Discount code?????????

[Bulleidboy]

I recently put in my order following the 2022 announcements - nearly £700 and received the 10% Club discount. I did comment at the time, that I thought I should have received 12.5% - not duly concerned - I did not place the order in one hit, so was not over the £500 for 15%. Today I received an email with a code for 12.5% on future orders - it's valid until late April. I am very unlikely to be spending this amount again this year. I did read in the T&C's that the code would be sent later. What is the point of a discount code after you have placed your order and received some discount?

I have just read the Discount information on this site again - I think it means I get 12.5% discount on anything I order between now and late April. I think it would be better to increase the discount with the more you spend at the time.

[David-582280]

Hi, don't know if this helps, but it shows that if you placed part of your order first you could use a discount code for the remainder of your order. That is probably not practicle but that appears to be how it works. Good luck

"Save up to 15% off your next online order

Spend £100 or more on the Hornby website today and you’ll receive a discount of up to 15% OFF your next online order.

Discounts and thresholds are:

Spend £100 and receive a 10% discount off your next orderSpend £250 and receive a 12.5% discount off your next orderSpend £500 and receive a 15% discount off your next order."

[SteveM6]

Barry, the ‘discount on your next order’ scheme is designed to persuade buyer staff to make additional purchases. I also suspect that it won’t work with other offers - for that read club discount. I may be wrong.

I originally preordered one loco (full price as I wasn’t aware of the reintroduction of the club discount) and then saw the message about a voucher for future purchases.

I was going to use that on a second loco later.

Then I saw the club discount was back, so I rejoined, ordered three locos at 10% off and still ended up ahead of the game.

I do have the original preorder to cancel in due course. Mind you, although I have had the preorder confirmation emails, they don’t appear on my orders page yet.

I fell for the strategy didn’t I.

[ColinB]

I had a discount come through for 12.5%. Firstly I couldn't read it in "Outlook", so I went back to the Yahoo mail, which meant I could. Then I suddenly realised a retailer gives me virtually this anyway and some of them haven't increased their prices on existing stock so it was meaningless.

[96RAF]

I thought we had already discussed multiple discounts and established that these extra discounts couldn't be used in conjunction with other discounts so the only real option was to go for the largest percentage.

[XJR1300]

@ColinB I too received a 12.5% discount code valid for 90 days I think it was, after I'd spend over £400. All very nice but really worthless, on a few fronts: -

1. I'm unlikely to spend again until the summer/winter, discount will have run out.
2. It's 12% off the highest price, most retailers offer a starting price as low or lower.
3. As you say they offer discounts from purchases and club membership but you can't use both.
4. Good Discounting comes as you buy not afterwards.

Just more poor sales and marketing, leaving many like us feeling as we do.

[VESPA]

I thought we had already discussed multiple discounts and established that these extra discounts couldn't be used in conjunction with other discounts so the only real option was to go for the largest percentage.

 

 

Yes Prime Minister as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say. smiley

[LMSFan72]

The discount code is valuable on 2022 pre-orders. I believe retailers are restricted to 10% discount on those so anything more than that is a bonus. The advantage of course is that Hornby are unlikely to oversell their supply....

As others have said the discount code does not work additively with the club discount, it is a maximum. So, if you make an order as a club member you get the 10%. Your next order, if you have qualified for, say, 15%, then gets 15% off when you add the discount code (not 25% off).

[Bulleidboy]

I've just had a second discount code come through.

I had never assumed that the 12.5% voucher was on top of the 10% Club discount, but had wrongly assumed if you spent at a certain level you were offered a slightly higher discount.

[DarkRedCape]

I received a code a week after I placed my pre-orders. This feels like a sly way to do business. What good is a discount voucher to me after I’ve placed my orders? It’s obviously an incentive to just place another.

[atom3624]

In the small print, is there a deadline to place the second order before it defaults back to zero? Wouldn't surprise me!

Al.

[DarkRedCape]

Not sure if defaulting back to zero is what I’d call it. My voucher code has a 90 day limit on it before it expires.

My issue with this is, why did my voucher arrive a week after I placed my orders? That would have to be intentional by Hornby.

[mjb1961]

I think the discount codes you receive are to tease you and to spend more ,those of you who feel its a bit late after you've preordered I can only suggest you re preorder with your codes and cancel the previous ones,im not a club member and have preordered £640 worth of goods, if I receive a discount code I may just do as I have suggested.

[DarkRedCape]

I did consider cancelling my pre-orders and doing them again with the code, but knowing my luck it would cost me actually getting what I ordered.

If the compromise is spending more to get what I’m looking for, over redoing my pre-orders to save money and potentially losing out on said orders, I’ll happily just spend a little more.

[ColinB]

I got two discount codes one for 12.5% and one for 10%. I used one for the black A3 as generally the max a retailer will offer is 10%, so I used the 12.5% one. I used the 10% for the LNER coronation coaches. Again I figured it would be the same discount as the retailer. Then of course if Hornby decide to add another 10% before Easter ( I doubt it as they have made more than enough enemies already), the price is fixed.

[DarkRedCape]

Is the discount dependant on how much you spend? I got another voucher for 15% yesterday.

[Bulleidboy]

You must have spent a lotgrinning

[DarkRedCape]

I got a bit carried away with the pre-orders. It’s at £2000 right now. 🙄

I’m not too worried as I’ve heard from multiple people and places that Hornby have never managed to hit their planned release dates and are always late.

Most of what I want is planned for autumn/winter, so plenty of time to save up!

[HornbyKiwi]

I got a bit carried away with the pre-orders. It’s at £2000 right now. 🙄.........

 

 

Several have suggested ordering "x" amount of items in order to generate the discount code, then going back and re-ordering the same items with the supplied discount code and cancelling the first order.

I'm curious to know if anyone has attempted this and if the strategy was successful? It would seem to me to be a clever way to get your 12.5% or 15% discount on a substantial order but not one I'd expect Hornby to think was in the "spirit" of the offer they've made.

That said, I do agree with the view that Hornby's method has been such that they are hoping to generate a second substantial order from those customers who have already spent heavily the first time around. I also agree with the view that the better way for Hornby to go about things would have been to offer the increasing tiers of discount in real time on the initial orders. It would have fostered goodwill with its most loyal customers, who have voted positively with their wallets, at a time when Hornby seem as though they could use some public support.

HK.

[DarkRedCape]

The method of placing an order, getting the voucher, cancelling the order, then placing it again with a discount would seem to be a good idea in practice, but I didn’t get my 12.5%voucher until a week later. Then the 15% sometime around 12 after placing my order.

I’m not sure how much a week will affect your chances of getting what you wanted, but I’d expect people would be snapping these new 2022 products up pretty quickly.

[HornbyKiwi]

I take your point DarkRedCape. Perhaps that's why Hornby have been slow to issue the discount vouchers, to make customers think twice about doing this lest they miss out when they try to reorder.

That said, the lead times between announcement and fulfillment of these orders is so long now, it's difficult to understand why Hornby can't take all the orders every modeller could desire for their high profile, new tooling products. Who really expects any of those items to make an appearance before mid-2023 at the earliest?

I can't imagine the exact numbers for those items need to be locked in stone in the next few weeks for production reasons in China. Perhaps I'm wrong?

HK.

[XJR1300]

@HornbyKiwi Hornby are using a well known, if somewhat crude method of sales prediction and stock control, it also helps controlling expenditure, their exposure and maxing out their profit. By having very long pre order times, often a lot longer than advertised as you mention. They are obtaining a way of determining demand and protecting themselves to a large extent against over producing and having too much stock sitting on the shelves. e.g. 10000 pre orders for a loco, a percentage will cancel, that is added to whatever number they allowed for their and retail stock.

This method although crude works, it's cheap, downside is delivery times slip as often the item is nothing more than ideas or basic mock up or no tooling, if a totally new model. Hornby will be buying production slots, if someone comes along with a much bigger higher value order. They will take the capacity and Hornby get moved sideways or their run is split up. You could protect against that but you have to pay for it.

The next level would be they take deposits. Which would mean they cover most of not all their setup, production. In my experience all tooling, set up and production cost have to be paid before Chinese companies release goods for shipping, that may have changed I don't know. Deposits are normally set around set at around 20-30% of total. It can be a lot more or less, it's all reliant on actual unit cost of the product, which can be pennies depending on what, how many etc. Some actual cost of production item values and what they are sold for here would shock most. Often running into 100s% if not 1000s% profits were huge, probably less now but still very high although things are beginning to level up post Covid. The remaining 80-70% would cover advertising, shipping, wages and the all important profit which can also be very high, all depends on unit retail value over tooling, production and other cost plus how many units you can sell.

The issue with taking deposits you enter a contract, legally they must either supply or refund. If like Hornby you aren't cash rich and something happens in the supply chain, or you go bust etc you're exposed. The current way of no payment, means they can move the delivery or cancel to suit themselves, all at no cost.