Just got my new 2006 catalog and Athearn is not in it. Does anyone know why? Athearn has so much new stuff its amazing to me they are not in it.
Why is Athearn not in the new Walthers Catalog?
- Thread starter Toomanyscales
- Start date
Horizon Hobbies bought Athern. Being they are a competitor of Walthers they won't let Walthers carry any Athern stuff. To get even Walthers bought Life-Like and won't let Horizon carry Life-Like.
will also find the same is true for all the new roundhouse stock - Horizon now own Roundhouse too and wont let Walthers carry that.
Mind you Walthers has too much under it anyway - what would happen if they went bust? half the companies would dissappear!
Mind you Walthers has too much under it anyway - what would happen if they went bust? half the companies would dissappear!
I really wish companies would stop merging. sooner or later there will be no more vareity, and all the same stuff. i feel like more companies mean more competition which means more fightign to make stuff of all sorts. and as was said, if one goes bust, bye bye to half the good stuff.
Story has it that Horizon, wants only those that have a "storefront" to sell Athearn. If they have a storefront, and a internet service, they still can sell Athearn.
But from what I also heard and seen, the store also has to sell other products from Horizon. Don't know how true that is, but the LHS I frequented(notice past tense) that was totally trains, now sells radio controlled stuff too.
But from what I also heard and seen, the store also has to sell other products from Horizon. Don't know how true that is, but the LHS I frequented(notice past tense) that was totally trains, now sells radio controlled stuff too.
eightyeightfan1 said:
Ed,I have notice a lot of the all train shops has started to sell other hobby stuff as well.IMHO I fully believe its the current slow growth rate of the hobby as the main cause.
I know of one hobby store here in NJ who has less and less model railroad stuff and more and more RC stuff, he says that's where the money is.
Gary
Gary
When I was in Las Vegas last week I visited some local hobby shops. One guy who had just opened a train store in the last couple of months would not deal with Horizon. They tried to get him to sell the rest of their line, and when he said all he wanted to do was be a train shop, they tried to convince him he would go broke. Then they wanted all sorts of proof that he actually had a storefront and wasn't working out of his basement/garage. He gave them copies of all the paperwork he had, but it wasn't enough to suit them. He buys Athearn from another dealer back East. I think the other dealer uses the extra volumn to leverage a little bit better price break, so both make out.
Let's hear it for capitalism :curse: , in the end it's the consumer who suffers!
Sounds like Horizon wants to corner the market. When I see this sort of thing happening I tend to stop buying their stuff.
What is this world coming to?
Errol
Sounds like Horizon wants to corner the market. When I see this sort of thing happening I tend to stop buying their stuff.
What is this world coming to?
Errol
Coming from the RC side of things back into trains now. Horizon is actually one of the better distributors out there. They don't have their own internet outlet (Great Planes / Tower Hobbies) that undercuts the shops they are selling too. Horizon does sell online but their prices are at MAP or retail.
Working at a full line hobby shop, we have had to sell things under cost to match prices from Tower Hobbies, who is owned by Great Planes, who is where we bought the item from in the first place.
Walthers is another story entirely. There last sale catalog had a crane in it that a customer wants, their sale price is $21.95, our cost is $19.95. That is less than 10% profit for the shop, not counting shipping costs. You can't survive on that. We only buy from Walthers what we can't get direct or from other distributors. Since they took over LifeLike, we probably won't be carrying them anymore, the cost went up like 25% on them from Walthers.
Working at a full line hobby shop, we have had to sell things under cost to match prices from Tower Hobbies, who is owned by Great Planes, who is where we bought the item from in the first place.
Walthers is another story entirely. There last sale catalog had a crane in it that a customer wants, their sale price is $21.95, our cost is $19.95. That is less than 10% profit for the shop, not counting shipping costs. You can't survive on that. We only buy from Walthers what we can't get direct or from other distributors. Since they took over LifeLike, we probably won't be carrying them anymore, the cost went up like 25% on them from Walthers.
I think the hobby needs both Horizon and Walthers as well as English. Horizon does protect their customers. My local hobby shop quit buying IHC products a few years ago when they found IHC selling direct by mail order to the public for less than the price they had charged the hobby shop on steam engines just a month or two before. We need Horizon and English to keep Walthers from a monopoly, but we need Walthers because a bunch of small manufacturers would not be able to market their products without a big distributor like Walthers.
petey said:
LOL! Just Imagine....YIKES! 
The "state" (secret) police would arrest you for running your streamlined passenger units with a frieght train, boy, that would be scary! and mean and unconstitutional!!:curse:
Hi,
What we are seeing in our corner of the world (Trains..) is just a reflection of a trend that's bee picking up speed over the past two decades...Corporate gigantism. It won't be the state that'll dictate what you buy & how much you pay, it'll be the Exxon-Mobils & Wal-Marts of the world. So support your LHS, they're the last line of defense from the Rule of the Corporation.
Gus (LC&P).
What we are seeing in our corner of the world (Trains..) is just a reflection of a trend that's bee picking up speed over the past two decades...Corporate gigantism. It won't be the state that'll dictate what you buy & how much you pay, it'll be the Exxon-Mobils & Wal-Marts of the world. So support your LHS, they're the last line of defense from the Rule of the Corporation.
Gus (LC&P).
MilesWestern said:
oh crud..... i ran a Conrail F-7 with Amfleets the other day, and the F-7 isn't even in the correct paint scheme (the MRC modeal has the snail wrong...)
i better go into hideing
Actually, the reason Athearn is not in the Walthers Catalog is not that Horizon wants to corner the market. They may loose a bit of market share as a result of their practice. They distribute their own line themselves. One thing they do is to distribute only to retailers who can prove they have a store front. It hurts the guy who has built a business selling model trains at shows using his basement as a warehouse, but it is an attempt to protect the lhs whose owner has a lot more capital tied up in rent on a store, displays, employees, in other words more overhead than the guy workingout of his basement. I don't think it really changes anything in the long run, because there is nothing to stop the guy working out of his basement from making a deal to buy Athearn products from another retailer in another part of the country.
i didnt mean Horizon is trying to corner the market - i meant WALTHERS is! they have pretty much every other manufacturer under their wings ATM, just waiting for them to fall now!