ColinB Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Just got a mail from TMC telling me that Hornby are increasing their prices by 10 to 12% from the 1st September. Whoever posted the original rumour got the percentage wrong (20%) but it appears not the rest. I suppose I best go around the sites and see if there are any locos I preordered from Retailers rather than directly from Hornby. Fortunately I think most of them were ordered off Hornby when I got 10% for belonging to their club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atom3624 Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 (edited) I suppose they've 'done the maths', but that's what we have to do as well, and certainly for myself, re-evaluate my absolute need for those new wheels on the tracks. I'm starting to reconsider one pre-order - the Deltic DP1 prototype. Absolute stunner it undoubtedly will be, and moving up with the times as well - brake chains, etc., but there are limits! Al. Edited August 9 by atom3624 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 I did check, Locomotion with TMC was the only one. From the mail it looks like TMC are going to fix the price at the price now if you preorder by August the 31st. I have a few locos I preordered a couple of years ago from Hornby direct, but they are probably my last. I preordered the Deltic DP1 but I gather Accurascale are talking about producing different variants, not in die cast, but I can get a sound fitted one for virtually the same price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritInVanCA Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 This had been confirmed as not a rumour by multiple retailers when it was raised here last month but the topic was locked by admins so we couldn’t provide that confirmation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 According to the "Die Hards" on RMWeb seems they are happy to pay the price, would be interesting to see how many Hornby locos they buy in a year. They seem to think it is just "knocking" Hornby thread. The thing people have to realise, even before this price rise their locos were just not competitive, disagree with me if you want, just do a comparison on a class 56 or 60. At the moment there are certain locos and products that only they make but as the price rises it allows competitors to come in below them. Someone was saying the Humbrol paint prices are supposedly through the roof although £4.00 a pot to me doesn't seem a lot, but it seems less Retailers are stocking them because of the price. I have just ordered a Rails Dapol A4, it is £400 but then when I worked it out, if I bought a HD A4 loco and then added Zimo sound it would be more than £450. The Dapol has more features than a HD A4, so its price is very competitive. Fortunately all my Hornby products are preordered so no big deal to me and I have no intention of buying anymore at full price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulleidboy Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 (edited) Hornby Commonwealth of Australia or Empire of India fitted with a HM7000 sound decoder, could be yours today, from Hornby, for £282.98 - a lot cheaper than £400. Edited August 9 by Bulleidboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
What About The Bee Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Hi @BritInVanCA It was locked because it veered well off topic. The thread shifted to a discussion that attempted to cast a negative light on Hornby marketing practices. If I may be frank, there should have been more than just locking the thread. Use your imagination. Of course, if I am to be frank, I'll need a name change 😁 Bee 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulleidboy Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 According to what has been reported, the price increase is on selected models across the range, Hornby, Airfix, Humbrol and Scalextric. It's not across the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 24 minutes ago, Bulleidboy said: Hornby Commonwealth of Australia or Empire of India fitted with a HM7000 sound decoder, could be yours today, from Hornby, for £282.98 - a lot cheaper than £400. The Commonwealth of Australia is not a die cast body and HM7000 is not a Zimo sound decoder. I got my HD Dwight D Eisenhower for £260, a significant reduction from its RRP but adding Zimo sound which the Dapol has is £124 so about £384 without smoke, so as I say £400 is good value. Go onto Rails look at the specification, an HD with all that would be at least £500. The HM7000 is nowhere near a Zimo sound decoder, believe me, I have HD A4s fitted with both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritInVanCA Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 They tried carrot. Now they are trying stick! 🤪 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 1 hour ago, What About The Bee said: Hi @BritInVanCA It was locked because it veered well off topic. The thread shifted to a discussion that attempted to cast a negative light on Hornby marketing practices. If I may be frank, there should have been more than just locking the thread. Use your imagination. Of course, if I am to be frank, I'll need a name change 😁 Bee To be fair some of their practices are a bit weird, like giving away a 2024 catalogue if you spend a certain amount. I mean most people here will already have one, so not a great incentive. Then there are the points, seems they have difficulty updating them. I have something like 8000 plus pending, have done for a while, I am not sure that there are for things preordered or stuff that has been delivered in the last month. Either way I don't think I have spent enough to warrant that many points. The club membership with 10% off was a much better idea. Same price as at the Retailers and you collect all those membership fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo009 Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 If you want what only Hornby are making, order it direct on day one and lock the price in. If the Black 5 with Smoke is affected by this, it will be the third increase since it was announced. £250 to £270 to £294 currently. £325 after increase? I thought the initial price was too low anyway, hence I pressed that buy button as soon as I could. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 Just now, Simmo009 said: If you want what only Hornby are making, order it direct on day one and lock the price in. If the Black 5 with Smoke is affected by this, it will be the third increase since it was announced. £250 to £270 to £294 currently. £325 after increase? I thought the initial price was too low anyway, hence I pressed that buy button as soon as I could. I know I did the same. That is ok for the preorders in the pipeline, but I must admit I would seriously have to have a long think to pay £325 for that loco. Then there comes the next issue people will expect a lot more for that price, so they need to avoid the hiccups they have had with this model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Fred Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 9 hours ago, Bulleidboy said: Hornby Commonwealth of Australia or Empire of India fitted with a HM7000 sound decoder, could be yours today, from Hornby, for £282.98 - a lot cheaper than £400. According to Hornby site and local Aussie retailers it is only "DCC Ready" not DCC fitted for that price. Was one I thought of getting, if only because it was "Commonwealth of Australia" but to be frank (or Fred) I am losing faith in Hornby after my problems with POW and FS with steam, or in my case now both with NO steam. The last 3 purchases from Bachmann have all worked perfectly Out of the Box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Fred Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 Sorry BB, I missed the "fitted with" and the price and was converting in $s - you are right, and good value, but not good enough for me. I will crawl back down my rabbit hole now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 Hornby pricing on things like that is a bit weird I bought a 9F with HM7000 fitted. The price was only about £30 more that buying the loco without and that was at full price. I don't know if it was an attempt to compete with Accurascale where if you buy the loco with sound fitted, you get the sound for effectively £80, which £40 cheaper than if you bought the decoder separate. They say that it will be a variable price rise so it will be interesting to see what the spread is. Coming back to the original subject I don't know if it is physiological but Accurascale increase their price slightly with each model but I get the opinion most people myself included, accept that they are trying their best to keep prices down and quality up. This has the effect that less people complain about them and will put up with a lot (in the 1980s it was the Skoda buyers syndrome). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTSR_NSE Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 @ColinB stating that “Accurascale… are trying their best to keep prices down…” suggests that you believe Hornby & Bachmann are not. Can you provide any evidence for this? Simply comparing individual product prices is NOT evidence of either trying or not trying, considering that the companies are all different sizes with different overheads etc. Considering Hornby is not profitable, (unless they have a financial black hole somewhere) that suggests that their prices are not particularly excessive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HST Mainline Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 17 hours ago, ColinB said: Either way I don't think I have spent enough to warrant that many points. Keep in mind that some products are almost permanently on double points. E.g. if you buy sets and tracks these are double points. Then there are the double points offers that comes and goes. This can very quickly add up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 2 hours ago, LTSR_NSE said: @ColinB stating that “Accurascale… are trying their best to keep prices down…” suggests that you believe Hornby & Bachmann are not. Can you provide any evidence for this? Simply comparing individual product prices is NOT evidence of either trying or not trying, considering that the companies are all different sizes with different overheads etc. Considering Hornby is not profitable, (unless they have a financial black hole somewhere) that suggests that their prices are not particularly excessive! I am not getting into this that is just an observation. Bachmann recently had to sell many of its class 37 locos at a discount because most people were buying the Accurascale one, in fact unless you preordered one it was really difficult to buy one. Most people when comparing products do what I do compare the price with what you actually get for your money, so quite often just because something is cheap it doesn't necessarily mean it is worth buying, similarly just because something is highly priced doesn't always mean it is wonderful. I have worked for large companies and small companies, the overheads issue is irrelevant, that is part of your unit cost, if your unit cost is too high you don't sell anything. As for Hornby not being profitable that could be due to lots of reasons, things that are not relevant here. To give you an instance of overheads. On most of our audio software we used to employ 3 people per program to write software, split between the number of radios we sold, the cost of that resource was lost. We had a new manager take over who decided they wanted 21 software engineers (to write more processes not the final product), this actually added a dollar to the cost of the radio. That dollar was the difference between profit and loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 2 hours ago, HST Mainline said: Keep in mind that some products are almost permanently on double points. E.g. if you buy sets and tracks these are double points. Then there are the double points offers that comes and goes. This can very quickly add up. I pretty sure it is 21 days since my last preorder came, so perhaps I had better shoot off a mail to Hornby to see what is going on. Mind you, I have all those points and most that I want is already on preorder from two years ago, so really not much use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceTrain Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 You all missing the big picture. This isn't only trains, the email from TMC mentioned price rises to Humbrol, Airfix, Scalextric and Corgi toys. It seems to me Hornby are on the warpath to scraping as much profit as possible from everyone under their control to pay off their debts. I for one will need to give up painting if Humbrol is getting a price rise and poor 8 year old Johnny next door won't be getting his Corgi Ford Capri to brumm brumm on the carpet this Christmas because his parents can't afford it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Stiles Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 23 hours ago, ColinB said: To be fair some of their practices are a bit weird, like giving away a 2024 catalogue if you spend a certain amount Really? They printed a lot of catalogues. They sold a few. They have a bunch left over, depreciating every day. They decide to give some away in case it encourages someone somewhere to buy something they were umming and aaahring on. Sounds reasonably sensible to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
What About The Bee Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 Me too @Peter Stiles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 27 minutes ago, Peter Stiles said: Really? They printed a lot of catalogues. They sold a few. They have a bunch left over, depreciating every day. They decide to give some away in case it encourages someone somewhere to buy something they were umming and aaahring on. Sounds reasonably sensible to me. Really, well it takes all sorts. Most of what is in the catalogue was preorder, I suppose the track might be useful. We live in a digital age if you were going to buy it there are lots of photos "online". You had to spend £50 to get one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinB Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 1 hour ago, AceTrain said: You all missing the big picture. This isn't only trains, the email from TMC mentioned price rises to Humbrol, Airfix, Scalextric and Corgi toys. It seems to me Hornby are on the warpath to scraping as much profit as possible from everyone under their control to pay off their debts. I for one will need to give up painting if Humbrol is getting a price rise and poor 8 year old Johnny next door won't be getting his Corgi Ford Capri to brumm brumm on the carpet this Christmas because his parents can't afford it. I figured that when I saw the mail. I think 8 year old Jonny was priced out that market years ago, most go to collectors. I haven't looked around much at paint I don't know where Humbrol sits pricewise with the rest. I think that they are cheaper than Precision Paints but there again you only buy those for something really special. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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