[modeleng] Re: Suppliers (again)
- From: "alanjstepney" <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:21:58 -0000
Tim,
I think that you have hit the nail on the head.
alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.alanstepney.info
Model Engineering, Steam Engine, and Railway technical pages.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Rickard" <the_viffer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 9:07 AM
Subject: [modeleng] Re: Suppliers (again)
I've often discussed the problems of suppliers with my friend Nigel Stanley.
We have both had careers in the service industries. Nigel relatively
recently swapped and became an electric mouse supplier
(www.nigelstanley.com).
We think that part of the problem is that many suppliers are principally
modellers and second to that business people. Lack of experience in the
service industries and with pricing, delivery and customer service issues we
think causes many people to have difficulties. It is hard to learn on your
own if you come to it from a completely different background with a hobby
that just grew. Having said that it would be pretty pointless to have
general retailers trying to muscle in on the business: not only would they
find it difficult to know what goods would satisfy the market but also it is
famously difficult to seperate the traditional model engineer from his money
(Morning Terry! Or our late friend Dick Clements who spent so long saving
money making nice tooling that he died before he got far with the loco he
was building using the nice tooling).
I haven't decided if it is Thatcherism or New Labour thinking but we are
inclined to the thought that they don't make traditional model engineers any
more (I doubt anyone under 40 was taught how to use a lathe at school: I
lived in the metalworkshop at school. Until I discovered sailing and girls I
lived there. Break time, lunch, after school you name it.) We think the
target to aim for is the younger person with perhaps more disposable income
and a lack of skills (like my driving on Sunday Andy?) and confidence to
face the somewhat forbidding side to model engineering. It seems to us
therefore if you are prepared to do what you say in terms of delivery, have
some decent presentation and be generally reliable and accessible it ought
to be possible to fairly seperate people from their money and indeed to
charge a premium.
Maxitrak have been doing it and good luck to them. It is a shame that Winson
drove many of the potential market away.
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