Lonewolf
Moderator
Gods Country
Posts: 2,551
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Post by Lonewolf on Nov 14, 2011 17:07:41 GMT
Just back from Telford where I notice a trend continuing.
Model kit prices are going through the roof. A truck kit that averaged out at around £25-£30 barely a year ago is now at £45. And also that older kits are being priced similarly.
I'm not paying it. I didn't buy a truck kit at Telford although there were one or two I might have bought had they been more reasonably priced. And I don't forsee me buying any in the near future neither.
Conversation with my SIG members implies that I am not alone in my decision not to buy at those prices. I understand from my European members that this is not the case in Europe so its either the UK shops/traders at fault or the importers in which case the shops/traders want to be passing the message back.
If you want to price your customers out of the market, you are going the right way about it. And as for attracting young people to the hobby so that the next generation buy your kits.......Think on.
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Post by Julien on Nov 14, 2011 21:29:43 GMT
Importers want to take a lot of note as well!
I was surprised to see the prices of some second hand kits have gone up as well in line with new kits.
I also spoke to people who left stuff behind at the prices indicated.
Julien
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2011 21:40:45 GMT
Sorry Chris, the days of cheap kits are gone, you either pay the price or you don't have them. In the kit swap at SMW, there were a block of 20 truck kits which were priced to sell, and they did exactly that, simply because the person selling them wasn't greedy.
It's OK to give a warning to traders about their prices but they have to make a living. Your idea of a high price or mine for that matter will not be taken into account by the trader as he has to make a reasonable profit on his / her investment, if you don't buy the kit, someone else will. If you remember when I saw you at SMW I informed you of the kits for sale and you told me that you were not interested in buying kits at the show, so what have you lost? ... nothing, what have the modellers gained from your refusal to buy the kits? ... they've got them and I'm sure they were quite happy with the price they paid.
There were some kits in the kit swap that had a price tag which were a bit optimistic, one kit was priced higher than a new kit, come on get real! ... and these are kits being sold by modellers, well actually they weren't sold and the sellers took them home again. Look at both sides Chris, there's the price you're willing to pay and the price the kit is being sold at, you have to make a compromise, buy it or not, your choice.
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Lonewolf
Moderator
Gods Country
Posts: 2,551
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Post by Lonewolf on Nov 14, 2011 21:54:33 GMT
I made my choice, see above.
I wasn't including the kit swap in the above comment. The stuff in the kit swap wouldn't have enticed me anyway, I was only in the market for one or two particular vehicles.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2011 22:07:45 GMT
Chris, you're going to have make more noise than just warning traders on here. To make a difference you first have to convince the manufacturers that truck modellers won't buy their kits at the prices they're selling them at, then you have to convince the modellers not to buy them. If a modeller wants something, they'll buy it, even you, I think you're on a hiding to nothing.
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Post by chadders on Nov 14, 2011 22:21:35 GMT
Although I agree with the fact that the cost of kits has gone up, I think that bargains were to be had. Moebius Flying Sub rrp£80 down to £20, Hasagawa F-22 £80 down to £40, Airfix Sea Vixens £40 down to £26.These are just some that spring to mind of the ones that interested me. I swore not to buy a Hasagawa kit again at their inflated prices. However the F-22 at £40 is reasonable to me so I bought it. Low prices are out there, you just have to hunt harder to find them
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Post by littlecars on Nov 14, 2011 22:40:37 GMT
I'm no longer a kit retailer ( must admit I had a few second hand and old stock ones at Telford), but keep an eye on the market.
I attend about 40 shows a year. There is a randon discouting on slow stock, but generally the prices I've seen in Northern Europe are on a par with the UK, some slightly higher, some lower.
I've checked a random Italiari Scania, £44 in the UK and 44€ in europe. So europe is aroud 10% cheaper on that one. But nowhere near the prices of the good old days.
Some retailers will re-price older stock, some don't. High street shops, supermarkets and warehouses do this all the time every day so I can't see why your LMS be any different.
As has been said it's the manufacturers who set the prices. It's them that you have to convince. Wholesalers and retailers generally have a standard mark up to cover their costs and make a try to living.
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Lonewolf
Moderator
Gods Country
Posts: 2,551
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Post by Lonewolf on Nov 14, 2011 23:00:40 GMT
Funnily enough Paul one of the two kits I did buy this weekend came from your stand! (neither was a truck)
Chadders I'm not arguing with this, had I found the kit I wanted at a reasonable price then I'd have bought it, however I didn't. Yes there were truck kits in the swap at reasonable prices, but they weren't what I was after. And once those bargains are gone, then what?
Nick you may well be right. I used to play cards regularly and we often played brag. Now brag is a game in which the man with the most money CAN win if he simply carries on putting money into the pot because the others will run out of money first (most card schools have rules about this) but if the few with money keep buying kits, what happens when they stop? And like I said earlier, what about the implications for new blood in the hobby.
The fact may be that I'm on a hiding to nothing, but if I am then so is the hobby.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2011 23:33:24 GMT
The fact may be that I'm on a hiding to nothing, but if I am then so is the hobby. Judging by the amount of money spent in the kit swap and in the hall in general, the future of the hobby may not be as rocky as folks believe. You mentioned the Revell RM in a post elsewhere on the forum, at £35 you would be willing to buy it, at what price would it be out of the question?
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Lonewolf
Moderator
Gods Country
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Post by Lonewolf on Nov 15, 2011 0:09:04 GMT
To keep referring to the kit swap is misleading as this is not where my original post was aimed at.
As for the RM, £35 isn't bad compared to the £70 for the coach which I didn't buy, but thats about all I'd pay for it. And to be honest I'll believe it retailing at £35 when I see it.
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edgar
Kit Basher
Posts: 91
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Post by edgar on Nov 15, 2011 8:20:42 GMT
Traders and model shops are the wrong targets; the standard mark-up, across the hobby, is + 50%, plus VAT. This may sound exorbitant, if you insist on looking only at kits near £100, but take it down to £7.20 ( a figure I've grabbed out of the air, because the maths are simple ) Of that £1.20 is VAT, leaving £6, from which £2 are the shop's mark-up; from that the owner has to pay lighting/heating bills, plus staff wages. To put it another way, to pay a shop assistant £200p.w., the shop has to sell £720 of kits & accessories. Revell & Hornby are almost unique, in this hobby, since they deliver direct to the shop, thereby incurring only(!) staff and transportation costs. Chinese and Japanese companies have to go through an importer, who will add his (probably) 50%, before passing the items on to the shop. Manufacturers cannot, by law, set the selling price for their products, they can only suggest a "recommended" price. Take a £20 item, add 50%, plus another 50%, plus 20% VAT, and, without the aid of a magic wand, £20 becomes £54. Then you come to the banking mess/fiasco of a few years ago. Almost overnight the yen-to-pound value halved from 220 to 110, so that, if a Japanese company asked for 500 yen, instead of around £25, the importer had to pay £50; that increase has to go somewhere, and that's us. The importer of Fujimi kits says that he is now paying more for the kits than the price at which he used to sell them. Edgar
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2011 10:29:30 GMT
To keep referring to the kit swap is misleading as this is not where my original post was aimed at. Not misleading at all, the money is still there! If you really want to make a difference and get your point across, start a campaign aimed at the manufacturers, rattling a sabre on here is like preaching to the converted.
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Post by Phil Cater on Nov 16, 2011 13:37:44 GMT
Well, I noted the forthcoming 1/72 A-400M flying truck with interest over on the Revell stand. Enquired on the retail price - £39.99. That's a damned good price for that much plastic, especially considering small resin aircraft are often priced at that level, and not all esoteric subjects either.
As for the Airbus, might even get it cheaper from some friendly traders at the shows, or wait ten years and have a haggle with Mr Kit Krazy...
I do get irritated by the ~.99 pricing of everything everywhere though. You can keep the change...
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Post by claymation on Nov 16, 2011 18:05:00 GMT
I'd be looking more to urging the manufacturers to have a firm and frank exchange with their respective overseas agents/importers/wholesalers.
Here's a good example -
The Dragon/Cyberhobby 1/35 scale German 4x2 truck (Opel blitz for the layman)
£79.99 anyone?
For the UK its a sole distributor, who then has to stick a wholesale margin on it, then a trade margin, then a retail margin.
So roughly importer gets it at £27 landed, wholesaler price, £35, shop price around £45+VAT so shop sells for 79.99 Inc VAT.
The odd manufacturer that will sell to any UK dealer direct who then may not add a wholesale or even a trade margin means 1 or 2 of these margins are missed out so the product is more competitive in the UK market.
So for Tamiya, the Japanese will get £35 odd into their economy if you buy direct or £25 if you but it from a UK shop, maybe that's why the yen is so strong and they rather the "sole" distributor route as this ensures more and more money flows into the Japanese economy from the UK and elsewhere. Dragon and Cyrberhobby are Chinese (Shanghai)
Also the above does not apply to Cyberhobby.
Dragon are sold via the normal distribution channel (which with Dragon is: Dragon in China to European Distributor based in Austria - British Distributor - British Retailer - Customer)
BUT - Cyberhobby is ONLY available from Cyberhobby in China, or from their US based offshoot, Dragon USA. Therefore it is not available to UK or European Importers or retailers at trade rates only at retail rates (like it is to anyone else)
This means when a Cyberhobby kit like this is sold by a UK retailer it is based on Retail Price + Shipping and Import Costs + Profit Margin +VAT = UK Retail Price. Hence why it is pretty much double what you pay buying it overseas or from a HK based retailer
Effectively it guarantees that UK shops cannot sell CH kits at competitive prices. I have long suspected that Dragon's aim is to get overseas customers to buy direct so they can increase their margin at the expense of the distribution channels making a living. Just do what I do with Dragon stuff, don't buy it. after all, it can't be £50 better than the Tamiya Blitz - unless it drives itself that is!
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dingo
Moderator
Dog Day Afternoon
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Post by dingo on Nov 17, 2011 4:14:20 GMT
Man I'd luv to 45GBP or $70aust last week I paid for the first time in 12 months $95aust for the so-called Australian Kenworth that works out to around or about 60GBP so please if you want to pay a bit more come to Oz coz that's the starting price the average is around $130aust. Dingo
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