Price increase

[Steve M]

Last year Hornby announced price rises during the year, citing various reasons for the changes.
Unless I have missed something, it would appear that many of their catalogue prices have been revised over the New Year period - presumably in preparation for the 2022 product launch next week.
For example, TTS decoders have been increased to £50.99 and quite a few of the ‘new’ locos (W1, P2 etc) have now gone over £250.

[yelrow]

Becoming a rich mans hobby Steve. I have bought nothing new for last 4 years, from Hornby. If i was going to pay £250 for a loco, i am afraid, i would look towards america, where their locos come with many more bangs for your bucks.

[Walkingthedog]

Get a nice O gauge 0-6-0 for that money that weighs more than a brick.

[mjb1961]

Had a quick look just now, it seems the typical price is @£250 for a new loco ,although we all know that you can save 10% buying from a retailer ,well most anyway, but saying that you will have to preorder very early, like now, because of the hornby rationing of stock to retailers you cannot rely on one being available, even then if retailers only receive a margin of there request they are starting to up the price because they know they can .

[Steve M]

Good point, and bear in mind that Hornby have moved most of the discounters from their list of tier 1 suppliers so that will make landing a particular model quite an expensive exercise.

Not entirely sure how I feel about these prices - I can see how this is driven by tariffs and recent increases in transport costs outside Hornby’s control, but the recent changes to their sales and marketing policies are not customer focussed.

I think customers will have to be far more selective in future.

[Goingdownslow]

Hornby saved me a small fortune last year by cancelling my pre-orders from my local retailer. It made me have a rethink of my buying habits, I was pre-ordering 'nice to have' models because there was nothing I really needed.
I think I can safely cross Hornby off my future shopping lists.
My total modeling spend last year was the grand sum of £17.50 on a Next18 decoder.

[RAF96]

Whilst my local model shop still discounts Hornby prices about 5-10% down from RRP they remain outwith my pocketbook, and even though I can well afford them, I will not buy at those prices.

Hornby need to get back to their railroad roots of providing sturdy, serviceable rolling stock at affordable prices.

These hyper-detailed super-fragile exhibition models have no place on the average layout and will be the downfall of Hornby given they under-produce them based on false statistics from pre-orders thus causing a second tier (fleabay) market economy that reaps the real profit.

Time for Hornby to wake up and smell the coffee or revert to flogging toy train sets for Xmas and birthdays.

[Walkingthedog]

Bachmann and Dapol prices are about the same, it’s not just Hornby.

[Walkingthedog]

Everything is going up in price. Let’s not turn this into a Hornby knocking forum. That’s why I left the Hornby forum.

[brian1951]

God its tempting