Pre-Orders?

[daveg]

Adding to what may well be a closed debate;

I have 4 pre-orders for locos with the oldest being just over 2 years (the Farish Castle). In hope that I still have the wit to run a railway should it ever arrive, I shall leave it on order! Several other mature orders have been ditched though.

Despite my living in hope bit, I do have a concern that a long awaited loco arrives to then prove itself a poor runner and it has to go back with no point in getting a replacement as 'they're all like that' as one major repairer advised me a few weeks back.

Should I be a retailer, it would be the 'too late' problem where you could be stuck with stock that nobody wants other than at an ever higher discount than before.

Best wishes with the shop. It will be interesting to learn what you decide to do, Graham.

Dave G

[B757-236GT]

As another retailer, my main issue is indeed the delays, customers quite rightly want a rough estimate at best and  half the time all i can say is "how long is a piece of string" as i simply dont know. Hornby at the moment are awful, some of the range is shown as June 2016 even though it came out in january and others are shown as February havent arrived yet. Farish arent much better as the FGW 150s arent now due till at least September although 150247 is due in August but given these are relieveries on exsisiting models they really should have been out sooner!

By far the biggest issue is Hornby this week as ive seen some large retailers are discounting some Hornby items, nothing unusual in that, my problem is some of the items have only been out 4 weeks! Needless to say people who pre ordered those items who paid the higher price are annoyed that items are being discounted so quickly, its even worse for me as ive now got stock which is being sold at less than it cost me! What do i do now? Well i either leave them sat on the shelf and hope i sell them or i lose money? Not very appealing either way.

Richard

[Newportnobby]

Let's face it, they sure as hell don't listen to the end users so let's hope they do listen to the retailers (although I think I know the answer to that one, too)