Hattons Model Railways of Widnes (formerly Liverpool).

[Fluo66]

Hi Richard,

 

Thank you for explaining the situation.

 

I placed several orders during this year and my experience is that it takes normally 2 or 3 working days from order to despatch. Not only in September and October.

 

This is especially frustrating if I had to select the very expensive intl. express delivery (due to size or weight) and the parcel itself takes 15 hours or less from Widness to Germany. BTW DHL does a great job with the express service.

 

Why do you not offer same day despatch for express deliveries?

 

Kind regards

Guido

[richarddavies]

Hi Guido

 

Thanks for your orders and feedback.

 

To be honest, we have only just recently changed our "stance" on expedited delivery to be focused on "Same day despatch", rather than "Next day delivery".

 

We made the switch when we realised that "Next day delivery" relied on trusting couriers, and, when, on occasions where the courier didn't get the order to the customer that day, we were in an awkward position of not being "in control" of the circumstances that led to the dissatisfaction. I intend to reshape the terminology we use to be "Guaranteed same day despatch" - but another constraint is that DHL pickup from us at 4pm in order to get the consignments onto planes in East Midlands airport that night

 

Our overall objective is to be so well-organised, that an even higher (than current) number of orders are despatched same-day. This will mean a rise in customer satisfaction, without the operational complications of having to fast-track some orders through

 

Hope this helps

 

Best 

R

[BWsTrains]

Hmm, that's interesting.

 

I posted a link to these pages on the Hattons "Live Chat" earlier today with a "please bring to management attention" comment. Someone's taken notice at least, the proof will be ahead.

 

Thanks RD

[Fluo66]

Hi Richard,

 

I understand that you can not guarantee a fast delivery after you handed over a parcel to the courier. This is out of your control and I think that most people understand this. And no question if you have to hand over the parcel until 4pm you can not await a same day despatch if you place your order at 3pm.

 

But my impression is that the same day despatch deliveries have priority 1 and all the other orders have a lower priority even express shipping (I know that express delivery is the courier's service and not yours). And this is dissapointing if you pay a lot for this - seen from the customer's perspective.

 

To be honest, the only reasons why I order most of my stuff at Hattons are the simple checkout process and the relative cheap international shipping costs compared with the other retailers. Not the prices and not the service. A good service is a service that you don't need because everything runs fine.

 

Thanks anyway.

 

I'll try it in the next days to see if the despatch times have shortened.

 

Guido

[dpgibbons]

I'm with Guido. Fulfillment is important but so is pricing and in that area Hattons have slipped behind Rails and Track Shack. 

[Western Dave]

 

Hello all

 

It’s Richard here, MD of Hatton’s.

 

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted - looks like HattonsDave has been doing a great job, in my absence

 

Thank you to everyone who’s been posting with reports of swift receipt of parcels. Apologies to anyone who has had problems of any nature - our exceptional Helpdesk team are always on hand to assist anyone who has any queries of any nature - and respond to the many emails of praise we receive each day, from customers who recognise the superb team @ Hatton’s and the high standards we’ve set in nearly 20 years of selling online

 

As previously mentioned, we weren’t running at top speed during late September and early October. This was as a result of getting into our stride after a stock-take, upgrading our PickPack and Replen processes & software, and changing shift patterns to move onto a 6-day working week. We are now despatching orders quicker than ever before

 

I want to address our decision to suspend offering Next Day delivery, as, despite it being available again, there seems to be ongoing frustration about it not being available for a period:

 

Amongst the many choices we’ve made, that have made us one of, if not the leading retailer in the sector, the one which,I believe, stands far above any other, in terms of importance, is to never make promises we aren't 99.5% sure we can keep. We genuinely love to “over deliver” and a very, very high percentage of orders are despatched on the day they are received.

 

When we moved into stock-take and then switched our new fulfillment systems on, we were under great pressure to get the whole operation moving again. My analogy of this to our staff, was that it was akin to bump-starting a jumbo jet... We’ve taken on many extra people to help with the transition, worked late nights & long weeks, to get to a level where we felt it “safe” to make the “Guaranteed same-day despatch” promise again.

 

The level of scrutinisation we’re under, from customers and industry spectators, is a privilege and something that I’m sure, many covet. I’m proud to say that we’ve just had our best October ever (order quantity and revenue) and November is looking very good so far. The store is quiet, after the introduction of the Mersey Gateway & toll - but at Hatton’s we’ve learnt to deal with what comes our way - we are hardy and very, very experienced in dealing with thousands of orders each week. An example of our terrific despatch “horsepower” was in the last week, where a supplier delivery with many new items and 700+ preorders, went through our 4 semi-automated packing stations in less than 3 hours. The original order processing system, designed in 2003 when we were despatching “just” 700 orders a week, served us very well - helping us despatch over 2 million orders during it’s 14 year life. 

 

The great sign to me, of how we are now fulfilling orders so smoothly, is that in the last few weeks, I’ve had more time than in many years, to get back to why I never need motivating to get out of bed in the morning - going into “work” and talking with like-minded colleagues & suppliers about model railways. Many of you have preorders for the exciting products our terrific suppliers have on the way from us - and I look forward to the opportunity to impress you all with what’s to come. 

 

A team from Warners are in Hatton’s next week, to plan a video to show “Behind the scenes at Hatton’s”. Over the years, I’ve taken many customers around the site in person - but this will help those of you who haven’t had “the tour”, an opportunity to learn more about our scale, site, operations & people. This will be viewable from our site around December 12th.

 

The only thing I miss about being paperless, is I can’t look through the “orders for despatch” shelves at home time, and see if I can drop any off to customers on my way home any more!

 

Hope this is of interest to you. Very interested to read & hear what you think. Thank you again for your support and custom.

 

Best

 

Richard Davies

 

Hi Richard

 

Great corporate speak form you but what your saying was certainly not my experience and I will not be using you again based on it

 

PS

 

I'm still waiting for the recorded messages of my telephone calls to be forward to me as requested, you may want to listen to them as well as there is a difference between what your writing and what I experienced. and not for the first time this year sadly. This is not the place to conduct that conversation really though!

 

PPS

 

I've given up on the senior management actually contacting me a week on and clearly that opportunity is lost.

 

Regards

David

[GeoffAlan]

My beef, and I'm a frequent user of Hattons, (To the point where I've spent £thousands over the last few years.) is that sometimes I order and the items haven't been picked 4 working days later, and yet my previous and the next order was picked the same, or next day from my placing the order.

 

I appreciate how difficult this must be for Hattons, and many other sellers, but several sellers will post the item(s) the same day as the order if I place the order before a certain time. I've seen my Hattons orders sit 3, 4 or even more days before they are 'picked' and there seems no rhyme nor reason as to why this happens.

 

To be clear I'm not talking about the 'present difficulties', but the situation over the last year. I've lost count of the emails I've sent to ask 'where's my stuff?'.

[Shroomy]

Great speech Richard worthy of any politician but as all great speeches it's been well and truly over spun and completely misses the mark of people's grumbles just my observation not a reflection of other people's opinions

[meatloaf]

.where about is this toll road? I usually travel to you from stoke but soint want to be hit by any toll fees

[Stevelewis]

.where about is this toll road? I usually travel to you from stoke but soint want to be hit by any toll fees

 

I dont  think  you  can  avoid  it  without a long  detour via the * Warrington  direction,  which will cost  more in   Fuel,  You may as well order online  and  save  some cash & time,  I could  travel from  home to  Widnes but  it  would  cost  around £9.00  in petrol  and    around   1 3/4 hours  driving  time,  and  now  there  is   the  Toll  I can  add £4 to  the  total.

 

* Probably  worth  you  checking  out  the  route as  you will no doubt  travel  via the  M6 from  S-O-T

Edited November 17, 2017 by Stevelewis

[Thebigshot]

Hi Guys

 

I must admit I'm glade I'm not the only one that's had issues with Hattons I had issues with a Heljin class 26 and a lenz chip I got so fed up of sending it back to Hattons with the lenz chip and I ended up dealing with Hows who actually fixed the issue means to say I haven't been contacted by Hattons for with a fix or a refund for the fix thankfuly it wasn't an expensive fix

 

Thanks

Alan

[johnd]

New announcement " On line orders will be sent out on the day order received and no more "b**l sh*t" to be given when enquiring about orders!

 

Now that would be a good announcement.

Sorry folks just couldn't resist the chance to show feeling .

[peterfgf]

 

Hello all

 

It’s Richard here, MD of Hatton’s.

 

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted - looks like HattonsDave has been doing a great job, in my absence

 

Thank you to everyone who’s been posting with reports of swift receipt of parcels. Apologies to anyone who has had problems of any nature - our exceptional Helpdesk team are always on hand to assist anyone who has any queries of any nature - and respond to the many emails of praise we receive each day, from customers who recognise the superb team @ Hatton’s and the high standards we’ve set in nearly 20 years of selling online

 

As previously mentioned, we weren’t running at top speed during late September and early October. This was as a result of getting into our stride after a stock-take, upgrading our PickPack and Replen processes & software, and changing shift patterns to move onto a 6-day working week. We are now despatching orders quicker than ever before

 

I want to address our decision to suspend offering Next Day delivery, as, despite it being available again, there seems to be ongoing frustration about it not being available for a period:

 

Amongst the many choices we’ve made, that have made us one of, if not the leading retailer in the sector, the one which,I believe, stands far above any other, in terms of importance, is to never make promises we aren't 99.5% sure we can keep. We genuinely love to “over deliver” and a very, very high percentage of orders are despatched on the day they are received.

 

When we moved into stock-take and then switched our new fulfillment systems on, we were under great pressure to get the whole operation moving again. My analogy of this to our staff, was that it was akin to bump-starting a jumbo jet... We’ve taken on many extra people to help with the transition, worked late nights & long weeks, to get to a level where we felt it “safe” to make the “Guaranteed same-day despatch” promise again.

 

The level of scrutinisation we’re under, from customers and industry spectators, is a privilege and something that I’m sure, many covet. I’m proud to say that we’ve just had our best October ever (order quantity and revenue) and November is looking very good so far. The store is quiet, after the introduction of the Mersey Gateway & toll - but at Hatton’s we’ve learnt to deal with what comes our way - we are hardy and very, very experienced in dealing with thousands of orders each week. An example of our terrific despatch “horsepower” was in the last week, where a supplier delivery with many new items and 700+ preorders, went through our 4 semi-automated packing stations in less than 3 hours. The original order processing system, designed in 2003 when we were despatching “just” 700 orders a week, served us very well - helping us despatch over 2 million orders during it’s 14 year life. 

 

The great sign to me, of how we are now fulfilling orders so smoothly, is that in the last few weeks, I’ve had more time than in many years, to get back to why I never need motivating to get out of bed in the morning - going into “work” and talking with like-minded colleagues & suppliers about model railways. Many of you have preorders for the exciting products our terrific suppliers have on the way from us - and I look forward to the opportunity to impress you all with what’s to come. 

 

A team from Warners are in Hatton’s next week, to plan a video to show “Behind the scenes at Hatton’s”. Over the years, I’ve taken many customers around the site in person - but this will help those of you who haven’t had “the tour”, an opportunity to learn more about our scale, site, operations & people. This will be viewable from our site around December 12th.

 

The only thing I miss about being paperless, is I can’t look through the “orders for despatch” shelves at home time, and see if I can drop any off to customers on my way home any more!

 

Hope this is of interest to you. Very interested to read & hear what you think. Thank you again for your support and custom.

 

Best

 

Richard Davies

 

Edited November 17, 2017 by peterfgf

[Free At Last]

peterfgf, on 17 Nov 2017 - 20:38, said:

 

richarddavies, on 16 Nov 2017 - 21:06, said:

 

Hello all

 

It’s Richard here, MD of Hatton’s.

 

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted - looks like HattonsDave has been doing a great job, in my absence

 

Thank you to everyone who’s been posting with reports of swift receipt of parcels. Apologies to anyone who has had problems of any nature - our exceptional Helpdesk team are always on hand to assist anyone who has any queries of any nature - and respond to the many emails of praise we receive each day, from customers who recognise the superb team @ Hatton’s and the high standards we’ve set in nearly 20 years of selling online

 

As previously mentioned, we weren’t running at top speed during late September and early October. This was as a result of getting into our stride after a stock-take, upgrading our PickPack and Replen processes & software, and changing shift patterns to move onto a 6-day working week. We are now despatching orders quicker than ever before

 

I want to address our decision to suspend offering Next Day delivery, as, despite it being available again, there seems to be ongoing frustration about it not being available for a period:

 

Amongst the many choices we’ve made, that have made us one of, if not the leading retailer in the sector, the one which,I believe, stands far above any other, in terms of importance, is to never make promises we aren't 99.5% sure we can keep. We genuinely love to “over deliver” and a very, very high percentage of orders are despatched on the day they are received.

 

When we moved into stock-take and then switched our new fulfillment systems on, we were under great pressure to get the whole operation moving again. My analogy of this to our staff, was that it was akin to bump-starting a jumbo jet... We’ve taken on many extra people to help with the transition, worked late nights & long weeks, to get to a level where we felt it “safe” to make the “Guaranteed same-day despatch” promise again.

 

The level of scrutinisation we’re under, from customers and industry spectators, is a privilege and something that I’m sure, many covet. I’m proud to say that we’ve just had our best October ever (order quantity and revenue) and November is looking very good so far. The store is quiet, after the introduction of the Mersey Gateway & toll - but at Hatton’s we’ve learnt to deal with what comes our way - we are hardy and very, very experienced in dealing with thousands of orders each week. An example of our terrific despatch “horsepower” was in the last week, where a supplier delivery with many new items and 700+ preorders, went through our 4 semi-automated packing stations in less than 3 hours. The original order processing system, designed in 2003 when we were despatching “just” 700 orders a week, served us very well - helping us despatch over 2 million orders during it’s 14 year life. 

 

The great sign to me, of how we are now fulfilling orders so smoothly, is that in the last few weeks, I’ve had more time than in many years, to get back to why I never need motivating to get out of bed in the morning - going into “work” and talking with like-minded colleagues & suppliers about model railways. Many of you have preorders for the exciting products our terrific suppliers have on the way from us - and I look forward to the opportunity to impress you all with what’s to come. 

 

A team from Warners are in Hatton’s next week, to plan a video to show “Behind the scenes at Hatton’s”. Over the years, I’ve taken many customers around the site in person - but this will help those of you who haven’t had “the tour”, an opportunity to learn more about our scale, site, operations & people. This will be viewable from our site around December 12th.

 

The only thing I miss about being paperless, is I can’t look through the “orders for despatch” shelves at home time, and see if I can drop any off to customers on my way home any more!

 

Hope this is of interest to you. Very interested to read & hear what you think. Thank you again for your support and custom.

 

Best

 

Richard Davies

 

 

Invisible ink?

[47164]

Grateful update from Richard, I have ordered many items over time for next day delivery and never been let down, my last two orders recently both were Royal Mail and appeared by 8.30 the following morning.I do always phone in my orders pre 2.00pm the day before.

In defence of pricing especially on pre owned , I personally find them better than rails who seem way over priced on a lot of items....which might explain the vast bible of their eBay pages.!

[Stevelewis]

Grateful update from Richard, I have ordered many items over time for next day delivery and never been let down, my last two orders recently both were Royal Mail and appeared by 8.30 the following morning.I do always phone in my orders pre 2.00pm the day before.

In defence of pricing especially on pre owned , I personally find them better than rails who seem way over priced on a lot of items....which might explain the vast bible of their eBay pages.!

 

Rails  prices  do  seem   a  little  overpriced  however  where  a  best  offer is  available,  I have  bought  lots  of  items  at  well below  the  initial  price,  with  the  added  advantage  of  post  free  if  the  order  is  paid  directly  by telephone,  As  an  example  some  H0e  items in 2 lots  initially priced  at  £110  cost  me  around  £79  with no postal  cost

[Stevelewis]

Just  a  single  positive  comment  from  me  regarding  Richard's  recent  post,...................  the  bit  about  dropping  off orders  on  his   way  home,  I can  confirm  that  this  happened  to me  last  year  when  he  delivered  a  large  and  heavy  order  which  contained  quite  a  quantity  of  garden  railway  track plus  a  few  other  items 

[Free At Last]

Disappointing 30 mile round trip to Hattons yesterday. Due to stocktaking a lot of the stock had been taken off display. I did get what I went for though thanks to the staff member going into the warehouse to fetch a few samples for me to make my choice. I do prefer to quietly browse on my own though and may have made an extra purchase.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Free At Last

[woodenhead]

I actually prefer website browsing, you get a clearer view of the models if like Hattons and Rails there is more than one angle taken.

 

Looking at models through glass in cabinets surrounded by other models in poor lighting is not helpful to me.

 

I used to like shop browsing myself until I realised how much more you can see when you look at a good website which Hattons does have.

[Coryton]

I actually prefer website browsing, you get a clearer view of the models if like Hattons and Rails there is more than one angle taken.

 

Looking at models through glass in cabinets surrounded by other models in poor lighting is not helpful to me.

 

I used to like shop browsing myself until I realised how much more you can see when you look at a good website which Hattons does have.

 

But - although even in real life it does depend on the lighting - it's hard to be sure what colour anything is when you see it on-line.

 

I'd agree that Hattons' photographs are excellent though.

[Free At Last]

I went to get some 'fine' WS ballast which looked suitable on the website, but on seeing it in the shop it was almost like powder. I had taken a sample of what I was using, purchased many years ago with no identifying label on the bags, its nearest match was 'medium'. This could not have been done online.

[Gwiwer]

Websites and the thumbnail images normally embedded therein do have their limitations. Comparing size and colour are among those. However for purchase of items such as rolling stock, track and resin structures the size is either already know, is given in the item description (by Hattons and some others though by no means universally) or is reasonably assumed by dint of scale to be acceptable (though exceptions certainly exist when liberties are taken with scaling).

 

Currently I choose to shop elsewhere having read the above and based upon personal experience. Hattons are no longer almost certainly the cheapest (and I had wondered for how long some of the prices might or might not be sustainable) and the stock-holding and shipping operations have most definitely encountered a rough patch.

[railsquid]

Order placed online in the middle of the UK night, just got the "Picking list packed" notification.

[Scottish-Exile]

Hattons announce they will be having stands at various shows in 2018:

 

 

We're pleased to reveal that we will be attending a number of exhibitions across the UK throughout 2018! This will give you the opportunity to speak to our expert team members, share your ideas and have your questions answered. We will have a range of samples of our exclusive products on display and you will even be able to pre-order items and have them sent straight to you upon release.

Currently, you'll be able to come and see us at Model Rail Scotland in February, The London Festival of Railway Modelling in March and Warley Model Railway Club & Exhibition in November but keep checking our calendar to see the full list of events we'll be attending. You can find it here: https://goo.gl/Xzhn23

[Nelson Jackson]

Superb! I have always hoped that Hattons would do exhibitions, and now they are!