warehouse here in the UK. Nobody even advertises anything to be made by Hornby until it arrives in the UK.

 

I don't think Hornby would find that an easy model to operate.

[black and decker boy]

We seem to have a few protagonists here who are proclaiming offence in others behalf and seemingly trying to rouse a mass response.

 

I ask why?

 

You are clearly not a retailer 

 

You have not suffered a direct financial

loss (no money had changed hands anywhere in this process of preorders).

 

so why are you demanding lawsuits & buying embargo’s & for the downfall of Hornby?

 

what is your real motive?

[Matt C]

6 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

If your version is correct, there is only one way to trade reliably. Nobody orders anything from Hornby until it arrives in their warehouse here in the UK. Nobody even advertises anything to be made by Hornby until it arrives in the UK.

 

I don't think Hornby would find that an easy model to operate.

Joseph have you ever tried herding cats ? Good luck getting all the involved retailers agreeing to THAT . Unfortunately I have no idea if my interpretation is correct, I just seam to remember reading in the past that this is how Hornby operated and that retailers didn't really know just how many yhey would be getting until very near to delivery.. it would be good if a retailer could confirm this so if I'm wrong I can stfu ! 

[adb968008]

55 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

We seem to have a few protagonists here who are proclaiming offence in others behalf and seemingly trying to rouse a mass response.

 

I dont think your post is aimed at me, but given how easy it is to be misquoted, I want to put my record straight..

 

I’m dont care either way whether people buy Hornby or not. I canceled a lot of orders (not just Hornby) because I was thoroughly naffed off.

 

I will still buy whatever I want, but its a lot less than it was going to be.

 

I could list my reasons, but as no one cares, no one listens* and if you try to explain you get shot down I wont bother, in part that is why Ive canceled so much.

 

*some do, to be fair, and a few in particular I haven't touched my pre-orders and remain solid pre-orders... thats what makes the difference.

Edited May 22, 2021 by adb968008

[Joseph_Pestell]

25 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

We seem to have a few protagonists here who are proclaiming offence in others behalf and seemingly trying to rouse a mass response.

 

I ask why?

 

You are clearly not a retailer 

 

You have not suffered a direct financial

loss (no money had changed hands anywhere in this process of preorders).

 

so why are you demanding lawsuits & buying embargo’s & for the downfall of Hornby?

 

what is your real motive?

 

Is it so wrong to care about the future of our hobby? I believe for the hobby to remain viable, we need "bricks and mortar" retailers.

 

Is it so wrong to believe that a well-established business (100 years) should trade ethically?

 

"Losses" don't have to be just financial. But there will be retailers who have lost some clients for good and not just for Hornby products.

 

If you read back through the thread, you will see that I declared my interest. I have been there and got the T-shirt. The person concerned is now a Hornby employee. I do have a project to create a new retail business. There are some Hornby products which I would like to stock but I will not be ordering from Hornby. 

 

I did get my own back on him though by getting a "grey market" supply and selling models retail to the public at a lower price than retailers were getting them from him wholesale. I shipped about 100 locos in one day on one occasion (Rivarossi CC7100) which would be about £10,000 worth.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Joseph_Pestell
Add

[woodenhead]

I cannot believe there are now people asking for Hornby to fail so it can be bought out by a liquidation company and be reborn.

 

Lets be clear, that is not a good outcome, using Top Shop / Burtons as an example - it still exists but only online, no bricks and mortar and only available through a select number of sites.

 

The knock on effect of Arcadia going down was it was the final nail in the coffin of Debenhams which closed it's doors last week.

 

From what I've read all Hornby has done is re-align it's business along similar lines to Bachmann, it demands a brick and mortar presence to get the new stock and it wants the retailers it does business with to have a good financial footing plus it cannot be a competitor.

 

In some respects it has levelled the playing field with Bachmann, both now trade on similar terms.

 

This has impacted Hattons twice now and clearly Hattons must have understood the risk when they became a manufacturer, they first lost Bachmann but have carried on so must feel that the benefit outweighs the risk and have now seen them lose some Hornby business - they can still buy from the warehouse, all they have lost are the pre-orders.  Clearly they will re-align to take account of this loss, maybe there is stuff coming from Hattons we're not even aware of yet but will make up the shortfall.

 

Rails have taken a different approach and were prepared to lose their income from Hornby and replace it with other stuff.  I have no idea what happened between Hornby and Rails that saw them part company but it's clear they felt it was in their best interest to do so.

 

Both Hattons and Rails like Hornby are adjusting new business models, they are all sound businesses and the only mud slinging in this whole saga is on forums and Facebook by disgruntled modellers who ordered in good faith mainly from Hattons.

 

To me the only real issue is that of the customer experience and that comes down to when Hattons became aware it's orders were not going to be fulfilled, how long it held on to the pre-orders before informing customers they wouldn't be honored and what part Hornby had in all this.   On the one hand, if Hattons have been in negotiations with Hornby since going into Tier 3 then I can understand why they would only cancel pre-orders as the items became due to be delivered, you're not going to cancel orders whilst an agreement can be reached.  On the other, they cynically held on to pre-orders knowing they would not be fulfilled.  I doubt it is the latter and imagine that Hattons have been in negotiations with Hornby since they learnt about being in Tier 3 to see if they could resolve the situation.