Since it is generally reckoned in marketing that there is no such thing as bad publicity, I reckon that by now Revell owe me a kit for raising the profile of the launch among the hobby's opinion formers... :)
That was a really interesting exchange of views, and told us a lot about what sort of folk we rms people are. Passion is infinitely preferable to indifference, and we certainly saw a lot of passion. Thank you all for being such a great bunch, even if we have occasionally to differ.
I wonder? If they sell enough of the type VII, will they invest in the tooling for a type IX U-Boat?? Oh I hope! And maybe one day a U.S. Balao class boat! I'm getting carried away here, time for my medication.
But, I would rather see them take a note from Apple Computer and give a bunch of basic kits and a few essential materials to some schools. See if we can't get some of the next generation in as well.
AMEN! As I once told a fellow with whom I disagreed passionately about politics. "I don't really care what you think, as long as you actually THINK" . We were discussing a mutual friend who was entirely without opinion or interest at the time (now that he actually makes a decent living, amazing how vocal he has become on political subjects).
They do the Arkona rescue ship in 1/72 scale and it's hardly noticed ijn the U.S. They do the sexy Type VII U-Boat, which they have to know is going to be a big seller in the U.S. and they give out a 50% price mistake.
Maybe they used the European profits from the Arkona to do the U-Boat. :-)
Maybe what's needed is some support of Revell GmbH kit availability here in the US.
They recently reissued the 1/72 F-101B, the best 101B kit in that scale, and it is not available here. Where is the disconnect? Where is the demand from the US distributors for stock from Europe?
It went along with RoG's pricing on some things......say the USS Constitution that was last popped less than 10 years ago here for $55 and now RoG wants $131? Or maybe it went before that witht the B-36 that was last popped in the 90's for approx. $30-35 and then RoG popped it for $90......YEP, I think that's exactly where US support for RoG went. Pure, unadulterated profit gouging on molds long since amortized.
Was that $90 in Euros? If it is RoG then it is an import subject to the pricing of the importer. The new U boat is the equivalant of $130 imported to Japan.
For the record the current MSRP of the 1/96 USS Constitution is: Revell of Germany $121.50 vs Revell Monogram (USA) $70.95 Don't understand why a distributor would want to carry the same model for different prices. Some don't and some do. Go figure. Meanwhile I'll stock the US version.
Wow Somewhere, someone, is seriously inflating the imported version's price.
The one thing I know it is not is the imprort duty rate. Here in the US, the duty rate for models is "Free." Except for the "Column 2" countries for whom it is 70% (these are places like Afghanistan and Iraq, although with current events, those two may be off the list now).
Reference is U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule section 9503.20, "Reduced-size ("scale") model assembly kits, whether or not working models, excluding those of subheading 9503.10; parts and accessories thereof . . . . . . . . . . . ." Section 9503.10 refers to electric trains and accessories, also "Free."
In Europe we constantly get ripped off regarding the price of a great many modelling items. The culture here is to take a dollar price and substitute the same price in GPP, in other words $70.95 becomes 70.95GBP. 70.95GBP would be roughly $113.52, add on a few taxes and you have the (roughly) $121.50 figure quoted.
Hannants are a major protagonists of this practice but many of the smaller companies do the same thing. I think they work on the assumption that we must all be too stupid to know there is actually an exchange rate and that $1 does not equate to 1 GBP, therefore if we see a figure in an American publication of $70.95 and then see the same figure, but this time in GBP in a UK mag, then it is the figure we are expecting to see so we, hopefully, from their point of view, won't spot the "deliberate" mistake.
I live around 30 mins drive from Hannants in London but I prefer to order goods on the 'net. I recently ordered two decal sheets from Two Bobs, the sheets turned up 5 days later and 6 GBP cheaper than Hannants were selling them at. If Hannants continue with this dubious practice I will simply buy more and more items direct and it will be their loss.
Consider me lost, but Modell-Fan shows German shops selling this kit (or advertising it at least) at 42 to 45 Euros or around $50 US. What did I miss on its pricing?
I don't blame you at all, that's a ripoff by Hannants. I will say the folks at WEM (down Shropshire way) have great prices for US buyers at least. I never can figure out that VAT thing and what items do or don't have it in the price. I just e-mail them and ask the US price (in GBP, conversions is a webclick away) and they get back to me very quickly.....some items on their site have VAT added to the price shown, some don't....gets confusing. L'Arsenal in France and J&S in Finland also have the VAT in their prices, again a quick email and they send the non VAT price for non-EU buyers.
COuld VAT be part of the Hannant's markup or is it always the $69.95 US to 69.95GBP?
It seems too much of a coincidence that all their prices are the same in GBP as they are in the US in $. Hannants still buy in at regular trade prices so if a kit retails for $50 in the US plus local taxes it should retail for
31.25 GBP + VAT at 17.5% (5.46GBP) = 36.71GBP. Even adding a percentage for shipping it still wouldn't add up to the 13.30GBP extra we pay for the same item here. If I order from the US, even with the added VAT (when it gets here) and shipping it still works out cheaper for me, so I shall buy only what I can't get anywhere else from Hannants.
However, when the RNHF Firefly crashed earlier this year and we (the FAA SIG) were asked to build replicas for the flight Hannants did not hesitate to chip in with kits, decals and paints etc so I won't knock them on that score, it just the dubious pricing that gets me at times, however, if someone knows a valid reason why kits are priced the way they are in the UK I'd love to hear it.
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