today i received a shipping notice from a dealer telling me he shipped my order. along with the notice was a list of what i ordered and the price of each. i ordered a set of the new kato maxi stack container cars and some peco switches all in n scale. the cars listed at $75 and with a discount they came to $56 and change. when i checked the total it was $32 higher than when i placed the order. i called them and they explained that kato has now disallowed any discounting of their new releases for the first six months. they also raised their list price to $89.the dealer was nice enough to remove the $32 extra charge as he didn’t let me know before he shipped my order. anyone else hear of this new practice by kato?
Flyer I received this month from hobby shop in Canada says to expect rise in costs. 90% of the RR related is from China, wages are going up in China. Add the exchange rate, oil prices pushing cost of transport and plastic up and up.
Re: China
IMHO, likely to also make an impact on China’s economy is the recent, devastating earthquake that has claimed at least 50,000 lives, devasted many survivors and has affected thousands of businesses.
the dealer gave you some half truths, and mis-information, Kato’s new policy only covers the min. that a dealer can “publicly” advertise the price for an item, not how much he actually can sell it for, they could legally, under the policy sell you the set to you for $1, but not list a sale price of $1 in unsolicited ads.
As to advertising a price of $56, even when actual retail ended up being $89, his price should have only gone up about $8, not $32.
Advertising a discounted price, then charging you full retail, and then hoping you wouldn’t notice, I would look for a new vendor, because either he flat out lied to you to cover his mistake, or tried to slip one past you.
the dealer in question is a large dealer who advertises in mr and rmc. i have made several purchases over the years with him and have had no problems. i do not like to pay list for an item if i can get a discount somewhere else. i don’t have much knowledge of the retail side of the mr industry and he should have contacted me about the price before he shipped. but he did make good on the original amount. i have only his explanation to go on and i don’t think he wants to ruin his business either.
one more thing. why does everyone recopy the the post they are responding to. are their attention spans too short or are their reading comprehension skills so poor they have to keep refering back to the original writing?
That’s not exclusive to Kato. A lot of companies are doing that. I just received a pair of catalogs from B&H Photovideo in NYC and most of the really expensive and major items like camera bodies, lenses, and certain pro audio equipment does not list a price; you have to call for it.
I quote from earlier posts if I feel like there’s a lot of side topics or conversations going on. It’s more for specificity than a short attention span, though I do suffer from… Oooh, shiny coins! [2c]
Most all hobby products from China and Japan are experiencing price hikes. Blame it on rising wages in China, high oil prices and the low value of the dollar to the yen and yuan. Typical increases are about 15-20%.
-G-
What were we talking about again?
something about being charged full retail price because of the earthquake in china, but hang on, Kato is made in Japan.
Well, hopefully the Spurs can take it in game 7!! Oh, wait…
They rarely do. Been that way with camera resellers for Years. Even if you go to their website, sometimes, you have to take an extra step to get the price. It would be nice however if they at least listed the Retail prices to give some idea.
Your dealer is ripping you off.
The policy is for advertised prices not what he actually charges you.
He can discount to you all he wants to just not put it in a magazine or website.