Where have they gone?

Discuss Hornby Model Railway products and related topics here. This includes (Lima, Rivarossi, Jouef, Electrotren and Oxford Rail).
User avatar
D605Eagle
Posts: 2574
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:58 am
Location: Staffordshire
Contact:

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by D605Eagle »

They might well have dumped a lot of the stock to one of the many train fair traders. I'll ask one of the Daves next time I see either of them/.
User avatar
Alexander Court
Posts: 1232
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:42 pm
Location: Waterville, Ireland

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Alexander Court »

I have received the following email

"
Good
Morning,

I
am getting in touch today regarding your most recent order with us.

Firstly,
I would like to apologise for the delay in fulfilling your order. Following on from our recent stock take, we have become aware of a number of items being offered as ‘In Stock’ inadvertently and we are currently working through these to fulfill them.

There
are a small number of orders that we will unfortunately not be able to satisfy and we will be contacting these customers as soon as possible to advise.

Once
again I am truly sorry for the delays in processing this order and assure you that we are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again in the future.

Kind
Regards,

Richard
Davies
Managing
Director" on the 2nd October, I ordered a Railroad Helmingham Hall on the 26th september as I used to hang out in the hall's park sometimes and had got my first paycheck.
Alex

"I love the way you call it Art, When you never even use your Heart, and I just wanna tear you Apart"
GWR_fan
Posts: 4700
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:57 pm
Location: Antipodes

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by GWR_fan »

I also received the email and am left wondering if the item that I purchased is one of the out of stock items or not. Meanwhile I am left waiting while they get their act together. I presume that anyone who purchased a pre-owned item in the post stocktake period received the same email. Odd that I purchased an item after they had relisted it following the stocktake. Now if they relisted it then one would think that the item was real and not an imaginary listing on their site.
Bigmet
Posts: 10172
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:19 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Bigmet »

Alexander Court wrote:The Hattons advice relating to delay in a pre-owned item order fulfillment following their stocktake... There are a small number of orders that we will unfortunately not be able to satisfy and we will be contacting these customers as soon as possible to advise...
This says two things to me.

Whatever the 'small' number of orders that cannot be satisfied may be (and we should keep in mind Hattons probably ship thousands of items daily) it's numerous enough that it made sense to send out a general communication to affected customers, while all the 'situations' are sorted out.

Hattons had got into something of a mess with their pre-owned stock control. Inevitably they are now into exception managment to sort it out. That probably eats most of the profit, so I shouldn't be surprised if they close down this operation; especially as supplies of new stock are flowing, including their own exclusive productions. (It always looked to me like a turnover generator to hold the pass until new stock supplies stabilised.)
Dad-1
Posts: 7296
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:05 pm
Location: Dorset - A mile from West Bay.

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Dad-1 »

I think everybody placing orders during an unknown to me, time frame had similar
messages. My order was I think slightly delayed and that was all new items as I don't
do secondhand. Ordered 29th Sept arrived today.
I wagon & 1 bottle of Deluxe Magic Water. Initially I was concerned as the wagon was
the last one in stock and if they couldn't find it I didn't care, but I was anxious to get
the Magic Water as it's for a diorama being entered into a competition on 24th.

Geoff T.
GWR_fan
Posts: 4700
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:57 pm
Location: Antipodes

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by GWR_fan »

I will be disappointed if Hattons do curtail their pre-owned operation. While a lot of their pre-owned stock was mildly to grossly overpriced, I did find many bargains to satisfy my want. Of late I had concentrated on their pre-owned stock , not purchasing new stock (other than Hornby firesale items) for a long time.
Bigmet
Posts: 10172
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:19 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Bigmet »

Me too, it's been a useful way of picking up good older bits and pieces, without the risk of having backache tomorrow from bending over tables looking for the occasional gem in a stratum of over priced dross. But I have always felt this s/h operation was likely to be a short term thing, while there was a shortfall in new product delivery.
Firefly16
Posts: 297
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2016 1:09 am

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Firefly16 »

I too will be sorry if Hattons pre-owned goes, GWR_fan. Yes, a lot of their stuff was overpriced and I often wondered how it was possible for them to take on so much, especially as some items seemed hard to shift. But... there were some real bargains if one was prepared to do a little work, ranging from simple five minute fixes to, in one case, major interior surgery. If Hattons do discontinue secondhand, the hobby is going to be just a little less interesting for this modeller.
GWR_fan
Posts: 4700
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:57 pm
Location: Antipodes

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by GWR_fan »

It is now almost two weeks since the "stocktake" and very little has been relisted on the pre-owned site. Perhaps the company have realised that secondhand items consume a lot of time and manpower, plus the legal restrictions of being a licenced secondhand dealer, like proving ownership plus detailed record keeping.

Also, it seemed to me that their appraiser was regularly a little shy on experience with items regularly misdescribed, images in the wrong listings plus prices that varied with the atmospheric pressure. It really was not a "professional" organisation/utilisation of manpower, storage and time consumed either packing/shipping or dealing with customers over issues raised. Staff would have been better employed shipping new items.
rejrob
Posts: 343
Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 4:46 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by rejrob »

Hi, I must admit to buying quite a few models I particularly wanted from them over the years,both new and 2nd hand.It does seem lately ,that their prices are higher than need be to make a decent profit,on some items.The one thing that gets me is when looking for a particular item their name comes up several times .go to the site and not in stock.That is a waste of my timed as I age soon passing 3/4 of a century time is of the essence All the best Ron
GWR_fan
Posts: 4700
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:57 pm
Location: Antipodes

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by GWR_fan »

Ron,
that is not Hattons fault that a search will reveal a non stocked item. They do though have an inventory of past releases so your search is finding those. There is no time limit on what is posted on the web, so once it is there it is there for good. Pity that the original poster of a particular webpage is not obliged to update or delete an old site. This would certainly free up the web and make surfing a more pleasurable experience.

How many times have you searched for an item only to finally track it down to find the webpage is years old and has not been updated.
GWR_fan
Posts: 4700
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 11:57 pm
Location: Antipodes

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by GWR_fan »

I just had a response from the store in that my purchase has been posted and fortunately was not one of the phantom pre-owned listings. Normally I would receive an email that the item was being packed and readied for shipment. No such email was received and only contacting the store was I able to have the shipment verified.

As there have been no new pre-owned listings in the last week I am wondering if something major is afoot. Was the problem too big and possibly mischief afoot.
Bigmet
Posts: 10172
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:19 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Bigmet »

Information posted on this very subject today:

http://www.hattons.co.uk/NewsDetail.aspx?id=195

I feel that confirms my suspicion that the s/h stock control had become seriously messed up. However, in 'better news', it appears that the s/h listings will return as a regular feature. So no need to brace myself for trawls of s/h dealers muddled tables at shows, to obtain the occasional useful older item or three.
Bigmet
Posts: 10172
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:19 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Bigmet »

S/H Locomotive listings are repopulating...
User avatar
Ken Shabby
Posts: 442
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:20 pm

Re: Where have they gone?

Post by Ken Shabby »

They might want to be a bit more selective when it comes to buying 2nd hand stock, I can't see them finding buyers for all those 70's era square axle Hornby P.O wagons which turn up at shows for no more than £2.

Ken
Post Reply