Hattons Model Railways to close

[Floreat Industria]

Posted 6 hours ago

  On 31/01/2024 at 11:42, melmerby said:

I always think those tenders look as though the designer was worried about the train being in a head-on or hitting an immovable object, and the wedge shaped of the tender is so that the rest of the train will be deflected upwards.  I still wouldn't fancy the crew's chances though.

 

That reminded me of when an NER snowplough with Wilson Worsdell and a friend inside ran into the train they were rescuing. Worsdell got a broken leg and the friend was killed

[Steamport Southport]

3 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

 

I didn't know people even did this, to be honest, although I can understand why it makes sense if you're after something specifc that's sold out new and is likely to be snapped up quickly when it appears in the second-hand listings.

 

How regularly do Rails update their listings? Maybe what we need is an email alert system, similar to eBay, when they add something you're interested in.

 

How do you think we've been snapping up all the bargains before everyone else all these years?! Early evening/teatime was bargain time!

 

Signed In with the finger poised on the Add To Trunk (Add To Basket before the Trunk appeared) button and constantly refreshing as they added things!

 

I'm afraid when people kept saying "There's no bargains at Hattons" it's because people like me had bought them all!

 

 

 

Jason

[PJT]

4 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

How do you think we've been snapping up all the bargains before everyone else all these years?! Early evening/teatime was bargain time!

 

Signed In with the finger poised on the Add To Trunk (Add To Basket before the Trunk appeared) button and constantly refreshing as they added things!

 

I'm afraid when people kept saying "There's no bargains at Hattons" it's because people like me had bought them all!

 

Err, yes, me too.  Especially 'non runners', 'inconsistent runners' and 'intermittent runners'.

 

Pete T.

 

Edited February 1 by PJT
Added a bit more.

[MattR]

37 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

How do you think we've been snapping up all the bargains before everyone else all these years?! Early evening/teatime was bargain time!

 

Signed In with the finger poised on the Add To Trunk (Add To Basket before the Trunk appeared) button and constantly refreshing as they added things!

 

I'm afraid when people kept saying "There's no bargains at Hattons" it's because people like me had bought them all!

 

 

 

Jason

 

Same here!

 

Although here in the eastern U.S. with the time difference, the new preowned listings would appear around 10 am - noon, with the email coming in around 12:30 pm. You knew once the email arrived to stop hitting "refresh" every 30 seconds because most of the time that would be all that was added for that day. Although there were often exceptions, with more stuff going up after the email. Prime pickings! That's why 25 of my 30 locomotives and 151 of my 162 pieces of rolling stock (not to mention several more that I've since sold on) are second-hand items from Hatton's!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 1 by MattR

[PJT]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Signed In with the finger poised on the Add To Trunk (Add To Basket before the Trunk appeared) button and constantly refreshing as they added things!

 

40 minutes ago, MattR said:

You knew once the email arrived to stop hitting "refresh" every 30 seconds because most of the time that would be all that was added for that day. Although there were often exceptions, with more stuff going up after the email.

 

Kind of amusing to see we were all using the same techniques!

 

Pete T.

 

[Colin_McLeod]

I'm coming too late into this 😥

[Willie Whizz]

Now you tell us …

[adb968008]

7 hours ago, PJT said:

 

Err, yes, me too.  Especially 'non runners', 'inconsistent runners' and 'intermittent runners'.

 

Pete T.

 

I accumulated rather a lot of class 66’s that way.

[NZRedBaron]

On 01/02/2024 at 00:42, melmerby said:

 

 

For the record, I do believe that that is a Class A5 'switching' engine of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

[GWR-fan]

The pre-owned listings would appear around 3am local time.  It aseemed that my night time trip to the loo coincided with this time in the morning.  I would make a cup of tea and then sit back and enjoy the newest pre-owned lisitings,  hoping each day to get that elusive bargain or two or three.  I found that if you simply added to the cart then by the time you had perused the listings half of the items picked were no longer available.  Basically if I wanted the item it had to go to my trunk immediately,  thus numerous single payments were needed.  You snooze,  you lose.

 

I had assumed that I would be addicted for sometime into the future hoping to get a bargain that no longer existed,   but after seeing my bank statement this past month being the lowest expenditure ever,  it seems that I am cured.

Edited February 2 by GWR-fan
Additional information

[Colin_McLeod]

4 hours ago, GWR-fan said:

but after seeing my bank statement this past month being the lowest expenditure ever,  it seems that I am cured.

 

The Hattons closing down sale had the opposite effect on my expenditure!!... but it's over now and I'm looking forward to receiving my purchases.

[Hroth]

My last purchase arrives today.

 

I suppose I ought to remove my browser bookmark to the pre-owned pages.  It sits there tempting "lets see what's on offer today", even though I KNOW there's no more to be had.....

 

Trawling ebay isn't quite the same, the fibs and half truths about models you get there are offputting.

 

It's just arrived.  Well packed in a proper box.  Bye-bye Hattons.

 

 

Edited February 2 by Hroth
Update

[Keith Addenbrooke]

As @PJT, @MattR, @Steamport Southport and others have commented / confessed, watching the new listings appear was all too often part of the daily routine - nicely timed to coincide with a tea break (or was it the other way round? - I forget).

 

While there were bargains I missed out on while taking a few minutes to check something out, for me the game worked both ways: when items I had sold to Hattons Pre-owned appeared, there would be the satisfaction of seeing something that used to be mine get snapped up quickly (“see - I told you it was good”).  
 

Although there was the time a loco I had traded on sat there for weeks.  I felt a bit miffed, to be honest.  All it was missing was the original box (which I’d never had).

 

Having taken delivery of my final order a couple of weeks ago, I now await arrival of my final, final order from the last day clearance, Keith.

 

 

[scouse889]

On 01/02/2024 at 00:44, adb968008 said:

Tally ho.

i guess thats it then.

 

16 hours ago, MattR said:

Yeah, the withdrawal is rough. It's like being told as a child that there will be no more Christmases to look forward to.

 

Yes, still struggling to get my head around how quickly it has all happened - and indeed that it has happened at all. Plus I guess at some point this entire Hattons thread will move into the "Defunct, dormant or demised" section of RMWeb.....

Someone commented somewhere in these pages that the closure of Hattons may overshadow the launch of Hornby's 2024 range, the two being announced about 24 hours apart. To date 40 pages in this thread versus 22 pages in the thread about the latter is I guess some indication of how significant an event in the hobby the closure of Hattons actually is.

[Jol Wilkinson]

1 hour ago, scouse889 said:

 

 

Yes, still struggling to get my head around how quickly it has all happened - and indeed that it has happened at all. Plus I guess at some point this entire Hattons thread will move into the "Defunct, dormant or demised" section of RMWeb.....

Someone commented somewhere in these pages that the closure of Hattons may overshadow the launch of Hornby's 2024 range, the two being announced about 24 hours apart. To date 40 pages in this thread versus 22 pages in the thread about the latter is I guess some indication of how significant an event in the hobby the closure of Hattons actually is.

 

While Hattons are still supplying pre-ordered models I expect they will be kept "alive" on RMweb.

 

There have been a lot of what might be called duplicate "me too" postings on this thread, people telling how much they will miss Hattons, what they have bought in the last few days, when it was posted, when they emptied their Trunk, etc. I doubt that there was much of that on the Hornby 2024 topic.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

2 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

As @PJT, @MattR, @Steamport Southport and others have commented / confessed, watching the new listings appear was all too often part of the daily routine...

And now the obvious follow-on question; where's all the s/h RTR model railway traffic formerly handled on this route going to be diverted to?

 

We haven't heard so much from those on the supply side of the s/h jumble sale...

[scouse889]

32 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

While Hattons are still supplying pre-ordered models I expect they will be kept "alive" on RMweb.

 

There have been a lot of what might be called duplicate "me too" postings on this thread, people telling how much they will miss Hattons, what they have bought in the last few days, when it was posted, when they emptied their Trunk, etc. I doubt that there was much of that on the Hornby 2024 topic.

You’re forgetting all the duplicate “there’s nothing in it for me” posts!

[Steamport Southport]

59 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

While Hattons are still supplying pre-ordered models I expect they will be kept "alive" on RMweb.

 

There have been a lot of what might be called duplicate "me too" postings on this thread, people telling how much they will miss Hattons, what they have bought in the last few days, when it was posted, when they emptied their Trunk, etc. I doubt that there was much of that on the Hornby 2024 topic.

 

Don't forget there wasn't an awful lot announced by Hornby!

 

Only one new tooling ISTR. Not really much to discuss and most things have their own threads anyway.

 

 

Jason

[MarkSG]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

And now the obvious follow-on question; where's all the s/h RTR model railway traffic formerly handled on this route going to be diverted to?

 

Hattons had a big share of both the new and second-hand markets. That's all going to go somehere, but it may take some time before it's apparent where it has gone.

 

Second-hand in particular has a critical mass: the more you sell, the more people will look to you first when buying, meaning that your stock will shift faster, meaning that sellers will look to you first to offload unwanted items, meaning that you've got more to sell...

[MikeB]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

And now the obvious follow-on question; where's all the s/h RTR model railway traffic formerly handled on this route going to be diverted to?

 

We haven't heard so much from those on the supply side of the s/h jumble sale...

There is now a clear gap in the market that somebody will fill.  Some of the big players already do second hand (eg TMC and Rails), others don't (eg Kernow and Gaugemaster). The magazines contain ads from several smaller companies that want to buy stuff.  Perhaps there will be some fragmentation as Hattons purchased everything from common OO UK items to rarer non-UK outline in various scales.   For example, how many of the second hand dealers know what to offer for a N gauge Austrian electric loco based on original price and current demand?  Would there be a derisory offer to a seller and a bargain for a buyer, or vice-versa? Sellers will choose depend on what prices shops will offer although selling to a dealer is more about convenience as putting individual items on eBay generally results in more work but more money.         

[Dunsignalling]

45 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Don't forget there wasn't an awful lot announced by Hornby!

 

Only one new tooling ISTR. Not really much to discuss and most things have their own threads anyway.

 

 

Jason

It's been very noticeable in recent years, that when major new Hornby items (e.g. all those big LNER locos) have been delivered to Hatton's, their third tier status meant they got few of them, and some while after release.

 

The previously commonplace "Number in stock: More than 10"  had ceased to appear in relation to all locos and many other things that came in red boxes.

 

That made it impossible for Hatton's to take pre-orders for such items, and must have contributed to the decline in their turnover.

 

I wonder if the rest of the retail trade will show similar willingness/ability to come to the rescue as Hatton's the next time Hornby need to turn half a million quids-worth of dead stock into cash PDQ.   

 

John

Edited February 2 by Dunsignalling

[andyman7]

27 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

 

Hattons had a big share of both the new and second-hand markets. That's all going to go somehere, but it may take some time before it's apparent where it has gone.

 

Second-hand in particular has a critical mass: the more you sell, the more people will look to you first when buying, meaning that your stock will shift faster, meaning that sellers will look to you first to offload unwanted items, meaning that you've got more to sell...

Hattons had a big, highly visible secondhand presence but it is a mere fraction of the pre-owned model railway stuff winging its way around the universe. The biggest single portal of all is ebay, but that is because it is aggregating private sales, hundreds of smaller dealers and bigger operators such as Rails. But you only have to go to a few model railway shows or preserved railway events to see that there are also a number of dealers who buy, sell and shift a lot of secondhand stock. Take a look a Facebook Marketplace and you'll see a pile more. Log on to The Saleroom and have a look at the industrial levels of stuff that go through conventional auction houses (many of which feed the stock of the full time dealers). 

That's not to say that Hatton's modus operandi didn't fulfil a specific niche, because it did, and one that its users will miss. But it was still a small part of the total amount of secondhand model railways traded across the country.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

38 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

Second-hand in particular has a critical mass: the more you sell, the more people will look to you first when buying, meaning that your stock will shift faster, meaning that sellers will look to you first to offload unwanted items, meaning that you've got more to sell...

Oh yes. And one additional factor, customer confidence. Hattons never put a foot wrong in my s/h purchases. Would like to be able to say the same of their competitors, but poor experiences twenty odd years ago meant that I subsequently only looked in that one place...

[MattR]

5 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Although there was the time a loco I had traded on sat there for weeks.  I felt a bit miffed, to be honest.  All it was missing was the original box (which I’d never had).

 

I guess the collectors didn't like it, but items without the original box were usually the best bargains! I picked up a 2001-tooling Princess Elizabeth for £39 that was split from a train set with no original box. I was also really on the lookout for a Bachmann Class 105 -- the one I wanted appeared one day in the second-hand listings with its original box -- £130. I reluctantly passed on it. Two weeks later another appeared -- without the original box -- £69 in flawless condition.

[Steamport Southport]

48 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

It's been very noticeable in recent years, that when major new Hornby items (e.g. all those big LNER locos) have been delivered to Hatton's, their third tier status meant they got few of them, and some while after release.

 

The previously commonplace "Number in stock: More than 10"  had ceased to appear in relation to all locos and many other things that came in red boxes.

 

That made it impossible for Hatton's to take pre-orders for such items, and must have contributed to the decline in their turnover.

 

I wonder if the rest of the retail trade will show similar willingness/ability to come to the rescue as Hatton's the next time Hornby need to turn half a million quids-worth of dead stock into cash PDQ.   

 

John

 

Not my point. Far from it.

 

The comment was about 40 pages of this thread against 22 pages in the Hornby thread.

 

 

 

Jason