This statement causes me to wonder where are the modelers who strip lettering, even paint to create the road they are modeling. I have done this for years because few manufacturers produced a Gen-1 diesel in B&M Minute Man. Also, I have had to re-letter every steamer I own other than MP's Atlantic and Mogul. I'll admit I melted a Kato F-7 B unit shell before I found the correct paint solvent, but that's part of the hobby...trial, error, and "sure wish I hadn't done that".
Instead of polls why not just let the manufactures know directly what you would like to have? Email, snail mail, phone call and direct contact at shows work quite well.
This raises the question of why or how did the project get selected in the first place. It appears that the main criteria for most projects is the personal whim of the producer. There is enough resources out there for producers to gauge the market place. How about getting the RR mags to run a yearly survey? How about feedback from distributors and local hobby shops? Yeah, not fool proof by any means but a lot better than chasing unicorns. I lumped these together because they all share the same problem. When the producer is located in the Western Hemisphere and the manufacturer is half way around the world, twelve time zones removed, how can the producer exert any control? When companies like Atlas divested themselves of the manufacturing process in an effort to cut costs and went to China for their manufacturing I knew there was going to be trouble. Look, I am not a genius but I do read and when I see companies pursuing business plans that have been tried before and never worked it doesn't take a genius to figure out, here we go again. The fact that China was selected was doubly troubling. This is a country that micro manages its economy and had, as most countries that try it, a rather poor record of doing so. So we ended up with the whole China debacle. When General Foods bought Lionel and moved the production to Mexico in search of lower costs it was a fiasco. They ended up selling Lionel, at a loss and the buyer promptly brought the manufacturing back to the US. Will the current batch of companies do likewise? I don't know. There are these rumors out there about tooling being held hostage in China so the manufacturers can't retrieve them. To my knowledge these rumors have never been denied but with prices rising here and costs also rising in China I don't see anyone talking about moving production to some other country. In addition, China is now devaluing its currency. That could have major repercussions on pricing of product. Information in various media that I have seen indicates that a majority of the tooling of at least several producers have been consolidated in one factory and that factory is owned by Kiddar Industries (sp?) the parent company of Bachmann. If so, that may explain why Bachmann has released more locomotives of late than other producers. In short, producers have no control over their manufacturing and are victims of their own plans to cut costs. Without production facilities to maintain the producers are initially immune to the costs of manufacturing but they will pay those costs and more because they will be built into the cost of their product from the factory. And part of that cost will be profit for the factory owner. This then becomes the producer's cost that he has to cover just to break even. On top of this he has to figure his profit margin. Thus the preorder system to give the producer the necessary information to gauge the market to see if the project is viable. Sounds good but there is a catch. The pre-order system is badly flawed in that it underestimates the market. Some of the market refuse to pre-order, some of the market never hear of the project, Then there are those who do pre-order but do not buy the product, if and when it is produced. The producers say they adjust the production run by building a percentage to cover additional sales. From my experience whatever percentage is used has been inadequate. The modeling public has soured on the pre-order system with their experiences with Concor and PCM/BLI. All of these, including #8 can be solved by the producer. Venders need product to sell. If they are not paying your bills then they are probably not paying others as well. So put them on a prepay basis and tell them they get nothing from you until they are current on their bills. Then offer their product to venders who do pay. Yes, you may lose them but what have you lost? A bottomless pit that eats your money. Look at what you gain, venders who are rewarded with product for increased sales. A little positive endorsement for them will go a long way.
Putting such a vendor on pre-pay, or C.O.D., is standard operating procedure for other business venues. Seems as though that should be true here, too!
I have attempted to answer everyone's questions and critiques of "pre orders" so now it's my turn to ask you guys a question..... if not pre orders then what ? Do you expect model train companies to simply pick a model, make a bunch, offer them to stores for sale and then "wait and see"....? If not taking pre-orders (in whatever form you feel is the right way) then what is your sales solution....? I'm genuinely curious how you would run "your model train" company - how would you produce and sell your products were it up to you...?
For many centuries, manufacturers did it non-pre-order. What I saw happen, which brought about JIT inventories, then evolved to pre-orders, was that inventory taxation got out of control. So inventories were drastically reduced or disposed of and....
I am that guy you are wondering about. I have custom built every engine on my layout. I still pre-order things I want.
That doesn't equate to money at order time. I can't tell you how many time I've heard "I'm in for [insert # here] of those!" and when I ask later, I hear the excuses about tight budget or [inset other excuse here]. If you are willing to give the vendor a credit card or check card number to reserve an item/s for you, it means you are a serious buyer, not a wishful thinker.
and... brick and mortar hobby shops that went out of business because they had inventory they couldn't turn back into cash.
All true.... but by the same token is it not fair to say that the "game has changed".... in 1970 I could buy a "brand x" AAR 1937 40' boxcar RTR model - they offered 10 roadnames and schemes, one road number per and the doors, ends and roof were all the same, regardless of the prototype... today it's 25 road names, five of which have two paint schemes, 30 sku's... by the way; 8 have 6' doors, 17 have 8' doors, 12 are youngstown doors, 13 are Superior doors. 2 have 12 brace ends, 20 have dreadnaught ends, 3 have improved dreadnaught ends...... and each road names and paint scheme has 12 road numbers and an un numbered..... How many sku's is that...? How many production variations, how many packaging variations.... and the biggest issue; although the 1970 boxcar and this one may sell the same gross number, the number per sku is so much smaller..... Today's "inventory" of model trains bears very little similarities to inventory in years past.... it's far more expansive and thus, far more costly.... if, indeed, anyone chooses to carry inventory... and as you have wisely pointed out the valuation of inventory has gotten almost prohibitive and most financial lenders and institutions consider inventory a liability as opposed to an asset, regardless of the actual market value of the product.....
Inkineer, I understand some of the frustrations, but ranting against nearly every thing that has happened in MRR doesn't sound right t me. I asked if you had ever run a biz, and you didn't answer, but it seems as if you (and to be honest, me) think you/me/we know there business better than they do, without ever being in their shoes. Again, for my money, if so many companies off shore, with all their MBA's etc., it must be for a reason, even if unpleasant to us in the US. We will hear a lot about it in the election season, as politicians parrot the satisfying but untrue line that the tax code pays companies to take jobs off shore. You will note that for all the bluster, 1) it doesn't, and 2) no President or Congress, even if they sound like they want to bring back low value manufacturing to the US has ever actually done anything about it, probably because they can't. While not perfect - nothing ever is - you just can't ignore the literally thousands of good MR products that have been made in China at lower cost, and point ONLY to the delays and flubs, which are either few and far between, or a result of the decision of the producer (using your term, which is correct) and its standards and decisions as much as the Chinese factories, who make what was ordered, probably with 90% satisfaction to their customers, or greater. (Obviously I don't know) Otherwise, how would it be that Atlas continues to make high quality products, while say Model Power is of lesser quality? Because that is what the owners of those companies have determined works and that is the spec they write. As to "The pre-order system is badly flawed in that it underestimates the market" I say that is not a problem! There are always second, third and fourth runs, and at that point, based on actual queries from wholesalers, LHS or modelers wanting more, I bet they can estimate the marked for the second run better than in the vacuum of pre-production. In short, another work around and not a problem at all, except for those who believe their model should always be in the first run, available right now, and into infinity in the future, just because they happen to be periodically or chronically short on disposable income, as their life circumstances dictate. In the end, there is nothing the manufacturers can do for people who don't have the money to spend on the hobby. They weren't buying anyway, no matter what the system. It is an interesting point, however to wonder how many buy 10X of every loco, how many buy each road number, and how many scrape up funds to buy one of their road, or whatever. It would take a lot of poorer modelers to match just one rich one, but I am not sure the mfgs break it down that far, with exceptions. Obviously, IM had to figure the 5% of those who model SP or successors would have to buy ten each over a broader appeal loco, and juiced sales with resale repaints. Ditto with an ATSF FP45, etc. So, its hard to make generalizations. But, all of this is just me having a bit of fun and speculating, as it is for others here. Anyone who has been here a while knows I tend to jump to the defense of the manufacturers in our hobby, as even the biggest is a medium size business and I know the difficulties. I am sorry if that offends those who like to complain from a limited perspective. I have too, and I try to stop myself. It is tempting! But, sometimes I wonder if any of us really have any fun here. Obviously, we are emotional about it, or we wouldn't be discussing it.
That is what I said. However, that changing I pointed to was not driven by the consumer market itself, but by unwelcome external forces.
True. They could not turn it back to cash. What I was pointing to was that ever upward creeping inventory taxation had turned that non-cash flow also into a money losing proposition. But, how did that inventory come to be? Was it the fault of consumers? Or the fault of ownership/management, who made mistakes or poor choices in what they brought in to offer the public? There was a time when someone could open a hobby shop, and their chosen distributor would essentially set them up with an inventory. An inventory which usually was not the top quality assortment, but more toward the TYCO, Bachmann, etc, which sells much more slowly and even not at all. Thus it sits. Not to also suggest failing to be competitive in pricing, during a very competitive era, where some are aggressively going after customers, while others did not recognize they were falling behind by their own decisions...
Yes, but that was not my point. My point was that the RailAmerica SW1500 pre-orders were extended, which was my response to a specific question that seems like 1000 posts ago. MTL does much more pre-ordering than it did when I started the UMTRR-- when MTL's pre-order strategy was that they didn't do it.
And yet, there are still the Eternally Unsatisfied... who then declare the entire entity as a whole to be a [insert expletive here] and belittle (sometimes as a gang) anyone who dares dissent...
Interesting read on the new Trainworx tractor trailers in the new NSR> He worked in secret for 3 years, announced them. Initial orders were only 20% of his planned run. Feedback was too expensive, etc. First ones came out, folks saw them, sold out in a few weeks. Dealers lined up and ordered 5X the production for the second run, if there is one. Not pre-ordering seems to have caused them to miss the market by quite a bit, but then maybe not. That wait and see attitude helps determine the market. I guess every product introduction is received differently, and maybe no one can predict exactly how well almost anything will sell. A good illustration of how quality, price, unique product all combine to set a market, and any one factor, especially a unique product and quality, can change the market - sometimes dramatically - for an item almost overnight.
I doubt they will. Always a lot easier to point out flaws than suggest solutions, right? Someone mentioned the big companies and how they do market studies, like any MRR company could afford that. I guess the HMA MR Division could partner with the various magazines for surveys of a very targeted market, and those surveys might even drive sales of the magazine. A win win, especially for N Scale and NSR, as well as digital magazines. I am still not sure that would avoid the pre-order. MR has done a bit of this, I think, and I bet, given the popularity of new product, and the interactive nature of modern times, where we all want our say, it would be a popular feature among readers, if answering was simple enough. And, I don't sense a lot of grief about pre-order per se, as much as pre-order with delayed schedules. If I see the new BLMA hoppers, order now, scheduled delivery Feb 2016, I have no problem ordering, with their history. I wonder if any mfg would provide some minimal compensation for delayed deliveries, in the form of a discount coupon for future purchases, or something like that to ease pain and take a bit of responsibility in an actual financial way? Or, they could adopt the Dominos pizza on line delivery update system, maybe even providing videos of the factory starting to make it, loading the container, etc. I have seen a few of those, like the big boxes going to distributors from MTL. Might build some product excitement, sort of like BLMA does with their guess the model ads. In general, someone will probably do well to introduce some new pizazz to the market place. At the same time, they better exceed expectations when the product arrives. Just spitballing here. Trying to give Pud an answer. As always, probably not worth the internet bandwidth I am using.....
I guess my interest is as a manufacturer but really I'd like to know how people think the entire supply chain could work better; from mfg to distributor to LHS.... given the fact that these layers exist and will most likely continue to exist in some form there has to be a system that incorporates them all. It's easy to complain that today's pre order system doesn't work; but I guess before I get all hot and bothered about it I'd want o understand what alternatives exist.... if someone says "just make stuff and see if it sells" then that's not a realistic solution; if someone has a better idea then I'd truly like to hear it.
