There are several issues affecting our hobby at the moment, costs of production and shipping which could be looked at and possibly improved with bringing production back to Britain. Now we get all the people saying its cheaper in China but the cost of the production over there is rising as the Chineese government are making western companies pay more to improve there workers living standards, and also the shipping costs are rising as shipping companies are tightening there belts.
Another problem with sales is the amount of small local model shops that have closed down as the internet has reduced high street footfall and people have less disposable money in there pockets. The current prices have gone a fair way to killing the hobby. Once little Johnny would have saved up £40 - £50 and bought a new loco, now they save that much and buy an Xbox game as they need 3 times that for a loco. The big internet stores offer discounted costs which then help to drive the local model shops out of business.
The current Chineese production process has also vastly affected the once impressive spares supply which also brought in revenue. Modellers used to keep there models running by carrying out a lot of maintenance and repairs themselves, whereas now if they get a problem with the modern models they require a service center for a repair. With local model shops closing down this then makes repairs harder and more expensive to carry out and thus people start to think twice about buying a brand new model and look at preowned.