Hornby 2022 Range - pre-announcement frothing - now closed

[NHY 581]

3 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

We will also be publishing the full information at the revised time of 08.00.

 

I don't envy you trying to sort this out, Andy.............trying to herd cats springs to mind..

 

 

George agrees......

 

 

 

 

 

 

[andyman7]

10 hours ago, GWR-fan said:

In pre-internet days we would purchase an annual catalogue listing our favourite manufacturer's products.  We would then visit our regular hobby shop with the intention to view,  handle and then purchase.  Post-internet our favourite manufacturer has had many years of poor financial return seeing the hobby shops making potentially a bigger profit margin than they themselves are making and the bean counters get a thought in their heads,  "Do we really need retail outlets?  We could always direct market to our loyal customers".   Perhaps someone realised that not everyone shops on the internet and thus to support their full MSRP marketing strategy they needed to outcast the major discounters who threatened the viability of their direct marketing approach.  To avoid possible legal entanglements let us introduce a tier system ranking market outlets such that our direct selling profits are not jeopardised.  Eventually the discount stores and smaller retail outlets will get the hint that they are not welcome.  What seemed like a Midas touch at the time may turn out to be little more than fool's gold.

 

If we follow the brand and not the legal entity, it should also be pointed out that since it's inception in 1920 there have been several occasions of peril, lack of supply, poor financial performance and indeed collapse of the supplier of 'Hornby' branded trains. Business is a hazard, and the toy/hobby business more hazardous than many. There have never been endless 'good old days' when it all worked in some halcyon nirvana (for example just look back at the frantic debates about the future for 3 rail users in 1965). 

 

7 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

No, the key issue for Hornby is getting their order numbers correct.

 

No one else seems to suffer the problems Hornby has, thus the manufacturing capacity is available.

 

Hornby is ordering too few items, thus it is entirely self inflicted (as it the over ordering of unwanted stuff that Hornby also seems to do regularly).

 

 

Are you serious? Have you counted the number of products Bachmann announced in the past decade that have been dropped or not made it into production? Have you not noticed that every single commissioner or manufacturer of products has or is suffering from severe delays to well documented supply chain problems? 

 

[woodenhead]

23 minutes ago, NHY 581 said:

 

I don't envy you trying to sort this out, Andy.............trying to herd cats springs to mind..

 

or pigeons.....

[ruggedpeak]

9 hours ago, GordonC said:

 

Having seen the way Hornby have treated dedicated retailers, trampled over any smaller players as 'competition' and customers with contempt, I think a slice of karma is long overdue at Margate.

 

I hope that Hornby's announcement has something positive for customers and retailers alike and we can all look forward to a positive modelling 2022. If it is more of the same then as you say karma is a coming. The pandemic has been the time to mend relationships and 'roofs' for the coming storm (disposable income is about to fall dramatically).

[phil gollin]

52 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

We will also be publishing the full information at the revised time of 08.00.

.

 

Is the youtube 07:00 announcement still happening ?

 

( At least with the 08:00 announcement I can scroll through whilst having a cup of PROPER tea [not out of a machine] and some marmalade on toast. )

 

.

[PMP]

53 minutes ago, Katie87006 said:

 

This is just the Hornby mag review of the Hornby 2022 announcement. Hornby mag and Hornby hobbies plc have no connection at all

Yes they do, there is a commercial license agreement.

 

Hornby licenses their brand name to the magazine publisher. If that agreement ended for example, the existing magazine would need to be retitled, and Hornby could reallocate the ‘Hornby’ title to another use.

[PMP]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

We will also be publishing the full information at the revised time of 08.00.

0800 in Helsinki hopefully 

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, phil gollin said:

Is the youtube 07:00 announcement still happening ?

 

Hornby will run their video at 07.00. I am going to make the Hornby subforums read-only from before 07.00 until after their video has finished and our information published at 08.00 and I will then open it up again. 

[phil gollin]

7 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Hornby will run their video at 07.00. I am going to make the Hornby subforums read-only from before 07.00 until after their video has finished and or information published at 08.00 and I will open it up again. 

.

 

Thanks, sounds like an early start with lots of coffee and carbs.

 

.

[Miss Prism]

I note Sam has decided to avoid the mad early morning scrum of the hoi polloi, and will be broadcasting to the nation at 1pm.
 

[Norski]

The Hornby equivalent of a peep show (so I'm reliably told....cough).

 

Still waiting for my Class 87s, my APT.....ooooh you tease.....

[Phil Parker]

I beleive the Airfix announcements will be tomorrow evening, but they have snuck out a kit announcement ahead of time:

 

https://uk.airfix.com/products/supermarine-spitfire-mkixc-a17001?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+Super+Kit&utm_campaign=Airfix-+New+Kit+-+week+41+21%2F22

[ruggedpeak]

14 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

 

Hi Gary,

Good to see a shop owner on here.

Just to clarify: We will be paying the new price on anything delivered after 15th January. New prices I believe are  on the Hornby website.

I think what is being asked is will Hornby be selling products to us at the preorder price, when customers first placed their orders? In August 2021 there was a minimum 10% price increase on all Hornby railways. That became the New Price providing it is delivered to us very soon.

Looking at the Hornby website prices have gone up a lot - standard RRP for Class 60 now £229, Class 67 £194, Hitachi Sentinel £109 , Class 153 is £152. A sample of well known model retailers shows they have updated their prices to reflect this.

 

Meanwhile the RRP on the Floyd 56 is £228 on the Hornby website but £171 via the 'Hornby Store' on Amazon.......earlier in 2021 it could be acquired for less than £140 from competitive retailers.

 

Wagon and coach prices seem more reasonable, perhaps Hornby have seen the heavy discounting on some of the pricey Bachmann coaches? I assume the challenge for Hornby will be delivering product good enough for the price. The cost of a TfW 67 and DVT set has gone up significantly, light bleed on the DVT at £85 may not sell, hitting the 67 and Mk4 coaches too.

 

Interestingly as Google is slow to update listings you can currently track the price history of items via a simple search - here is the TfW DVT R40190, look at the detail for various previous RRP's (note the figures below are NOT necessarily what is being charged by those retailers as Google's listings are out of date)

 

RRP gone from £69.99 to £84.99, 21% increase.

 

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, MrTea said:

Another announcement of an announcement regarding the Hornby 2022 range. This time 8am:

 

 

I think I might wait until the dust has settled…

At the rate this lot is chopping and changing Hornby's dearly beloved annual announcement and associated embargoes seems to be turning into one of the best farces since Brian Rix decided to keep his trousers on.

 

(For younger readers not understanding the Brian Rix reference the internet is your friend)

Edited January 9, 2022 by The Stationmaster

[Widnes Model Centre]

34 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

I beleive the Airfix announcements will be tomorrow evening, but they have snuck out a kit announcement ahead of time:

 

https://uk.airfix.com/products/supermarine-spitfire-mkixc-a17001?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+Super+Kit&utm_campaign=Airfix-+New+Kit+-+week+41+21%2F22

 

Thanks for posting this Phil. Had our first preorder for this at 1131. Hope Airfix isn't embargoed for Tier 2.

[AY Mod]

6 minutes ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

Thanks for posting this Phil. Had our first preorder for this at 1131. Hope Airfix isn't embargoed for Tier 2

 

I hadn't thought about this particularly, do Tiers apply to the other brands? 

[Legend]

19 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

I was thinking this morning that Hornby basically want to be the Apple of the toy trains world; and from a manufacturer's perspective who wouldn't.

Buying from an Apple store is an outstanding experience .  You are made to feel special . You are buying with confidence that it works and that if down the line something goes wrong there is tech expertise to help you . Hornby may want to the Apple of  Model Railways but they fall a long way short . On a scale of 1-10 they wouldn’t even register . 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Legend

[Strathwood]

Just a thought, with all of this froth and excitement on here, it would be a good chance for another manufacturer to slide some dirty washing into the public domain under the radar on a busy news day in the hope it goes un-noticed. As I say just a thought, I wonder if our friends at Westminster have spotted this opportunity for tomorrow too?

 

Kevin

[TomScrut]

29 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

RRP gone from £69.99 to £84.99, 21% increase.

 

It went up 10% last year, then 10% this year which equals 21% total.

[Widnes Model Centre]

10 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

I hadn't thought about this particularly, do Tiers apply to the other brands? 

 

I honestly don't know. Will find out tomorrow when I try to put my 2022 Airfix order in.

 

We haven't officially been informed that we cannot place our Hornby 2022 preorders until the 24th. That information came via a Tier 1 stockist who had that explained to them. I am presuming I can place our orders tomorrow but they won't be looked at until the 24th. Good luck to the Hornby sales staff with that one. Can envisage "order from Widnes, what Tier are they?" Response "where about in Widnes?".

[phil gollin]

2 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

It went up 10% last year, then 10% this year which equals 21% total.

.

 

Don't worry  -  the prices will come down just as fast once the price of shipping/containers from China get back to normal !

 

 .  .  .  . 

 

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[Brian Indge]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

I note Sam has decided to avoid the mad early morning scrum of the hoi polloi, and will be broadcasting to the nation at 1pm.
 

From his carpet???

[lapford34102]

All getting far too exciting, perhaps we need a bit more of this

 

https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I0000q.ZchBJUGyg

 

Stu

[Pmorgancym]

Over 150 quid for the 153?  Both Dapol and Heljan have technically superior and more detailed single car units for less.  That's got to be low hanging fruit for either, especially if they co-develop 0 and 00 models.

[TomScrut]

Just now, Legend said:

Buying from an Apple store is an outstanding experience .  You are made to feel special . You are buying with confidence that it works and that if down the line something goes wrong there is tech expertise to help you . Hornby may want to the Apple of  Model Railways but they fall a long way short . Not even on the same page ! 

 

TBH I don't particularly like this sort of stuff, like handover booths in car dealers, stuff coming in nice boxes to give a "premium feel" when the item in question isn't something that gets put away after use, or when they take you to a room for them to talk to you about your car service. I'd rather turn up get given some keys (or give them the keys) and be on with it. Ultimately the customer is paying for it one way or another.

 

That doesn't mean to say I don't think advice or confidence in the product shouldn't be there if you want it, more that there seems to be a thing at the moment where sellers of objects have a bit of an obsession with customer experience, when the objective of the purchase is the actual item not the experience. For me the only aspect of customer experience I really care about is whether I get it when I want it and then if something goes wrong how do they sort it out (which for me is where most issues occur). I completely understand why they do it (as plenty of people must enjoy it), I just don't like it myself.

 

One example is when I picked my partner's car up from service, we were told it would be ready at a certain time. I was there waiting for the car and as part of the "experience" somebody had to explain to me what the 3 accompanying bits of paper meant, despite it being obvious what it all was (1. Being able to read and 2. Having had plenty of cars serviced before), but also as part of the experience the car was late. I got the unnecessary chit chat and the actual part of the "experience" I cared about didn't happen, the car being ready when I came for it.