As reported elsewhere on here, although Arnold are selling the Brighton Belle through dealers on the continent, in the UK it will only be sold direct by Hornby. The undiscounted SRP on the continent is about 340 euros (just shy of £300 at today's credit card exchange rate). The UK selling price from Hornby direct is just under £210. It appears that Hornby have used part of the dealers' margin in the UK to fund get the selling price on a par with the typical selling price for the Farish Blue Pullman.

Now if this makes a real difference in the sales achieved it might be enough to tempt Hornby to repeat this for other sought after UK locomotives, units and other rolling stock, where the research and tool design work has been achieved already for the Hornby 00 range. Things like the Javelin, Class 92, Pendolino, 4VEP, 2BIL come to mind in the electric category, and I am sure there would be other desirables in the diesel, steam, coaches and wagons.

On the one hand I do not favour cutting out the dealer network for Hornby British N gauge, but on the other hand if this is the only route to getting some types released and selling enough then I have some sympathy with the approach. We know already that the Pendolino and Class 92 are not a high priority for Dapol after there announcement about 4 years ago.

What do you think?

I'm confused on the Hornby website it says £129 I will have another look.

Ah I see so the 5 car set is about £210

As on their web site it says £129.99 for the 2 car

And for 3 passenger £79

Still a bit confused though

I have also seen both prices quoted. The Hornby site has the driving trailers as £129.00, and the 3 car add ons at £79.99...thats approx £210.00 rrp.

http://www.hornby.com/shop/hornby-arnold-n-gauge/

Originally I thought it was the add-on that had the 3 carriages. Confusion along the line, or have Hornby/Arnold had a change of heart for economic reasons?

I'd love to see them do the Pendo and/or 92, it stands to reason that if this proves popular and shows there's a market for n gauge then they may pick it up.

I'll not be holding my breath though!

I am sure this direct selling approach Hornby have just announced for the Brighton Belle will have upset a fair number of Retailers and it is not without risk, but I yes, I suspect by effectively "shaving off" a good bit of the dealer mark up was the objective to make the price realistic.

For a one-off like the Brighton Belle, this may well be desirable as I suspect that by far the biggest market for this product will be the UK and they need to pitch the price right to achieve a volume of sales sufficient to recover their tooling cost from these first production runs.

If Hornby/Arnold are successful with the BB and look to produce other models in British N would they adopt a similar approach? I guess that depends on the product (another niche one?) and capacity/resources to direct sell from Margate, but as (if) their N range expands hopefully for the retailers' sake less so?

For the consumer it does mean the price can be kept keener, but clearly no discounting on the prices listed, and it will not have the visibility and coverage of a network of dealers so Hornby will need to get ther marketing right.

I will not be buying one as I just cannot justify spending £210 on the model on a whim only (which it would be and this is the same for the Farish Blue Pullman). However were they to go down this road to keep the price keen for a truly "state of the art" steam loco I wanted (Say the Duke of Gloucester or an 01 2-8-0 freight loco) then I may well do, which probably makes me very fickle as in my heart I really do not like the potential longer term implications for smaller retailers if it becomes more common.

Roy

I wonder if this is a new strategy for Hornby, who are desperate to reduce costs, or a one-off to establish the demand for N Gauge. Could be worrying for the small model retailer if this marks a new retail strategy.

Be very interesting to see how this develops and how Bachmann or Dapol respond.

It seems to be going out via dealers elsewhere so presumably some dealers will simply re-import them into the UK

Alan