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Hornby Hobbies announce Model Shop of the Year Awards for 2025


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In an amazing show of support for their retailer network, Hornby Hobbies has announced it's first Model Shop of the Year Awards will take place in 2025. 

 

Model Shops are often the unsung heroes of the hobby, offering support and advice and creating a physical presence for the hobby on the high street.   Nominations are open NOW so you can nominate your local shop or a retailer from whom you have experienced a great service.  You can also vote for one of the many retailers already nominated, just use the following link to take part:-

 

https://community.hornbyhobbies.com/competition/1-model-shop-of-the-year-2025/

 

The finalists will be announced on 2nd January 2025 with the winner announcement taking place in February 2025.

 

Good luck to all the Model Shops taking part, we can't wait to see who wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by BRMSarah
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A laudable effort, but implemented poorly. Because anyone can nominate any shop, you have ended up with several options to vote for the same shop. On the first page alone, there are 3 options for John Dutfield, 3 for Chester Model Centre and no doubt many others.

 

What they should have done is simply put up options for you to vote for any Hornby stockist - they have a list. 

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Presumably at the end someone will go through and conglomerate all the results down that are clearly for the same shop. Still though, strangely formatted, Google Forms are free! (I think)

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The instructions invite you to  nominate a shop, but also to look to see if your shop has already been nominated, if so go to  vote for that shop. There is a dynamic search box that brings up all matches in a list as you type.

Nevertheless they nominate on and on with their duplicates.

The instructions also state that duplicate nominations and votes will be rationalised into one vote per person, per shop, however you can vote for as many shops as you like. This will preclude 10 nominations for the same shop and those 10 nominees each voting for each duplicate hoping to tally 100 votes. It will end up as 1 nomination with 10 votes, the nominee also counting as 1.

Edited by RAF96
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Surely if this is Model shop of the year 2025 its way to early to open voting, they could go out of business before then, and how can you know their performance in advance? Should be dated for 2024.

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5 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

Surely if this is Model shop of the year 2025 its way to early to open voting, they could go out of business before then, and how can you know their performance in advance? Should be dated for 2024.

 

I coulnd not agree more ! In fact, taking a leaf from Hornby's book, I tried to agree multiple times with @Grovenor, but rmweb software is more sophisticated than Hornby's well meaning, but flawed attempt 😬

 

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On 28/10/2024 at 05:38, JohnR said:

A laudable effort, but implemented poorly. Because anyone can nominate any shop, you have ended up with several options to vote for the same shop. On the first page alone, there are 3 options for John Dutfield, 3 for Chester Model Centre and no doubt many others.

 

What they should have done is simply put up options for you to vote for any Hornby stockist - they have a list. 

By allowing anyone to nominate a model shop, there is potential to have shops listed that do not sell Hornby products.

 

That may / may not be intentional, but it does help sales generate new potential customer leads to approach for little cost / effort.

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43 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

By allowing anyone to nominate a model shop, there is potential to have shops listed that do not sell Hornby products.

 

That may / may not be intentional, but it does help sales generate new potential customer leads to approach for little cost / effort.

Is there an issue here ?

The blurb says "Model Shop of the Year", not "Hornby Model Shop of the Year".

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28 minutes ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

Is there an issue here ?

The blurb says "Model Shop of the Year", not "Hornby Model Shop of the Year".

...but then it does state "their retailer network" 

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3 minutes ago, NeedCookie said:

Maybe we should start voting for Hattons...

Yeah that was my first thought.

Edited by spamcan61
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Given Bachmann have been doing this for years now its not as though its a brand new concept.

 

As seems to often be the case with Hornby these days, good intentions are undermined by poor delivery of the concept / product to the public....

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Just now, phil-b259 said:

Given Bachmann have been doing this for years now its not as though its a brand new concept.

 

As seems to often be the case with Hornby these days, good intentions are undermined by poor delivery of the concept / product to the public....

They seem to be taking many leaves out of British Leyland's book of how not to design things.

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2 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

...but then it does state "their retailer network" 

True, but it also states "In an amazing show of support for their retailer network" so maybe someone has been out the back the Westwood Facility and found the rug that was pulled out from under them not so long ago (tier system ?) and putting it back ?

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On 29/10/2024 at 14:14, longchap said:

 

I coulnd not agree more ! In fact, taking a leaf from Hornby's book, I tried to agree multiple times with @Grovenor, but rmweb software is more sophisticated than Hornby's well meaning, but flawed attempt 😬

 

Odd that as both use InVision as their platform.

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22 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

So what is this "Invision" demanding access to my Hornby account?

In Vision is the platform that the Hornby forum runs on same as RMweb forum.

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11 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I didn't think it was possible to gets ones tongue so firmly in ones cheek?

 

Mike.

 

Hornby don't support their network, and you criticize. Hornby try to show some support, and you criticize. Why should they bother, if all anyone sees is the negative?

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18 minutes ago, Fireline said:

 

Hornby don't support their network, and you criticize. Hornby try to show some support, and you criticize. Why should they bother, if all anyone sees is the negative?

Because supporting the dealer network would involve supplying all dealers with the quantity of each product they'd ordered, for starters, rather than pushing people to the Hornby website. Some cheap, poorly executed poll doesn't really do anything much for the retail network.

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9 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Because supporting the dealer network would involve supplying all dealers with the quantity of each product they'd ordered, for starters, rather than pushing people to the Hornby website. Some cheap, poorly executed poll doesn't really do anything much for the retail network.

So what you're saying is that they shouldn't bother trying to raise anyone's awareness of the shops out there? Don't forget you're looking at it from one end of the modelling spectrum. There are countless people who are just starting out in all of this, and go to the Hornby site because it's the name that they know.

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2 hours ago, Fireline said:

So what you're saying is that they shouldn't bother trying to raise anyone's awareness of the shops out there? Don't forget you're looking at it from one end of the modelling spectrum. There are countless people who are just starting out in all of this, and go to the Hornby site because it's the name that they know.


You are completely missing the point - It sounds like you are someone who either has only taken up the hobby in the past 6 months or soneone who has suffered from amnesia for the past 10 years!

 

FACT - if someone or somebody treats their customers like a leaf blower treats leaves they said customers are not going to be impressed when said somebody suddenly starts pretending it never happened and wants some positive feedback.

 

For several years now Hornby, through their actions and deeds have done all they can to undermine / starve their dealer network of products with the statements emanating from Margate (or Sandwich when they moved their HQ for a few years) being very much on the lines of “dealers need is more than we need them” and “don’t like what we are doing? Fine we won’t let you sell our products”

 

That attitude stinks - and most of us on RMweb think the same so it’s entirely understandable that many regard this poll as the ultimate in hypocrisy by Hornby.

 

That said it’s entirely possible that the new management at Hornby (much like the new Government in its interactions with the real rail industry has sought to repair the damage in terms of staff morale inflicted by the previous lot) are trying to make a fresh start and this poll is a symptom of a complete and permeant change of attitude by Hornby towards its dealer network.

 

However, as is true with any situation,  it’s a lot easier to destroy relationships / goodwill than cultivate good ones and after all the years of being nasty to their dealer network it’s going to take more than a single poll to make folk change their attitudes.

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