Kimball,
I've had a few inquiries about model train sets (when I was a dealer) around Christmas but never heard anything more or didn't make any sales the moment they've heard the price.
Its a shame people shy away from "toys" with a proven history such as Märklin and buy their son, grandson a cheap set, maybe half the price and most probably would'nt last until next Christmas.
Some parents are worried, how long will my son show interest in trains ? and buying an expensive set may be in their eyes a waste of money.
Some of the reasons or worries parents do have have never been substantiated.
Our grandchildren are all girls so I haven't been able to convince them or haven't bought them any train sets.
I was thinking a long time ago on the same lines, to introduce Märklin into department stores but Märklin's export policy wasn't the best at any given time and unless you are the sole distributor your outlay could be a waste of money.
Diversity can make or break your business sometimes it all depends of the type of goods you are trying to sell and China would be the place for production.
Märklin had all these cooking stoves, pots and other things for girls and this market just dissapeared.
You also have to take into consideration, the masses are drinkers, smokers, sweet eaters, take away food gobblers, mobile phone addicts, all in all have a selfish and negative attitude and anything healthy or educational is off limits. How could you convince anybody buying a Märklin train set, whereas their shopping trolley is full of softdrinks, ready made meals and other junk food, crying and screaming children with uncontrollable behaviour patterns and lack any sense of love or respect.
Department stores today look at an item, price and than decide will it sell x amount of units. If it doesn't fit the criteria they wont purchase it.
Guarantee is another stumbling block.
Some white goods item you can return to the store in case of any fault others have an independent service contractor and repairs can take up to 3 month to be finalized.
An upmarket Märklin train set, packaged in a nice presentation box could be a goer but having the run of the mill train sets, I don't think there is a market for this here in Australia.
You can forget about Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Hobart and even Brisbane, so the only city left would be Melbourne, which has an embedded history regarding train enthusiasts, including European modellers.
Lego has gone with the times and sometimes you'll see young groups in shopping centres playing with Lego, either part of an promotion or educational purpose or just for children to play with.
I've made numerous requests with shopping centres to be able to display my layout, (at a cost of course) but sofar haven't had much luck of succeeding, firstly the financial downturn and now at Christmas, which is odd, would be the best time to display it but because of the rush and plenty of shoppers there seems to be no need for this sort of stuff.
So here, we do differentiate from European Shoppers, Department stores but children will always be same all over the world, they love to see a model train.
When we had our layout displayed at the Royal show, pretty much the same scenario had occurred, children asked their parents, can they see the layout, the moment the realized there was an entry fee, no I'm not paying for this.
some expectations are as follows: If I cant get it for free or for nothing, I'm not interested in.
To some extend, mothers don't seem to have a great deal of interest in model trains in the first place and unless they are educated or show some diversity in general interests, children's curiosity and learning process of growing up has been bashed out of their brains, day after day.
Some people always have this thought in the back of their mind: Am I getting ripped off here but don't understand someone else made the effort for you to enjoy it, at a reasonable price tag, (this is why I will never go into an Italian restaurant and pay A$ 30.00 for Spaghetti's, regardless which variety).
I'm afraid there isn't much hope introducing our children or our young generation into the world of model trains unless our big brothers and sisters are willing to listen to our youngsters and nothing much has changed over the years, years back children weren't allowed to speak unless spoken to, to day most parents don't listen to their children, nor do they speak to them, they get told what they can do and can't do, they get told what they can eat and can't eat, so the process of introducing new exiting and educational things into their life, isn't happening.
Some children today are left overs from a selfish "What about Me" society and some results stem from self inflicted parenthood abuse without any proper attention given to the welfare of our youngsters.
We only can do what we intend to do and accomplish it for sake of others.
John
