Model Railway Forum

With the new price increase from hornby that are now being updated on retailers websites it looks like some retailers aren't discounting by the usual 10% therefore buying direct from hornby will no longer be more expensive.I have recently emailed a retailer that I have a pre order with ,with the new pricing I will need to pay a further £40 which will be in line with hornby ,no discount.The said retailer mentioned in there reply that they have had to swallow price increases from other suppliers for packaging etc.It seems like £220+ for a mainline express type loco is going to be the norm .

I notice that Rails are releasing a Dapol OO goods wagons for about £37. I can get an O version for a little more.

I think you need to allow retailers plenty of time to sort out their "Bulk buy" prices from Hornby. These may well be better then Hornby offers?
That said it is known Hornby are not happy with many discounting retailers. But IMO that's cutting off your retailer to prevent undercutting the manufactures retail price! Multi buy retailer orders are in fact the life line of manufactures.

When Hornby introduced their tiering system for retailers, I think they included a ‘no discounting’ rule for a short period after each new release.
That will undoubtedly hit the pre-orders first so maybe it’s time to wait to see what’s available after the initial rush for each model.

Steve M wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 7:33 pm When Hornby introduced their tiering system for retailers, I think they included a ‘no discounting’ rule for a short period after each new release.
That will undoubtedly hit the pre-orders first so maybe it’s time to wait to see what’s available after the initial rush for each model.

Cutting off your retailers is really the "Kiss of death" IMO!

Couldn’t agree more Brian. You would have thought they would have learned from previous mistakes.

Hard to understand why Hornby do what they do. There are more and more companies producing great products. They must have a death wish.

Strange times indeed.
I read recently that Hornby had bought the remaining shares in Oxford Diecast for £1.3m. Those shares were registered to LCD Enterprises ie Lyndon Davies (Hornby CEO).
He’s done quite well from the deal hasn’t he? And a fair wedge of money has left the company probably at a time they can’t really afford it.
And off the back of that we see reduced availability and much higher prices.

Steve M wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:39 pm I read recently that Hornby had bought the remaining shares in Oxford Diecast for £1.3m. Those shares were registered to LCD Enterprises ie Lyndon Davies (Hornby CEO).

That is a shame, I had hoped that Oxford would grow to be a serious alternative to Hornby. Probably what will happen now is they will only manufacture 'complimentary' but not competing products.

I read somewhere that this year, for the first time in 10 years, Hornby is actually in profit, which it attributes to the pandemic, and people (such as me) getting into/back into modelling. How does a business survive for 10 years without making anything?

The relationships between the companies seems pretty incestuous to me. Isn’t there some relationship between Dapol and Hornby?

My biggest gripe with the Hornby range is a lack of choice when it comes to locomotives and suchlike. I really would like to buy a decent 0-6-0 loco that I know that they used to make. Similarly, where are the earlier classes like 108, 121 and 122? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of shift between the 2020 and 2021 catalogues, but I do recognise that the pandemic isn’t helping.