More quotes:

'Zusammen mit Märklin-Urgestein Wolfrad Bächle will Florian Sieber in den kommenden Jahren das Sortiment erneuern, die Produktpalette erweitern – insbesondere bei der Kinderlinie My World – und die Produktionsprozesse effektiver machen. „Das kann beispielsweise geschehen, in dem wir das Innenleben der Loks einheitlicher aufbauen“, so Sieber.'

Together with Märklin veteran Wolfrad Baechle Florian Sieber wants to renew in the next few years the range, expand the product range - especially in the children's line My World - and make the production processes more effective. "This can happen, for example, when we build the inner workings of the locomotives more uniform," said Sieber.


'„Wir haben intern noch viel Potenzial zur Kosteneinsparung, das wir dieses und nächstes Jahr heben können.“'

"We internally have a lot of potential for cost savings that we can raise this year and next."


(Comment: Cheaper production with identical retail prices leads to higher profits. Great plan - as long as it does not impact customer satisfaction in a negative way.
Uniform locos with the new three-pole standard motor? Great plan - as long as it does not impact customer satisfaction in a negative way. Or did they change their minds and are they going for five-pole standard motors now?)

It is already negatively, it's not time to make serious mistakes

You're absolutely right, Sir Bob. I've been saying this for years. The old saying is so true. If you

want to make a dollar you've got to spend a dollar. I think that the M management over the years

has just been too scared to make a big move here in N.A.. Yes, it is a gamble but risks need to be made in

business to grow a company to worldwide status. They need a good marketing firm. Peter

Maybe Walthers should have done a better job of marketting Marklin?

See also the comment from forum member 'Moritz-BR365' under the artikle on the website 'Stuttgarter-nachrichten.de'.

LINK

Maybe Ray is right.The average age of the people who like trains grows up and i do not see young people like our hobby.My son is 20 years old,i have the trains till the day he was born,he do not spend even a minute for them.Maybe the economic problems those all Europe have are another problem too.These problems are more tough to the countries of the south.Lets's hope these conditions became better for all the world.

The real problem is customer with standard economy who use trains as hobby.
The trains as hobby has become expensive and mostley of the customer needs months to save money,before to shop trains.
A trainset cost about 600-800 euro,which digs an deep hole in the wally for customer.
In this case,it makes lesser sell for the trains from hobby store.
So to keep business alive,we need hobby store to offer customer installments,by dividing up sum.
It makes faster to sell the trains.

Mostley of the electronics produce in asia,where payment is cheap.
But the prices is reaching when products arrives to us.
In also fact...we have high taxes and lesser money too.
Of course does electronics makes an big rules,to make lesser interesting in trains as hobby.
But also does cost like everything.

Piko´s model made in China...?
Piko´s model is made of plastic,which makes lesser expensive.
Piko´s models brokens sometimes,while Märklins trains is stronger.
It makes big difference to equals too,if you did present like that!
Märklins decoder is cheap and bad.
But that is Märklins board problems to fix it.
Most critical comes from customer and Märklin knows the problems to fix it,but as i did wrote...it´s board problems.

With regards to North America, I think it would be a waste of time to push three rail there. IMO North America is a two-rail continent. I would expect them not to be interested in running three rail. Perhaps it would be an idea to push Trix there.

From my 2-rail chair, I think Märklin should be more in competition with itself. If I owned the company I would not neglect Trix the way I think they do.

3-rail is only half the market. I would have the teams compete head to head. If the Trix team steals customers from 3-rail to 2-rail so be it! IMO Märklin has some of the coolest and most interesting starter sets available. What do Trix have? A sad branch line starter set and a sad freight train set, soon they will have an Intercity train with 1:100 coaches and a Hobby Ludmilla with yellow LEDs - analog of course. If I walk into a store, and I am going for 2-rail, I would not look at the Märklin set. I will look at the Trix set, and then I will notice that Roco has some even cooler sets and buy one of those. Money lost!

Märklin should deliver some cool Trix starter sets to compete with those from Roco and PIKO. I mean you could at least loose money to your own sub divisions. People going for 2-rail will not consider 3-rail anyway.

The Trix line should be more like its 2-rail competitors, IMO this means stop trying to be all about collector's edition, "the model is made of metal" and collector this and that. Neither me or my 2-rail friends cares about this. They weather their models anyway. Be more like: "Here's a BR 01, you can get it without a decoder, or digital with sound".

Completely stop using old technology (like the old boggie-motors) in Trix models. Simply stop. It is not worth it, you can always get a better motor in a model from Roco or another competitor. The majority of 2-rail customers do not collect a specific brand, they collect models of prototypes. They will not hesitate a second to look somewhere else if your model is average compared to others. Old technology like the boggie motors is a no go for me and my friends.

Push the Märklin digital system into the 2-rail world with focus on its DCC-features. Märklin informs about this, but not very visible. Inform people of its features. I try to do this through my website, and I get feedback from people who had no clue that the Märklin digital system was even an option, but now that they know, they will consider it. I have two friends who after seing my system are now going for the MS2. Why have they not considered it before? Easy - they did not know it was an option. It almost seems like Märklin try to push mfx into the 2-rail world instead. I am pretty sure this will fail, simply because DCC dominates the 2-rail world.

Get the Trix C track into people's minds. I know that not many 2-rail customers run on a track like that, but those that do should know that the Trix C track is by far the best there is (my opinion at least). In Europe the only real alternative is Roco's GeoLine which has an El Cheapo feel to it. The Fleischmann track is old, outdated and expensive.

You can do all of the above and still share the development and benefit from that. All of the above is only about changing the way you communicate your product line to different target audiences.

I know my points are from a 2-rail perspective, but since Märklin operates in both worlds, I think they matter just as much as 3-rail perspectives.

Wondering how it goes for Roco/Fleischmann with plenty in stock and recurring sales...

"Maybe a small percentage of the very fussy techno-savvy will be put off..."

Maybe we can make a poll. "Do you trust Märklin quality as much as you trusted it six years ago?"
And only those who bought Märklin items introduced 2011 or later will be allowed to vote ...

I joined the Märklin Insider Club to get my hands on pre-order forms for Insider models.
Now that the models come with economised decoders and economised (meaningless) product description and way too often with economised motors, I stopped pre-ordering any powered rolling stock from a certain market leader. Economised quality assurance also plays a role here.
Most likely I will economise my club membership later this year (joining the Outsider Club is the economic alternative).

They've lost my trust, now they lose my money. To win back my money they have to win back my trust.

If I may offer some observations to add to the debate;

1) Outside of the core of European countries I do not believe that Agents have represented Marklin as they should. The Agent's in the UK for past 10 years have been rubbish, and I understand the the same applies in the USA. I would observe that Marklin is centralized on its core support, and does not realize that there is a huge world out there, some of which would like to buy Marklin.

2) If Marklin continue to product 100% in Germany, the price of locos would realistically increase by 50%, and I doubt it would be long before they cost double the current price. We need to accept that production in the EU is now almost impossible due to cost, and with more and more regulation being implemented these costs will only rise even further. Marklin need to find other bases to manufacture to keep the prices even vaguely realistic. There will be some success and some failure along the way.

3) I would observe by the frustration vented on this site, that Marklin seemingly do not listen to their customers and perhaps could benefit from a real active feedback policy.

4) Finally, I have said on this Forum before and I repeat my opinion, that there is a place for model railways in today's world, people often cite Games consoles as the death of more traditional pursuits, but when was the last time you saw a tv advert for a model train. Today's kids are bombarded by ceaseless advertising to buy the latest gadget or game, and are often ignorant of other items in the market place. I can say from my own experience, that my son enjoys playing with his games console, but then he gets bored or tired of playing the same thing over and over and looks for other pastimes, and he can often be found do something to do with trains of his own choosing. I have also seen the excitement generated when other children have seen our trains running or at exhibitions were other children get genuine excitement watching various layouts.

As an observation, I would note that for a lot of modern families, games consoles are an easy fix for parents, the kids ask for them, they get put in the children's bedrooms and parents can send their kids off to their rooms and its peace and quiet time, or time for the parents to do something they want to do. Model railways requires parents to spend time and to be patient, and to interact with their children, and I am not sure that genuinely a lot of parents really want to do this, especially if the parent is not interested in trains, and would prefer to be out at the gym, the pub, playing golf or simply watching TV.

I think with advances in digital technology trains are just as exiting as they always were, and believe there is a healthy market for these products, but believe that its parental choices and lifestyles that affect its popularity as much as the children themselves.

BR

Glenn

Hi Glenn

Thank you for your comment.


I think children should be their main concern. At our model railway exhibits we always have some kind of play area (e.g. an LGB train or some other form of large scale train). At some point we had a "Märklin - Paint your own wagon" booth. The kids would get a white unpainted container wagon, sit down and paint it with colours. Mum usually stay there, while dad looks at "trains for grown ups". Those kind of events are hugely popular.

One time I noticed a little boy who were extremely fascinated by the LGB train and wanted to play with it all the time. His mum where like "Oh my, I had no idea that he had these kind of interests". And I thought to myself, how would you know, if you are one of those parents who just give your kid an iPad and leave them to it. For the record, I do not know if she was like that, but I did wonder on how you cannot know what kind of stuff your kid likes. Perhaps its just me, but I would like to think that I would know.

I agree. Which is also why I think it is really important to spread the word - so to speak - on what else model railways can be. To me it is important to show people what I do with my hobby, and what I like about it.

From friends and colleagues I also get a lot of the comments you mention "do you use a whistle?", "do you wear a cap?" etc. I do not know why people's thoughts about model railways have become so silly, but my experience is that just being honest on what I actually do, people are actually interested in hearing about it. I think a hobby is great personal value and having one is a gift.

That being said I do see a lot of younger people on our exhibitions. They are out there.

1.More competitors with 3 rail models.
2.Technology like mobilphones,wargames,internet...etc
3.Higher taxes and bad economy
4.Bad deal for customers who installments because of expensive goods.

Did i missed something more??

Great post Dan!

Hi sorry, have I got this right. Marklin sales were up by 1 million euros and rocos 50 million euros?

No that's not what it says. Roco sold 50 million and Marklin sold 100 million.

They gave up "Made in Germany" labels several years ago. "Made in Germany" can be used for items if more than 50% were made in Germany.
Märklin's production went to China (with a massive increase 2007 when they closed Sonneberg, partially closed Nuremberg, and reduced workforce at Göppingen). Still prices went up. Now production is partially going to Hungary - and prices still go up.

I estimate that 1 minute of prime time TV advertising will eat the profit of 10,000 battery-powered my world starter sets (maybe just 5,000 or even less - I don't know how profitable these non-EU starter sets really are).
Will one minute of TV advertising generate enough extra sales to be profitable?
Märklin is too small for TV ads.

For about the price of 1 minute prime time TV advertising, you can hire a BR 101 loco as a moving billboard for one year.

The main difference with Lego is that in the 1970s and 80s Lego was packaged as blocks and sets with a variety of generic models that could be created from each set. Todays Lego consists of specialized pieces to make specific models and Lego has capitalized on cross marketing with movies and cartoons.

Maerklin is not in a position to do the same with trains.

I introduced my niece and nephew to Maerklin trains at a very early age. I wanted them to experience it before they were bombarded by the world of computer games, PCs and iPads, so that hopefully that memory would be engraved and would bring back memories every time they saw a train set.

These days, the kids are older and the parents have all of their events preplanned. Get home from school, do your homework, soccer, swimming or hockey, walk the dog and bedtime. Kids are no longer allowed to spend hours using their imaginations to make things out of Lego. I remember spending hours trying to figure out how to create jet engine pieces for a Lego model of a DC-8. We used to build a city and had police, fire stations, snow ploughs etc. Today, once the Death Star is built, how many kids take it apart and make something else out of the parts?

Maerklin needs to come up with a way to get the 4-8 year olds into trains and then market Maerklin in other ways (in video games, etc) so that when the kids are older and have spending money that maybe model trains becomes a thing to do.

Regards

Mike C

I don't have the ability (or knowledge) of how to look for old posts but I am confident that for 2012 and 2013 in the "Locomotives you have bought" topics, at this
stage of the year we had reached 12 or so pages. Only 3 for 2014.

I bought or have ordered 5 new Loks this year including the Insider E93 Lok. I usually

introduce them in a video or photos. Peter

37576 received E103 with sounds

37870 E93 Insider Lok, in stock but not shipped yet

39414 BR141 electric - due 3rd qrt

37442 E44 - due 3rd qrt

37600 V60 diesel - due 4th qrt

Soren,

I agree.

For what it is worth I started my son with LGB in our garden, it was only a summer layout, and weather permitting, he loved playing with it, and later when I required the Marklin bug he got involved also.

I think electronic games offer an easy solution to modern parents with busy lives, and I am sorry to say that it is my opinion that in the UK the amount of time parents spend with their children has fallen considerably in 30 years, and time spent on all hobbies has also fallen, most hobbies require parent and child interaction.

It has been my belief that each year it is manufacturers who tell the public through advertising what to buy, and that purchasing is generally not based upon what we the consumer would actually like to spend our time doing.

BR

Glenn

Tom,

I appreciate that costs continue to rise and rise, but this is as a result of price increases across the board, even in the so called developing countries. The main issue that often gets overlooked, is that the cost of living and complying with the (often) over burdening legislation within the EU is putting so much pressure on manufacturing that these companies have to diversify to survive. It would not harm Germany's overall taxation review to give some form of tax incentive to companies like Marklin who represent all that is good about MRR manufacturing and to protect the skill base involved in its development and production.

I agree with your comments concerning TV advertising and I am not suggesting that Marklin should embark upon a major advertising campaign, but my comment was more a reflection of how society has become driven by advertising and in fact just how pervasive advertising has become, and its net affect on peoples purchasing habits as a result of such advertising.

In UK (outside of an MRR event or specific publication) I cannot remember the last time I saw an advert in any format relating to MRR, and yet for example if you take Microsoft Xbox One, there are adverts, in shops, bus shelters, buses themselves, sign boards, newspapers, TV, magazines, and on the internet they are everywhere on almost all sites with advertising, in fact in UK right now you cannot avoid adverts for Games Consoles such as Xbox and PS4, I would propose it has become pervasive. How can Marklin compete with this, but this is not to say that there are not children out there who want to have a choice and want to play with MRR.

Advertising was supposed to inform the public about choice in the market place, but I would say that in some cases big companies like Microsoft are in fact taking up so much advertising capacity that they are in reality stifling the market, and removing competitive choice.

BR

Glenn