Steep increase in Zimo decoder prices

[peteski]

I just went ot Streamlines Backshop website to look for few DCC items and I noticed a fairly large priceincrease on the Zimo decoders!

Here is a example of the current price vs. April 2017:

Decoder  Apr '17   Jan '18
----------------------------------------
MX621N  $26.36   $42.17
MX649N  $72.58   $115.95

That is a drastic price increase, in less than a year!
Last year the prices for the MX621N was almost comparable to Digitrax (inferior) DZ126, but not anymore.     What the heck happened?  US economy is doing great!

[tehachapifan]

Yeah, spotted that too. Was holding out for one or more of the new MX660 boards but now have to re-evaluate options as that is quite the price increase. Really like their decoders, though, and have installed several MX621's. I remember them being more around $32 than $26, but still. Maybe this is a temporary anomaly? I seem to recall a sharp, but (thankfully) temporary, price increase with another manufacturer a year or two ago as well.

 

[Chris333]

Many locos don't cost that much.

[OldEastRR]

Maybe they've adopted the Bachmann pricing model. 

[peteski]

I just heard back from Bryan at the Streamline Backshop. He wrote:
RE ZIMO pricing I have simply repriced based on the current exchange rate as of Jan 1.  Frankly I was taking a big hit last year to the point of losing money on each sale.  Cant do that.

I guess then that the era where European decoder prices were competitive with the US-made decoders is now over.

[jdcolombo]

I love Bryan and do a lot of business with him, but the Euro is currently trading at $1.23, up from $1.08 as late as March 2017.  That's 15 cents' difference per euro.  That doesn't entirely explain a price increase from $26 to $42 or from $73 to $116 unless he had priced them too low to begin with.  If it was all about the exchange rate, $26 should become about $30, not $42.

Didn't Zimo run into some financial trouble recently?  Perhaps part of the increase is that Zimo itself raised prices . . .

John C.

[C855B]

For curiosity's sake I looked to see what the online price for 621s was in the UK. After surfing several shops, you guessed it, $45-50 at current pound-dollar rates.

Bryan's pricing is reflecting "the new normal", evidently.

[peteski]

I took John's advice and looked up Zimo's latest price list (from Dec 2017).  The list price for MX621N is 36EUR and MX649N is 99EUR.