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[quote user="cuyama"][quote user="Too_Many_Tools"] [quote user="hobo9941"]I just went to the Horizon Hobbies website. No deals there. Looks like everything is full list price.[/quote]That is another sign of an industry in consolidation....with less competition there is no reason to cut prices.The more I look, the less I like what I am seeing in this hobby.[/quote]You're kidding, right? You look at the website of one distributor who doesn't focus on selling direct to the public and use that as evidence that there is no price competition? If you looked instead at the web sites of the dozens and dozens of on-line and brick-and-mortar shops, you'd see brisk competition and street prices well below list price.Since I've been in marketing for many years, I can say with complete confidence that consolidation does not necessarily indicate a market that is shrinking. Consolidation can happen to any market (in growth or decline) if there are benefits in productivity, efficiency, or market access. The worldwide market for automobiles continues to grow, yet those manufacturers have been consolidating almost since the first decade of the market's existence. Likewise home appliances (an amazing number of different name plates are used by a few manufacturers in the US, for example). Oil companies continue to consolidate ... does that mean that cars, refrigerators and gasoline are all on their way out? One measure of the vitality of any market is the diversity of products it produces. By that measure, the model railroading market has never been better. But to see that diversity, one has to look beyond HO steam-era equipment and scratchbuilding. Just look at the growth in N scale, large scale, and highly specialized, prototype-specific locos and rolling stock, especially in HO. A mass-produced GP40X? RS-32/36? There are a couple of dozen highly specialized plastic or hybrid steamers based on different prototypes available at any one time, many with sound. This kind of diversity was unheard of when I entered the hobby in the 1970s after its last purported brush with extinction (at the hands of slot cars -- remember those?).With the diversity of offerings has come the specialization of manufacturers. Freed from the need for (relatively) large size by web-based marketing and the availability of CAD and CAM (Computer-Aided-Design and -Manufacturing) for building models, smaller manufacturers can now operate efficiently and can be more responsive to market segments too small for the big guys to care about. And speaking of the big guys, quite often today they have actually diversified their production to mulitple smaller manufacturers overseas ... there may actually be more individual sites turning out model engines today than ever, albeit perhaps with fewer brand names. Since this thread has been co-opted by the "Hobby is Dying" crowd, I'll mention the same thing <a href="http://mrsvc.blogspot.com/">I posted recently in my blog</a>, that one's view of the health of model railroading is probably determined mostly by your personality and perspective, not by any market realities. The hobby is now so diverse and far-flung, with so many specialized suppliers able to reach out directly via the Internet, that it's hard to get a handle on it. As I mentioned in the blog, the "World's Greatest Hobby" group estimated the US market alone to have 500,000 participants and $500 Million in annual sales. <a href="http://www.greatesthobby.com/wgh/default.aspx?id=88&c=a">Here's the press release</a>. Sure WGH has a bias, but so also may the Prophets of Hobby Doom.Bottom line, things have changed. If your primary enjoyment and goal in the hobby is to build a relatively few highly-detailed models, you may not view those changes as positive. If your primary enjoyment and goal in the hobby is to get a complete layout up and running, you probably view the hobby very positively right now. In the early days, Tinplaters with loops and loops of track running on mostly unscenicked tables were viewed as the epitome of the hobby. Later, HO scratchbuilders were viewed near the top of the model railroading heap. Now, more complete layouts in a variety of scales draw most of the attention of the commercial model press, much to the frustration of some.(Look out, forum heresy coming.) It doesn't really matter to each of us personally if the hobby is shrinking or growing overall -- because a large percentage of what the market produces is not going to be of interest to each of us as individuals (wrong scale, wrong era, wrong prototype, etc., etc.). But the effect of diversification and computer-aided product design and marketing means that almost every one of us has a wider variety of models and other products from which to choose than ever in the hobby's history, no question. (Except maybe those modeling 1910 or earlier-- sorry, Dave H.)Thus the effect of the current state of the hobby is to make it more interesting to a wider variety of people than ever before (Thomas to DCC/sound to HO prototype fidelity to Large Scale et al). The scratchbuild-everything-run-only-HO-steam segment may be declining, but that's not the whole hobby by any means. Those of us interested in operation, in prototype fidelity, or in getting the basic elements of a running layout in place quickly have it great right now -- better than ever.And it may seem materialistic to say so, but the longevity of a market is determined by revenues, not craftsmanship. Whether there will still be a lot of HO scratchbuilders around in 40 years is hard to say. But signs are that money will still be spent on model railroading. And in any case, is there anything that could matter less to an individual hobbyist today than the state of the model railroading market in 2050 -- or in 1950? Given that I think the whole question of whether the hobby is growing or shrinking is immaterial to each of us today and that it's largely a matter of personal perspective, I'm not going to spend any more time participating in the flurry of assertions and counter-assertions that may ensue ... but go ahead, knock yourselves out! [:)]Byron <a href="http://mrsvc.blogspot.com/">Model RR Blog</a>[/quote] LOL...A very long discussion and NOT ONE DOLLAR AND CENTS EXAMPLE OF COMPETITIVE PRICING.Why don't you give us an example of this competitiveness that you speak of?I am looking to buy a Lionel Polar Express Disappearing Hobo Car for the Polar Express O gauge set.Show us using links to sellers where this competitiveness is.I and my wallet will be waiting.ThanksTMT
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