They have a new strategy for pre orders. Offers with free stuff, like the BLI GS4 (originally PCM) with QSI sound, and the first 3000 preorders get a free observation car. They are supposed to ship in Fall, but with BLI’s ways, what do you think?
Where did you read that?
Magnus
On their website.
Hoople–
Good God, they’re not expecting MONEY to hold an order for Fall, are they? I could be DEAD by that time, and besides, what kind of observation car are they shipping with their GS-4 (which I don’t believe is going to come out, anyway!)?
Oboy!
Tom [:O]
No, the bill comes when it ships, and the obs car is a SP daylight one. Currently the daylight cars are scheduled for jan. 2009…
I just can’t understand BLI. I love their product but I don’t understand how they can stay in business when they can’t deliver their product to the market. I have all but given up on them.
I agree… while I love my 4 BLI lokeys, but I finally “hit the wall” regarding my pre-order of the BLI/Precision’s Great Northern 4-8-4 which I ordered on June 2nd, 2006 !!! After numerous calls to them requesting a delivery date, I was told that they had just received the latest “delivery date” calendar from the builders, and that calendar showed delivery dates thru the end of May 2008… and the 4-8-4 was not listed.
I asked the lady to please cancel my order, as 24 months waiting for a pre-order was just ridiculous!!!
Bob
Bob, I got an email from PCM saying the GN 4-8-4 was coming in November of 08. That is over a year from the first idea. My money will already be spent by then I fear.
After how long it took to get my PAs, and the repeated changing of release dates, I don’t do business with them anymore.
Welcome to business 101 called cash flow. They have to have spent millions of dollars on molds alone. Until you sell product your anticipated return is theoretical. Growing too fast exacerbates the problem. Once you have spent all your cash what can you do? Well you can go to a bank and what will they say with the mortgage crisis? I don’t think so unless you can prove you have the anticpated income to pay off the loan. So now as a smart business person I will show them a list of people that are standing in line to buy my product. How do I get people to sign up? Offer them something better than if they wait. personally I would love to have some of the BLI PRR engines but I don;t have one. Nor do I have anything from anyone who plays this limited offering game. Put it on a dealers shelf and stock some inventory where I can kick the tires before I buy. There is nothing else I as a consumer have to put up with this nonsense over. I’ll get them eventually on E Bay when they are at a price I consider reasonable.
This just in from the BLI forums:
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Forum Moderator Joined: 09 Jul 2007 |
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The announcement is absolutely true. We are pushing full steam ahead to bring in both the GS-4 and passenger cars by Fall 2008. Our factories are in high gear to get it done. Get in your preorder, then tell your friends! Forum Moderator |
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This is actually something that may be released on time. Probably to fend off Athearn’s daylight cars, and MTH’s gs4.
I think I might actually buy this. I’m gonna stick and see if it works out.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on business but you can only play that game for so long. At some point you have to generate some income and to do that you have to have product to sell. While they are sitting around waiting for the preorders to build up to the point they can make a profitable run, they have rent and employees to pay. Now I’m guessing they are largely a virtual company at this point without much in the way of office, warehouse, or factory space and that they are outsourcing the manufacturing of their product but still there has to be some overhead. In any case, if they aren’t selling product, their competitors will be and stealing their customer base. I’d say that is business 102.
Man, some of you guys just really have a hate on for BLI/PCM. At every opportunity you have to jump up on the soapbox and tell how you don’t like whatever BLI/PCM has done about so-and-so. I have to ask, who else has come along and produced all the products you want, when you want them, while BLI has been admittedly late versus their proposed deliveries? If this was/is such a golden opportunity, why is it still just an opportunity? And don’t start with the “they scared off the competition with their announcement” bull-oney. Nobody jumped into the gap in the 50 years people have wanted these things. Nobody else is going to steal their customer base. Rather, they act like they wish BLI had never come along and opened up this whole mess relative to quality reasonably priced steam locomotives.
I have about 7 of their locos, going to get one more I know of, and if they come out with something else I really want, I will get that too. But, if they don’t come out with an N&W Class M, I have very small hope of anyone else doing so. I mean the market was hardly full of quality N&W Js, As, or Y6bs, or any of several of the other locos they have produced, before they made them.
I am not saying they are perfect, far from it, but I am tired of this littany. If you don’t like their business process, boycott them - or hike on down to the bank and have at it. I want to pre-order an N&W Class M. Not an M1, or an M2, but an M. Now get with it. Or your competition is gonna beat you to it.
It’s a free country. You have a right to bch, and therefore I have a right to bch about your b**ching.
Boy that was constructive.
I am re-entering HO Railroading after a 12 year lapse. Have a new layout with 68 ft of single track mainline & 2, 14 ft passing sidings drawn up. Minimum radius of 24". Planning to go DCC with good quality sound locos. Starting out small, one loco to start. Previously all 12VDC and many BlueBox Athearn’s.
Seems like all the mfrs. of the better locos, i.e. Atlas-Gold, Proto 2000, Broadway BLI with QSI sound, are doing this pre-order crap. These is little to pick from in LHS or on-line in these brands, if you want a specific road name, for example UP, forget it. This is a complete change from 12 years ago and frankly has me frustrated. I especially like the looks of the Broadway AC600 UP
Based on what I read in these forums, seems like the locos I mentioned above are the better ones? I am scared of Athearn’s Genesis models with MRC sound-DCC decoders, just because of the bad stuff I have read in this forum over past month or so.
Comments?
Good news: BLI will says the engine will come out in the Fall.
Bad news: Could be Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010…
[:-^]
I don’t pretend to be an expert on business but you can only play that game for so long. At some point you have to generate some income and to do that you have to have product to sell. While they are sitting around waiting for the preorders to build up to the point they can make a profitable run, they have rent and employees to pay. Now I’m guessing they are largely a virtual company at this point without much in the way of office, warehouse, or factory space and that they are outsourcing the manufacturing of their product but still there has to be some overhead. In any case, if they aren’t selling product, their competitors will be and stealing their customer base. I’d say that is business 102.
Which competitors?
So far the only two locomotives that BLI/PCM has announced (relatively) recently that have competition are the USRA light 4-6-2 (Athearn/MDC updated redo of the Genesis 4-6-2) and the GS-4 (MTH has announced one).
And they are selling product. They have quite a few models that actually made it to market, so they have a revenue stream. On a model by model basis, BLI/PCM offers a wider range of steam power than any other manufacturer. That’s not counting announced, but not yet available products. They were a startup not so long ago. How many hobby startups go from zilch to the premier supplier of model steam locomotives in a few short years.
Andre
To me Broadway Limited and its Associated Preciscion Craft models are experiencing all the classic signs of a company thats about ready to implode. They started off with a Gimmic (Sound) which they just happened to introduce at the right time. And that good timing catapulted them to the status they now enjoy. But it seems like all the “Profitable” engines have been manufactured. and now they are trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel. A locomotive like a NYC Hudson or a N&W J have broad appeal. (NYC Was just about Everywhere Northeast and the J was an excursion Engine. I have heard through the Rumor Mill that BLI-s Best Selling locos are the N&W J, N&W A ATSF 4-8-4 and Reading T-1. What do all these locomotives have in Common. They are excursion locomotives. Alot of people who model Post steam era could justify these locomotives on their layout Especially if they ridden on an excursion behind one.]
Now please find me a modeler west of Conniticut that is going to to be interested in a New Haven 4-6-4 that isn’t a new haven modeler? And they did that and I hear all the time that a Milwauke Road S-3 (#261) is the most requested locomotive BLI gets to have made.
Some one please explain this to me.
Big Sky, I call a foul ! Unless some one can explain to me why any manufacturer manufactures what they do versus what they don’t. Why a Triplex? Where are all the USRA excursion locos?
Just kidding.[:D]
I would think it’s very seldom that the head honchos of model railroad manufacturers are the world’s greatest businessman. Most of them are/were model railroaders themselves, and thankfully that passion tends to cloud good business judgement at times. Often, particular models get made because the head honcho or his friends like that prototype. Other times, a particular prototype gets selected because the data and information is readily available to him.
And then the unexpected happens - the model sells well despite a supposedly small audience. The owner of PFM never expected the ATSF 2-8-0 would be his all time best seller - geared locomotives and GN prototypes were his favorites. Bachmann and Roundhouse have also done very well with smaller prototypes (well, not prototype in the case of Roundhouse), which is surprising when you think of how many Big Boy, Challenger, Y class, Yellowstone, and other articulated fanboys there are.
IMHO, the reason existing excursion locomotives get manufactured is not because of the prospect of a broader audience, but because it’s easier to get the data and information to make an accurate model. Photos are readily available, and direct measurements can be made. Unfortunately, many of the excursion steam prototypes are no longer accurate replicas of their service days. Tenders may have been changed, paint schemes are typically different, and some accessories have been added or moved.
just my thoughts
Fred W
As long as BLI doesn’t ask for money up-front, then I really don’t care how long a project takes as long as it actually does come out.
jecorbett,
BLI does deliver product to market. That’s obvious, or they wouldn’t be in business at all. It just so happens they they aren’t coming out with products when they originally thought they were. They can’t be happy about that as it’s costing them money, but financial realities must be dictating what they can do, just like for any company.
IronGoat,
I was waiting for my I-5 for over 10 years because that’s how long it had been since the last brass model came out. When BLI announced it, I would have waited for as long as it took because I really wanted that I-5.
ndbprr,
If you don’t have anything from “anyone who plays this limited offering game”, then I guess you don’t have much. Just about every one (Atlas, Athearn, Walthers, Kato, BLI) plays the “limited offering game” as it’s the best way to get the most money for the manufacturer. To them, it’s a business (as it should be). I also think it’s rather amusing that you think some hobby shop should stock the items for you to examine…and then you’ll buy them off eBay. So why should the hobby shop be your showcase?
Virginian,
You are correct. Most those that complain basically want the manufacturers to serve only their needs. They want what they want when they want it for cheap prices. They want the ability to pass on a model when it comes out, wait 10 years, then wander into their LHS (that is, of course, on every street corner) and examine it in detail, test it out, etc. They they will go and order it online or by mail order for 50% off MSRP (which will be, of course, never increase above the prices they had known as children). Oh, and that model better be high-quality, too! Puh-leeze.
We are in a golden age of q