southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I have a nasty suspicion that the rest of Exeter's are sitting in a Container on a dockside somewhere in Europe, it's happened already this year with with a delivery of B1's. I hope that is the case. I have a few of these on pre-order (thanks to yours and others help on these forums I was going to renumber/rename a couple of them to Bideford and Braunton) and the retailer I pre-ordered from has received NONE as of yesterday afternoon when I spoke to them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Godfrey Glyn Posted November 22, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 22, 2014 Just to add ( unhelpfully) to the speculation, the container could of course be at the bottom of the sea - happens more often than people realise. I guess we will have to wait for a Simon Says piece some - long - time in the future before we learn the truth. Oh Happy Days. Godfrey Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I have read through this thread with quite some interest and at the moment I'm feeling somewhat disappointed, to put it midly, given that I had pre-ordered a number of these quite some time ago. I saw the email come in from Hornby on Thursday saying they had R3115 in stock and my initial reaction was positive - that must surely mean the pre-order I placed for these locos all those months ago with a retailer would now be making its way to me in due course. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Then I saw the emails from Kernow and Rails. The fact that retailers have been let down - and been left to deliver the bad news to people - does not bode well for Hornby. At a time when some confidence has been restored, it seems, with products promised for a long time coming through now, this latest situation has no doubt undone some of that. Having said that, I think we must give Hornby *some* benefit of the doubt here. I for one cannot believe for one minute that someone at Margate is not investigating just what on Earth has happened here and that they will look to rectify the situation. I would hope that a statement from Hornby themselves will be forthcoming once they have ascertained exactly what (and why) this has happened and how they plan to address the situation. Didn't something similar happen with the initial 2-BIL run a couple of years ago? I work for a company that sells its products exclusively through a network of dealers - except we do not sell direct to the end customer like Hornby does. However, when it comes to delivering bad news it would be expected of us - and rightly so as the manufacturer of the product - to communicate that out to the market, not offload that onto our dealer network to pass on. So I do think we should wait to see what Hornby is going to say. Best thing that they can do right now though, IMHO, is make a statement of some kind to say they are looking into the issue and will try to resolve it so that ALL orders can be fulfilled. That would go a long way to restoring some confidence among retailers and end customers alike. The big ask for me now, is, what about the other Hornby locos I have on pre-order with retailers? (Okehampton, City of Liverpool, City of Bradford). Do I keep my pre-orders with the retailers for these locos or do I cancel and then take my chances and order direct from Hornby when I receive an email update telling me that they have come into stock at Hornby, scramble like mad to order them because they might only be in stock for a matter of hours? Okehampton, Liverpool and Bradford cannot be pre-ordered from the Hornby website. Had I known that my pre-order for Exeter was not going to be fulfilled, I would have gone on the Hornby website and ordered them the moment I saw the email from Hornby saying they had stock. By the time I found out I was most likely not going to get any, they had all sold out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I have a nasty suspicion that the rest of Exeter's are sitting in a Container on a dockside somewhere in Europe, it's happened already this year with with a delivery of B1's. Container sighted floating near Margate - ooops - it's a blue one !!!!!!!!!!! Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Just to add ( unhelpfully) to the speculation, the container could of course be at the bottom of the sea - happens more often than people realise. I guess we will have to wait for a Simon Says piece some - long - time in the future before we learn the truth. Oh Happy Days. Godfrey I'm hoping that Hornby will put out a statement sooner rather than later, not for SK to be left to take the bullets. Perhaps Hornby wants to establish exactly what has happened and why before they make any official comment. I don';t think an interim statement of some kind would hurt though. Are our other pre-orders safe? That's what I'd like to know. Based on this situation, I'm now concerned that they are not. The 2-BILs I pre-ordered early part of this year came through, as did the 5-BEL, the 2-HAL....and a whole ton of other stuff.......so why the issue with this loco? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 The 2-BILs I pre-ordered early part of this year came through, as did the 5-BEL, the 2-HAL....and a whole ton of other stuff.......so why the issue with this loco? I suspect Hornby could not wholly answer that question. The problems, deep and complex, lie in China, and the Chinese are not well known for their honest & quick communications on such internal matters. They are well known to play games with small foreign companies (like Hornby) with little or no clout (or choice) who trade there. Big companies also are not immune, some have ongoing and historical mega problems. Answer - diversify your production facilities, which Hornby is trying to do. I hope the newcomers (Rapido, DJ, Oxford etc) fully understand the implications of dealing with China, and at least learn a bit from Hornby's woes. Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 They have disappeared altogether from our back-orders. As though we had never ordered them in the first place. I would not have noticed this until any customers who have ordered asked for an update on delivery date. We will have to inform the customers that it appears we are not now going to get these items. We run a Savings Club in our shop which is very popular. One customer has almost paid for the Okehampton in full. He will understand as he is that type of customer. Not sure about the others. As you may have detected we are fuming and NO communication from Hornby. Roll on Monday morning when Hornby open their phone lines. I have read on here that Hornby are offering a Buy One Get One Free on coaches at Warley. I cannot find that actual post to confirm this. I do hope it is not the ones we took delivery of yesterday. I totally empathise with your situation. I also fear another non-delivery situation arising based on the initial part of your response... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 3rd Rail Exile Posted November 22, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 22, 2014 But then who would want a model of Exeter with an early crest high-sided tender attached to a late-styled panel-lined cab which it never wore, as the tender was modified at the same time Exeter was rebuilt in 1957? Of course, going by past experience, the Hornby picture may bear no relation to the actual model .............. Funny you should say that... Straight out of the box, as delivered this morning from Liverpool... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mallard60022 Posted November 22, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 22, 2014 That looks really nice. Well done Hornby. P Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Funny you should say that... DSCF0455mod.jpg DSCF0448mod.jpg Straight out of the box, as delivered this morning from Liverpool... I'm pleased you got one and it looks real nice, but gutted that it looks like ALL 4 I pre-ordered are NOT coming my way. And no, I wasn't going to sell them on eBay for silly prices once they'd sold out, I was going to renumber/rename at least 2 of them... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I suspect Hornby could not wholly answer that question. The problems, deep and complex, lie in China, and the Chinese are not well known for their honest & quick communications on such internal matters. They are well known to play games with small foreign companies (like Hornby) with little or no clout (or choice) who trade there. Big companies also are not immune, some have ongoing and historical mega problems. Answer - diversify your production facilities, which Hornby is trying to do. I hope the newcomers (Rapido, DJ, Oxford etc) fully understand the implications of dealing with China, and at least learn a bit from Hornby's woes. Brit15 Totally get that but the silence from Margate right now is deafening. Put out a statement Margate - don't leave it to your retailers to take all the bullets. And IMHO the priority should have been honouring the pre-orders first, even if they could not all be fulfilled.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Just spoke to another retailer regarding non-delivery. He was informed by a customer that the loco's he had ordered were available.The retailer queried this with Hornby and was told (allegedly, but I believe him) "We sent them out to the big boys first" That retailer never received any. He is also fuming having lost his pre-ordered sales. Today is my only day off between now and Christmas, need to lower my blood pressure. Will now try to avoid venting my anger on here. Off to watch Everton FC :-) Thanks for your supportive messages. Good job Warley and Margate are not on my visiting list this weekend. I'm almost lost for words. Hornby has to rectify this, it cannot treat its retailers with contempt - intended or otherwise. Doing nothing is not acceptable! You should not be put in a position where you are letting your customers down, neither should any other retailer. Whether what has happened was within Hornby's control or not they have to act on it (some will say they don't *have* to do anything....but I would disagree!) I hope you enjoy the footie today and that this gets resolved in due course. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Dunsignalling Posted November 22, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 22, 2014 It seems an inefficiently low number to me. Consider just the setup of the tampo machines for a run. Presumably each print stage has to be tweaked into correct registration with the moulding and with each other. I could see this taking longer than the time to process the 'live' batch, at those numbers. The Nim. Probably just a crate or two that ended up in a different container from the others. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
darren01 Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 None showing up on Hatton's at the mo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Probably just a crate or two that ended up in a different container from the others. Let's hope so but the comments from WidnesModelCentre suggests that another non-delivery of certain other Hornby items might also be forthcoming Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Train wasp Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Popped in to my local model shop today on the off chance in seeing one of these locos. According to the owner he received a few models of Exeter to cover his preorders. I must say the model does look great. Just ashame I was unable to buy one. I wonder if any will make their way on to e bay in the near future? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSpencer Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Someone seems to disagree with the fact that I think it is wrong to cancel retailers orders and then place them on your own website. Here is an end customer perspective. You order something within 48 hours of it being announced. It is the loco of your dreams. You wait years for it to arrive. When it does, the shop says, sorry not enough made, my order was cancelled. You then discover that they were briefly available from the manufacturers website but are no more... The fact that the order could not be fulfilled is disappointing but we accept that may happen. However, the fact that stock was made available exclusively to the manufacturers own website to be ordered now while shops went without is infuriating to say the least. It means to me, as an end customer, maybe my order could have been fulfilled after all. Sure , I want to support Hornby, but it works both ways! (I also wish to support our retailers too). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GWRtrainman Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I suspect Hornby could not wholly answer that question. The problems, deep and complex, lie in China, and the Chinese are not well known for their honest & quick communications on such internal matters. They are well known to play games with small foreign companies (like Hornby) with little or no clout (or choice) who trade there. Big companies also are not immune, some have ongoing and historical mega problems. Answer - diversify your production facilities, which Hornby is trying to do. I hope the newcomers (Rapido, DJ, Oxford etc) fully understand the implications of dealing with China, and at least learn a bit from Hornby's woes. Brit15 It's not quite that clear cut - I've worked in a freight shipping admin office before. We would receive a manifest and Bill of Loading from our Chinese supplier listing what was in a container. Once loaded onto a boat we had about 20 days to confirm full payment from the customer had been made at which point we released the documents to them so they could take delivery of the container. But a customer would see the basic manifest contents so they knew what they were paying for. Hornby probably knew about this at least 20 days before releasing stock in to the market, but appear not to have either managed the allocation fairly nor briefed their retailers of the problem. That's wrong - it lets retailers and customers down. I'm fine with a company commissioning product - as Hornby do - and then selling direct - but it should be on a level basis with retailers. And this does not seem to be the case here. Also whilst we can now buy and even pre-order from Hornby direct - what about the scenery, the track the complete range of products to make our layouts. Hornby don't offer the whole solution so WE as customers need model shops. Buying all the big ticket items from Hornby will take money out of the pocket of a local retailer - and enough of those have closed down already. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Hornby probably knew about this at least 20 days before releasing stock in to the market, but appear not to have either managed the allocation fairly nor briefed their retailers of the problem. That's wrong - it lets retailers and customers down. I'm fine with a company commissioning product - as Hornby do - and then selling direct - but it should be on a level basis with retailers. And this does not seem to be the case here. Also whilst we can now buy and even pre-order from Hornby direct - what about the scenery, the track the complete range of products to make our layouts. Hornby don't offer the whole solution so WE as customers need model shops. Buying all the big ticket items from Hornby will take money out of the pocket of a local retailer - and enough of those have closed down already. Very well put. Retailers have been let down, customers left disappointed. What happened to first come, first served? Why weren't the existing pre-orders honoured as best as they could be? Why no communication with their retailers beforehand, if they would almost certainly have known about the situation around 3 weeks in advance? (unless Hornby can tell us otherwise but in the absence of any statement directly from them what else are we to think?). We may not have all the facts yet, for sure but the Kernow email said they (meaning Hornby) "evidently only found out once they sent the deliveries out yesterday". That doesn't stack up to me. Like you said Hornby would surely have known about this quite some time before the product even arrived in the country? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leavesontheline Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Six pages in two days - that should be provoking some thought at Hornby HQ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coombe Barton Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Like you said Hornby would surely have known about this quite some time before the product even arrived in the country? Like from the Customs declaration? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Thinking about this debacle some more, and keep in mind I have no experience of dealing with companies in China (although there are quite a few of you on here that do, it seems) what position might Hornby be in legally with this? Does anyone know or have some idea of where they stand? If it's a case that the factory didn't honour their contract with Hornby by short-supplying with them with the agreed quantity of items, surely that must be grounds for legal action on Hornby's part? I would hope the management at Margate isn't going to just sweep this one under the carpet. Surely they have an obligation to their retailers and customers to take the necessary action? Surely there must be some legal contractual obligation on the part of the manufacturing company (SK?) in China to meet the terms of an agreement? Why would that be any different to anywhere else in the world? Who knows really what's gone on here, I guess we won't know but IMO Hornby management must act on it. There has to be some recourse if the factory has not fulfilled its obligation... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Belgian Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Perhaps we shouldn't get too worked up - the 'Exeter' that 3rd Rail Exile got from Liverpool this morning still has the horrendous over-scale lining that all but one run of these magnificent models have had! I had hoped that they would get this detail right after all this time, it quite spoils the look of the thing IMHO. JE Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernelectric Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Six pages in two days - that should be provoking some thought at Hornby HQ! This will not have gone unnoticed by the management at Margate....and I'm talking about the debacle here. I'm sure the comments on RMweb in this thread and others are being followed too! I'm also sure they will be facing a backlash from retailers who have been let down. I know how many the retailer ordered and they have received none and aren't likely to is what they've been told. Nobody at Margate I believe would want to deliberately let retailers or customers down. Why would they? Especially as Hornby had been rebuilding some confidence in their ability to sort out the supply chain and manufacturing issues and start getting product out, with some of the woes of the last couple of years seemingly in the process of being overcome. I for one have been pleased to see Hornby coming out fighting with all the doom and gloom that's been surrounding their own future over the last couple of years....they must address this and ensure it doesn't happen again....as well as rectifying the current situation by fulfilling ALL orders that were placed in good faith by their retailers and not leaving them without product to sell and disappointed customers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Six pages in two days - that should be provoking some thought at Hornby HQ! Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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