Hornby Tier System- An Update.

[cctransuk]

50 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Why "in a few years"? Why aren't they doing it already? BangGood etc are hardly new. 

 

Look at the appropriate section of Ali Express - there is some direct sale content.

 

Some Bachmann locos have been offered recently - though not named as such.

 

CJI.

[woodenhead]

3 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

 

Are you sure? Shaw is in Lancashire. Shawly err l mean surely it’s in Greater Manchester? 

 

One of our suppliers still addresses our parcels as Lancashire. We have a Liverpool telephone number. We are part of the Liverpool City Region., Merseyside. 

We are actually Cheshire, confusing isn’t it? Especially as we pay a rates precept to the Metro Mayor, who is based in Manchester. Last time l was in Shaw it was snowing 🌨 , early June brrrr

 

Tea break over, back to the subject.

I live in Manchester, which was Lancashire like Shaw / Oldham - though bits of Oldham (Uppermill) were once Yerkshire. Where I live is close to the border with Cheshire but still within Manchester, it's all very confusing.

[woodenhead]

Hands up who has been on Banggood and Ali Express this evening for a look see.

[JohnR]

25 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Look at the appropriate section of Ali Express - there is some direct sale content.

 

Some Bachmann locos have been offered recently - though not named as such.

 

CJI.

 

There were rumours that the factory was selling Hornby APTs direct in Hong Kong. They certainly appeared to be available there much earlier than here. 

[eldomtom2]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

In a few years time when China start selling models direct via BangGood, Ali Express etc and cut out the middle men, Hornby, Bachmann etc, we'll look back at the current shenanigans as the good old days.

 

Mike.

Generally my assumption has been that they don't do that because they don't know enough about the Western market for making expensive products on their own to be worth it.

[Oldddudders]

34 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Generally my assumption has been that they don't do that because they don't know enough about the Western market for making expensive products on their own to be worth it.

But that is exactly the point. Take a Western design, paid for by Western money, double the order size and sell the surplus via these online outlets at 75% of the Western client's list price. In a market so price-sensitive they would make a killing. The Western "manufacturer" will whinge and complain, but has no Plan B to make his next model, so comes back and gets whipped again..... 

[eldomtom2]

29 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

But that is exactly the point. Take a Western design, paid for by Western money, double the order size and sell the surplus via these online outlets at 75% of the Western client's list price. In a market so price-sensitive they would make a killing. The Western "manufacturer" will whinge and complain, but has no Plan B to make his next model, so comes back and gets whipped again..... 

That relies on a lot of things, including modellers' knowledge of Aliexpress etc. , modellers' willingness to purchase knockoffs, and of course there is the fact that there are a decent number of Chinese model manufacturers and so the ones that copy will lose orders to those that don't, especially since they can't sell them locally and will have to have a degree of publicity around them, thus ensuring that the commissioner will know what they have done.

[Phil Parker]

Earlier in this thread I was told that price wasn't always the most important consideration when choosing where to buy models. Now we are told that modellers will be happy to buy knock off models (since the sellers won't invest enough to design and tool from scratch) to save money, even if it kills off the companies that do the design work. 

 

To be honest, if those are the people driving this hobby, I won't want to be part of it anymore. 

[CUCKOO LINE]

So if you buy a knock off model and it is faulty what do you do. I think you,ve lost your money = false economy. But some will never learn, but will just add their voice to poor Hornby product as they see it as that !

[Robin Brasher]

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

You shouldn't. But I would think less than twice about undermining them just because of FOMO.

I have not undermined my local shop to be first off the mark.  If you go back to when Hornby made the Maunsell Pull Push Set,  which is a must have model for the Swanage Railway, you may recall that Hornby only made 1,000 models.  I saw one at the Shoreham model railway exhibition but did not buy it so that I could support the shop at Swanage.  When I returned to Swanage the shop did not have any and neither did any of the mail order shops. It was over a year before Hornby produced another batch. I am not concerned about being first off the mark but I was worried that Hornby would not make enough LSWR coaches to go round so that I would be unable to obtain them anywhere.  It was Kernow that suggested that I should cancel my order for the LSWR coaches with lights and replace them with unlit coaches that had been in stock for several months.

 

The only time that I have cancelled an order with the Swanage Station Shop was when I ordered a rake of Coronation Scot coaches. The shop told me that Hornby was unable to supply some of them and they suggested I bought them somewhere else. I think I bought the rest directly from Hornby.

[PMP]

39 minutes ago, Robin Brasher said:

I have not undermined my local shop to be first off the mark. 

FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out, not first off the mark.

[Steamport Southport]

5 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

You bloody foreigners, always wrong, yer knows nowt abaat Yorkshire tea, it's grown here;

 

https://www.francisfrith.com/sunnyside,rotherham,yorkshire

 

Mike.

 

Rotherham?

 

Grown by The Chuckle Brothers I assume?

 

[Robin Brasher]

The only shop that I undermined was Hattons.  This was because I found out that Hornby had put Hattons in tier 3 despite its comprehensive stock and excellent service. If Hornby had not produced enough LSWR coaches Hattons would not have received any so the best chance of getting some was either from Hornby or from a tier 1 shop. My local shop was in tier 2 so that is why I reordered with Kernow. I never put an order to my local shop so I have not undermined them by ordering from Kernow. In any event I don't think my local shop will have any difficulty selling LSWR model coaches when it is in LSWR territory and there are some LSWR coach bodies. 

 

I am surprised at the criticism I am getting from admin as I have never criticised anyone in this group, I have got an excellent record on this forum with no warnings.

[GWR-fan]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

But that is exactly the point. Take a Western design, paid for by Western money, double the order size and sell the surplus via these online outlets at 75% of the Western client's list price. In a market so price-sensitive they would make a killing. The Western "manufacturer" will whinge and complain, but has no Plan B to make his next model, so comes back and gets whipped again..... 

 

About three years ago there was a Taiwanese seller on eBay who was offering new Hornby and Bachmann locomotives for about 1/3 the then UK price.  The only downside was no original packaging and no small detail parts pack.  I picked up the two NRM versions of "City of Truro" for around GBP60.00 each.  Both new condition with no flaws.

[GWR-fan]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

But that is exactly the point. Take a Western design, paid for by Western money, double the order size and sell the surplus via these online outlets at 75% of the Western client's list price. In a market so price-sensitive they would make a killing. The Western "manufacturer" will whinge and complain, but has no Plan B to make his next model, so comes back and gets whipped again..... 

 

When I was heavily into outdoor largescale trains with mostly items from the very expensive LGB company,  an upstart from China released a range of products that appeared to use cloned original tooling from LGB.  The product had various names like "Train" (very original) and "Newqida".  The coaches had tooling marks based on the LGB product,  intended for parts not supplied by Newqida but available on the genuine item.  Coincidence or cloning?  They did a nice German ICE train with sound chip.  Alas the sound supplied had a nice steam chuffing noise.

 

The Newqida coaches were $35.00usd compared to the same LGB coach around $250.00usd.  The knockoffs were actually not too bad and while not up to the quality of LGB,  were acceptable for day to day use.  I purchased around sixty of the cheap coaches, some of which were kitbashed or repainted in a more suitable livery.  A downside though was one could not guarantee that the coach received would be 100% complete.  I was left with several cars that were cannibalised to service other incomplete cars.  

 

There was a lot of controversy over copyright infringement,  but while it was rumoured that an action was taken out in Germany,  from memory,  nothing came of it.  At the time LGB was in its death throes  with perhaps no appetite for legal action with numerous rumours abounding of moving stock to the US and starting a "new" company there.  Container loads of genuine LGB products did make their way to the US and were flogged off by LGBoA for a fraction of retail price.  I picked up hundreds of genuine bargains from locomotives to rolling stock.  Those were the days with almost weekly deliveries from the States.

[meatloaf]

10 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Do they have free wifi too?

No but theres sweets on the counter so you can keep warm and eat too 😁

[JSpencer]

We have seen China offering really cheap Medieval clothing literally a tenth of the price even compared to stuff made in Ukraine!

 

The photos looked really good on Wish etc... 

My partner brought just one dress.... and the quality was???? about as far away from Medieval as you can get.

 

About 15 years back, Altaya did the Orient express, the coaches were ok (though a sort of 80s standard) but the locos, while looking ok, had the construction quality of cheap toys.

 

I think China really depend on western expert inputs (for choice of subject, quality etc) and the fact that Hornby et al commission them means it is win-win. If they started selling the same models direct cheaply themselves, then - as others pointed out - the incentive for Hornby et al to invest in a new model with the company concerned would be lost overnight.

[Legend]

Think we’ve moved somewhat from the subject .  But what we can all agree is that ordering anything from Hornby either direct or via a whatever tier retailer (how are we supposed to know)  is still chaotic .  And that’s something they need to address ……..but how many years have we being saying this now? 

[Enterprisingwestern]

42 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

I think China really depend on western expert inputs (for choice of subject, quality etc) and the fact that Hornby et al commission them means it is win-win. If they started selling the same models direct cheaply themselves, then - as others pointed out - the incentive for Hornby et al to invest in a new model with the company concerned would be lost overnight.

 

Whilst basically correct, as we in the western world have put all our eggs in one basket with China, what would Hornby's plan b be?

At the prices China undercut the "proper" retailer with, it would still probably be cheaper to buy 2 pieces of rolling stock to get/make one good one.

Even with the UK manufacturers input there are many cases of things coming out with varying degrees of errors on them which they can't or won't do anything about, so direct selling might not be a whole lot worse.

 

Mike.

[JSpencer]

10 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Whilst basically correct, as we in the western world have put all our eggs in one basket with China, what would Hornby's plan b be?

At the prices China undercut the "proper" retailer with, it would still probably be cheaper to buy 2 pieces of rolling stock to get/make one good one.

Even with the UK manufacturers input there are many cases of things coming out with varying degrees of errors on them which they can't or won't do anything about, so direct selling might not be a whole lot worse.

 

Mike.

 

They use several manufacturers so if one was to try selling Direct, then the incentive for a UK company to continue working with them would be gone! You won't have them all suddenly switching to direct online sales overnight! And we are a VERY fussy and well informed market to contend with that does not easily match the simplistic/non existent after sales model they use.

What they might do instead is buy the UK brand out OR just produce cheap trains similar to Lima standards in the 1970s.

 

Now imagine if I brought my APT direct from China, it would be cheaper but when the capacitor blew a hole in the roof, do you think it would be easy/cheap to send back for repair? 

[Robin Brasher]

16 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Oh no!  I feel this thread is drifting off into discussions about county boundaries and old bus routes.  How typically RMweb.

This is one of the wonders of RM Web. You can have a topic about Hornby's tier system and end up with lively discussions about undermining local model railway shops and having chats with your local dealer over a cup of tea. I think it is only Hornby who could come up with a tier system. Peco, Bachmann and Dapol probably just deliver what model shops order.

 

[PaulRhB]

All manufacturers have tier systems, they just don’t tell the customer it exists or which tier they’re in as it irritates those lower down. Model shops long moaned about Hattons getting bigger discounts. 

It’s common practice to have perks such as bulk discounts and extra support to bigger customers.
The tier 3 not being able to pre order is bizarre but then so is Hornby taking orders for stuff it then turns round and says it can’t supply anything from a month to a week before the shipment arrives to all tiers!

 

People will buy knock offs with all the associated risks thinking it may drive prices down but they only get the price down by using cheap materials and quite often lead based paints so it might be dangerous as well as cheap 😉

 

LGB survived Neuquida’s copies and actually increased prices by 70-80% as the new owners targeted collectors. Unfortunately poor quality control from moving production to new factories in Europe and China, seized roller bearings, loose parts etc combined with the price drove many of us away. There are enough out there though with money to mean they can sell enough with the extra 70% profit to make it a success as production was still cheaper in the new factories once they sorted out the quality control. If you’re making 20% then add another 70% on top you don’t need to make huge numbers to make short runs very successful. We can whinge all we like about being priced out but if there are enough customers buying it then it works at lower risk for the makers. 
It’s not the mass market end but it makes sound financial sense with limited risk in production and it’s seen LGB go back to producing limited edition metal models like they did in the 70’s and 80’s as extras with price tags 2-3 times their main range models too. 

I’d say Hornby are aiming to go online only in the next few years and cut out the retail system almost completely from their removal of the reps. 
 

[Dunsignalling]

I've heard there is at least one brand in the offing that's an almost entirely Chinese operation but for a few UK individuals providing intellectual/design/prototype input. 

 

I'm not aware who is paying who, or whether it'll only be sold direct from the factory.

 

There's be no shortage of retailers, large and small, whose noses have been put out of joint by Hornby if they want them, though!

 

John

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Legend said:

Think we’ve moved somewhat from the subject .  But what we can all agree is that ordering anything from Hornby either direct or via a whatever tier retailer (how are we supposed to know)  is still chaotic .  And that’s something they need to address ……..but how many years have we being saying this now? 

Spot on.  They have simply skirted round the heart of their problem with 'patches' such as the tier system while seemingly doing little or nothing to tackle what really needs to be tackled.  And doing away with the reps won't help some retailers as they relied on them to break through the problems they encounter with Hornby's ordering and supply system.

 

I think part of Hornby's problem is that it is heavily focused (and being specifically incentivised at senior level) to improve its financial situation, and as can happen with management concentrating on one big objective, tends to take the eye off other - often regarded as mundane - matters.  Interestingly - and encouraging in many respects - their trading statement issued this week states that sales were up in the 4th quarter and ahead of budget (no doubt helped by clearing out lots of older stock to the likes of Hattons etc) and they will again this year post a profit, great news.  Lots of reasons - as expected - for not achieving an even greater growth in sales in the 4th quarter because of supply chain problems, various.  And their net cash position is down £0.8 million compared with a year ago.

 

The trading statement pushed the shre price back up 1.5p, to 34.50p, but that initial bounce subsequently steadied at that figure with no further increase over subsequent days' trading.

[GeoffAlan]

The N gauge society commision items from a variety of manufacturers. Their first locomotive recently arrived (A Hunslet DH shunter) and is brilliant. While they did it for love of the scale and hobby, It rather proves that commissioning a model is the way to go. If our traditional manufacturers are doing it so can anyone else.