Large Scale Central

Commentary: "G-Scale" bye-bye from Walthers?

General Discussion
#1

Per the posting regarding supposed LGB price increases, add the reasoning of LGB and Walthers for raising prices on products not advertised. Walthers is the supposed distributor of LGB/Marklin. How, they do it remains a secret if the last two Walthers retail FLYERs are an assessment of their marketing efforts.

Try this conspiracy of confusion:

Open the newest June, 2010, 72 page Walthers FLYER. On page 53, there are only three “G Scale” items - a Bachmann “Thomas” set, a Bachmann 20’ box car and a Aristo Remote Tower Crane. That’s it. That’s all. No LGB. Just three items in the entire catalogue. At least our distant cousin, “O Gauge”, secured a page and half.
The Flyer’s prices are good to July.

My guess is Walthers sees no profit in LGB promotion. My second guess is their attitude towards LGB is not unlike an unwilling court-appointed foster parent over a serial run-away child.

Somebody at Walthers or Marklin must have believed their own press releases.

Wendell

#2

Wendell,
I have not seen the flyer but assume it is to promote the sale of overstocked items. As there is little surplus Marklin/LGB available then none to offer for the surplus sale. The Thomas set is no suprise as I feel that it was not as popular as initially thought. Does not bode well for further releases apart from those already planned for release later this year.

#3

My LHS has obtained for me a couple of LGB catenary related items from Walthers , I am amazed to no end , that the cat wire , was within $2 or 3 dollars , of the couple of years ago price , unbeliveable . Considering all the price increases of raw materials and so on and so forth .
The new cat wire is marked made in Hungary , the previous tubes were made in Germany , they look the same .

#4

The flyers are not a reflection of what they have in the full line, they are sale and clearance plus new items.

Walthers’ website lists for LGB, manufacturer code 426

walthers said:
Catalog Last Updated 24-May-2010 For pictures, click on highlighted product name. Showing 1 - 30 of 405 Products 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
A search for all products G scale got this
walthers said:
Catalog Last Updated 24-May-2010 For pictures, click on highlighted product name. Showing 1 - 30 of 4953 Products
I don't know what kind of margin they get from manufacturer, it might not be enough to be able to put it on sale.

By way of illustration:
I worked at a hobby shop some years back and store only got 20% off when buying Lionel wholesale.
Owner’s household income need from selling price was 10%.
That doesn’t leave much of anything to reduce to have a sale.

#5

Certainly adding to the marketing puzzle, considering the Flyer is for sale, clearance, and new products, then what better use than to promote LGB – a company now garnering its brand-name security through obscurity.

#6

No, the flyer is purely overstock central. Often my local dealer could not get the items from WKW for what they were in the flyer… Nothing new here.

Did get a couple Canadian National books that way for about 50% once…