More exciting news about Bachmann K4

[reinhardtjh]

Even though I want it, will still have to wait after the initial rush.  I'll let the big ballers be the testers. See if it turns out like the infamous berk.  Hanging back and see if I can acquire one later for a reasonable (or least less inflated) price. I will only stretch so far to pay for the dcc bells & whistles I dont even plan to use.

If you don't want DCC or sound, perhaps these would be more to your liking...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/chrisb-67/m.html


Disclaimer:  Not mine, just a fellow Facebook group member.

[peteski]

Ah, the good old Minitrix!  Not half bad looking weathered.

[nscaler711]

I think some of you all forget what MSRP stands for.
Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price, in other words its so the retailer can make a profit, not just Bachmann. Bachmann most likely sells the locomotive to the retailer close to 50% off of  MSRP, the price the retailer sets is up to them cause they have to make a profit too. So the retailer most likely paid $200 for a single, and the price probably drops for every 10-20 more they buy.
Bachmann Doesn't want $400 for that loco, they just want what it took them to design, tool and produce it, plus 10-15% profit... It could be more or less but that's just speculation. So if you do see a $400 price tag on that loco blame the retailer.

[randgust]

Now I'll admit it's been a long time since I did inventory control for a hobby shop....

But every wholesaler we worked with did a fixed discount down from MSRP.  Not a fixed price with a suggested MSRP.   You got an invoice with everything at MSRP and then a discount from that to arrive at the wholesale-retail split.   Not every item worked that way, but most did.  And a lot of stuff was 'premarked' with the MSRP already on it so that if there was something put on sale, the original price was evident.

So yeah, if there's an artificially high MSRP it directly impacts the entire food chain.   Not that it won't be discounted, just that yeah, the store or retailer has skin in the game, I assure you.

[basementcalling]

Even though I want it, will still have to wait after the initial rush.  I'll let the big ballers be the testers. See if it turns out like the infamous berk.  Hanging back and see if I can acquire one later for a reasonable (or least less inflated) price. I will only stretch so far to pay for the dcc bells & whistles I dont even plan to use.

Amen. That's my biggest concern as a consumer. Extra details I can take, even if I might have prefered to add them myself later as part of my hobby time. I can always do other tasks, but I do not like N scale sound. I don't want it in my off the shelf engines. But if we use Victor's figure and assume $100-130 for the sound, that's almost the cost of a second non sound equipped unit. Maybe the per unit profit margin is higher, but at the cost of total units sold, as I won't be buying multiples of engines in that price range.

That may also explain why diesels still tend to dominate the N scale engine market. They are usually bought in multiples, or at least a pair. Steam, not so much. At least in my experience, which is admittedly just my experience.

THe other explanation for the MSRP is greed. Maybe Bachmann knows how pent up demand is for a K4 and is counting on desperate SPFs to buy multiples or to painfully fork over the dough because they see their one chance to get this model. If the Berk didn't make money, maybe they added a few $$$ to the price here to recoup losses. After all, Bachmann now probably owns the K4 as no other N scale manufacturer is likely to decide to offer a competing plastic version. Again, that is based on my experience with the N scale market. Few of our engines are available in quality offerings from multiple manufacturers except the FT.

[strummer]

Ah, the good old Minitrix!  Not half bad looking weathered.

Agreed. I think the single biggest improvement, visually, of the Bachmann release is the valve gear; otherwise, I've always felt the Trix loco did a fine job of capturing the "feel" of the K4...

Mark in Oregon

[victor miranda]

wow sometimes you guys say things I had not considered.

one is brian's (bbussey) comment about how b-mann is accounting practices
or business model has possibly changed.

The second is that the MSRP might be attached to reality.

Third shouldn't it be  Pete de Snarkski?


the second one is something I have felt was
the start of negotiations and was nothing other than wishful thinking.
I use the gold market as my way of checking reality.
you can place any value on it and if you want to sell it.
the price is not going to get too far off the spot market price.
as long as you think 10 percent is not too far...

with the Hvy-Mtn, b-mann bumped the price up quite a bit over
the previous locos, and most people felt it was a fair price for what they received.
.... I do not remember the MSRP.
it made no difference to my thinking.

so MSRP has some meaning to who pays what discount....

ok.

if there is a loco where the accounting practices changed
I think it is in the Hvy-mtn, frankly it could be some Diesel
and I did not notice. after that loco, the prices of all
b-mann steamers jumped up.

allow me to point out that there is a good case for the hvy-mtn
tooling being paid off quickly.

the rising prices for tea and services in China will not undo the above.

the nice folks at b-mann have noticed that we (y'all and not me...)
are willing to pay more for a unit with the electronics.
and using the new accounting practices...
the accounting rolls the extra profits of the electronics into the
paying off the tooling.  perhaps.

one thing b-mann does not want to do is make a non-electronic version
out there to make clear the margin of the electronics.

Give Brian's comment some thought.

In General, prices of tooling may be going up in China and it is lifting the dollar
volume for the item here in the U.S.
while I see that is true, so far, I do not 20 percent as an average.
5 percent is about what I have seen.

victor

[Puddington]

Gentlemen: "How do you get a small fortune in the model train business...? Easy, start with a huge one and wait..."

No one is getting rich making model trains.... believe me.

[jdcolombo]

Another possibility — the Berk didn't sell as well as expected, so more of the tooling cost for the K4 is being amortized in the first release.

I've suspected from the beginning that Bachmann is beginning to load more of the tooling/development costs in the first release of their recent models.  It makes little sense to have such high MSRPs if not trying to pay off the tooling quickly.

Do we know for certain that the Berk sales were disappointing?  I notice there is still quite a bit of inventory at MB Klein, so they clearly haven't sold out, but I have no idea if the sales overall were good, fair or bad.

One would hope that if the Berk sales were disappointing, Bachmann would learn from this.  You can't charge $230 (street price) for a locomotive that has basic performance issues.  I know there are some folks that are very happy with their Berks.  But I also know that many have issues, and I had three all with the same problems to one degree or another, so I don't think I just got a bad sample (I'd suspect just the opposite: folks that got a good one were lucky).  But what I don't know is if someone at Bachmann internalized all this for future reference ("Gee guys, we whiffed big time on the Berk; let's not let THAT happen again . . .")

John C.

[mmagliaro]

Agreed. I think the single biggest improvement, visually, of the Bachmann release is the valve gear; otherwise, I've always felt the Trix loco did a fine job of capturing the "feel" of the K4...

Mark in Oregon

The Trix can be remotored and given tender pickup to make it run terrific.  It is also not hard to put a decoder in it
because the engine chassis is so wide-open and easy to modify (it's very easy to isolate the motor from the frame
pickup).

Some weathering and detailing really spruces it up.

However, the valve gear, big driver flanges and driver spacing are tough things to correct.  A new K4 really is
in order for today's market.

[Dave V]

Do we know for certain that the Berk sales were disappointing?  I notice there is still quite a bit of inventory at MB Klein, so they clearly haven't sold out, but I have no idea if the sales overall were good, fair or bad.

One would hope that if the Berk sales were disappointing, Bachmann would learn from this.  You can't charge $230 (street price) for a locomotive that has basic performance issues.  I know there are some folks that are very happy with their Berks.  But I also know that many have issues, and I had three all with the same problems to one degree or another, so I don't think I just got a bad sample (I'd suspect just the opposite: folks that got a good one were lucky).  But what I don't know is if someone at Bachmann internalized all this for future reference ("Gee guys, we whiffed big time on the Berk; let's not let THAT happen again . . .")

John C.

Does the fact that there was already an N scale Berk out there play into this at all?

[Chris333]

Does the fact that there was already an N scale Berk out there play into this at all?

Well you can't find them for sale. I'm looking.

[Mark5]

Does the fact that there was already an N scale Berk out there play into this at all?

NO. They have been unobtainable for years now (thanks to Walthers!).

[Dave V]

Fair 'nuff, just asking...

I wonder if they'll take a beating on the GG1 though, since Kato has saturated the market with them and they're damned good.

[victor miranda]

Hi DaveVollmer,

well, I think the bachmann berk is important to this discourse.
It has a sound decoder. and a price.  and has not shown any signs
of change from b-mann about how they build locos.

If and I mean that " If "
If b-mann had made their berk with out quartering problems
I suspect they'd a sold more.
I was thinking the price was a bigger stopper to 'more' sales.
however there is a lot of room for thinking other things.

I have one of the b-mann berks....
so I use it for my explanations.

I sincerely hope b-mann builds a far better mechanism.

victor