Rails of Sheffield

[Hound Dog]

It’s called Network Optimisation...... If your brand is competitive and strong ( I am not a huge Hornby fan, but I would suspect that most people when asked to name a manufacturer of model railways would routinely default to them), then customers will always find their way to distributors where they can buy your product from. As such the manufacturer can choose to be selective about the size of the network of distributors they actually need to service, what is in this case a pretty mature market.

What many people don’t realise is it takes time, money and resource to support and manage each of these distributor accounts (promotions, purchase order processing, shipments, returns, accounts receivables etc etc), and thus sometimes it may be better to double down with a smaller and more focused network, than constantly fight for your share of mind with a distributor who has every Tom, Dick and Harry on their line card and who expects lowest price and maximum margin in every transaction.

I suspect that this might be the case here, or perhaps Rails are not investing in stock to the levels Hornby demands and instead are preferring to back to back order on the manufacturer to cut costs ( seeing lots of this in my sphere of business at the moment)........ I guess we will never know, but sometimes a clean cut can actually be best for both parties rather than letting a trading relation simply wither on the vine.

Notwithstanding the above, I am a regular customer of Rails and have benefitted from the range of Hornby products that they stocked and keenly priced, and have generally enjoyed good service from them, so no axe to grind here.

Cheers Richard

[Steve M]

A year or so ago, wasn’t it Rails that upset Simon Koehler at one of the big shows with the placing of their signage?
Also Rails are increasingly straying into becoming a manufacturer which also tends to ruffle Hornby’s feathers.
As was said earlier, Hatton’s and Bachmann fell out last year so maybe this is what we can expect to see more of as things become more competitive.
Either way, we will still be able to get our supplies - just have to empty our wallets in different locations.

[Walkingthedog]

Most of my wallet finds its way into Dapols bucket nowadays.

[brian1951]

Is the situation life threatening NO, so Goodnight Vienna.

[LC&DR]

Rigsby's cat?

[teedoubleudee]

Rigsby's cat?

Ha ha, one of my favourite sitcoms, Rising Damp.

I think it was Brian's subtle way of saying the thread has run it's course

[bulleidboy]

I agree.

[GeoffAlan2]

A year or so ago, wasn’t it Rails that upset Simon Koehler at one of the big shows with the placing of their signage?
Also Rails are increasingly straying into becoming a manufacturer which also tends to ruffle Hornby’s feathers.
As was said earlier, Hatton’s and Bachmann fell out last year so maybe this is what we can expect to see more of as things become more competitive.
Either way, we will still be able to get our supplies - just have to empty our wallets in different locations.

Well as most 'manufacture' seems to be done abroad, at factories not owned by the 'manufacturer', firms like Rails and Hattons, to name two, there are others, have chosen to cut out the 'manufacturers' and do, or have done for them, the CAD, then commission production from the self same factories. I'm afraid that I see this as chickens coming home to roost at Hornby and Bachmann's doors.

The N gauge society has a Hunslet shunter, due for distribution soon, which has been made that way.

[Steve M]

It’s a classic blurring of the lines Geoff, demarcation is a thing of the past.
You can see The ‘big two’s’ point of view that suppliers were treading on their toes but equally the suppliers probably felt a bit aggrieved while Hornby were chasing direct sales, occasionally undercutting the box shifters.

The same thing happened in the banking sector - when I started in the ‘70s if you wanted a loan you went to a bank, but if you wanted to save you went to the building society. Then the building societies started offering current accounts (bank ‘territory’) the banks retaliated by offering mortgages. That didn’t work out well for the societies as Banks were regularly rated as the best in the mortgage market.

They all need to remember that it’s not personal, it’s business.

[bulleidboy]

Not a risk I would take.