Puzzled by Marketing of Atlas Nscale Shay

[Anonymous]

I understand that when you have a limited run on an item, it increases its value. On the other hand, the Nscale Shay is as scarce as hen's teeth. My LHS was only allotted 3. All 3 were sold before they were placed on display. I know people who would purchase one in a heartbeat if they could find one. A lot of people never even had a chance to buy one. I did, but let my friend have it because he has been obssessed with Shays for a long time. I only had the chance because I just happened to drop in while they were unpacking the Shays. Still, if I could get another one, I'd like to have it. The past several times I've been at the LHS shooting the breeze, someone has come in right after they found out about the Shay only to be told, not in these words, that "the train had already left the station." I just wondered if someone could explain to me why they made so very few when there is a much larger market for Nscale Shays.

[Bikerdad]

My guess would be two factors:

1) They underestimated the market. Atlas went into the Shay project knowing that buyers were going to be very skittish, because its a very complex project with many things that could have gone wrong. Atlas, and perhaps more significantly, their distributors played it safe and went for lower risk, aka lower production.

2) Because of the complexity, they've deliberately chosen to do multiple smaller releases so they can address problems iteratively. This is why the Sugar Pine and Undecorates have been held up, as problems revealed in the first release are being corrected.

[Anonymous]

I assume they have already turned up on eBay at greatly inflated prices?

Bob Boudreau

[davekelly]

For the sake of you Nscalers out there - I hope Atlas does a second run.

[Anonymous]

Inventory that will not sell is a problem that any company wants to stay away from. I am sure Atlas did market research, possibly even asked it's distributors for advanced orders before they set the size of the production run. The LHS does not want to be stuck with product they can't sell so they order or estimate conservatively, Atlas looks at those numbers and makes another conservative estimate. Atlas and the LHS's are safe from inventory that won't sell but if the product is popular there can be a lot of potential customers left wanting. Most of the time it works well.

Everyone wants to make as much money as possible but predicting sales of new products is more a crapshoot than an inexact science. With luck demand will be strong enough for another production order before to long.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FundyNorthern

I assume they have already turned up on eBay at greatly inflated prices?

Bob Boudreau

Winning bids between $184 & $202 .

A bit high considering Trainworld was listing them for $124. Hope they release a lot of them in the near future.

Wayne

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Muddy Creek

QUOTE: Originally posted by FundyNorthern

I assume they have already turned up on eBay at greatly inflated prices?

Bob Boudreau

Winning bids between $184 & $202 .

A bit high considering Trainworld was listing them for $124. Hope they release a lot of them in the near future.

Wayne

Retail price $199.95

[Anonymous]

Well, I talked to the owner of the LHS and he said, as some here have already mentioned, that the undecorated ones have yet to come out. So,
I'll have him save one for me. That way, if they are only allotted three, I'll still be in luck. My friend got his out of layaway today and it is really fantastic. It is a very nice little engine and appears to be worth every penny if not more. The engine hasn't been broken in yet but it still crawls without stalling.

[egmurphy]

Atlas has said that the undecorateds were the largest group and that was why they were chosen (along with one other group) to be left until after seeing what adjustments were necessary.

They're only supposed to crawl. Top speed on the real ones was around 15mph. Some of the problems with the first batch came from people who opened up the throttle to see what they'd do. The exterior drive shaft and universal joints don't like high speed.

Unfortunately I think we'll see a continuance of the limited run approach on locomotives, making just a bit over the reserved numbers, at least for the forseeable future. Some manufacturers have been hurt a bit by overproduction and the resulting need to dump locos at fire sale prices.

Regards

Ed

[nfmisso]

Atlas got severely burned a few years ago with the HO scale GE U33/36C and C30-7 models. Thier money was tied up for years in inventory that did not move, and thier new product programs were practically halted until they could recover the cash.

It would be irresponsible for them to repeat that fiasco. We will never know how close we came to loosing Atlas because of it. Since then, Atlas has been very careful on thier volume estimates - which is reasonable business practice.

[Anonymous]

"We will never know how close we came to losing Atlas..." Such a thought is almost too awful to entertain. I don't know which company is actually the largest, but to me Atlas is THE company.

[oleirish]

Does Atlas make an H.O. shay?Or do they plan to make one?I took a look at the new shay at the LHS,I allmost bought it,even throught about makeing an N scale lay out for it.LOL[8)]Then throught "what am I going to do with my HO"[:p]Then could hear my old roundhouse shay saying,where did this kid come from![;)]
OLE'IRISH

[egmurphy]

QUOTE: Ole'Irish: Does Atlas make an H.O. shay?

Don't think so, but Bachmann makes one in their Spectrum line.



Regards

Ed

[brokemoto]

The laments have been mostly about the drive rods' falling apart. It is interesting to read the comment here that this was due to the consumer's running it at too high a speed. I have one. I like it. Mine runs very nicely at walking speed and even squeaks and rattles, just like the prototype.

When I bought mine, I put it onto the track for break-in. I did the initial break-ins at forty SMPH, then throttled back to about thirty. I ran it at thirty SMPH for some time, then gave it some laps at walking speed. Mine has never shown any signs of discombobulating, but that might be because I never ran it very fast.

Atlas has posted a sticky on its N scale board about the production of the Undecorated and one other's being delayed to resolve the discombobulating problem. I suspect that during pre-production trials the discombobulating problem surfaced and was addressed, but perhaps not quite to the satisfaction of Atlas, although they still considered it marketable--if the end-user did not try to use it for the Indianapolis speed trials. They no doubt thought that the purchaser would operate it as the prototype was. This was perhaps the misstep. More than a few in this hobby do run their trains a bit faster than protpotypical speed such as on N-TRAK, where you almost must run at faster than prototypical speeds for the benefit of the public.

Delaying release to assure a good performing product is better than releasing something that still needs R/D. Witness the disaster of the N scale MP pacific. To be sure, MP did bandage it, but had they done the proper R/D, the changes for which every N scale smokehead is still clamoring would have appeared when it did.

I like my Shay and would recommend them to anyone. Have patience, the Shay will re-appear and will be better. Everyone will be happier, although we N scalers have been deprived of good steam for so long that we do get a bit impatient, at times.

[Anonymous]

"Witness the disaster of the N scale MP Pacific..." I have one and like it. It is fairly inexpensive for an Nscale steamer so I am more foregiving of its drawbacks. Please elaborate more on the "disaster of the MP Pacific." I'm happier with my MP Pacific than with my Berkshire. The Berkshire costs twice as much and pulls about half of what the MP does. Sure, if you don't run any cars with it, the Berkshire is superb. My fix is to order a MP Mikado and paint it for C&O and run it and the Berkshire together. According to Frank, our local walking RR encyclopedia, the C&O did run Berkshires (Kanawhas) with Mikados.