Accurascale acquires Heljan

[Bob G]

While this primarily affects OO, OO9, TT and O scale modellers, it's worth following the story as Heljan just couldn't make their margins work without going to a model whereby the Manufacturer's website is the only point of sale.

The prices have dropped significantly (Clayton or Class 47 for £99.99, and sound fitted Warship down from £319 to £250, for example).

The Heljan brand is being thought of by many as Accurascale's Railroad plus range, with certain models like the new Warship currently branded as Heljan but ultimately moving into the Accurascale brand.

What follows is Accurascale's words.


Accurascale Limited is proud to announce the acquisition of renowned model railway manufacturer Heljan, marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter for one of the hobby's most respected and innovative brands.

Under Accurascale ownership, Heljan UK will move to a direct-to-consumer sales model, with all UK sales taking place exclusively via the Heljan UK website. This new approach will allow Heljan to offer exceptional value and closer engagement with customers and lower prices for robust, reliable and durable models in a market demanding more affordability and value for money. This bold new strategy is to encourage new entrants into the hobby, both young and old, as well as offering seasoned modellers exceptional value as they add to their collections or change scales.

The blog with all details is here: https://www.accurascale.com/blogs/news/

Heljan's Danish range will continue to be available through retail networks in mainland Europe, and that range will see expansion in the coming years as well as all new models incorporating new levels of detail, features and fidelity that are in line with Accurascale's approach.

As part of this launch:

OO gauge locomotives will be priced from just £99.95, with selected lines at £49.95

Most O gauge locomotives will be priced from just £299.95, with selected lines below this figure

TT Powered Models Will be Priced from £124.94 and the range will receive further investment through new models

New customer sign-ups will receive 10% off their first order


The Heljan website will offer the same customer benefits as Accurascale, including:

2% cashback in loyalty points when customers register an account

Free UK shipping on orders over £100

Bundle discounts on wagons and coaches where applicable

Up to 5% cashback in loyalty points available through our famous tiered system

 
Modellers who have previously pre-ordered forthcoming Heljan models that are in development, such as the Class 42 Warship, Class 44, Class 86, in OO, Class 24 in O gauge and Class 55 and Class 122 'Bubble Cars' in TT will now have to pre-order direct on the Heljan UK website, but with a much reduced, more attractive price point. This will be the case for all new Heljan British outline releases going forwards, and it will see a growth of excellently priced models in stock grow over the coming weeks and months.

Customers looking to pre-order the forthcoming Class 153 and 155 DMUs in OO gauge can now pre-order those on the Accurascale website only, as they will now join the Accurascale Exclusives Range!

There is more information on the blog link above.

[Papyrus]

Heljan used to do some excellent building kits in N. All right, they were mostly American/European style models but could be successfully adapted for UK layouts. I often wondered why they stopped selling them, and whether the moulds are still in existence.

Cheers,

Chris

[ntpntpntp]

@Papyrus   Heljan kits were ok.  Not the best but perfectly usable.

Lots of activity in the TT:120 world, with folk cancelling pre-orders with retailers in favour of ordering direct at the new lower prices (and with extra 10% on first orders too)    I hadn't ordered before but now have a 55 and a 122 coming,  should be July/August I think.

[EtchedPixels]

Retailers have apparently been told their pre-orders are all cancelled, so I guess accurascale are pretty sure they never want a retailer market again.

I suspect it's a matter of time before all the vendors go this way except for kiddies toy train intro set type stuff.

[Bob G]

Retailers have apparently been told their pre-orders are all cancelled, so I guess accurascale are pretty sure they never want a retailer market again.

I'm assuming you mean Accurascale don't want the Heljan side of the business to go out to retail, and I guess yes that's probably right.

Rails of Sheffield have reduced their Heljan class 47s to the Heljan website price of £99.95 to make sure they don't end up with a load of unsold stock.

Shame the 33s are not discounted yet (but there are five more containers coming over from Denmark in the next few weeks, I believe...


Realistically, it's not far off Dapol only considering direct sales for certain Dapol products though, is it? And we didn't get too excited about Gresley buffets and Stanier coaches cutting retailers out of the market.

Bob

[Roy L S]

Retailers have apparently been told their pre-orders are all cancelled, so I guess accurascale are pretty sure they never want a retailer market again.

I'm assuming you mean Accurascale don't want the Heljan side of the business to go out to retail, and I guess yes that's probably right.

Rails of Sheffield have reduced their Heljan class 47s to the Heljan website price of £99.95 to make sure they don't end up with a load of unsold stock.

Shame the 33s are not discounted yet (but there are five more containers coming over from Denmark in the next few weeks, I believe...


Realistically, it's not far off Dapol only considering direct sales for certain Dapol products though, is it? And we didn't get too excited about Gresley buffets and Stanier coaches cutting retailers out of the market.

Bob

I think it is pretty clear from what Accurascale have said that Heljan will now only be sold direct to consumer, and all retailer orders have been cancelled - pretty brutal.

Personally I would have said there is quite a lot of difference as regards Dapol because we are talking about a few comparatively "niche" products that were said to be on the margin of viability and this is the only way they could proceed. It doesn't represent Dapol's general business model which is to supply their retailer base and also sell direct to consumer but as a choice and at RRP.

Roy

[EtchedPixels]

I think it is pretty clear from what Accurascale have said that Heljan will now only be sold direct to consumer, and all retailer orders have been cancelled - pretty brutal.

Personally I would have said there is quite a lot of difference as regards Dapol because we are talking about a few comparatively "niche" products that were said to be on the margin of viability and this is the only way they could proceed. It doesn't represent Dapol's general business model which is to supply their retailer base and also sell direct to consumer but as a choice and at RRP.

Roy

The consequences are also different. If I was a retailer right now I'd be very worried because the message is essentially "this is the new pricing model" and it means Hornby and Bachmann and co have to compete with it. Will people pay that much extra for a Bachmann model via a retailer, I suspect the answer in many cases will be a no. If they lose a load of business to cheaper AcurraHeljan models then they'll have to compete on price, and there's probably only one way to do that.

Dapol weren't really trying to change the rules of the game, more run some marginally viable projects the same way they've had been tackled if it was a small business trying to scrape together orders.

[Bob G]

Dapol weren't really trying to change the rules of the game, more run some marginally viable projects the same way they've had been tackled if it was a small business trying to scrape together orders.

I would not be surprised if Dapol/Lionheart O gauge models went the same way as Heljan and became Manufacturer's retail website only. Their O gauge models always seem to be heavily discounted, in comparison to N and OO.

[Roy L S]

Dapol weren't really trying to change the rules of the game, more run some marginally viable projects the same way they've had been tackled if it was a small business trying to scrape together orders.

I would not be surprised if Dapol/Lionheart O gauge models went the same way as Heljan and became Manufacturer's retail website only. Their O gauge models always seem to be heavily discounted, in comparison to N and OO.

A quick look at the Rails website (chosen as a large retailer - others are available) actually tells a different story. Admittedly it depends on your definition of "heavily discounted" but while there are a small proportion of Dapol O gauge models with very deep discounts, the majority are in the 15 - 20% range which appears fairly consistent with other scales.

What will happen to the O gauge market going forward is harder to predict, there are those who say that as the "boomer" generation with a greater number of generous and/or final salary pensions and larger houses diminishes so will demand for models in the scale and maybe that could transpire.

Roy

[Bob G]

[quote author=Bob G link=msg=880421 date=

I would not be surprised if Dapol/Lionheart O gauge models went the same way as Heljan and became Manufacturer's retail website only. Their O gauge models always seem to be heavily discounted, in comparison to N and OO.

A quick look at the Rails website (chosen as a large retailer - others are available) actually tells a different story. Admittedly it depends on your definition of "heavily discounted" but while there are a small proportion of Dapol O gauge models with very deep discounts, the majority are in the 15 - 20% range which appears fairly consistent with other scales.

What will happen to the O gauge market going forward is harder to predict, there are those who say that as the "boomer" generation with a greater number of generous and/or final salary pensions and larger houses diminishes so will demand for models in the scale and maybe that could transpire.

Roy
[/quote]
Sorry if I was not clear. I meant that the Dapol month by month specials are mostly focused on O gauge. I wasn't looking at other trader's discounts.

Bob

[EtchedPixels]

I'm assuming you mean Accurascale don't want the Heljan side of the business to go out to retail, and I guess yes that's probably right.

If you've just been stuffed good and proper by one arm of a business do you continue stocking their other products when you expect them to screw you over again later when they do that with those too ?

I think the general answer is no. I don't see vendors bothering to stock anything Accurascale produces.

[Bob G]

I'm assuming you mean Accurascale don't want the Heljan side of the business to go out to retail, and I guess yes that's probably right.

If you've just been stuffed good and proper by one arm of a business do you continue stocking their other products when you expect them to screw you over again later when they do that with those too ?

I think the general answer is no. I don't see vendors bothering to stock anything Accurascale produces.

That's a bit of a knee jerk reaction.

If I were a company stocking Accurascale (and that's not too many tbh) I'd want to hold on to rather than contract that range. The Heljan acquisition is a surprise to us but perhaps not so much to other manufacturers. I've heard that the situation was getting worse and an acquisition was on the cards for a while or the company would have been liquidated.
I don't think anyone would have wanted that.

Bob

[Newportnobby]

On the basis Heljan do not do N gauge, and Accurascale have very little interest in the 'proper' gauge (IMHO) this news doesn't really make a scrap of difference to me...........

.......unless - the companies I do buy from decide to drop their retailers in favour of direct sales, and I can't really see that happening as, for the most part, their retailers do so much for them and to bring all that back in house would increase their costs considerably

[Bob G]

....... their retailers do so much for them and to bring all that back in house would increase their costs considerably

Now that sounds just like Harry Enfield doing a "loadsamoney" sketch.

[Roy L S]

On the basis Heljan do not do N gauge, and Accurascale have very little interest in the 'proper' gauge (IMHO) this news doesn't really make a scrap of difference to me...........

.......unless - the companies I do buy from decide to drop their retailers in favour of direct sales, and I can't really see that happening as, for the most part, their retailers do so much for them and to bring all that back in house would increase their costs considerably

In isolation and at this point in time it may seem like it won't make a scrap of difference to an N modeller, or indeed possibly a OO one as the amount of Heljan stocked in a typical traditional model shop is limited. It may potentially have a different effect on the O Gauge modeller and in particular the specialist O stockists like Tower Models in the shorter term, but as I understand it, already (and the big discounts point to this) it was becoming more difficult to sell the O diesels without huge discounts suggesting a market shift.

The point is though that if there is a gradual direction of travel towards direct sales only, each manufacturer going down the route will mean less products for a model shop to stock making it harder and harder to survive. As we depend on those models shops for everything we need to build our model railways (which is way more than just locos and stock) then that WILL make a difference, there is a whole railway modelling ecosystem which depends on the model shops in some form.

Roy