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Hornby Online Survey


Tim Allen

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Just had an email from Hornby with an online survey about TT:120. I would share the link but I thinks is a coded link to my account. Its asks about what items you have, what you like about TT:120 & how satisfied are you and what items you would like to see in future.

If you have the email I suggest we all fill it in so we can nudge them in 'our' direction for future releases 🙂 and let them know of our frustrations / concerns with the scale at the moment.

 

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Mine has already been done and it will be individual to emails to prevent some answers repeated like "what would you like to see in the future".

There were loads of positives and the only negative I used was the motors not having brushes.

Edited by Silver Fox 17
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It does ask if you are a TT:120 club member so it seems it’s all customers. 
For me it’s overall very positive. 

I have raised the issue of silly QC issues arriving with customers that should be weeded out and motors that are less than ideal. The draggy tankers and brake vans. But the detailing is superb and when they run well,  fantastic. 
I also raised issue of webshop inaccuracies and in some cases lack of information, more pictures would be good. Mentioned that live web casts need to be more professional, better sound etc. 

All in All Hornby are a smidge away from being excellent, just a few things letting the show down. 

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Posted (edited)
39 minutes ago, Silver Fox 17 said:

Mine has already been done and it will be individual to emails to prevent some answers repeated like "what would you like to see in the future".

There were loads of positives and the only negative I used was the motors not having brushes.

I mentioned that also 🙂. I suspect many of us will put that one down. The only real negative I raised quality in general having had a few failures out the box which for me has been an issue. Others obviously will have different experiences but that the point of the survey.

My other concern raised was the website and poor layout and incorrect information.

Edited by Tim Allen
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Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, Rallymatt said:

It does ask if you are a TT:120 club member so it seems it’s all customers. 
For me it’s overall very positive. 

I have raised the issue of silly QC issues arriving with customers that should be weeded out and motors that are less than ideal. The draggy tankers and brake vans. But the detailing is superb and when they run well,  fantastic. 
I also raised issue of webshop inaccuracies and in some cases lack of information, more pictures would be good. Mentioned that live web casts need to be more professional, better sound etc. 

All in All Hornby are a smidge away from being excellent, just a few things letting the show down. 

I did the same with the website in the final box. 

  • Website is public face of company
  • Cluttered Menus
  • Needs separate TT:120 and OO exclusive sections
  • Have OO part numbers like TT has for scale exclusive items and R & P numbers for generic items
  • Allow pre-orders for multiple items and not separate orders with separate delivery costs
  • Allow pre-ordering of out of stock items for when they come back into stock
  • Make catalogue online only as out of date quickly as stock items sell out

Like you I feel overall they are doing well with a few niggles to over come. Hopefully it will be taken as constructive criticism as intended.

 

 

Edited by Tim Allen
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22 minutes ago, Tim Allen said:
  • Allow pre-orders for multiple items and not separate orders with separate delivery costs

Oh yes, that's a must. It's been bothering me for a while and that's why I only order wagons once they're in the shop.

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43 minutes ago, Ilmson said:

Oh yes, that's a must. It's been bothering me for a while and that's why I only order wagons once they're in the shop.

You might like to know that TMC now do a "Trunk" (like Hattons used to do).  This means that you can order items individually and then, when you're ready, you can have them sent in one package, saving postage.

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I filled in my survey. I did make a point of mentioning the problems with the 3 pole motors even though I am yet to experience a failure however I suspect that this is more to do with my collection spending most of the time boxed up out of necessity at the moment so getting to the 30 - 35 hour time of death for the motors is taking me a little longer than for other folk.

I did mention that I as unlikely to purchase anything new with a 3 pole motor unless the motors are upgraded.

Another point I made was that currently I have quite an eclectic collection due to getting an initial critical mass of stuff to run but in the future I intended to focus more on modern era and western region stock although I suspect it will always be an eclectic collection to a degree!

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Completed mine earlier.  Yup, mentioned the cheap motors and the hope for a better quality version to be made available to retro-fit to the A3s and A4s.    Overall I'm pleased with the products I've bought so far.

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Even though I’m now exiting the scale, I still filled it in from the perspective of someone who joined the hobby through the launch of TT:120 back in 2022, faults and all. There’s a lot they could improve with relatively simple changes as mentioned above - particularly with regards website functionality. TT-specifically I mentioned the various teething issues which we’ve still seen on recent models unfortunately. 

Edited by moawkwrd
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10 hours ago, Tim Allen said:

Allow pre-orders for multiple items and not separate orders with separate delivery costs

For those of us in ROW, delivery costs can be somewhat ridiculous.  For the US, it is £30/shipment.  For Australia, its is £50/shipment.  So for those of us in ROW, this is not a trivial matter.  I would love to see this change.

It isn't just TT that runs into separate delivery costs, it is a company wide practice.  

The issue is warehouse space and logistics.  As it stands now, the pallets of product come in to Hornby, and the product is shipped right out: to us, as well as to model shops.  This requires minimal warehouse space, the only things that sit on a shelf are the unsold items, in bulk..  Logistics are simple.  You ordered one, you get one.  

But in a system with a Trunk, extra warehouse space is required.  Hornby must be prepared to rent or own a much larger warehouse, to accommodate any and all who wish to gang ship items.  At one point, we investigated the number of orders that come in to Hornby as a function of the sequential order number system.  I recall hundreds of orders, per day.  What if they all want the Trunk?    Logistics are more complicated.  Either every order is picked at the time of shipment, requiring allocated / non-allocated inventory system OR, orders are separated into individual bins.  Both are error prone.  What happens when Tom puts the product into the incorrect bin.  In the allocation system, what happens when picking goes wrong, or, heaven forbid, Hornby runs out of stock, even if it was allocated 

I would love to be wrong, but the reasons indicated above make Hornby's decision a commercial one.  They subcontracted the shipping to GRM based upon the system in place and would need to renegotiate any contract with GRM to change that system.  

Assessment: please do not hold your breath waiting for this change.  As much as I support the desire, I understand why it is not going to happen.

May the railway gods prove me wrong!  🙏 

Bee

 

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The dispatcher uses a robot picking system, whereby the operator stands at a picking station and the robot fetches the order to the auto-packing station. One would think that such system could be adjusted to cater for multiple picks, including banking until out of stock items arrive.

As stated use of a 3rd party logistics firm relies somewhat upon the flexibility and effectiveness of their system.

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Am I being to simplistic, or not really grasped the problem. As a UK based purchaser, when I was doing OO I used to buy lots of second hand items from Hattons. I would leave it all in their Trunk until I had accumulated enough stuff to get free postage, then get it all in one package. Could RoW buyers not do something similar with RoS? With the cost of new TT120 items it would surely not take long to build up a sufficient bill to get something off the postage? Or at least it should only cost postage x 1? Maybe, at the moment, that may offer a bit of a solution to the problem. If I've got this wrong, and I probably have, then please accept my apologies for meddling in a topic that, being UK based, I have no experience of. 

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