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Hattons Model Railways of Widnes (formerly Liverpool).


tractor_37260
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Stack them up high, sell them cheap. They could have made a fortune if they had put all their Hornby-Dublo items in storage for 50 years and sold them now. I bet they wished they had never sold the EMU sets for £2, Pullmans for 15s, Super detail coaches for 10s and the West Country Pacifics for £5. When Simon Kohler gave a talk to the Wimborne Railway Society about 10 years ago he said that what Hattons was doing was unsustainable. They have been discounting since the mid 1960s and are still going strong. Look like a lovely bunch of people. Hornby did not like Hattons selling below the recommended retail price. Now Hornby is doing it.

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Hornby did not like Hattons selling below the recommended retail price.

Tough. It's against the law for a manufacturer to enforce the recommended retail price.

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Anyone still got problems loading the eHattons website? I certainly have.

 

Stewart

I used to look at the website everyday.

Sadly some improvement has been made and i cant work the site at all.

It became very slow to change from one search to another.

Now i have deleted it from my favourites and no longer bother with it.

I do have some items on pre order, so i hope they e.mail me.

 

Also i find Rails website is slow on updates, they used to add more items at one time.

Again i seldom look at that now.

 

And while i am moaning also the BBC news website had improvements, now they add about 1 story

every week to our area, whereas before improvements up to 10 news items a day would be added.

 

Thats Life

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I ordered a few Bachman wagons in the bargain area last Wednesday, delivered Sat AM (Royal Mail). One item was wrong, so I phoned Hattons. Got through immediately, problem sorted in two minutes with an apology. Asked that I return wrong item by second class post and they will refund postage on my card and send out correct item, which she has reserved.

 

Can't ask for fairer than that. Super service.

 

Brit15

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Tough. It's against the law for a manufacturer to enforce the recommended retail price.

 

How do Bachmann get away with it then enforcing no more than 15% off the RRP which is in effect price fixing by a manufacturer in all but name?

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How do Bachmann get away with it then enforcing no more than 15% off the RRP which is in effect price fixing by a manufacturer in all but name?

Because nobody has tested it in the courts yet.

Edited by Budgie
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Because nobody has tested it in the courts yet.

 

 

Because is was vetted very thoroughly before it was implemented. Believe you me it was and yes Bachmann did spend the money to ensure all I`s were dotted and t`s crossed.

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Because is was vetted very thoroughly before it was implemented. Believe you me it was and yes Bachmann did spend the money to ensure all I`s were dotted and t`s crossed.

 

I would believe you you if I had reason to. I'm very interested to know how you substantiate your assertions please. I too was under the impression that enforcement of RRP (Recommended Retail Price) by manufacturers and suppliers was not, well, enforceable.

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I would believe you you if I had reason to. I'm very interested to know how you substantiate your assertions please. I too was under the impression that enforcement of RRP (Recommended Retail Price) by manufacturers and suppliers was not, well, enforceable.

 

 

Why not believe me anyway why always look for negativity everywhere ? Bachmann used the same argument as Vauxhall used possibly the same lawyers. I know this for a fact

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I cannot understand what the price a retailer sells goods has got to do with the manufacturer. Hornby seemed to be particularly upset by Hattons selling Hornby's Pullmans for £25.

 

If you produced something that was worth say £50 and you could sell it all day long a £50 why then discount it and sell say for £30 ?. People the start to think that the article is only worth £30 and then will start wanting it cheaper still thus prostituting the product. You would not sell anymore. The fact of the matters is nobody knows what the correct price for anything is nowadays we could all be paying well over the top for a lot of things

Edited by 40F
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but Hattons are not selling at RRP ? 

 

All traders including Hattons now have a condition imposed on them by Bachmann that they are NOT allowed to sell at anything below 15% of their RRP hence the odd amounts being charged like £84.65 etc.  Anyone who breaches the 15% threshold can have their supply contract terminated.

 

Smells like dictation of price to me.

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Why not believe me anyway why always look for negativity everywhere ? Bachmann used the same argument as Vauxhall used possibly the same lawyers. I know this for a fact

 

There was no negativity at all in my post. It's just my nature to question an argument given as "because it is" or "because I said so".

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I bet they wished they had never sold the EMU sets for £2, Pullmans for 15s, Super detail coaches for 10s and the West Country Pacifics for £5.

I certainly wish I had bought an EMU for £2 and a WC pacific for £5. I did get some 10s SD coaches though, and they are still running on my layout.

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All traders including Hattons now have a condition imposed on them by Bachmann that they are NOT allowed to sell at anything below 15% of their RRP hence the odd amounts being charged like £84.65 etc.  Anyone who breaches the 15% threshold can have their supply contract terminated.

 

Smells like dictation of price to me

But the original question was enforcing to sell at RRP which Hattons does not so that is probably the loop hole. I think the 15% only applies to new releases also. 

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I have contacted my credit card company about the Hattons pre-order saga. My credit card company said that I had a weak case against Hattons as there was nothing in writing to say that Hattons had guaranteed the price of my Bachmann E4 would be £76.79 when I pre-ordered it on 15 May 2014. Hattons have taken £93.46 plus postage from my credit card and dispatched the LBSCR version so it is too late for me to cancel it. If I had cancelled it I could have saved £4.01 by buying it from Rails of Sheffield who are offering it post free. My local shop at Swanage would have charged me £93.46 but unfortunately Bachmann have not delivered it there yet.

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