I decided to purchase another set of the Rapido HO Canadian. I am informed by the hobby shop that the Canadian is now competey sold out.
I am advised some hobby shops may have ordered extra sets so I am on a waiting list to obtain another set and in the paint scheme I want.as there are six seperate variations.
The hobby shop was very surprised as Rapido required 25% deposit with each order.
Start watching eBay. MAYBE some peopel bought more than one with the idea of selling the extras. I’m not surprised they are sold out, they took preorders with a deposit to keep everyone and their brother from sayign they wanted one then making 10x more than they needed and having to seel them at a loss to get rid of them. If you piad the 25% then you were serious about obtainign the model when it was done. So they had a pretty good idea of how many to make. Lessons learned hard by other manufacturers who end up having to push $300+ sound locos for $100 at the discount houses to clear the inventory.
–Randy
Those companies that dump product may or may not be over producing product, but they are clearly under capitalized.
What a bad business model. If you don’t have enough money to wait a reasonable amount of time to sell your product, or you are not making a big enough margin to fund some inventory “on the shelf”, then maybe you need to look for another line of work.
The pre ordered, “limited production”, sell it all out in three months business model is not manufacturing, it is CUSTOM BUILDING.
It does the hobby a dis-service in my view. How is anyone supposed to take an interest in actually building a “complete” layout theme without a basic set of staple products available most of the time to plan around?
Basic as they were, back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, things like AThearn F7’s could be counted on to be on dealer shelves. Pefectly correct or not that loco came in 18 roadnames and undecorated and you seldom had any problem getting whichever one you wanted.
As for that company that is known for “blowing out” unsold product, they burned me once, since they do not value their product enough to hold the line on how cheap they will sell it
Don,
Credit Valley Railway in Toronto are advertising that they have a few sets available. I have dealt with them in the past and found them very reputable. They run one of the larger shops in Canada.
CN Charlie
I would not expect Rapido to use the same marketing techniques as BLI whom I assume you are referring to.
Rapido is a small company and had no choice but to preorder the Canadian and also request a deposit form the purchasers.
I think you will find that Rapido is an ethical company and would not alienate there customers by dumping surplus inventory at fire sale prices. In fact I do not think there is any surplus inventory over and above what Rapido would likely keep in order to replace and defective items in the Canadian sets.
As one who has bought many of their items I am very happy with the service I have received from them. It has been far and above what I have received from Walthers in dealing with defective items.
Give them a chance and do not lump them in with the manufactures who do not appear to realize the importance of customer loyalty and how to keep it.
Before GoMotorBids went out of business last month there was a lot of Rapido models for sale on the site at significantly less than retail. In most cases is was baggage cars, brand new (I purchased a couple) so perhaps that is where some of their overstock was going?
All this means is that Rapido has a buyer for every set they brought in. While many/most are likely from committed end-users, I’ll bet that even with the 25% deposit there will be sets available. The price will likely be list or higher, but I’ll bet serious buyers will find the set they need even if they chose not to make a deposit up front and risk being shut-out.
On the other hand, those who can’t bear buying something without figuring in some sort of “discount” to rationalize their purchasing decision – may just be disappointed.
I keep an eye open for Rapido coachesand other items in the roadnames I collect and have never seen them being offered at deeply discounted prices. Most hobbyshops will sell at some sort of a discount below the MSRP. One E-bay the listings for Rapido are usually heavily bid, some times as happens on E-Bay over the going rates.
There’s a palce for both kinds of things. No one woudl EVER make a Candian, or a Crusader, as a general stock item. WHo woudl buiy such a specialized item? F units - most any railroad had F units, so it’s easy to offer many road names and nearly anyone who runs diesels uses/wants F units. Not everyone freelances, some of us DO want road-specific locos and rollign stock, with the more generic versions as stand-ins until the accurate ones cna be built or becomes available. Or start with a generic and add details.
–Randy
They were going for $18 each, that is what I paid for a Burlington Havelock baggage car om March 19th. (I think that is more than 50% below retail) There were dozens of them in many road names and had been listed on the site over the last couple of months. There were very few other cars, other than baggage cars on the Gomotorbids site. I would bet that there are several folks that purchased them on the now failed site and listed them right on eBay and turned a profit.
I’m sure Randy was not refering to Rapido, and I surely was not in my reply, at least as it concerns dumping product.
Like a few other recent up starts in this business, Rapido has yet to make anything I want - name train or otherwise.
Just like ExactRail, I wish them well - and hope they are smarter than our friends at BLI.
That said, I would never pay a 25% deposit for a model not yet made, but I won’t even do no risk preorders.
As for Walthers, I have had mixed customer service results there, but overall they have been pretty good. However they too seem to be not offering the products my railroad needs, so not much of my money goe there.
Sheldon
That is my normal reaction too. Considering the total cost vs my actual need, I had no real intention of buying. But Rapido did a travelling road show demonstrating the nearly finalized entire train, and I realised that it was a “now or never” opportunity for an incredibly accurate model. Rapido has enough of a history that I figured the risk of putting down the deposit was acceptable. And of course living up here in the north it fits well with my prototype, even if the length of the full train may overwhelm many layouts (10 cars and A-B-A of F-units).
In this case I could see just how good the model is before pre-ordering. But I don’t normally do even no-risk preorders since we have all seen unfortunate errors made by the manufacturer which causes us to suddenly lose interest in a particular product. And although it may have been no-risk to me, it may mean my local hobby shop gets stuck.
John
Yes, i was referrign to BLI without naming names. Rapido seems to make lots of each item, not continuous production but ‘limited’ more liek Proto 2000. Some of their older releases are not currently in production, but they are still making the Osgood Bradley cars (“American Flyer coaches”) and those were first introduced some time ago. No doubt if there is enough demand they will make more of the others. There’s very little made these days under the unlimited production methodology, even Athearn has a cutoff now, they don’t seem to make anything perpetually. Others make the same item but change it up after a few years - I just got 5 Bowser hopper car kits that are the exact same as the dozens of Stewart ones I already have but are different numbers. WHen I saw them and checked my database, and checked again…I couldn’t believe I didn’t already have ever number offered, but there they were. Accurail is doing the same thing with certain cars. They do seem to be in perpetual production of their undecorated versions, which is good because I am using the undec 55 ton hoppers as the basis for my covered hopper conversion.
–Randy
I agree that I would probably not have preordered the Canadian had I not seen before hand the pre-production models.
The degree of finish on both the engines and the cars is the best I have seen. It is significantly better finished than Walthers current offerings and noticeably cheaper as well.
I certainly expect this set to be sold out and that those that decided not to preorder will have to pay a significant premium to purchase a set after they are shipped.
These is no doubt that those who did not initially ordere will expect to payt a premium price once the sets have been delivered and one can see the quality of these sets…
Randy, nothing in this hobby has ever been in continious production. The only question is are they interested in making more right before the last run sells out on dealer/distributor shelves?
There have always been short gaps in availablity of stuff even when “continious availablity” was “advertised”. In the 80’s there was a five year gap in production of Athearn RDC’s - everybody said we would never see them again - then they ran a BIG batch - the dies broke during that run - ending the item for good.
The difference today is the “threat” that no more will be made to compel people to buy it now - not later.
And to demand “commitment to purchase” before production.
Athearn and Bachmann may be adjusting their production run sizes for the slow economy, but they will make more - its what they do.
BLI on the other hand appears so cash strapped that slow sales of one release seems to control the next production cycle, etc.
So they “dump” the rest to get their cash back - never caring about what they are doing to the market and their own product image - lowing its “value”.
Sheldon
I ordered one with the intention of putting it into my collection. Once I saw the one they were showing off I ordered two more. I’m not surprised at all they sold out. The Canadian appeals to a very small market and it is being built just for that market. You may be able to find one but hobby shops aren’t going to mark them up. If they tried to sell them above MSRP then I wouldn’t buy from them.
I decided to get one, and put my money down. Reality is, once this set is sold out, there will be no more. So if you wanted one, you had to act one it right away.
Then Jason throws in the extras, like the swizzle sticks, napkins, and a rye glass. Reproductions from the original stuff found on the train in it’s day. That is just the icing on the cake.
Jason has indicated that the cars will be sold individually at a later date. That could be several years off. It may take several more years after that before the entire set has been completely manufactured, and again, getting some cars may be difficult depending on their popularity.
The extras will also be available separately, according to Jason. But it isn’t the same as those included with the set.
Of course, when the cars come on the market individually, we’ll hear the same chorus of “but they are too expensive.” To assemble the same train set this way will cost a lot more than the set that is being delivered soon (according to Jason they are on a boat heading to Canada now).
Rapido Trains invested a lot of money in this project, since no one else was interested, so we should be happy that The Canadian has been done, and to the level that Jason does things.
The Rapido newsletter indicates that the first batch 21001 is en route. The first batch is 300 units, there are six more batches to produce. The entire run is indicated to be 2000 sets.
The schedule released is:
Guys,
Even with some of the disagreements that we may feel regarding pre-ordering, IMHO, we should still say “Congratulations and Good going!” to Jason Shron for having sold out of the Canadian sets. If the sets sold out this quickly, then that’s likely a very good indicator that Rapido will produce more.
Some of us forget that he’s a model railroader as well as a business manager. Producing a train like the Canadian is a costly investment. Having worked in fabrication, I can appreciate how incredibly expensive tool & die making has become. The days of spending $5,000 to $10,000 to produce molds/dies, market research / legal haggling, etc., to produce accurate, detailed scale models are long behind us.
I had been communicating with a gentleman in the scale truck/bus/heavy equipment hobby industry and providing him information for producing some popular scale model buses that have not yet been produced, including the 1960s era Eagle-01. The holdup? Legal hassles, blue prints, and tooling costs, which are expensive.
News Flash - It was NEVER that cheap - not even 50 years ago.
I have nothing against Jason or his company, in fact I wish him well, but that does not change the facts, good and bad, about the direction of this hobby and this industry.
And if preordered, custom made, high end plastic RTR is the primary future of this hobby, I’m glad I already own most of the model trains I want.
Sheldon