Model Railway Forum

Looks like TMC (and others) are reporting price rises from Hornby come September.

I've yet to find reference to this on Hornby's website specifically (I rarely use it so I don't know where to look), but it is being widely reported.

https://marketing.tmc-direct.com/cr/AQj ... GaYMiBAG6w (non affiliate link)

Whilst I don't model with anything Hornby, I do follow the releases etc as they come out. To me, the price rises aren't justifiable on the grounds of inflation, as many other manufacturers are seemingly not struggling and not rising prices.

This is very worrying behavior from a major manufacturer... it seems whoever is in control is only 'money minded' and cannot comprehend the market at all. If they are struggling for profit (which their financial reports suggest is the case), then they'll only be able to fix this from a 'model' point of view. Simply jacking up prices will make the situation worse, not better. This is particularly true now, as we are in a cost of living crisis, where disposable income is at is lowest for a massive number of people and households.

I personally feel that a lot of this woe is of their own making. They should not have invested in TT whilst also trying to shut out the retailers in the process. This action MASSIVELY damaged the brand for me... as again it comes from the 'money minded' place. I do understand that TT has great use-cases and deserves to flourish, but it won't while Hornby carry on with this mad pricing, and being so slow to develop the range.

Another gut punch for them has been the Titchfield Thunderbolt fiasco. Just WHO in their right mind would create, design, market and attempt to sell products for which they have no licence for, with press releases in close proximity to another manufacturer... who actually had the licence to use the IP! I seriously hope the senior people who signed off on this, lost their jobs.

I think Hornby is entirely capable of building a business model that works. I think they need to :-

• Focus on getting new people into the hobby, with reasonably priced train sets, which have a focus on play value (think points, shunting, goods loading/unloading, signals and colour lights, motorized crossing gates the list is endless! There is so much potential, given the massive developments in electronics in the last 20 years)
• Provide curated accessory kits, wagon & train packs that are focused on being addons to the train sets,
• Redevelop the playtrains brand, ditching the plastic track, and using track FULLY train set compatible. These playtrains sets can be cheaper as they don't need to be shipped with a controller, and it means less expense is required for a child (ergo the parent) who has playtrains, to 'graduate' into that wonderful world of Hornby model railways... just like the Thomas brand did.
• Take the focus off the top-of-the-line, perfect scale, exhibition style locos, and focus on models which are affordable, have durability, whilst retaining as much quality and detail as is possible for a 'middle of the road' price point.
• Bring back the spares department, and fully embrace 'eco' driven schemes... repair instead of replace, etc
• Stop selling models directly, at least on the web. Help retailers by showing loyalty to them, which will encorage customer loyalty to hornby and the retailers... a win-win

Hornby account holders have had an email from Hornby and it's on FB. R-

I had an email from Corgi about a rise.

Hi Everyone

Having read both the opening post and the email in the image shown in post #2 I have to say that I think hornby is starting to slide down the path of potential non recovery.

I cannot fathom that hornby is going to be expecting us to pay scandalously ridiculous rip off prices starting in September, not that prices aren't stupidly ridiculous already. I think its going to be a case of paying for example £145 for even a simple 0-6-0 tank locomotive soon and basic track pieces long the long straight piece ( formerly R603 ) will around a tenner perhaps more, when currently I can go to 1 of my local model shop's and purchase 2 pieces of peco flexi track for the same price.

I quite agree that investing in the TT market was a bad idea and with the aforementioned inflation rise the TT range is going to soon be out of reach of many people who might not have a lot of room for O or OO gauge layouts and would be wanting to go TT or N gauge, however, if these price rises keep happening, I can seethe likely possibility of hornby going out of business because to expect customers to pay unbelievably high prices for individual items for example 1 of the pullman coaches with lights at around £60 - £65 each ( they were around £40 - £45 each when I purchased some back in 2014 or 2015 ( can't remember which ) but even then I thought it was ridiculously unjustifiable.

Granted it might seem like I'm overstating the case here and quite possibly overestimating the new prices but that's what I am thinking is likely to be the outcome of this bout of "lets grab as much money as we can and force our customers to pay it whether they like it or not".

I know there are likely to be a number of members who may not agree with me but that's what I see happening.

What do you all think ?

I will stay out of the debate regarding Hornby's viability.

However, I believe the price rises announced are fair and to be expected.

The world economy has been through a turbulent few years with COVID, Brexit, war in Ukraine and shipping attacked in the Red Sea - all of which have significantly added to the costs of all commodities. The world of model railways is not immune to these factors.

Hornby have not, according to their email, had an across the board price increase since early 2022. In the same period the CPI (excludes housing and mortgage costs) has risen by 16%.

I believe Hornby have said their increase is around 12% so in real terms that is in the consumer's favour.

Steve M wrote:
However, I believe the price rises announced are fair and to be expected.

'Fraid I can't agree with this statement at all.

Hornby Models don't fair very well when compared with other Manufacturers in terms of Quality, Features and Price... and from what I've seen so far, none of these manufacturers are raising prices.

I just can't understand that if inflation is affecting the market to level Hornby are suggesting with their rises, why aren't these other manufacturers not raising prices in a similar way?

It suggests to me that the management at Hornby are more concerned with the quarterly statements than actually maintaining a viable business.

I had a email from Hornby on 14th Aug, it justifies to subscribe.

Haha my Hornby account has more cancelled orders than completed orders and the reason is the tat they pump out. For example the Class 66 'Sir Tom Moore' and that awful purple Class 66 sound fitted with God save the King . Oh and did they have a Rainbow and NHS examples. Nobody wants them!

I think Hornby unfortunately are toast.

i have pre orders for the new Bachmann Jinty sound, Accurascale Class 50 sound and will be placing a pre order for a Dapol large prairie sound, this is where my money is going now, I don't care for Hornby anymore, sad to see them go but they don't have anything of interest to me as they keep churning out LNER stuff all the time.

It’s not mandatory to buy the models you don’t like

Forum rule no. 4

Stese wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2024 3:40 pm

I personally feel that a lot of this woe is of their own making. They should not have invested in TT whilst also trying to shut out the retailers in the process. This action MASSIVELY damaged the brand for me... as again it comes from the 'money minded' place. I do understand that TT has great use-cases and deserves to flourish, but it won't while Hornby carry on with this mad pricing, and being so slow to develop the range.

I don't agree with that, by all accounts its been a big success and has been a major benefit for them financially.
The range has only been out just over a couple of years, and I think they have done a great job with what they have got into the range to date.I bet when they started the OO range it didnt develop as fast ! I also think, other than the lit coaches and wagons, most of the range has a not unreasonable price considering.

Price rises are a fact of life, especially in the recent and current climate, although I do agree there are a lot of OO models with older tooling that
are priced too steep and even a lot of the new releases are getting uncompetitive in price.

That said, they know better than us, so lets hope it works for them, the hobby wouldn't be the same without them.

Just my 2 pence worth