What's OLD is NEW again. (MAYBE)

Well friends, we’ve been struggling with an issue that just keeps coming back.  Apparently there are still many of you out there that want “pre-printed” kits.  It seems like just when I think they are gone for good, we get a bunch of requests.  Even at the high prices (relative to discs and downloads).  So my question to you all out ther is, should we bring them back?  If we do, it will probably be at slightly elevated prices and in limited availiability.  We might even do a pre-sale type of thing, where we announce which kit will be available and tell you to send your money.  In about a month, or so, you will get your kit(s).  I’m looking for your feedback.  ANY comments are are fair game.  Even if you thing it’s a dumb idea.  You can comment on this posting here, or if you would like a little privacy, send your ideas to mize1@sbcglobal.net.  I’m not saying that you will get a personal reply, or possibly any reply at all.  I DO want to know what you think.

Dave Miecznikowski

Comments

[John Humes]

My thoughts are that all 3 mediums should work for you, ie: DVD, download and kits. However, keep in mind that most folks well be reluctant to wait a month or longer for a kit that they have for.

For the most part I belive the waiting game will create agrivation for you and the customer.

John

[John Humes]

My thoughts are that all 3 mediums should work for you, ie: DVD, download and kits. However, keep in mind that most folks will be reluctant to wait a month or longer for a kit that they have paid for.

For the most part I belive the waiting game will create agrivation for you and the customer.

John
Ha....I should have read the post befor posting.................

[Jim Gore]

I agree that all media should be available but there are so many advantages to the DVD and/or downloads that it makes the kits almost redundant. Of course, you might be missing part of the market (there ARE people out there without computers and adequate printers), so the kit versions would serve those persons. In addition, I suppose some people (especially in rural areas) might not have access to supplies of cardstock or want to purchase in bulk; hence, the need for a kit. Some of the desire for kits might also be driven by the inability to get a printer to create a satisfactory image. That just requires a modest amount of training. In my clinics, I alwasy talk about printing the image. A short tutorial with downloads and the DVD might be useful.

Jim

[Thom M]

I think the main reason for any time delay or pre-ordering is primarily because we don't want to keep large stocks of kits. when we did the printing it was great to control the quality but it took forever and we really didn't make enough on each kit to keep doing it. I think the prices would be substantially higher then we originally had them. I'd like to have a small selection of kits available but the only way we could have the hundreds (yes it's hundreds) of different product available is with digital distribution.
Thom

[Steven]

You guys just keep making great kits and I'll keep ordering them!

[Jim Goodridge]

I think you have to weigh the dollar return on the kits compared to the opportunity cost of losing design time. Your business model appears to be to act as a design house and leave the manufacture of the kit to the purchaser of your design ( by download or DVD ). Your long term profit will depend on having as many designs in the marketplace as possible as you can only sell a design to an individual once. You are the only ones who can determine if the loss of design time is made up by the profit on producing the kits. Pricing on the kits should be the same as any craftsman kit. The reason for that is the savings to your customers that download or buy the DVD's result from them doing the printing of the kit (i.e. the manufacture of your design) the purchasers of a pre-printed kit should have to pay the whole shot. I was thinking of the G&D Enginehouse in O scale. At 80 pages you would most likely have to charge at least $200 if not more to sort of break even.

Further to Jim Gore's comments, perhaps people are nervous about getting the right kind of card-stock and what types of printers will work. I use a HP photosmart C5280 all in one ink jet (cheap). I buy 100 lb. 300 series Strathmore smooth Bristol board at Michael's (they seem to have a sale on Strathmore every week) in pads of 20, 9"X12" sheets. I cut them to 8.5"X11" with a paper cutter to fit in the printer and I feed the printer the normal way and it works fine. Don"t use the 100Lb card-stock from staples as it is only about 50 lb..

Best Regards
Jim

[Thom M]

Jim, I think you understand the situation. I'd much rather design then print and package. The printed kits were profitable but not enough to justify the labor (we got backlogged by 6 mo at one point). The digital kits are more profitable but we cant put something up for sale on the web until we have built and photographed it. So there's still a bottleneck as finished designs wait to be built. At any time there might be 10 kits waiting to be built. Even trying to be professional there are times you just don't want to build another model. It's rare, usually excitement to see a new design keeps the enthusiasm pumping but building 30+ kits a year is a lot by any ones standards.

[Ben]

Is there an online resource that will print these on demand so that you do not have to carry inventory? If I find one I will let you know.

[JDuv]

Sounds like you guys might just have a small business brewing there and maybe you should consider hiriing some employees to help out or one of you could start running the business full time. It seems to me because of this economy you may have found yourselves in a niche that alot of people who are model railroading find as a very inexpensive option to the expensive plastic and wood kits. You guys might want to consider running with it and making it your full time work.

Good luck with your decision, just remember somethimes a leap of faith is required to keep moving ahead.

[Bill Fornshell]

Hi, What about licensing someone to print and sell the paper version of your models. You provide them files or DVD's of all your models and send them new ones as they are added. They take the orders, print and ship. They would pay you a commission on all direct Paper sales and you are left to design and build new models. You would still sell the Downloads and DVD's or you could turn that over also.

Bill

[Dave]

Both of these are ideas we have looked at. It may not be obvious because we try to put forward as professional a front as possible but the kit business just doesn't generate enough income to justify full time work. We do OK and we enjoy playing a growing role in the model railroading world, perhaps in a couple of years it will grow to the point where we can do this full time (almost full time now) but not yet. Right now our biggest challenge is advertising. It's just too expensive. Press releases and clinicks are a part of that. we work on getting the word out constantly but until we reach a tipping point where we are a household name we will only be getting a small slice of a small pie.
Thom