Hattons and Farish

[Newportnobby]

Am I weird in having never pre-ordered an item?

Erm - yes.
You might, just might, be gambling on whether that model sells out and so miss the boat. I did that with the 1st run of Dapol Hymeks
On the other hand there could be a second run and, should the first run not sell well you probably gain from getting a reduced price one at a later date.

[njee20]

Never missed out on anything yet! *touches wood*

[RailGooner]

I too don't like to pre-order. I wouldn't like to have my (already sketchy) budgeting screwed up by the unscheduled arrival of and billing for a couple of pre-ordered locos.

I do use Colletts' payment plans - I've got a couple of locos fully paid in advance with them - with which I keep control of my budget with no sudden invoicing for full payment of c. £120.

[Les1952]

Like others I re-evaluated what I had lined up. So far I have only placed one order elsewhere, and that wasn't on my Farish waiting list.

A Sonic 56xx, definitely a Rule 1 loco.

I can do without the 8F, Thompsons and the sound-fitted 108.  The J72s (plural) have already been ditched by Bachmann as too difficult to engineer.

I may well have another Hattons OO gauge Class P with the money I saved, or maybe not.  It might go towards a rather tasty sound-fitted BR44 as the starting point of a new (German N-gauge) layout- Furtwangen Zwei may yet happen.  Who would have thought Bachmann would precipitate that?


Les
.

[honk843]

I still had two birdcage sets on order from Hattons and a C Class. Like Les I have not placed an order for these elsewhere and am re-evaluating the situation as I think they may be too large for the layout in question. Bachman will certainly not get the order elsewhere Perhaps some 56XXs, Union Mills Collett 0-6-0s or more Cemflos for other projects?

The next think is that we will be told that Bachman cannot justify producing British N Gauge for lack of interest as we were at TINGs last year.

[njee20]

Well that would seem to be being borne out by the sentiment in this thread...!

I must say I don't think there's anything on Farish's release schedule that I'm particularly interested in. Nor Dapol really come to think of it!

[Les1952]

My current forward orders are

4 N-gauge Society Hunslets for Hawthorn Dene
and the Sonic 56xx I referred to in my last post- this might end up as a chassis donor for a Lambton tank or N10 if I can find a suitable starting point for the boiler and tanks.

plus a OO Hornby Peckett 0-6-0ST for NO PLACE.  Nothing BachFar anywhere.

I'm still thinking about the second Hattons Class P and a third Dapol B4 again for NO PLACE, though there are a few locos to cull from that collection as they don't like the layout - a Hornby J50 and Terrier to start with.

I'm also having a cull of overstock from Hawthorn Dene and Croft Spa this winter- inappropriate locos and a few less-than-perfect runners from the still-analogue fleet will be weeded out in the Autumn, together with some of the huge oversupply of goods wagons now I've got my trains just about finalised..

Layout 5 can't begin for another year so there is plenty of time to decide between Crackpot and Furtwangen II.

Les

[Buffin]

Hattons presumably decided they can make more money as a manufacturer than as a Bachmann reseller, though when they started out they probably didn't expect they'd have to choose.

Their choice of model in N isn't exactly mainstream, which suggests when they chose it they saw manufacturing as peripheral to their business. But they've been prepared to sacrifice the Bachmann business, so they may aim for higher volumes with their next choices.

Hopefully they'll find it worth while to continue with N. They're not silly, so this could be really interesting.

[njee20]

We have no idea how the Bachmann thing has played out, so I'm not sure we can say Hatton's have driven the decision. ultimately they're likely £100k plus in on the 66, so they're unlikely to walk away from that.

[guest311]

not sure about others, but I tended to order railway items from Hattons, and then added paint, scenics and other items to the order.

question is, if I have to order somewhere else for train items, will I then order the rest from Hattons, or add them to the order with the other seller ?

if I'm typical, how much could Hattons lose in other areas because they no longer sell Farish ?

[chrism]

question is, if I have to order somewhere else for train items, will I then order the rest from Hattons, or add them to the order with the other seller ?

if I'm typical, how much could Hattons lose in other areas because they no longer sell Farish ?

When I was recently ordering the first batch of points, track, etc for my Coniston Railway extension to Coniston, Hattons didn't have any stock of one of the Peco points types I required.

Rails of Sheffield did, and also had everything else (some items turned out to be cheaper than Hattons, too) so Rails got the entire order.

I would adopt the same attitude if it had been anything else I wanted that Hattons didn't have, Farish or otherwise.

[Newportnobby]

If I have several items to order I look to see who has them all and at what price. If I have to order some items separate from the main order 2 lots of postage have to be taken into account.
It's no hard task to sort out the cheapest option.

[SheldonC]

Sounds to me like "restriction of trade" - illegal under current EU Regulations (like not releasing a surplus footballer from his contract whilst not playing or even paying him, as used to happen until a few years ago).

[njee20]

No it doesn't. At all. Bachmann don't have to supply anyone.

[Rabbitaway]

As I have expressed in other responses Buchmann would appear to wish to apply restrictions in their T&Cs that are somewhat draconian based on their market position and constrict competition. This may be within legal laws but is not allowing competion in the market to operate naturally, Hattons are to be commended in pushing back on this and hopefully this should that create better pricing and more choice for us as customers