Interesting discussion..... Competition is usually framed in terms of price. In this case, quality, accuracy, roadname & roadnumber selection, paint job, etc. etc.. win over consumers. I can't think of any two products in our hobby that are roughly equivalent where one has "buried" its competition on price..... except maybe production of common prototypes in brass. In fact, IMHO the only two products that I would say are really equivalent are the two FTs.... although I prefer one over the other on VERY technical technicalities but would not balk at having the other side-by-side with my first choice.......and they are roughly the same MSRP because the cost structures that produce them are about the same. I may buy Atlas SD24s over Kato SD40-2s, but it is only because Kato chose to model a prototype out of my era. At the same time I will have roughly the same number of Atlas RS3s as Kato RS2s because I "need" both similar, but different, prototypes. I have everything from "Industrail" cars to brass.... although I must admit I limit buying brass because of $$$$$ I generally don't buy one car over another because of price.... IMHO the value of most everything on the market today is roughly equivalent..... Yes, regualr Bachmann steamers are not as good as their Spectrum or Kato, but then you can't get a Kato for $30!!! You pays your money and you takes your choice. Everybody makes out better when "competition" is not Head to Head on prototype...... when the manufacturers play nice we end up with more products. The competition for our attention and dollars takes care of controlling price and product innovation. Charlie Vlk
Actually, I heard they get together for an annual, friendly card game. Look around the table: Marty (InterMountain), Bob Bickley (Red Caboose), Paul (Atlas), MicroTrain, Kato, Charlie (Broadway Limited), etc. They play a version of "Go Fish". Overheard from the next table: "Got any F3's?" [ 29. July 2004, 14:46: Message edited by: keystonecrossings ]
Fine, but Kato announcing the Ca Zephyr cars with CB&Q F3's, while WP and DRG F3s remain sold out is a travesty. I'd by a Zephyr set in a NY minute if I could get WP power for it.
I recall Model Railroader magazine had over 200,000 readers years ago. Most, I would dare say, lived in the US. Today, their readership numbers are down, but evidence indicates other scale-specific magazines (N Scale Magazine, etc.) have grown, drawing off readers from MR. And consider - not all model railroaders read MR or any other model magazine. Meanwhile model railroading continues chugging along in Europe and Japan, not to mention many other countries. I would think model railroaders number in the millions. IMHO.
Kisatchie We will never know how many HO OR N scale people there are out there on information received from manufacturers. This very topic was discussed on the Atlas board. We can not even get a "read" on the proportion between HO and N customers from them. It is their prerogative, as long as the companies are privately held, to keep this information confidential. If released, the infomation could only hurt the party so disclosing. If sales figures are much lower than expected by its competition, the competitors may attempt to undercut and squeeze them out of the market. If much higher, a competitor might decide to enter that segment of the market. The only place that could be turned to in order to obtain, at the very least, a proportion figure between HO and N would be the big e commerce firms, llike Trainworld, Feather River, 4Nscale, Standard Hobby and the like. However, the same principal would apply if proportion numbers were made public. We ain't ever gonna know. The last point, though, is of more import; what difference does it make? When WE, the individuals, feel selection or prices are not compatible with either our tastes or pocketbooks, we will move on to another diversion from real life. On a personal note- I would like to thank the members of this forum for actually following the rules of grammar. It makes reading more pleasurable. There are other boards out there in different area that, well ...........
Some E-tailers recently got some more AB sets & A units in WP... you'll have to research that on the internet though. No more AB set of DRGW though... (good thing I got many)
With the announcement of the CZ set, I would have thought that, along with CB&Q F3 ABA, Kato would have taken the opportunity to re-release WP F3s in the ABB configuration (or AB + additional B unit). All online sources still list Kato WP F3 AB as sold out. IM FTs (reserve) don't fill the bill. Think of all the money I'm saving!
Actually, I heard they get together for an annual, friendly card game. Look around the table: Marty (InterMountain), Bob Bickley (Red Caboose), Paul (Atlas), MicroTrain, Kato, Charlie (Broadway Limited), etc. They play a version of "Go Fish". Overheard from the next table: "Got any F3's?" </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, my image of that meeting is exactly like that! Actually, it wasn't Charlie who made the joking reference to "the annual meeting" as he didn't attend the show last year...... It was another "industry insider" and he was clearly joking about that meeting. As anyone in the biz will tell you, sales figures and new projects are the most closely guarded secrets there are - next to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden!
I don't think anybody in the industry has a real handle on what the size of the market really is. Even people who sell basic supplies (like Woodland Scenics and Atlas) can't track if their products go to one guy who buys a ton or a bunch of people buying one each. Companies may not even have a good handle on the relative sizes of the markets...there are so many factors that impact the sale of a particular item (competition, acceptance of a particular model or part, phase of the moon, etc..) Sort of like the blind men feeling the elephant... you will get all sorts of answers depending on who you ask..... and probably none of them are correct!! Charlie Vlk
I can only imagine being a person or company who had invested a large amount of time and money in a project only to find out after that fact that some other person or company is doing the same thing!! It would be quite a let down for sure! I think Atlas is releasing so many new products because they wish to not bank on one product to carry them through. Kind of like diversifying your stock portfolio. You won't make a fortune from all your investments, but you will be on solid ground the next fiscal year. And being in a limited market, it does not take long to saturate said market. Even tighter markets exist in the "cottage industry". How many have come out with good products only to close up shop a year or so down the road? Another way to keep from sauturating the market is the "limited production run". But you can turn good customers into enemies with this strategy. I know of quite a few local hobby shops that are very frustrated with this approach. So frustrated that they refuse to do business with some of these manufacturers. It is a fine line that these manufacturers walk. I suppose that if more of us were in on the investment side, we may change our opinions of manufacturing and marketing methods.
I'm not sure I contribute much here, as the hobbies industry probably changed a lot since I was last involved in 1976. But it may be that the more things change, the more they stay the same. My gut instinct is that it's still very much a seat-of-the-pants industry. It's a tiny fraction of, say, the computer or auto industries, where there are many research houses, some of them huge (International Data Corp), which will sell you any market data you want for a pretty price. My story starts when Damon Corp. bought all but one of the model rocket companies in 1972. They bought Estes, Centuri and Vashon on the same day (or at least in the same week, IIRC). These were private companies, and the model rocket hobby was supposed to be a $20 million per year industry. Well, Damon was a public company, so we had to release "sector" sales in various government and public documents. Now, Estes sales were $6 million; Centuri perhaps $1.8 million; and Vashon about $1 million. Add them up and you get $8.8 million, not $20 million. Let's say Damon's acquisition depressed sales for the year by 30 percent. Still, we're at $11.4 million (projected). There's still a pretty big gap (43 percent), and a pretty weak acounting explanation. Now, a $6.7 million shortfall wasn't that big a deal for a $1.0 billion corporation, especially when other operations in medical industries were growing at 20 percent. But it's really bad PR and IR (Investor Relations) for a hot stock company to say that it overpaid for its new endeavor into "Education." What to do? Well, you group other revenues from other acquisitions (all but one of the kite companies, and a number of handicraft companies) with the model rocket companies, plus add in some substantial goodwill and voila! you get $22 million, resulting in a 10 percent growth in the year since you acquired them! Great investor news! Damon was smart enough to hire an experienced hobby marketeer from Matchbox, who quickly built up model rocket revenues to the advertised $20 million. But, boy, Damon sweated bullets until that happened. My point is that we can't really guess revenues from single private companies or for the N scale sector as a whole without at least a 50% fudge factor. I suppose, if someone really got down and dirty, and started analyzing everything from factory orders (difficult from overseas companies), distributor orders and reports, and other market research factors, that it could be done--but could anyone make money doing it?
I was just thinking... There will close to 300,000,000 Americans by year's end. IF only 1 in 3000 are N scale modelers, that works out to almost 100,000 N scale modelers in the US. Hmm... does anyone know how many N scale Magazine issues are sold each month?
Like I said, Model railroaders number perhaps in the hundreds of thousands...Specifially, those that will go and buy anything and everything as it comes out or within three months of it coming to market. That could be 100,00, that could be 999,999. I am not quite confident enough to say millions, because face it, though everybody can speak of an uncle or grandfather who was a train nut, or how they had a trainset when they were little, they themselves cannot really relate. If we were back about thirty years, I have a feeling you will see a greater number of model railroads, at least more then today. Basements were bigger, trainsets were cheaper, and children had more of an imagination and a longer bolt of patience. And yes, it is easier to save 100 pennies then it is to save 100 dollars...especially if someone will pay you 25 cents to mow their lawn...I don't think you will see people shelling out 25 dollars to have their lawn mowed ANYTIME soon! On that note, one kid mowing lawns in a neighborhood of twenty lawns, and it take 30-60 minutes to mow a lawn, means that kid can make $5.00 in 10-20 hr, at a minimum wage, minimum skill job. He might have to buy the gas, and he might have to pay his parents to loan the mower, but still, that kid has made $5.00 (500%), pocketing at least 4.00 of it. To make 500% of $100, one would have to earn $500. Please tell me where you can get a minimum wage, minimum skill job and Earn that kind of money in 10-20 Hours!!! (yet, as I say this, kids everywhere are strapping on $100-$200 Air Jordans and snapping up $60 Video games...) If you wish to dispute the part about creativity just take note that Lego has only five groups of sets on the shelfs right now: Harry Potter(R) Spiderman(R) NBA(R) Starwars(R) They finally have the basic Tubs, and the creator series, which is only four sets, and typically only one or two is on the shelf in any store due to space. They also have thier action figures, but otherwise, the number of sets that are original ideas are far and between...this creativity may not so much be the fault of the children, but rather, the producers that are trying to come up with ideas that will sell as many sets in the least amount of time. 300,000,000 Americans, if one in 1000 is a modeler, that is only 300,000 railraod modelers...and that Includes the linel and HO as well...we might be as high as 1 in 500, or one in 250, but I am not even that confident... [ 30. July 2004, 22:01: Message edited by: Benny ]
The figure most often quoted is one out of a thousand, but it could be half that or twice that. As to the sales of the two N scale mags, they are required to publish their circulation figures in order to have mailing priveleges. N-Scale last listed about 8500 copies per month sold and subscribed. I don't subscribe to NSR yet. MR, OTOH, lists a circulation of around 185,000, down from a high of 215,000 plus a decade or so ago. Given that every modeler is not going to buy MR (look how many forum posters say they haven't bought one in years!), it would appear that the one out of 1000 is close. Lou Rukeyser's show just came on, so I'm signing off...................... EDIT: The "s" in Rukeyser ended up attached to "say" in the paragraph above! [ 31. July 2004, 13:14: Message edited by: Thirdrail ]
