The latest Garden RR St. Aubins ad of many pages indicates they will no longer be stating product prices in their ads. The rationale given is pricing changes rapidly. Readers are encouraged to join a pay to read St. Aubins sponsored website – they can get pricing there as well as making a phone call.
My take:
1 - My guess is St. Aubins now has a limited shelf supply of those large scale products that are purchased most often. So when a product is ordered by the consumer, St. Aubins states the price from their updated price list, the distributor supplies it to St. Aubins, they then ship it to the consumer.
This is analagous to the “just-in-time” relationship the auto industry has with the parts manufacturers. The result is no accumulation or storage of parts. However, pricing is not given to the consumer for price shopping – they pay for the completed car.
Increased replacement cost was given as the reason for no price listings by St. Aubins. OK, that is understandable if they don’t have the product to sell at the wholesale prices of last year. It’s called selling old stock for a sizeable profit because those ordering new stock can’t match the increased wholesale price.
2 - My second guess is the other mail-order/big store houses have an accumulation of product and can list prices that are way below St. Aubins trying to profit from up-to-the minute wholesale prices. Plus, they may not be able to order or did’nt order large quantities at wholesale discounts.
In short, for St. Aubins to list their prices only makes it clear that other sources will or can be seen as very competitive if those competitors can advertise product they have had for some time in which they paid for with lower wholesale prices.
CONCLUSION:
The large scale market appears to continue shrinking as seen in the limited stock of large scale products in those model railroad shops still operating.
Your analysis?
Wendell