"Toy" trains - Not my words.

In the paper today.

Quote:

Sales of electric toy trains more than tripled in five years, according to figures out yesterday.
A record £26.9 million worth of sets and accessories were bought in 2014, up from around
£8.5 million in 2009.

End quote:

The above does not of course include second hand items.

Nice to see our hobby is getting more followers 

Roger

Or are they just three times more expensive than they were five years ago? It sometimes feels like it.

An increase in Value of sales, can come from three main sources.

• Selling the same number of units to the same customers at a higher price.
• Selling more units to the same customers.
• Selling to new customers

or more likely a combination of the above

We know there is an element of (1) - prices per item have certainly gone up, but by nowhere like a factor of three so this isn't the whole explanation.

I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty there is also an element of (2).  Back around 2009, there were supply issues for both major prayers in the UK OO market (Hornby and Bachmann) and they couldn't get product from China to the shops fast enough. With those issues largely resolved, existing customers are buying more simply because more new releases become available during the year (this is certainly true of the 'collectors' market.)

Just before I retired last year I was taken to task by an old, hard bitten driver for reading a 'toy train book' (aka Hornby Magazine) in the cabin.
"Never thought I'd see the day when a real railwayman was reading a toy train book" he said.
I showed him a few pictures which, if I recall rightly, were of the Charnwood Forest branch and his jaw hit the floor.
As we all know, they stopped being 'toy trains' many years ago. It's time the media caught up!

In 2010 the Farish Standard 4MT was £79 from Hattons. Now it costs £110.46.
So a good deal of the 'growth' is due to price rises.

Quote from: keithfre on December 19, 2015, 04:12:19 PM
In 2010 the Farish Standard 4MT was £79 from Hattons. Now it costs £110.46.
So a good deal of the 'growth' is due to price rises.

That's just short of 40%, so if that's typical of the market as a whole, Price Increases explains £3.4m (8.5 * 0.4) of the £18.4m increase in sales value between 2009 and 2015 claimed in the OP. So the other £15m must therefore therefore have come from an approximately 2.25x increase in units sold.

Also the VAT rate went up by 2.5% in January 2011. Another factor is
the value of the pound compared with foreign money as most of the
stuff on sale is imported.

Quote from: Agrippa on December 19, 2015, 05:36:36 PM
Also the VAT rate went up by 2.5% in January 2011. Another factor is
the value of the pound compared with foreign money as most of the
stuff on sale is imported.

True; but both of those are already accounted for in Keith's comparative retail prices, so we are still looking for £15m from factors other than changes in the Retail Price...

toy , hobby , media,,,
reminds me of the Cleese, Barker & Corbett "I get a crick" sketch.

We all know it is true, we not so secretly acknowledge that when we do the   play    test thingie routine.  Go on admit it !  Be true to yourselves !
Just big peoples not-so-big (in our case lol ) toys.