It seems to me that production runs of certain engines and cars are so short because they’re being built on a pre-order basis by the maufacturers who get their orders from the distributors who get their orders from the dealers who sell to end users. Dealers are and have been for some time now requiring end users to pre-order so that they can send their orders up the chain.
I’m an end user and can only speak for myself and I can’t imagine letting a dealer know one or two years in advance what cars or locos I’ll want to buy then. I count on my dealers ordering enough to fill pre-order demand and more, resulting in a surplus that can be sold over time. This is how I’ve been building my fleet and have never pre-ordered anything.
What’s happening is that when I learn of a certain car or loco that has been released and that I’m interested in, it’s already discontinued and a subsequent hunt ensues trying to track one down from wherever I can find one, which is usually on ebay or at train shows.
Yeah, the manufacturers are shooting themselves in the foot on this one. They are using this ploy to guage interest in a model before they commit to build it. That’s why a lot of pre-ordered items never get built.
Suppose you pre-ordered a locomotive from Dingbat Trains, with a delivery date a year from now. When the time comes around, you see the delivery date is still “a year from now,” and eventually they cancel the project and hopefully you get back your money. Then, Dingbat Trains announces another pre-order. Are you going to bite? Probably not. So, Dingbat Trains figures there’s not much interest in the new loco, either. They’re missing out on possible sales, not even realizing that it’s their marketing, not their locomotives, that’s turning people off.
I never pre-order from any dealer who wants payment up front. If their policy clearly states that they don’t charge for the item until it has been shipped, I’m willing to wait if it’s something that I really want.
I’m not going to put money up front for something that may, or may not be produced. I can’t imagine waiting 1-2 years for something to be produced. And then hoping it arrives in tact with no manufacturing defects.
I wonder how the manufactures come up with thier estimates. If it were me, and its not, I would think pre orders may suggest only about 15-25% of possible sales. A manufacturer should consider numbers like this as most of us will not commit to something we have not seen any reviews or heard anything about. Its unfirtunate that the dealers are stuck to an extent to take the hit the manufacturers don’t want any more. If a dealer sees an item that they feel may be hot in thier area they have to commit to an order and hope we bite. Oh, is that how its always been?
I know its all about the money, but not all items will return the same profits. This usually means the higher priced items get an even higher price to make up for the lower margins on the other items.
There are so many factors to this topic we, and the manufacturers, will go bananas for a while.
Visa and Mastercard merchant rules do not allow this. Their rules state that services must be delivered at the time of sale. Not all merchants read the fine print and run the risk of losing their merchant account.
I buy what is availible right now, in stock somewhere online or warehouse. I dont bother with pre-orders anymore.
If I did pre-order, that means the maker like Atlas has the history of meeting thier ontime scheduled delivery of these items more or less a few weeks.
Waiting 2+ years for a engine is just too much money tied up better spent elsewhere.
I’m going to take the contrarian point of view. I’m personally tired of these posts complaining about pre-ordering, or manufacturers not producing what a particular individual wants.
While I’m no fan of the pre-order system, it is a business model that apparently works in this day and age. The old business model of continuous production apparently has much higher costs, especially when production was/is moved to China and performed in large batch runs. If continuous production was a successful business model, it would be used more. Varney, Mantua, AHM, Penn Line, etc., would still be around. Nobody wants to lose money.
The complaints about the pre-order system really come down to: I as a consumer do not want to risk my money on a pre-order that may not work out. But I want you as a manufacturer to risk your money on a far bigger scale in order that I can get what I want whenever I want.
If the complainant is unwilling to risk his money on a pre-order, I have no hope that he would be willing to invest in setting up production of a locomotive or car or structure. So, if I am in fact investing my dollars in producing an item, these complaints really irritate me. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. In other words, if you aren’t willing to be a part of getting stuff produced - whether through being a manufacturer, assisting the production process, or even pre-ordering - you really shouldn’t expect to have a say in what gets produced or how it gets sold. If I as a manufacturer happen by chance to produce what you want, and you happen to buy one - great! If not, I had to ignore your rants in making a rational business decision regarding production anyway. There is no way I could count on a sale to you. After all, money talks, (blank) walks.
Now, no manufacturer can actually afford to say these words out loud. But this is one of the reasons why so man
Depends on priorities, I guess. If it is a limited production, and I want one, then it behooves me to get on board. Or, wait and hope to get in on a fire sale. Either one is a risk.
No need for asbestos underwear, The facts are the facts. What suprises me is the customers do not call out the production and business models that serve them best and worst… I.E.
Atlas seems to have a pretty good grasp of the market that they are in; as far as N scale goes. The same for Microtrains. They give you about 6 weeks advanced notice and then close reservations. They let you know at the end of the reservation period whether the product will be made or not.
Athearn and Kato have a little bit worse reputation for preorders in N scale due to picking cars and locomotives that really, really, really sell well. They tend to delay (to support) a significantly increased production run or follow up with another run or two of the same series.
PCM on the other hand has screwwed with the N scale market from the getgo! They offered a PRR M1a locomotive and N&W H2a hopper quite a few years ago, and have yet to produce or cancel them. They built one model and have delayed everything else. They are not willing to communicate the reason for delays except when they chose to lie about manufacturer problems with the M1a and then corrected the story by saying there were not enough preorders. Or they show a cornball preorder-o-meter that they never update.
Deluxe Inovations and trainworx let you know up front that there is no certain production date for their announcements. There are many other cottage manufacturers in N scale that will tell you up front that they are building product based on their own hobby interests and that if enough preorders are there; they will build it. No empty promises, just put up or shut up!
I can deal with the adage that money talks and BS walks on the customer side, but when someone screws me around for years on a project I tend to get upset.
I do not know how the HO scale market works, but I get upset when I’m lied to!
Who really places the pre-orders, the hobby shop owner/manager or the consumer? Unless I as a consumer am subscribed to receive manufacturer’s updates, how would I know that I must pre-order something that I might want?
I guess waiting six weeks as in the case with Atlas isn’t bad. That, I can live with. But the process that I’m used to is seeing what a particular retailer has for sale and then deciding if it’s suitable for my layout. Those items that he has for sale were ordered by somebody, right? If each produced were dedicated to a consumer, then why are there all kinds of new cars all over the internet and in some brick and mortar hobby shops (ones that acutally do good business)?
I have a large fleet of Atlas Pressureaide Centerflow hoppers in a particular scheme that are unique to Atlas. They’re the white ones with the high/low blue stripes in ACFX, CRDX and PCIX report. They msrp for around $27 ea. though I’ve never paid more than $20 ea. them, actually most of them I bought at around $15 ea. on ebay. None of them were recent releases, they were all from production runs years past.
I bought all of them “brand new” in sealed packaging. I now have one of each of every Atlas model that fits the description mentioned above. Now, in order to build my fleet further I’d have to wait until Atlas produces more of these or buy duplicates of the ones that I have and change the road numbers myself which is something that I don’t want to do. I’m patient and can wait until a year or so after the end of next production run so that I may be able to buy them at a greater discount from a vendor who really wants to get rid of them and thus slashes the price to make it more attractive. This is how I thought business is conducted in America. It’s certainly the way department stores and car dealers do business. This is, of course, subject to whether or not they com
Yeah, you are right, but what is the real risk? One might not get a certain toy. Not really much of a risk in any true sense of the word.
To the credit card charging issue, I said several years ago that I was never going to pre-order anything (getting stung with the Genesis 4-6-6-4 fiasco - it became my very last Athearn purchase). ANYway pleading tempory insanity for some stupid reason I pre-ordered the Atlas Trainmasters… This was way back in February right after I had just gotten my bonus from work. Well they didn’t come and didn’t come and didn’t come and I forgot about them. So guess what! They came last week and the vendor just went ahead and charged my card. I have no money to pay for them now, so I’m going to have to carry a balance over a month bill period and get charged intrest…so much for any discount of pre-order.
As the others have said as long as there are idiots like me that keep pre-ordering stuff even though we know it is stupid. That stupid business model will continue working and the manufacturers will continue doing it.
Virtually every new engine announced to be released asked your hobby shop to take orders before a deadline and you needed to tell some hobby shop that you want a copy of the model or risk missing out.
Some engines have been announced 2 years ago and still have not been made. To me, this isnt pre-ordering; but really “Fishing” for customer interest in some kind of massive uber marketing surveys.
Who really places the pre-orders, the hobby shop owner/manager or the consumer? Unless I as a consumer am subscribed to receive manufacturer’s updates, how would I know that I must pre-order something that I might want?
I guess waiting six weeks as in the case with Atlas isn’t bad. That, I can live with. But the process that I’m used to is seeing what a particular retailer has for sale and then deciding if it’s suitable for my layout. Those items that he has for sale were ordered by somebody, right? If each produced were dedicated to a consumer, then why are there all kinds of new cars all over the internet and in some brick and mortar hobby shops (ones that acutally do good business)?
I have a large fleet of Atlas Pressureaide Centerflow hoppers in a particular scheme that are unique to Atlas. They’re the white ones with the high/low blue stripes in ACFX, CRDX and PCIX report. They msrp for around $27 ea. though I’ve never paid more than $20 ea. them, actually most of them I bought at around $15 ea. on ebay. None of them were recent releases, they were all from production runs years past.
I bought all of them “brand new” in sealed packaging. I now have one of each of every Atlas model that fits the description mentioned above. Now, in order to build my fleet further I’d have to wait until Atlas produces more of these or buy duplicates of the ones that I have and change the road numbers myself which is something that I don’t want to do. I’m patient and can wait until a year or so after the end of next production run so that I may be able to buy them at a greater discount from a vendor who really wants to get rid of them and thus slashes the price to make it more attractive. This is how I thought business is conducted in America. It’s certainly the way department stores and car dealers do business. This is, of course, subject to whether or not they com