Why is Hornby and other manufactures pricing new and young modellers out of the hobby

[ColinB]

Actually we seem to go around and around in circles on this one. I just think that Hornby are pricing themselves out of the market. Yes we can all complain about the prices but the thing is if they really are appealing to over 65s then they have an issue. Yes of course these people generally have spare cash to buy the locos but the problem is they will only buy the obscure ones, as they probably have virtually all the other models in the catalogue collected over the years. Now I really like my new retooled Evening Star, but to be quite honest when it is on the track it looks virtually the same as the old railroad one.

[Moccasin]

i think that’s one of the drivers for TT. With 00, they’ve realised they’re going for a crowded market with an aging customer base. With TT they’ll largely have the market to themselves for a while, can scale up to 00 models based on research for TT models, increase sales volumes overall and achieve some economies to spread overheads.

[Barry-350851]

@Barry

You are rather insulting towards the older generation as you call us .I am 80 in 5 months time I have never begrudged buying a TV license I have never pleaded poverty. I have been in this hobby for over 50 years I don't moan about the cost of locos if I want one and can afford it I buy it if not i go without .I worked very hard to get where I am today, when my kids were young in the early seventies there was no family tax credits no universal credit at one stage I was holding down three jobs to keep my family fed. I started work at 15 and worked till I was 68.If I'm comfortably off now it's because I worked for it like many others of my generation

John

 

 

Sir John,

Fair enough, I believe you worked hard and I never said you didn't. My comment is across the whole generation, not any individual. The media found plenty of people to complain about the free TV licence being withdrawn or when the Triple Lock on the state pension was under threat.

 

 

You say there was no family tax credits, but since the National Assistance Act of 1948 there has been some sort of low income protection in place under various names. Universal Credit is just an umbrella system for benefits that have been around for donkeys, like Unemployment benefit that was introduced in 1911!

 

 

There are numerous posts above suggesting young people nowadays are entitled - I don't think that is a fair generalisation. I think a fair generalisation is that every generation is equal in that regard with a mix of people who have/do/will work hard and people who were/are/will act entitled.

[sir john]

Barry

I dont know how old you are but you obviously weren't born during the period I'm talking about .The media can manipulate figures to their advantage, I'm sure if they had tried hard enough they would have found just as many who were quite happy to pay for a TV licence.

Back in the early seventies I didn't know one person who was getting the benefits you talk about,in my circle of friends if you wanted money you earned it by getting a extra job at the weekend,however this has gone way off topic so best left alone

Regards John

[ColinB]

In the end we will find out, if Hornby has huge losses at the end of the financial year then we will know that they are not selling enough. If they make a huge profit then we know their strategy is right. Perhaps it may be worth booking a trip to the steam fair in Dorset. If anyone wants to go on about prices being equivalent, them may I suggest you put colour TVs and laptop computers into the model. Other than locos the only other thing that has risen in price at such an alarming rate is the price of bricks, 10 pence per brick in the 80s, about £1.15 now.

[Moccasin]

I think there's some rose tinting going on here.

There are many locomotives (steam and diesel) in Hornby's current range costing £160 or less - the equivalent of £70 or less in 1990. Even now, many locomotives can be bought for £90 or less, the equivalent of £40 then. All following a broad inflationary increase of 2.2-2.3 times 1990s prices.

By contrast, according to Bank of England, a pint of milk in 1990 was 25p. It is now 90p at Tesco, so that's more than a trebling in cost.

[Rallymatt]

And Tesco lose money on that pint of milk too….

[ColinB]

According to a guy at work whose second job was running a small village store, Tesco never loses money on anything. They might sell it at "cost" but I doubt it.

[Bulleidboy]

By contrast, according to Bank of England, a pint of milk in 1990 was 25p. It is now 90p at Tesco, so that's more than a trebling in cost.

 

 

@ Mocassin

I think you would find that very many goods now cost nearly four times what they were over thirty years ago - or close to it.

I cannot go back thirty years, but I have just looked at the 1st February 1999 Hornby price list and R2054 BR Class A3 Flying Scotsman (Super Detail) was listed at £79.99 - how does that compare with todays prices?

[Barry-350851]

Inflation isn't taken on any single item. There are different measures but they are all based on a number of things that make up the general cost of living, and that could include bills, transport and housing etc. All the above comparisons of price could be misleading.

Everyone has complained about the costs of something at some point in their lives, so people should get off their high horse.

"The plural of anecdote, is not data."

[96RAF]

Off topic - how many words have the same plural as they have singular.

e.g.

data

sheep

[ColinB]

It is the good old Supply and Demand curve which is why I said you have to wait for the financial results. Unfortunately, you guys are falling into the trap a 1990s loco was probably made in Margate by hand with no automation. Even the painting would have been by hand, so any comparison is a waste of time. A modern loco is made in China with the painting fully automated, even the design cycle will be shorter because CAD is infinitely quicker than doing all those engineering drawings by a draughtsman. As I say it is all academic, if they are too expensive for the next generation then it will all eventually die.

[Moccasin]

there are as I say plenty of locomotives much cheaper, with many available for the cost conscious customers wanting to enter the hobby or unwilling to pay for super-detailed diecast collectors’ models. Some real bargains still to be had online too.

Although transport costs have apparently come down recently, I was reading that they’re still almost double what they were pre-pandemic. That balances out cost savings from cheaper production, while demand for complexity and detail means they can produce better quality models at a reasonable rate, with Railroad there for the budget conscious even though they’re still often far better models than what was being produced a couple of decades ago.

[Bulleidboy]

Interestingly the R3099 Flying Scotsman in 2013 was priced at £144.99 - in 2023 the RR R3086 Flying Scotsman is priced at £134.49 - so ten years later and a model is cheaper.

I only took Flying Scotsman as an example as it's probably the only loco, other than perhaps Mallard that has been in the Hornby range for everopen_mouth

[ColinB]

Again you are falsifying the figures. R3099 was a special edition version of the Flying Scotsman so it will have been one with all the bells and whistles. The Flying Scotsman at £134.49 is the Railroad version. The correct comparison would be to compare it to R3990 Doncaster which is £252.99.

[Fazy]

There is no automated process for model trains. To make some automated would require large costs for high volume production. 500-5000 units is peanuts. Model production is very labour intensive. The painting and decoration can involve many operations, each involving a setup, test, and run with time for paints to dry. Some models have had up to 70 separate decorations operations alone. That’s 70 set ups. 70 tests with inspection and the 70 runs and 70 time slots for paint drying. That is time consuming. Models are not expensive considering time needed to produce the items.

[Bulleidboy]

Again you are falsifying the figures. R3099 was a special edition version of the Flying Scotsman so it will have been one with all the bells and whistles. The Flying Scotsman at £134.49 is the Railroad version. The correct comparison would be to compare it to R3990 Doncaster which is £252.99.

 

 

All figures taken from Hornby printed price lists - so no falsifying of figures. I was just giving some idea of how prices have risen or not in some cases over the years. Quite honestly the price of loco's does not concern me at all, although I do appreciate to some it does.

[Yelrow]

I am afraid poster James is on a hiding to nothing. Hobby has moved on from reasonably priced to ridiculously expensive. I have bought nothing apart from TT Flying Scotsman set, for several years. It’s not that I can’t afford it, I can, but am simply not prepared to pay these prices. I don’t blame Hornby. They obviously can sell the stuff, but it has become an expensive, rather than basic hobby. It’s not a moan,just a fact.

[SteveM6]

Good point, well made Fazy.

As you say, manufacture, painting and assembly is very labour intensive, indeed the relatively high wages for the UK workforce would have been a major driver for the move to China to take advantage of their lower labour costs.

As for automation, I believe the majority of the decoration is tampo printed, requiring an operator to place a part in a jig before the paint is applied by the tampo process - just as it was in the late 80’s when I had a factory tour at Margate.

Little has changed apart from the wage bill and the number of parts in each model.

As for the original question, the inference is that Hornby have deliberately chosen a pricing policy to drive away prospective customers, indeed some of the responses indicate that some support this view. I have never heard such a hare-brained load of drivel in my life. No manufacturing or retail company would ever do that deliberately - ok, their products may be out of reach for some, but that is the way of the world - I would like a Ferrari, but I can’t afford one. Is that because the company deliberately set their prices to exclude me specifically? No, of course not, simply the result of the basic laws of supply and demand. But I do have a choice, I could have got a better job and saved my pennies or get a secondhand one or just admire at a distance. My choice, not company policy and no reason to continually gripe about it.

I also think that this thread should be locked as all it does is give the usual Hornby critics another opportunity to moan and poison the forum.