Thoughts on Preorders

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on preorders. Up until now I've mostly bought what caught my eye (in terms of what I'm modeling) in the store. I ordered my SP&S 700 and after the issues I had with it (it's fine now) I was turned off from ordering. Now I've ordered a few locomotives I'm certain I won't be able to get in a few months. I have high expectations for all of my orders, but I've also been burned by some "premium" manufactures before, and some of those burns are really bad considering the cost.

 

You think Pre-orders are bad OMI is now requiring a 10% deposit on any brass locomotive ordered!

Rick J

 

I dislike it, but see it as a symptom of the collectors disease.

 

Mine's the sunset one. I placed another order with the same store I got it from and they said the challengers are a lot better. I guess the E-1 release wasn't exactly their finest hour. I don't have $3k so I won't be seeing one any time soon.

 

I've got no problems pre-ordering so long as I can run it through my LHS, because I know they;ll work with me if its a dud when it arrives. (Lady there for example is on a "Most Wanted" poster at BLI's booth because they hear about it from her when the customers get bad locos twice they;ve seen her coming and closed the booth to go to lunch) Everything I want to modle has either been released to death (INRD, at least for now the market is fairly close to saturated. I don't see the Athearn releases much, but I think that's because everyone's happy with 'em and their not turning over) or I already have what I need. Pre-Orders for me, tend to get reserved for something I know I want and either don't think my LHS is gonna stock (I Pre-Ordered the TSU version of 844 for this reason) Or think its gonna be impossible to find due to demand and or supply. (INRD SD90s) That, and the disaster that was the CMT PSC caboosii. Freight cars, I'm not to worried about finding those, I did pre-order the Exactrail triniys but after seeing how well those and the BLMA models did and knew the hobby shop would have plenty, I held off and waited to see what of the CEFX cars showed up.

Recently, I pre'd the Rapido Monon coaches, mostly becaue I know Rapido uses Pre-Orders to testy market demand and I wdidn't want to take the gamble that the Monon wasn't gonna be popular without me. I'm afraid I'm gonna regret not getting a number for the Kato P42s, but getting one right away wasn't that pressing and I'll admit part of me is a bit worried the dual drives won;t sync as well as Kato hopes.

 

I don't have a problem with kits, if they still existed. All of the kits I've built sat on shelves in stores for years, a lot of years. I'd love to build a locomotive but I don't even know where to look anymore. My stock starts at around 1940 and goes to present (I over look some things like BNSF and UP ending SP&S and SP). The only locos I can find in kits are 2-8-0s and smaller and those just don't interest me. I'd really like a Challenger kit or a Northern kit so I could bash them into a SP&S loco but those seem to be nonexistent now. $3k for a locomotive is crazy imo. I'd be terrified to use it and for me at least, what's the point of getting a ho scale locomotive if you can't use it? I don't even like running my 700 because the replacement parts dried up.

I'd love to buy a GP9 and convert it to a torpedo and paint it in SP&S, but I don't even know where to get things like, a gas/water tank replacement, roof air tanks, and so on. I did however find a shell (Dynamic free) I could use. Be "nice" if Athearn released their yet to be released torpedoes in unpainted, but they don't do that anymore it would seem.

For me to justify a preorder the item had better be amazing and really peak my interest. The price, rarity, and quality had better be all there. I wasn't going to preorder Bowser's C-636s until I got to running my C-630's. The thing I'm scared of however is lack of continuity within a manufacture. I mean, how many of us have gotten a locomotive thinking, 'great, this will go perfect with ...,' only to find out that different models within the same maker run and handle completely different. I have yet to get a RTR Athearn that runs in any way shape or form as another Athearn RTR.

 

I prefer not to feel like a victim, nor to BE victimized, and I'm sure the model importers feel the same way. So, if it isn't in production, I do without. If it is offered for production and I want it, ordering/pre-ordering seems to be a no-brainer to me. If something else is going into production, even in limited pre-order quantities, I feel good for those who are about to enjoy success. Maybe next time for me.

Nobody is squeezing anybody. Nobody holds a gun to our heads; it's all discretionary buying after all. The way I look at it, if the company learns through a paucity of pre-orders that the model they are offering to run is a non-starter, the company won't lose money, they won't waste time or money on product they can't sell, and the next item on the list that IS going to sell comes that much sooner, bringing revenue and continued health to the company. It's really very simple. It's give and take. If they decide to offer a 2-10-10-4 and get 26 firm orders, the end of the story for that lofty engine shouldn't be hard to predict. Why should they go bust over a silly decision, even if it hurts the 26 who really wanted (not needed, because that's a specious declaration for ANYONE in the hobby) the model? Woudn't it be better if they went on to offer and make the Heavy Mike that will generate 480 firm orders for them? I'd say so. And if that successful run allows them to then go on to order 670 4-6-2 steamers, almost all of which are honoured by those that pre-ordered them, a whole bunch of people win AGAIN! This is the necessary future of the hobby for the time being at least. Maybe things will turn around in time and Bachmann can print out 3000 Spectrum 2-8-0's, but I wouldn't bet on it. I think it would be commiting suicide.

At the worst, it requires us to be vigilant, thrifty, patient, and far-sighted, qualities that ran the hobby into its prime just 5-odd years ago. Once we identify a 'need' [..cough..], we should place our order and hope others do as well. Otherwise, most of us have lots of other 'stuff', much of it unused in totes, waiting to see the light of day once again.

 

Pre-orders. Most of you won't appreciate my thoughts on the subject.

I will start with a positive but I will end with a negative. Pre-orders have allowed me the opportunity to establish my future spending and budget considerations. Adjusting my wish or want list. Now with a set income that's pretty much a lose.

Manufacturers or toy train providers may think this is a great indicator, as to the supply and demand. I would suggest it is a false indicator. How many times have I seen pre-orders cancelled after the fact or better said after production AND delivery. Leaving LHS's stuck with an item thy aren't readily able to sell. Don't ask me how I know. :angry:

 

Responding without reading what else has been posted yet - I've never pre-ordered anything. On the surface, pre-ordering always struck me as pledging to buy something at a premium price and agree to wait however long it takes to get it. Seems like a great deal for the seller, not so great for the buyer. I understand the rationale for it to be a standard practice these days though.

 

I can certainly understand the false reportting side, but I suspect most Manufacturers study these numbers with a sliding scale of +/- so many. Where it does prove beneficial is measuring intial interest. I bet most pre-orders that get cancelled are more related to can't than won't, changes in the hobby budget or what-have you. I'd love to see a study, if and how many of thosae cancelled pre-orders do eventually end up buying the product somewhere else or some other time. Hard on the LHS I understand, but it corrects the interest numbers for the factory. Also The pre-order system is accurate enough to show if a line is worth persuing. Even if you assume that for every pre-order there are three people waiting to see it in stores, if you can onluy make sixty pre-orders then you *MIGHT* have two-hundred and forty eventual sales. Most production runs need closer to two-forty up front (960 total eventual sales) to cover pad printing and tooling costs, and sixty pre-orders doesn't show the odds to be very good.

Now, anyone in Horse Racing can tell you that odds don't mean squat. Every once in a while, the ever reliable Pennsy sales don't make it, while the occasional oddball paint scheme like the NYO&W goes and triples what the manufacturer expected to get. (The latter happened to Rapido once). A good horse has a bad day, and a bad horse gets lucky. But you can't gamble on the bad horse every time.

thios is another reason I love the Rapido style of business. WEhen they cancel a line, Jason usually sdays something in his newsletters about "We tried, there just wasn't enough interest." And he usually mwentions in other newsletters if a particulart release showing strong interest and poor physical numbers needs a motivator.

 

I could understand this approach when it comes to the rare and unusual, but the "get 'em while they're hot" mentality isn't helping when it comes to regular fleet power. My modeling focus is Denver in the late 70s, which means a bunch of plain vanilla SD40-2s for BN, UP and Santa Fe, as well as the Rio Grande Tunnel Motors and a few Rock Island and Mo-Pac units for good measure. This was once possible with a steady supply of undecorated Athearn units on the shelf, but apparently that's too big a risk these days (does anyone still own an airbrush anymore?). There is a short list of "greatest hits" that you would think could be kept in regular production like F units, GP7/9s, GP38/40s and SD40/40-2s and SD70s and GEVOs for the modern crowd. If this is progress, we're doing it wrong.

I was in my LHS yesterday an a trip through the locomotive section was disheartening to say the least. The Athearn shelves had BIG holes, waiting for those pre-orders to show up and leave whatever behind for the stragglers. If it wasn't for Cannon parts and styrene sheet, I'd switch scales or get out entirely. Fortunately, scratchbuilding shells offers a lot of "play value"!

Heaven help Horizon and others if they don't get their headquarters out of their hindquarters. Someone might look at those empty spaces as a business opportunity.

 

To be fair Athearn RTR has been in a bind trying to get molds back. It doesn't fix the pre order problem, but the rtr line has a different problem.

 

Now that's just funny

 

I couldn't agree more. I was in my LHS the other day and I asked if I could preorder a undecorated Athearn Torpedo (whenever they come out-sometime between 2 months ago and September?) and guess what, no undecorated. So now what? Do I try to strip a factory painted shell in the hopes the paint thinner doesn't destroy it, or wet sand some of the detail away? I called another HS store I infrequently order from (they place special run orders from time to time) and found out that Athearn's special run requirements are way too much in terms of quantity for any shop to do a special run order. Great, now I can have SP&S's ONLY E7, but not a single GP-9 or GP Torpedo in their colors, and they owned 6-not sure how many had been torpedoes, but I did find pics of 2 that were so I'd say more then 1, less then 6. I understand that Athearn doesn't know what a ALCO is since everything I see by them is in some form a EMD, but I thought GP-9's were made by EMD. I'd kit bash one if I could find the correct diesel/water tanks and air tanks. Already found a dynamic free unpainted shell.....

As for greatest hits, be careful what you ask for. I have a few on your list that look fantastic, in the wrong colors. Yeah, I get it, Daylight was a nice paint scheme, but that doesn't mean EVERYTHING SP owned got painted in it. As for my tunnel motor, well, I should have bought more when I had seen them. Athearn stopped production and sold out years ago. At least mine has the funny ears. That's not even listed on their site anymore.

Something else that bothers me to no end are the constantly changing release dates. Why bother with a expected release date when your going to move it 5 times in 4 months? Not related to HO but still a preorder, Big Chief in the UK CANCELED a release date and posted a detailed reason for it. Turns out their Chinese manufacturer's first production run was so terrible that BC choose to scrap an entire run and start from scratch with a new contractor. This delayed the final release by over a year. I'm more then happy to prepay for something-even if it's delayed so long a the quality still exists. Did I have to wait longer, yeah, but my item looked exactly like the prototype they had been showing and are even offering free replacement parts (different mold) for those that want it (with proof of purchase, no free shipping). I like this thing called communication, but parently no companies do since I can't find work with a Communication Degree. I've got a bad feeling about Athearn's torpedoes since I can't find any reason for their delays on delays without explanation. At least my preorder didn't cost me anything since my LHS is going to carry them anyways. I mean how many people have ordered something based off of a photo only to find the item "may not be as pictured." The N scale guys get to guess what some of their locos will look like since some manufactures use HO scale products to advertise N scale. I mean, would any of us preorder something based off of a O scale photo for a HO scale product or just for fun, a N scale in place of HO? I can say that I have a few Athearn and Atlas Locos that aren't exact copies of the HO prototype used in ads, but they're still really nice.

And yes, I do own a paint brush, but I need practice and practice materials are hard to come by or cost prohibitive to mess up on for someone starting out. Cardboard and styrene can only get you so far.

 

As to the tunnel motors, again, Athearn didn't choose to stop making them. They can't make them. That is why the shelves are so bare.

Of course, there are hundreds of bb tunnel motors out there at swap meets and on the bay.

 

I preordered a New Haven RS1 through my LHS. It will be released in October. No money up front but at least I'm on the list and I'll have my name on it when it comes in. That way I won't get trampled on by all those crazy NH modelers as they run over my 105 pound body to get at and carry off every New Haven Atlas loco that came in.

 

Actually, I just tried a solution today at the suggestion of Brian Banna. I stripped a couple of Athearn Bluebox GP38-2s using 91% isopropyl alcohol. It takes off the factory paint without harming the plastic, and it works fairly quickly on most of the colors (the BNSF yellow took a bit longer, and my whiteface BN won't give up its white lettering yet; needs a longer soak, perhaps). I used a toothbrush to scrub the paint off after about a 20-minute soak, and once I was satisfied with it, rinsed the shell in warm water and air-dried. It takes a bit of doing to get the grilles and fans clean, but the results are acceptable.

The important thing to remember is 91%. Nothing else will work below that. I found it a Walgreens in the first aid area, and the percentage is right on the front. 91%.

So, I will now take whatever's left when the orders land (as long as it's the model I'm looking for), and "undecorate" it myself. Then I can do what I always had to do anyway and detail and paint the little darling myself. I prefer that to the factory paint anyway.

BTW, I would suggest getting a Pyrex baking dish deep enough to submerge your model and keeping it in the ol' workshop. I had to stand the shells up in a tall beer glass and it was rather cumbersome (to say nothing about filthing up a perfectly good pilsner glass).