Pete47401
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Posts posted by Pete47401
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2021 hopes
in Hornby
48 minutes ago, Covkid said:Not forgetting the endless and tiresome mentions of frightened wallets.
Plus weak jokes about consulting SWMBO and then they'll get their coats.
No to mention "is it really over £100?" and of course telling us how they could make a much better one themselves out of pipe cleaners and poo.
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On 13/12/2020 at 22:14, newbryford said:
Eh? Burnt?
Not at all.
Just had to find the right level for them £65 + postage in the end, still a nice profit.
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On 04/12/2020 at 09:38, adb968008 said:
I wonder who's good cause ?
The LMS only built 3 of them in 1930.
He must have a very strong rocket to pull 20...
What will he do with the other 17 I wonder ?
My good cause!
Yeah, if people can afford £17 for a little piece of blue plastic they can afford £27 for it... only the sort of price which they were probably quite happy to pay for Rails aborted version a few months ago.
I might knock them out at £90 for a set of 3.
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On 23/11/2020 at 20:12, Roy Langridge said:
I would love to see the likes of Hornby take a stand against retailers that are blatantly hiking prices as, ultimately, the consumer suffers and so, longer-term. will the manufacturer.
I feel for those who will not get their pre-order, yet see a retailer doing this.
And as for me, I vetoed Olivia's many moons ago after a bad experience and this just reinforces my reasoning for that decision.
RoyNah, it makes up for all the other stuff that people (steam fans usually) refuse to touch "until the price drops". And then still want it for less when it does drop.
You win some you lose some, and buyers have had plenty of bargains, sometimes, occasionally, the boot's on the other foot and you have to pay a bit extra.
Got plenty of these, job lot of 20 for £600, save me posting all the little bleeders separately.
All for a good cause too.
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Looks like Hornby don't understand railway modelling either then.
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27 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:
What's wrong with running the old Airfix 61XX? Perfectly good model which many of us will probably have several. Many will have been detailed to a very high standard. Some will be even better detailed than the new model.
It's a fine model and if you think that people are suddenly going to ditch perfectly good models just because a new version comes along then I don't think you quite understand railway modelling. People don't tend to buy to replace, they buy to add to what they already have.
My new Hornby one will work alongside the eight others I've got Airfix/Mainline (some with Comet chassis) and Wills/SEF. But it's not replacing them.
Do you really think people are going to spend £100 to £200 a model to replace things they already have? Some people have more money than sense.
Gang? No idea what that's about....
No people don't buy to replace, except for the ones that do.
"Gang" just refers to a group of people who have bigger eyes than bellies, not literally an organised crime syndicate who plot between themselves to fool Hornby into making unwanted models just so they can get them cheap.
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30 minutes ago, darrel said:
If Hornby Hornby plan to make 1000 models and the pre orders exceed that by a large amount as would seem to be the case here why does Hornby not think "oh we should make more!" If they have 2000 pre orders from the public and the trade, then make 2000 and make more money.
The NHS class 66 is a case in point where it was supposed to be limited to 500 models and ended up as a lot more.
Do you find other sectors doing this, if I order a new phone I expect to get it not be told sorry we have sold them all so we are not going to make more. Do heinz stop making tomato ketchup because it is selling well? No it makes little sense. If a model is so popular that you have a greater demand than expected make more.
The difference with tomato ketchup is people will use it up and buy another one, but how many of my 61xx do they want? That's right, none of them because they have an Airfix one. And is it really over £100? And also "I work for the NHS can I get it cheap?" "No, and I'm not standing outside in the rain clapping my hands for you either". And so on and so forth ad infinitum.
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33 minutes ago, cctransuk said:
Surely, not fulfilling demand is extremely undesireable for all concerned - customer, retailer and commissioner; (Hornby, Bachmann, etc.).
I can only conclude that the latter companies' market research is woefully deficient, as this under-supply situation seems to be occurring more and more frequently.
I know that no-one wants to to end up with stock on shelves, but there seems to be a culture of over-caution when it comes to production batch commissioning.
John Isherwood.
I think people have been burned too many times by the "I'll wait until the price drops" gang.
And also by the "We badly need a new 61xx, but actually carry on running our old Airfix one when it comes" gang.
Understandable caution from both manufacturers and retailers, and even with market research it's not simple to predict.
So nice to get a "winner" and be able to run the prices up as far as they will go, to make up for all the "losers", even worth putting up with all the weak jokes about wallets and asking SWMBO....
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1 hour ago, Accurascale Fran said:
Another look at the odd PCA among a train of our STS grey wagons!
Cheers!
Fran
Oh, those are the grey ones... I thought they were just the other lot but filthy!
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On 04/08/2020 at 20:36, SouthernMafia said:
I could be wrong but would a Bachmann PCA be a suitable donor wagon, and I think Fox do the transfers.
Probably near enough, I'm not fussy! Just think a mixed rake would look more interesting than a completely uniform one...
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16 hours ago, Accurascale Fran said:
Hi Pete,
I assume you mean this type of PCA? They mixed with our STS grey wagons too (as did our our Rugby cement PCAs)
And while it did often run with this additional PCA it often did not too
Cheers!
Fran
Yes indeed, those are the ones, thanks for the reply. I had also come across that shot on Flickr of the uniform rake though most pics show it with a pair of the other wagon type (also less common being a Crompton instead of an ED).
I remember seeing and photographing the train myself, hence the interest! Your plain grey wagons don't particularly ring a bell though, so not sure if they worked it at different periods or intermittently with the Rugby ones. Maybe it's just the Rugby livery ones stick in the memory more than the plain ones.
Perhaps I will invest in a rake (always interested in anything 1980s SR freight-wise). Are you still signing up trade accounts (and maybe make it several rakes)? Noticed there were a coupe of other preservation groups listed...
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The Southampton to Halling run, often included one or two extra wagons of a different build, also with Rugby Cement branding... has anyone made these? Or even Rugby Cement transfers to apply to similar wagons released by other manufacturers that may be in a different livery?
Sorry, not sure of the running numbers or build type off-hand... but most pics of the train in question will show them... usually on the London end of the LSWR section of the journey.
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Any chance of these?
https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/ferrytransfesavan1959/ed86e717
Or these?
https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/ferryitalianinterfrigo/e26f388d1
Ferry wagons seem to be one of the biggest gaps in the model wagon market, but not sure if prototypes exist to measure up in the UK or elsewhere. Plenty of other types to go at as well, including BR's own vans, but the above two are among the most distinctive and iconic for me and a common feature of many 70s/80s Speedlink services.
I'd take a rake of both to kick start my modelling career (as opposed to just selling them to raise money for 12 inches to the foot scale locos!)
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We haven't been offered any of them.
That's a pity, as we quite like 47s for some reason....
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So it's OK for everyone here to get excited about picking up bargains because of Hornby's misfortunes, but not because of currency fluctuations. How strange and hypocritical.
And do people really go running to the mods about something so mild? Some of you guys wouldn't last 5 minutes on some of the forums I've been on.
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No.
Is it a secret?
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Lower than usual retention in the direct sales channel is inevitably connected with regime changes and changing channel strategy. This has been yet one more trial for the independent retailers over the last few years.
The reps had their own allocation to sell... if someone asked you to order something that was shown as in stock with Hornby and the rep had sold out of his share but Hornby themselves still had it for the website sales, you could not get it! How does that look to the general public, Hornby is Hornby to them, they don't care if one bit of Hornby won't share with another bit of Hornby because of some inflexible system! Result disappointed retailer and disappointed buyer.
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I don't know where your shop is so I don't know your rep but we certainly had an email from our rep with a list of discounted items recently. We took the decision not to order anything from it mainl because we have existing stocks of the items on the list, apart from those items we would never sell in a month of Sundays (or any other day come to that). We've also recently received another offer to coincide with the Toymaster show, but again this came directly from our rep not Hornby Sales. As I have said before on this forum I can only speak for us as Wicor Models but having dealt with Hornby for the best part of 20 years we have never had any real problems or quibbles and if there has been an issue it has been dealt with promptly (except on one recent occasion but that is not for public consumption yet - too soon!). We have been assured by our rep and his managers that the retail trade is an important part of Hornby's ongoing business plan and nothing that I have seen makes me think otherwise. Despite some of the doomsayers above shops are a vital component in he UK economy and the percentage of internet sales is very small compared to shop sales nationally.
That may explain it then, as we don't have a rep! We had one until last year until they parted company with him (West Midlands area, though the shop such as it is... more of a market stall these days, another long story and not a very happy one... is East Midlands, maybe covered by another rep, but we were allocated by our mail order/invoicing address), last I heard they were recruiting a replacement but he's not yet made himself known to us (if he exists).
I agree that they were always good and professional to deal with, certainly the best of the model companies we deal with... we have dealt with them for almost as long as you have, about 16 years. Quality control/margins/loss of some good customers/price increases have combined to reduce our purchases with them, rather than anything specifically malicious/incompetent they've done that was aimed at us particularly.
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The only difference - which is far from clear - is to what extent the surplus stock currently being cleared has been offered to the retail trade i.e. was it offered to a limited number of outlets, or was it offered subject to a minimum spend (either of which would make economic sense) or did those retailers who appear to have some of this stuff get in quick and scoop it all up before anybody else had noticed it was available?
We are a very small seller, but with an account direct with Hornby, not with a wholesaler. Unless an email went astray, or I failed to read some small print somewhere, we did NOT receive this offer. I checked the recent Trade News bulletins they send and it's all about stuff that I couldn't possibly want in a million years, not about stuff that I might actually want.
For the sake of circulating an email to additional recipients at no further cost, they could have kept a few more people happy.
When they set up the new discount scheme we were told that the "big boys" did not get the extra 10% quarterly rebate over (I think) £40k. This was to give small shops an advantage. Perhaps this is how they level the playing field.
We only have "new tooling" releases on order with them now (Class 71, MN, B12, Peckett, Q6, coke hoppers), absolutely no way that we ever buy any reissue/relivery/renumber release (unless a direct customer request for minimum order of 2).
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The "having decided what to send to each site" appears to be the point where they are going wrong and suggests that some good old-fashioned market research might be what's lacking
But that would involve talking to those weird saddoes who like trains, they might catch the lurgy!
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The concession stock belongs to Hornby - they send it to their concession sites having decided what to send to each site, they set the price and any variations, and the stock belongs to them until it is sold. The concession receives a commission on sales which nowadays might offer a slightly better rate of return than acting in the normal retail fashion but I'm not sure on that one however it does avoid the cost of stock holding falling onto the retailer.
Thanks, thought so. How to tie up money.....
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Which I think is why they need knowledgable local reps who kind of know what will sell in the area. That's not to say there are Southern fans in Scotland and vice versa, but you might expect a higher degree of local interest
Sometimes I think reps know less about real railways (and how that translates into model sales) than the manufacturers themselves do.
Are concession stores sale or return? Seem to recall hearing once that they were. Better off those out of region models being paid for and sitting in a "normal" dealers stock in the right part of the country.
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I'm sorry to chose your post as an example, it's not personal but is this not Hornby's problem in a nutshell. 'I will only buy if it's cheap and discounted', but 'nasty Hornby if they undercut the RRP by selling direct'
Everyone likes a bargain, it's human nature, but I'm sure most retailers on here have had plenty of calls/emails asking what's the best price on so and so, and you quote them a pretty good price... answer comes back, they'll think about it - in other words they are asking around other places trying to squeeze an extra 1% or so, meanwhile you're thinking is this a definite order, should I delete the listings, will he be back or won't he? Stumbling across a nice bargain is one thing, actively trying to force prices down is another... but again, human nature I suppose...
In the long run, I'm not sure they are really coming out ahead, as while we try to look after all our customers, the really valued ones are the loyal ones who don't quibble over £1 here and there and keep coming back... now, they are the ones who get offered the best bargains or first chance on something special or rare that we might get in stock, the ones who we might go the extra mile to obtain something for...
We all have those "special" customers I'm sure?
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(and perhaps close accounts of those who sell from residential properties)
Except the ones that are preservation groups, ta very much!
(otherwise all looks good!)
New Hornby Rocket
in Hornby
Posted
Oh dear, only just seen this. Sorry, infrequent visitor.
Not really bragging, just yanking a few chains, worked too. So many people wanting for less than listed prices and the "wait until the price drops" gang were pretty tiresome. It was getting relentless, has been better recently though.
People are happy enough to take the bargains which we've offered plenty of, but some get all emotional and abusive if they think they might have to pay more. Yeah, in this case Rocket's coaches didn't go over RRP unlike the loco they were intended to accompany. You win some you lose some. Looks like Hush Hush was this year's Rocket! Did well with that, started at £220 and finished at £320 (no it wasn't us that sold the damaged one for £824), you need the occasional winner to make up for the not so good ones. Call it crowing if you want.