Help understanding pricing

[Newportnobby]

Not for one moment do I want this to descend into a Farish v Dapol or 'prices are too high' thread, but I've noticed Dapol have recently released more Autocoaches and their BR maroon one (2P-004-013) is listed at Rails of Sheffield at £14.41. A similar Farish version (374-611) is listed at the same retailer at £29.71.
Now, to me, the Farish one does look the better model (I have one) but is it really a 'twice the price better' model or am I comparing apples with pears?
Even now, I'm thinking of deleting this post as I'm not sure what sort of responses are likely  , but I believe it is a valid question especially for those, like me, with limited funds.

[RailGooner]

NPN, if you manage to glean any understanding of pricing, I'd be grateful if you would explain it to me because I have a clearer understanding of neuroscience*.


* I'm not a neuroscientist.

[nabber]

I think that was one of Dapol's first N gauge models. They seem to have decided to keep re-releasing these older models without increasing the price too much. Presumably the tooling cost was paid for over the first few runs, and so any re-releases now are easy money for Dapol - it's quite simple compared to newer models, so assembly costs are lower as well.
The Farish model is much newer, so the price needs to cover tooling as well, as well as more complex assembly.
Note the Collett coaches are £20 - still cheaper than more modern ones, but not such a stark difference.
Regards,
Neil

[njee20]

Farish prices have certainly escalated more quickly than Dapol on rolling stock. Plenty of Farish wagons have gone up 80-100% in a couple of years, whilst Dapol seem to have seen more like 10-20% increases. Why is this...? No idea!

[amsie]

Being a niche market, and seeing as a business solely exists to make as much profit as it can, my guess is they will try and make as much profit as they can, after paying their development costs, staff costs, business rates, rents, tax etc etc then after selling to a shop at trade, the shop then wants to make as much money as it can after paying rents, rates, staff, tax etc etc.  They can test the waters with prices mark up high and with enough profit margin hopefully so that if they don't sell the retailer can drop the price to clear and hopefully not make a loss.  When our shops and manufacturers start making a loss we don't have a hobby.

[railsquid]

I think that was one of Dapol's first N gauge models. They seem to have decided to keep re-releasing these older models without increasing the price too much. Presumably the tooling cost was paid for over the first few runs, and so any re-releases now are easy money for Dapol - it's quite simple compared to newer models, so assembly costs are lower as well.
The Farish model is much newer, so the price needs to cover tooling as well, as well as more complex assembly.
Note the Collett coaches are £20 - still cheaper than more modern ones, but not such a stark difference.
Regards,
Neil

Happy to be corrected, but I recall hearing the Dapol autocoaches are descended from the Airfix OO gauge tooling, and are a bit "generic". Whereas the Farish model is (presumably) very prototypical, I don't know enough about the originals to care too much about the odd rivet or whatever, but they're certainly to a much higher standard/finish than the Dapol ones. Not that I have anything against the Dapol ones, they look good enough to me, and the price difference seems justified in this particular case.

[trkilliman]

I don't think this needs to descend into a Farish v Dapol scenario. Nothing wrong with an open discussion of views though.
Each may have their own favourite or rate them equally. Whatever a viewpoint the for and against has been flogged with regularity. I have had my two pennyworth.

Wth regard the pricing differential metioned in the O.P. it does make you wonder why it should be so great. Some time back it was reported that Dapol were moving some production back to the U.K. using their newly purchased high end equipment. Perhaps some N gauge production of existing models is being carried out in the U.K and this can keep prices fairly stable?

I'm toying with purchasing a Farish Autocoach in B.R. crimson, although I have a perfectly good Dapol one in crimson and cream. I ask myself is it a need or a want?  As Farish prices have risen with regularity by their percentages it does mean that items can be double what they were just a few years back, or quite near.
This does make Dapol items that may be of the same release period appear much better value. I reckon their unpainted wagons are a very good purchase if you wish to creat a sizeable rake.

Much of Dapol's thrust of late seems to be in O gauge, so it may be that existing models will be kept in production or re-released now and again, which I can live with.

There you are, I've hopefully kept my baseball bat under wraps...lol

[Richard G Dallimore]

Afraid it is quite simple the Farish one is a new Chinese tool to modern standards, that has to pay for itself. The Dapol one is over 10 years old, been produced in numerous batches and has paid for itself. Dapol have done very well out of they early rolling stock as have Farish, but new items are expected to pay of costs in one or two runs. Farish also seem to have higher production costs, as N Gauge is also competing with n scale, HO and OO for production space in Bachman factory.

[exmouthcraig]

I really have been struggling to see the appeal of Dapol of late. 10 years ago they were top dollar for detail compared to Farish at the time.

Farish Blue Riband are quite exquisite models which is what a lot of us are after. Dapol just seem to be sitting on what they've had for the last 10 years probably longer.

I must admit I'm very frustrated by the teasers Dapol have made us believe are coming only for them to disappear off the face of the earth and unless I find more of the dapol items I already have I don't even look at their products anymore.

For the rakes of wagons we build upwards of 20 peco kits to mix in with the Farish models. I have become disappointed with the quality of Dapol against Farish recently and see most of their stock now as more like Hornby Rail Road.

I do want the Maunsell rakes that they are about to release and hope that buying these will win me back over to viewing their products on a par with Farish.

I don't mind paying the price for the quality, I wish the higher price reflected in quicker production and delivery.

If the BoBs and WC arrived tomorrow id blow ££££s on them and Dapol would be the best manufacturer in the world. I'm convincing myself at the moment Dapol are a step behind Farish and this reflects in the price.

Only my fickle POV at this moment 

[woodbury22uk]

I think there is a difference between the pricing philosphies. Farish has increased prices across the board regardless of the age of the tooling, but conscious of the labour input for more complex models. Dapol's approach is more generous to the buyer and recognises that old tooling does not justify taking the level of price to "new-tooled".

[Bob G]

I really have been struggling to see the appeal of Dapol of late. 10 years ago they were top dollar for detail compared to Farish at the time.

Farish Blue Riband are quite exquisite models which is what a lot of us are after. Dapol just seem to be sitting on what they've had for the last 10 years probably longer.

I must admit I'm very frustrated by the teasers Dapol have made us believe are coming only for them to disappear off the face of the earth and unless I find more of the dapol items I already have I don't even look at their products anymore.

For the rakes of wagons we build upwards of 20 peco kits to mix in with the Farish models. I have become disappointed with the quality of Dapol against Farish recently and see most of their stock now as more like Hornby Rail Road.

I do want the Maunsell rakes that they are about to release and hope that buying these will win me back over to viewing their products on a par with Farish.

I don't mind paying the price for the quality, I wish the higher price reflected in quicker production and delivery.

If the BoBs and WC arrived tomorrow id blow ££££s on them and Dapol would be the best manufacturer in the world. I'm convincing myself at the moment Dapol are a step behind Farish and this reflects in the price.

Only my fickle POV at this moment 

I'm with Craig on this 100%

[NeMo]

I really have been struggling to see the appeal of Dapol of late. 10 years ago they were top dollar for detail compared to Farish at the time.

To be fair, ten years ago Dapol didn't have a huge range of locos. Checking their catalogue, I'm seeing stuff like the 9F, Q1, B17 and Ivatt 2MT; 'Hymek', early design 66s, 'Voyagers' and 73s on the diesel side of things. That's a right mixed bag of models, including some that are considered rather flawed, the Ivatt 2MT and Voyagers, for example.

Even the better ones, like the 9F and Hymek, were rather noisy, even if they did look good. While they didn't come out until the next year or two, the weathered 9Fs set a benchmark for what can be done with ready-to-run weathered locos, and even more so the 'silver bullet' china clay tankers, which were, and remain, superb models.

Farish Blue Riband are quite exquisite models which is what a lot of us are after. Dapol just seem to be sitting on what they've had for the last 10 years probably longer.

Losing @DJM Dave cost Dapol dearly, that's for sure. I do think Joel Bright tries very hard, but he doesn't have Dave Jones consistent connection with the model railway hobby. He's a businessman first, I feel, whereas Dave comes across more like a modeller who happens to be in the business. Still, as a small company, Joel may well have to put the company's bank balance ahead of modellers' wish lists.

Case in point was the development of the Dapol 'Western', which surely couldn't possibly have been more engaged with the hobby than it was. Pretty much every rivet and blob of paint seems to have been discussed on RMWeb, and the result was, I'd argue, one of the most accurate British-outline N-gauge diesel models that had yet been made. By contrast, Dapol's development of the Class 50 diesel has been a definite off-again, on-again sort of thing, with more speculation than information in the modelling community.

I must admit I'm very frustrated by the teasers Dapol have made us believe are coming only for them to disappear off the face of the earth and unless I find more of the dapol items I already have I don't even look at their products anymore.

Dapol seem to be quite focused on their O-gauge range at the moment, as well as their OO stuff to some degree. Their low-cost, high-spec O-gauge locos and wagons have changed the nature of O, making it far more accessible than ever. It helps their models have been quite well received, too.

It's a bit like Apple and the iPhone; if you're a long-time Mac-user, like me, you're likely irritated by the fact Apple seem to have given up innovating the Mac OS and hardware in any meaningful sense, and seem to be coasting along with superficial tweaks and feature updates. But Apple make much more money with their iPhones, so it's kind of inevitable they'd focus on that rather than the sub-10% of their income that comes from Mac users.

I suspect Dapol are the in the same boat. Lots of scope for growth in OO and O, while N is more or less stagnant. Low-investment tweaks keep a steady cash flow from the N gauge hobbyist, which is nice for them, but with one or two exceptions, there's no motivation to sink money into dramatically new products.

For the rakes of wagons we build upwards of 20 peco kits to mix in with the Farish models. I have become disappointed with the quality of Dapol against Farish recently and see most of their stock now as more like Hornby Rail Road.

I think that depends on what you're looking at. The china clay tankers, dogfish, CCT van, and milk tank are all somewhere in the good to excellent range, but I do agree the coal and iron ore hoppers look a bit dated. On the coaching stock front, I think their coaches hold up very well, given their age (the Colletts for example are over 10 years old by now).

I don't mind paying the price for the quality, I wish the higher price reflected in quicker production and delivery.

Problem is, you're in the minority here, and that's one reason our hobby isn't growing. At best, it's steady, but listen to many brick-and-mortar store owners, and you'd be even less optimistic. It's an expensive hobby, for one thing, but also one that demands a lot of physical space, even in N. People increasingly find themselves either home-sharing or making do with small houses and flats, choosing hobbies that need less space (including space for a storing woodworking tools, let alone an actual workshop). It's probably telling that the Kato 'play trains on the carpet' system is getting a bit more popular in recent years!

If the BoBs and WC arrived tomorrow id blow ££££s on them and Dapol would be the best manufacturer in the world. I'm convincing myself at the moment Dapol are a step behind Farish and this reflects in the price.

Personally, I think you are being a bit selective in terms of your impression of Dapol ten years go, but that doesn't mean you're not perceptive in terms of where it is now. We aren't Dapol's focus, even though there is a steady stream of reasonable-to-excellent products coming out of their factories in China.

If anything, my beef with Dapol isn't so much their innovation, as their inability to apply rigorous (or at least, more rigorous) quality control to both the design and construction of electronic components. It's rare their locos fail because of something mechanical; but failing lights, overheating circuit boards, and those sort of problems do seem horribly frequent. To a degree, I've just given up expecting their locos to have working lights for any length of time! 

Cheers, NeMo

[Newportnobby]

Thanks for responses so far, and for keeping the thread on the straight and narrow.
I hadn't realised the Dapol autocoach was from such old tooling, so it would appear in my OP I was not comparing like for like. Of course, Farish have to amortize the tooling costs and this is normally done in the first year or two, whilst Dapol must have had the tooling paid for a few years ago.

Farish also seem to have higher production costs, as N Gauge is also competing with n scale, HO and OO for production space in Bachman factory.

Does this not also apply to Dapol? (I have no clue as to where the 00 and 0 stuff is made )
Has any production been moved back to the UK yet? I've not heard a peep about anything on that front.

I don't expect to get any understanding of pricing from the manufacturers as why should they give us such information? Having been used to dealing with tooling costs, the recovery of such and pricing across distributors and retail etc I'm aware not all companies are the same.
The only thing we can be sure of (apart from death & taxation) is that prices rise, income doesn't rise equally and therefore we have less to spend on our hobby.
I still wonder, therefore, if the Farish version is really worth double the Dapol one?

[Bob G]

I still wonder, therefore, if the Farish version is really worth double the Dapol one?

The Dapol coach looks clunky now, the Farish one (especially the windows) look exquisite by comparison.
The Dapol Autocoach (2004) was the fourth bogie vehicle they ever made, after the B set coach (2003), Siphon G (2003) and Siphon H (2003). The shame about the Farish one is that GW modellers cant run them as they are a GW design only made in BR days.
So Dapol can continue to milk their Autocoach.
Also when they changed to NEM pockets on the Autocoach they messed up the coupling spacing on the siphons (they had shared the same bogies with different length shanks on the coupler bars). The siphons can now have a bus driven between them, so great is the spacing. And when Dapol brought these out on the siphons, they made a big play about having NEM pockets but it was a backward step.

Bob

[exmouthcraig]

I have M7 tanks and Ivatt tanks from Dapol, like you say NeMo not their best by all accounts. However that's it, I've read all about the 68s and missing handrails, bogies not working and the multitude of light failings.

Dapol wagons
10 CCTs  (I can't see why Farish are twice the price BUT not looked at them to say otherwise) I still value them as a good representation
6 wheel milk tanks as in another thread ill happily buy plenty of them (in the right livery)
Dogfish I missed out on 10 years ago but would buy them
Silver bullets are too late for me

I've read about the business trauma suffered by Joel and I can only imagine how hard it is to juggle the income against new models. Let's just hope with them juggles and failings Dapol don't become British Leyland!

Like I ended, just my fickle point of view, when you want something that doesn't materialise you get a bit annoyed that they build something else which someone else wanted.