I placed my reservation for a set of Alco PA2/PB2 locomotives, undecorated, directly with Rapido trains a few weeks ago.
They finally made something I wanted, and I was excited to add these to my roster.
Today they sent me an email saying that if I really wanted the models undecorated, I would need to order six of them. Well, I have no use for six, and I never will.
I cancelled the reservation. I guess the STRATTON AND GILLETTE will never have a Rapido locomotive.
They did the same thing on the NORTHERN PACIFIC undecorated boxcars and required me to order four of those.
I have to disagree. Kevin’s inquiry yielded a personal reply about how to make this happen with the PA/PB loco (and I suspect the same with the NP car.)
The reality is that Kevin was probably one of at best a handful of modelers on the planet, maybe even the only one, who wanted an undec PA. Rapido advised how to make that happen, instead of just announcing a cancellation.
It’s not about minimum order quantity with Rapido when this happens. Rather it’s about large enough run to be economically viable. It may be that number was as low as six. perhaps it was more. There could have been one other person who wanted a single PA and the minimum is a dozen, too.
The fact that Rapido is willing to go to these lengths to satsify the needs of modelers doesn’t always mean these things work out. I know Jason at Rapido regularly announces new locos and the versions he’d like to build, if enough order come in to make specific marginal roadnames (I would include undecs in that categtory these days), Rapido will gladly do it. The UPs and Pennsylvanias, etc generally get included in runs because demand will require it. But ecionomic realizties mean they really can’t build runs as small as one, which may be what happened with the undec PAs.
If Rapido advertises an undecorated version to be available at some point in time, they need to tell the customer about a minimum order quantity for this item, if they don´t intend to sell them piece by piece. If runs less than 6 are economically not viable, why advertise them at all?
I think this requires somewhat less rigid thinking than in the past, al;though I can see your point, too.
I think this was likely a case where Rapido was going to build , for example, 240 units total and offered a variety of roadnmaes. Depending on the quantities ultimately ordered, it may have been that one or more names were over subscribed. In other words, Rapido knows it can make and sell all those units.
The factory process may be that minimum runs of a specifid name must be a specific size in order to cover set-up costs,
Thus when Kevin wants a single undec, that will mean Rapido may ewns up aetting on 5 undec units untol someone buys them in a year or two. That’s not a good business practice either, esepcially for an item like a PA that is likely to see re-runs. Maybe Kevin finds some others wanting undecs or finds he actually does need a gaggle of them.
That’s a lot to compact into fine print. iof you think it needs explained in marketing copy.
Based on past experience with these annoucements, I’m sure there was some statement included to the effect that actual production dpeneds on pre-orders.
And there’s likely no way to tell in advance exactly how large a pre-order needs to be to be viabls.
Again, I have to disagree. Only fools and model railroaders apparently honor a business practice like this. If your car dealer tells you that you can get the car of your choice in the color of your choice only if you order 6 of them, well, I´ll bet you will change the brand!
Let´s rest the case here! I don´t think we will come to an agreement.
As I view the Rapido web site this morning, it mentions undecorated PA/PB sets but unlike the decorated road names, there is no pricing info or “Pre-order” button to click on.
As much as people disagree about some things, Mike points out the fundemental issues or realities here. Rapido is a business and Jason doesn’t want to offer products in cases that may represent red ink.
Jason is a fair and decent guy and well, if he can’t make a fair deal in this case, then them’s the apples. I know Rapido isn’t perfect but I admire the company and the products they offer. I am only disappointed they offer mostly products I don’t need, products that are primarily aimed at the Canadian and northeast US. When Rapido does offer something I want, I plan on patronizing them. Examples: Flexi-flow hopper, Amtrak F40PH’s, SW1200 etc.
You’re looking at it as if there was some minimum order requirement PER CUSTOMER. There was not. There is, like for any of the decorated schemes, a minumum TOTAL order requirement, but if anyoen ever has stated what that number is - it would be Rapido. Maybe not on all projects, but in some of their update videos, Jason has mentioned an approximate number of orders needed to make a prject a reality.
There are two choices - make enough to sell at the announced price, or if fewer people order, make it anyway and jack the price up.
I don’t see anything wrong here, other than disappointment. But it’s hardly Rapido’s fault not enough people wanted to buy an undecorated model from them. I guess not enough people are into the “modeling” aspect these days.
As for the car analogy - car companies kill off options or color combos all the time when they don’t sell. Oh, you wanted the Azure Blue? Sorry, not available, out of all the cars of this model we sold, les than .1% were ordered in that color, so we stopped making them.
If it were me I would do a preorder with Hogtrainz or Overland Hobbies, then they would be the ones who would have to deal with a minimum order quantity and you would probably get what you wanted.
This probably wouldn’t work for the locomotive but with the boxcar, there might be enough interest among forum members to join in with each other to generate a minimum order.
I can understand Kevin’s disappointment and Ulrich’s wish for a better alternative.
It’s also the case that most of us would prefer a world where there is a well-stocked hobby shop on every corner, chock full of all the recently announced products, and everything priced 20% off list.
And nothing wrong with stating one’s preferences.
What riogrande5761 recalls here is why I wanted to say a thing or two in Rapido’s defense. Like him, Rapido hasn’t offered a whole lot I’ve needed, although I do have an exquisite Swift’s meat reefer that visits the packing plant on my layout and I’d sure like to have one of those Rapido RDCs if I didn’t have so much need for other things on a retiree’s fixed budget.
So I don’t always pay close attention to everything that Rapido does.
However, I do know that Jason has consistently kept lines of communication open that are mostly still ignored in an age of instantaneous global communications that should be the envy of most others in the model RR biz. Mostly that involves good news, sometimes there is something that could be a let down, but is unavoidable. It’s usually when there bad news that leave you wondering with other firms, but at least with Rapido you know exactkly where you stand.
So despite the disappointment, I just wanted to be sure that people realize that Mr. Shron is not a bad actor here, but one of the stand-up guys who sets a good example that we can only hope others in the industry adopt.
A few years ago, I wanted one of Atlas announced SDP35’s painted in the bright green Respondek scheme…Squaw Creek Southern. I guess not enough people wanted it, or even knew what it was, because Atlas cancelled production. A real shame.
People do not have to join in to have a minimum order, they can just all put their own orders in with Rapido or their supplier of choice and when that magic # is hit, they will be produced.
As far as what happened with Kevin having to order six, well, I believe what Rapido is saying is that the number of people that have ordered is low and each of them would have to order six to reach the numbers required to have a profitable production run.
I ordered three Hudsons when they were announced just to help get the #s up and I know of others that did similar things, when the orders went much higher than expected I changed my order to two. I have waited my whole life for prototype proper Canadian product and know enough about business to know that a company was likely to have to get creative to make it happen. Remembering that the population of California exceeds the population of Canada, I’ll take the breathing room and support Rapido in how they conduct their business.
I have exchanged a lot of E-Mails with much of the staff at Rapido and I always feel like I am in communication with a good friend rather than a company, others should learn from the way they conduct business.
Well, I preordered a set of undecorated Rapido PA’s as well. Not directly from Rapido but from a leading retailer. It will be interesting to see if I get a note from them.
Honestly, this whole preorder, built to order thing in this hobby is starting to worry me more and more. If stuff is built to order in ever smaller volumes, service and parts support is just going to get even worse.
Glad I have most of the trains I want. Glad I’m not interested in DCC and sound.
Guess I will keep watching for another Proto2000 set on Ebay, to go with the four I already have.
Mike, having worked in the hobby business, if Rapido is only building a few hundred PA’s, them and the hobby are in more trouble than we know.
Kevin ordered undecorated PA’s, so did I, somehow I can’t believe we are the only two people on the planet…
I don’t see how they could even begin to support the tooings costs for a run that small.
And, I respectfully have to disagree about the idea that it is a bad thing to have some inventory on hand for a year. Within the scope of this hobby, these are, or should be, “durable goods”. They are not fresh bread, their “shelf life” sho
In a youtube video about one of Jason’s railcar restorations he bemoaned how much the unanticipated excess cost could have been used to produce new HO products. I wish I could remember the actual cost, but I think it was between $50K and 100K for each.
I no longer have the dexterity or steadiness of hand to tackle a custom paint job on a loco produced to the current level of detail.
In order to custom paint a loco, you don’t necessarily want it to arrive fully assembled. How does that impact the assembly line for a small number of pieces?
I view Rapido’s request for Kevin to order 6 being nothing more than what they perceive to be break even cost or a small profit volume.
I assume that producing undecorated units requires a special process in the production line, where the undecorated locomotives are pulled before the painting process, the individual parts are bagged and properly counted, and whatever special accomodations are made for packaging an undecorated unit than to simply have it seemlessly go through the entire assembly process.
The tooling costs would be spread across all road names and all runs, maybe not entirely recouped until another run is announced.
I think 6 simply refers to an internal cost for doing something different with the undecorated production process than the normal production process. And that number could go down depending upon how many others order the undecorated model.
Life Like never had any problem leaving all the detail parts off, putting them in a few bags, and selling undecorated models. Same with Intermoutain, and Athearn. But this does seem to be changing. Not good in my view.
If these production runs are really getting this small, it goes a long way in explaining some of these current prices.
And that is a view from someone who has never been a price complainer.
It would seem to me that the reasonable tooling recovery minimums here would be a run of several thousand units. And the real profitable level would be 5,000 to 10,000 units. So making 50, 100 OR 200 undecorated units should be no different than making the least ordered roadname.
Looks like HO high rail modeling (where all the rolling stock is RTR) is about to win the day.
Once again, glad I have most of what I want. Glad I bought lots of undecorated kits when I could. I hate stripping paint off models.
It’s true LL managed it- - or did they? Where are they today? ANd naturally their “limited runs” were mass production by today’s standards - and you can still find NIB examples of many of their products, 20 years after they were made.
Sure they did road specific details. But Rapido is way beyond hat. It’s obviously working, as mentioned int he blurb on their 15th anniversary, in 15 years they’ve gone from one guy with soem resin molds to a pretty huge (in a single hobby terms) company. They DO have products in stock, it;s not all completely built exactly to ordered numbers. Perhaps that goes to them owning the factory, they can more easily do re-runs and or get parts. They are certainly in a better position than a pure contract manufacturer who just hires one of the companies in China to make a model to their specs and then next time may very well use a completely different manufacturer.
Maybe they will make somehtign for me, so far they have not. I don;t run passenger trains, and even if I did (and I probably will on my new layout), a PA is not the right loco. The RDCs are nice, but RDCs came to the Reading way after my era. Same with many of the other manufacturers, apart from Accurail and the small resin kit makers, most of what gets released these days is too new for my layout.
I still look for kits, that’s half the fun for me. But it’s getting harder and harder. But there’s little point complaining about it, it’s NOT going to change back any time soon. I have a backlog to keep me busy for a while, and some other projects that will need to be done. Now that I am getting back into it again, I will probably go back to searchign eBay for all those unbuilt kits people aquire and then repalce with RTR and sell off.
