Hattons Model Railways of Widnes (formerly Liverpool).

[richarddavies]

Hi it's Richard Davies, MD of Hatton's here

 

The team are still working hard spinning the warehouse, in what we have called Project MacGyver (all our projects have the names of characters from films & TV and are chosen by the person in charge of the project).

 

Latest pic below, where you can just about see John Beswick (normally in the Store but helping out in Logistics today) and Operations Manager Lesley Bryan in the bottom right - sorry, having problems with the image upload, will try again later (RD)

 

The packing machine "Little David" shown in Dave Martins post #1025 is gaining a companion (Victoria) on Tuesday and she will help us massively with getting orders out of the door, hopefully faster than ever before

 

On the topic of "Behind the scenes" our Store staff often give impromptu tours of the site to customers, particularly if they've come a long way or specifically ask for a look around. We've been careful with these recently as the warehouse has been under so much pressure but when MacGyver is over we will probably resume. 

 

Thanks for all the feedback - it's much appreciated

 

Richard

Edited August 20, 2016 by richarddavies

[Stevelewis]

Hi  Richard

 

Nice   to  be  kept  informed  its  good  to  see  what  goes  on  behind  the  scenes,  I hope  it  all goes  well,

 

I am  looking  forward  to  receiving  my  current order  which is  in  your  system as  of Friday,  which  contains a rather  difficult  to  find  H0e  ROCO  loco  ,  its  always  worth  trawling  thro'  the  2nd   hand  list  I find!!

 

Regards  steve Lewis  (   re  your  personal LGB  delivery to my  address a few  months  back!!)

[TheSignalEngineer]

I could do some serious damage if I was let loose in that warehouse 

More likely that someone would do serious damage to me.

[Gwiwer]

Hi it's Richard Davies, MD of Hatton's here

 

 

 

Welcome to RMweb Richard though I suspect you might have been an observer before signing up as a member!  Good to hear from the "top" in any organisation as it shows engagement with the customer base and a willingness to be open and honest across the board.

[Robin Brasher]

I have been a customer of Hattons since the 1960s when they were selling Hornby Dublo items at bargain prices. My main problem recently has been the choice of carrier.

 

Ideally I like Royal Mail to deliver my items. The postmen know who I am. If I am out, or if I am in and they don't ring my bell, it is only a ten minute walk to the sorting office.

 

Although I ticked the Royal Mail box on one order Hattons decided that I would be better off with Yodel. I was out when they tried to deliver and they left a note saying that if I did not make an arrangement to deliver it I would have to collect it from their depot 20 miles away. I contacted a surly Yodel man who told me that he does not work weekends and I could collect it from his house on Monday morning.

 

Since then I have always specified Royal Mail and no other carrier until I ordered 8 Hornby ex LSWR coaches and found that the choices were £16 for Royal Mail next day delivery or £4 by DPD. I was unable to use the DPD tracking device on my mobile phone so I tried getting the information on my laptop. This resulted in DPD taking over my home page and it was a two hour nightmare getting it off again. Fortunately DPD delivered the items while I was in.

 

I would not mind waiting a few days for Royal Mail to deliver them for £4 but that was not an option for the 8 coaches.

 

I used Rails of Sheffield for my Hornby and Oxfordrail Adams Radials as Rails was cheaper than Hattons and Rails sent them by Royal Mail.

[Stevelewis]

The  double  Royal  Mail  charge  would  have  been  because the  weight  exceeded  2 Kg

 

I have  also been  a  Hattons  customer  since  the  60s,  and  use  them  extensively.

 

I have  had  the  odd delivery  problem,  but   never  had   a problem  with  Interlink/ DPD

 

I have  also  had the occasional personal  delivery  from  them!!

[richarddavies]

Yes, we plan to take a good look at the courier options once we have optimised our internal Despatch/Logistics processes. We have a fair few couriers vying for our traffic but we need to have a firm grasp of our own capacity before talking volumes and agreements. The Yodel "Collect from Hattons Sunday, deliver Monday" deal stemmed from us needing to work Sundays to keep up with the orders we came into on a Monday. Now we've made the pick/pack system slicker, we aren't too sure how many days Mon-Sun we will run. I think Yodel get a harder time than they deserve, but that was their own fault after rebranding too early when HDNL and DHL UK were merged. 

 

Yes Gwiwer you are right - I have been a long time lurker on here (and have discussed your browser issues on several occasions with several eminently knowledgeable IT people). Am coming out of the woodwork now as we are getting to the stage at Hattons where we think we are on top of all the projects that were required to get the business under control after moving from a high street shop to being an omni-channel ecommerce store (as the marketing people say).  I'm interested in where the market is going, with particular focus in the segment of customers who we call "Entrants", which is typically a 45+ year old guy who is either returning to the hobby or just getting into it.  Personally I don't think that segment is getting enough attention. I'm intending to talk to the manufacturers and magazines about this, to see what their strategy for acquiring new customers is. Just to pre-empt the question, we can see growth in both segments (we call the other one "Established"), but would like to be part of a more considered, progressive and collaborative strategy. You can find out more about me at https://uk.linkedin.com/in/richard-davies-065a7b1b

 

Steve thanks for your order - it will be with you soon. Project MacGyver is just being completed so the team will probably be despatching 1600+ orders a day for the next few days. BTW - the Roco loco you bought came to us from an interesting chap based in Munich who I think has more stuff coming in soon - if I see it in the "Goods in" or "For photoing" area I will let you know

 

R

 

Richard Davies

MD, Hattons

Edited August 21, 2016 by richarddavies

[Gwiwer]

I managed to place a pre-order for a forthcoming item successfully today. The problem persists on the computer (and thanks for the time spent trying to isolate and fix it) but does not occur on the phone. At least I know I can still place orders for items not currently in stock.

[railsquid]

Yes, we plan to take a good look at the courier options once we have optimised our internal Despatch/Logistics processes. We have a fair few couriers vying for our traffic but we need to have a firm grasp of our own capacity before talking volumes and agreements. The Yodel "Collect from Hattons Sunday, deliver Monday" deal stemmed from us needing to work Sundays to keep up with the orders we came into on a Monday. Now we've made the pick/pack system slicker, we aren't too sure how many days Mon-Sun we will run. I think Yodel get a harder time than they deserve, but that was their own fault after rebranding too early when HDNL and DHL UK were merged. 

 

Yes Gwiver you are right - I have been a long time lurker on here (and have discussed your browser issues on several occasions with several eminently knowledgeable IT people). Am coming out of the woodwork now as we are getting to the stage at Hattons where we think we are on top of all the projects that were required to get the business under control after moving from a high street shop to being an omni-channel ecommerce store (as the marketing people say).  I'm interested in where the market is going, with particular focus in the segment of customers who we call "Entrants", which is typically a 45+ year old guy who is either returning to the hobby or just getting into it.

 

I resemble that remark, still a couple of years before I could be described as 45+.

 

Regarding browser issues, it's still impossible to add an item to the cart in Linux (Firefox, Seamonkey), the same browsers work fine for me in OS X.

[richarddavies]

Interested in your views on how easy you found it to get back into the hobby Railsquid - I think there are a number of hurdles to get over when contemplating getting into the hobby, and the job of the collective group I'd like to be part of, is helping eliminate or simplify (lower?) the hurdles.

 

Ref the Browser issues, it's likely to be some sort of cookie-related matter. I will have the IT people create a "Cookie diagnosis" page on the website, where we direct people who are having problems to, in order to try and identify the problem. At the moment we send people to a "How to clear your cookies" page but something a bit more intuitive may help. I will speak to the IT team on Tuesday, once they have recovered from moving all the IT systems around the warehouse as part of Project MacGyver

 

R

 

MD, Hattons

Edited August 21, 2016 by richarddavies

[Stevelewis]

Yes, we plan to take a good look at the courier options once we have optimised our internal Despatch/Logistics processes. We have a fair few couriers vying for our traffic but we need to have a firm grasp of our own capacity before talking volumes and agreements. The Yodel "Collect from Hattons Sunday, deliver Monday" deal stemmed from us needing to work Sundays to keep up with the orders we came into on a Monday. Now we've made the pick/pack system slicker, we aren't too sure how many days Mon-Sun we will run. I think Yodel get a harder time than they deserve, but that was their own fault after rebranding too early when HDNL and DHL UK were merged. 

 

Yes Gwiwer you are right - I have been a long time lurker on here (and have discussed your browser issues on several occasions with several eminently knowledgeable IT people). Am coming out of the woodwork now as we are getting to the stage at Hattons where we think we are on top of all the projects that were required to get the business under control after moving from a high street shop to being an omni-channel ecommerce store (as the marketing people say).  I'm interested in where the market is going, with particular focus in the segment of customers who we call "Entrants", which is typically a 45+ year old guy who is either returning to the hobby or just getting into it.  Personally I don't think that segment is getting enough attention. I'm intending to talk to the manufacturers and magazines about this, to see what their strategy for acquiring new customers is. Just to pre-empt the question, we can see growth in both segments (we call the other one "Established"), but would like to be part of a more considered, progressive and collaborative strategy. You can find out more about me at https://uk.linkedin.com/in/richard-davies-065a7b1b

 

Steve thanks for your order - it will be with you soon. Project MacGyver is just being completed so the team will probably be despatching 1600+ orders a day for the next few days. BTW - the Roco loco you bought came to us from an interesting chap based in Munich who I think has more stuff coming in soon - if I see it in the "Goods in" or "For photoing" area I will let you know

 

R

 

Richard Davies

MD, Hattons

 

Thanks  Richard ...... re  the  ROCO  Loco ( that  could  almost  be  a  song  title!)  The  brand seems  to be becoming  very  thin  on  the ground these  days,  

[richarddavies]

Yes the rise in quality and value of models of UK-based prototypes (and probably other factors) seems to have had an impact on demand for stuff from Continental manufacturers. I think Arcadia in Shaw have some good brand new RTR Continental stuff, and Gaugemaster stock and distribute quite a lot too

 

Please excuse excessive use of the term "stuff"!

 

Richard

MD, Hatton's

[Stevelewis]

Yes the rise in quality and value of models of UK-based prototypes (and probably other factors) seems to have had an impact on demand for stuff from Continental manufacturers. I think Arcadia in Shaw have some good brand new RTR Continental stuff, and Gaugemaster stock and distribute quite a lot too

 

Please excuse excessive use of the term "stuff"!

 

Richard

MD, Hatton's

 

Yes  Tim at  Arcadia  has  quite  a  few ranges  of  non  UK 'Stuff'  although  it  is  noticeable  that  the size  of the  ranges is declining a little,  although  I appreciate  that  the investment  necessary  to  keep   ranges  in  stock especially  with the current EU situation must  be  a  bit  of  an  unknown  quantity at  the  moment'

 

Re  getting 'Entrants;  into  our  hobby  is  I would  believe  quite a difficult scenario currently,  from  the  point  of  view of  cost  and  actually getting  the  fact  that  there is  a  hobby  called  Railway Modelling  and  it  is  something  that  you  actually  physically do  with  your  hands instead  of  just  just looking  at  a  screen,

 

Perhaps  there  may be some way  that  the  hobby  could be  exposed/presented  to  the  masses  by  the  use  of  the internet

Edited August 21, 2016 by Stevelewis

[Robin Brasher]

I think that the best way of attracting people to the hobby is to hold a model railway exhibition.

 

There as a model railway exhibition at Harmans Cross near the Swanage Railway last week. Over 435 people came and they enjoyed watching plenty of activity on the layouts.

 

The picture shows the "I 'ad that" layout. I expect many of the items originated from Hattons and are still going strong today.

[Gwiwer]

 

 

Perhaps  there  may be some way  that  the  hobby  could be  exposed/presented  to  the  masses  by  the  use  of  the internet

 

 

For what it might be worth my layout has enjoyed its own Facebook page for several years now.  I present "pretty pictures" more than chit-chat and I refer anyone seeking in-depth information or advice to this site.  One of the reasons for setting the page up was to engage the younger generations who gaze into their tiny screens seemingly all day and to bring new blood into the hobby.

 

Currently that page has over 6200 followers; the majority is in India with the UK being second-placed and between them accounting for over 5000 of the followers.  Most are in the age range 13 - 35 based upon data provided by Facebook which in turn is captured from their users so is therefore uncontrolled for accuracy.  My posts are also regularly shared meaning they reach an even wider audience.

 

With that level of interest I consider my self-set brief is being met as a large number of people around the world is able to see and enjoy my pictures and engage in discussions which are bringing new entrants and some returners into the hobby.  More, perhaps, than might see a printed magazine article or pick up and buy even a slim softback book.  Facebook also, of course, costs its users nothing (though internet browsing has costs associated with it) and costs me only an occasional promotion setting me back the princely sum of $13  - about £7.

 

I am also happy to make mention that my two major suppliers of choice over the years are Kernow MRC and Hattons.

 

https://www.facebook.com/penhaylebay/

[Removed a/c]

Perhaps a section on Hattons website where their customers facebook layout page could be listed ?

Edited August 22, 2016 by thebritfarmer

[Caddy]

Had another superb Hattons/DHL experience last week, ordered the new Bachmann Ivatt plus a coach on Thursday evening Brisbane time, arrived Monday morning 10.31 am via the little yellow van. Brilliant service and I love following the tracking!

 

I do hope any review of the couriers at Hattons keeps the DHL option!

 

Nice to see Richard Davies here on RMWeb and for the record I have been a happy customer since 1960 when I lived near Orrell Park Station. Used to catch the 46 bus to Penny Lane in those days before the street name boards kept disappearing! Came over to Australia in 1972 and have continued to use Hattons as my preferred supplier.

[The Blue Streak]

Had another superb Hattons/DHL experience last week, ordered the new Bachmann Ivatt plus a coach on Thursday evening Brisbane time, arrived Monday morning 10.31 am via the little yellow van. Brilliant service and I love following the tracking!

 

I do hope any review of the couriers at Hattons keeps the DHL option!

 

For some strange reason, I was always under the impression that even with the DHL option, once the item arrived in Oz, It was handed over to Australia Post.

I have become so disenchanted with Australia post in the last few months, that I will probably use the DHL option in future for my Hattons purchases. Thanks for the heads up.

[Colin_McLeod]

Perhaps a section on Hattons website where their customers facebook layout page could be listed ?

Hattons did have the facility to upload pictures to their website but I can't find it now.

[railsquid]

Interested in your views on how easy you found it to get back into the hobby Railsquid - I think there are a number of hurdles to get over when contemplating getting into the hobby, and the job of the collective group I'd like to be part of, is helping eliminate or simplify (lower?) the hurdles.

 

In my case, having abandoned childhood OO to the great "yeah, one day when I'm retired and have a spare room or loft or something" box of wishful thinking, I wandered into a model shop by chance (here in Tokyo) and happened upon an unpowered N gauge model (N gauge rules supreme in Japan) of the train which runs on my local line and thought it would be nifty to display on a shelf, especially as it was dirt cheap. However a voice kept whispering to me about the possibilities of a short stretch of track and something to run on it, and before I knew it I'd acquired a) some Kato Unitrack, b) a Kato controller, and c) a Kato "Kokuden" train, which set me back something like 60 quid in total, which is a sum I could write off if necessary (I wasn't familiar with N gauge at all). Anyway it all worked wonderfully out of the box, and I was entranced by the "Kokuden" train despite it being a very simple model (no lights, DCC, little detailing, turns out it's a rehash of Kato's original model of that class using the original mouldings from 40 or 50 years ago). And the rest, they say, is history.

 

What certainly helped is having Kato Unitrack available - I know it's not exactly prototypical, but It Just Works™, and made the running of trains (rather than the building of a layout) accessible and pleasurable. Call it a gateway drug, which has lead me to the point where I'm contemplating hand-building track for a sub-project not easily implemented with settrack.

 

I'm not sure how that would translate to the British market, but I imagine access to a "cheap" (i.e. at an "impulse purchase" level) and robust starter set of some kind which shows model trains are much easier and more accessible than that abandoned layout of your childhood would help ease people back into the addiction hobby. Errm, and N gauge could do with being promoted as a viable way of building that 8x4 layout you always wanted but don't have the space for.

 

Ref the Browser issues, it's likely to be some sort of cookie-related matter. I will have the IT people create a "Cookie diagnosis" page on the website, where we direct people who are having problems to, in order to try and identify the problem. At the moment we send people to a "How to clear your cookies" page but something a bit more intuitive may help. I will speak to the IT team on Tuesday, once they have recovered from moving all the IT systems around the warehouse as part of Project MacGyver

 

My money is on something Javascript-related, I tried it on various "fresh" browsers to rule out any caching/cookie issues. I'll try and take a look to see if there's any further info I can obtain on the cause. Actually come to think of it, might have been the same on Windows (which I don't use much) with browsers other than MSIE (which I usually avoid like the plague except in cases of emergency such as ordering model trains), but the same browsers on OS X work fine.

[Caddy]

For some strange reason, I was always under the impression that even with the DHL option, once the item arrived in Oz, It was handed over to Australia Post.

I have become so disenchanted with Australia post in the last few months, that I will probably use the DHL option in future for my Hattons purchases. Thanks for the heads up.

Up until  a month or so ago I agree that DHL used to hand over the parcels to Australia Post, I thought it was probably because we live outside the Brisbane metropolitan area, half way to the Gold Coast.

 

Anyway for my last two orders the goods have arrived via DHL themselves. I asked the driver who said that they were now delivering themselves all the way between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I have no idea what the situation is in WA but hope the same happens for you. It has shaved another 24 to 48 hours off the time with DHL delivering.

[Gwiwer]

DHL deliver here themselves.  "Deliver" being a loose term.  They leave a card in the mailbox whether you're in or out, it seems, as I have watched their driver do so more than once.  But if you then request redelivery sometimes it is DHL who come and sometimes it's Aus Post.  Every other courier I know of hands their items to Aus Post upon arrival in this country meaning it doesn't matter which option I select at Hattons - the delivery will be made by a one-man business operating as contractor to Australia Post in his own little white van.  Because that's how they work here.  Therefore, for me, it saves money and requires the same transit time to select standard air mail.

[railsquid]

My money is on something Javascript-related, I tried it on various "fresh" browsers to rule out any caching/cookie issues. I'll try and take a look to see if there's any further info I can obtain on the cause. Actually come to think of it, might have been the same on Windows (which I don't use much) with browsers other than MSIE (which I usually avoid like the plague except in cases of emergency such as ordering model trains), but the same browsers on OS X work fine.

 

Okey-dokey, the "Add to cart" button calls the Javascript function "addToCartQty()", which didn't produce any error console output at all when clicked, but in the Firefox developer console it produces the cryptic line "calling GA", which I deduce might mean "Google Analytics", which (drum roll) I have disabled at DNS level ('cos I prefer to keep Google and other third parties out of my browsing life as much as possible), so if "addToCartQty()" is depending on another script (or variable?) from Google Analytics which isn't getting defined, the function seems to be failing and doing... nothing. Enabling Google Analytics does cause the "Add to cart" button to work. I would guess that this is not the case for all browsers, e.g. MSIE, which might have a less strict Javascript implementation, though I can't be bothered to experiment right now.

 

Short version: fix "addToCartQty()" so it's not dependent on Google Analytics (or handles the lack thereof gracefully in all browsers and continues with the add-to-cart functionality. This will probably affect anyone who has disabled Google Analytics by whatever means.

 

Edited to add: just checked my OS X machine, by some oversight I don't have Google Analytics there. Will disable and see if the same problem occurs.

Edited August 22, 2016 by railsquid

[Gwiwer]

That will be interesting to watch.  Hattons have been in conversation with myself including having been sent a screenshot of the text in Safari Developer at their request.

 

Cookies to me come in choc-chip or macadamia-nut and anything else means absolutely nothing to my brain.  I can be guided if given step-by-step instructions but am very very reluctant to clear all cookies off the computer because it takes forever to remember and re-load the passwords to all the sites I visit.  No, they're not all the same.  I learned early on to make it less easy for ID theft / hackage if possible but that comes with its own price.

[railsquid]

That will be interesting to watch.  Hattons have been in conversation with myself including having been sent a screenshot of the text in Safari Developer at their request.

 

It's entirely possible that there's a different problem affecting you... But if you have a moment, can you access either of http://www.google-analytics.com r http://ssl.google-analytics.com ? Those are the domains which, when blocked, seem to cause the "addToCart" button not to work.

 

Cookies to me come in choc-chip or macadamia-nut and anything else means absolutely nothing to my brain.  I can be guided if given step-by-step instructions but am very very reluctant to clear all cookies off the computer because it takes forever to remember and re-load the passwords to all the sites I visit.  No, they're not all the same.  I learned early on to make it less easy for ID theft / hackage if possible but that comes with its own price.

 

I used to do stuff like this for a living... Pretty sure it's not the cookies in this case... Anyway high time I revised my online browsing paranoia settings, the world should continue to know that I'm a 6'2" grandma from Kazakhstan whose interests include freebasing, hedgehog collecting and pro-level  hide and seek.

Edited August 22, 2016 by railsquid