Marklin TV Extra 47 - English



Marklin TV no.125 Highlights from Marklin days - English



Marklin TV 124 English - Fall New Items



Marklin TV no 123 English - Summer new items.



Marklin TV Episode 122 - English

Edited by moderator 29 September 2023 11:56:06(UTC)  | Reason: Made topic 'Sticky'

It would seem that there is a new person in the marketing department ??

Hi all,

Did TV Extra 14 removed from club area, or is just me that i cannot find it.

Regards
Yannis

Hi Tom,

I can see all the previous up to 13 and i am pretty sure (although not 100% sure) that i watched the episode from Club area.

Anyway no biggie, just being curious

Yannis

No.71 on air http://www.maerklin.de/d...chungen/maerklin-tv.html

It looks like added weight to me.

Marklin TV Folge 72 on air

BR 245
Furka Bahn Trip and Kroko fur Gottatrdo
Donald Duck

And notice added weight right top over the pick up shoe...

Excuse me...but TV folge 72 is not verified yet!
It will soon.

It's verified by Kweekalot, verified by me, maybe even verified by Cleo.
Let us know when it is verified by Goofy.

And me....

It is not published yet in English. I can see it though in German

Still waiting.

I will contact M.

.....or is that 'beached' somewhere' - waiting to be rescued .....

More likely derailed ... or trying to get back past the migrants at Calais, from his holidays, on Eurostar ...

For Non Insider member.

http://www.maerklin.com/...s/video/maerklin-tv.html

Hi!

It can hardly be news to Märklin that men born before 1970 are their dominating customer-group? And who can expect "exciting times"? Not me, that's for sure. That some "cheapish" locos now actually becomes cheap does nothing for me. And I'm not dead yet, but I've gone from Märklin purchases in the amount of 5.000 € a year to 500 €. Why? Well I know that many on this forum are very sensitive when it comes to criticising Märklins quality, so I won't go into that.

Will it be good for Märklin? Everyone who has experience of sales and economy knows that if you sell stuff cheap you need huge volumes to make a profit. Will Märklin reach the necessary volumes? I doubt it. I think it takes more than cheap prices to lure youngsters and their parents into buying. Sadly, I think that young people today lack the connections to trains that we in earlier generations have had. It's actually quite natural when you think of it. At least in Sweden most local train-station closed down long ago. When I was a kid I often stopped and looked at the trains when I went to and from my hockey-training. Today the trains aren't there anymore.

And if they succed in selling trains to youngsters. And don't get me wrong, I sure hope they do! Märklin won't be doing any money before these youngsters have settled down and gotten a stable economy. How many of us reentered the hobby in our fourties? And then Märklin will need the higher priced, high margin prodcts. And then we are back on square one again.

Every marketing-course teaches you that you either have to go for high volumes and low margins or low volumes and high margins. There really are no middle way. Experience have proven this over and over again. Märklin needs to be able to reach younger people. But I thought that was what they've been trying to do with the Hobby-line, Märklin My World and whatever they've called it.
But Märklin is, as is the whole MRR-business, a low volume high margin business. So selling cheap to try to lure people into the hobby is a good idea, but it's not a way to survive and make money. Neither is selling cheap trains to grown-ups. So Märklin has to lure youngsters into the hobby, but this is a long-term project. At the same time they need to make money on high-end, high-margin products. AND they need to look at what it costs today to get the products to the end-customers. Brick and mortar shops are sadly to costly. But selling high-margin products through Supermarkets isn't a solution either. The solution is fewer brick and mortar shops that also sells through internet.

What the CEO says that is interesting is that if you charge 400 € for a loco you have to deliver what people expect (and what Märklin marketing tells us we have a right to expect). Does he think there is a discrepancy today? I think so.

If he does think so, yes there may be exciting times ahead!

Mjrallare/Torbjoern,

I largely agree with you,companies like Marklin are in a very difficult situation because middle of the road marketing does not work for them,nor does it work for a lot of other companies either.
Exciting times for me means that it will be interesting to see which course of action Marklin is going to take with a possible new productline.
Exciting for me has the meaning here that you are going into battle without knowing the outcome.

For me,almost age 60,i will not buy Euro 300 plus locomotives,i simply cannot afford to spend the money.
Instead,i buy the somewhat older issues,like the 39103 at Euro 185 last week.
If i would be a youngster,i would not buy trains at such prices,in fact when i was a youngster i could not even buy the annual catalogue!

Per definition,a CEO of a given company will need to be optimistic about the future of the company,or pack his bags.
It is for us to try and read between the lines and form ourselves an opinion about what has been said.

It is my personal(!) belief that socalled premium brands will go down the drain,people are no longer prepared to pay for status.
Only a small group of high income/high spending people will continue to buy premium brands like Rolex,BMW,Porsche,Gucci,and even Marklin.
Beer for me is not Heineken but German beer from a wellknown German supermarket.
We drive small cheap cars with 69 HP,not fancy high powered sportscars.
We buy our clothes in middle of the road shops,nothing like the clothes you find in the glossy magazines.
Above all,our aim is to keep our debts at zero.

Let us see what Marklin come up with.

Torbjorn,

The dilemma for Marklin remains.
Should they go the way Roco have been following with their various productranges?
Has that done Roco any good?
I wonder.

Looking at the Marklin gauge 1 assortment,i just wonder how big the clientbase is for these very expensive items.
The recently released large steamers do anything between Euro 1,500 and Euro 2,500.-
That is not for average people,right?

Comparing with the car branch,i find it remarkable that Volkswagen are doing so well.
They are a mass producer,probably by now the biggest in the world.
Their cars do not come cheap,still in a country like Holland they are very popular,despite the high price.
What is their secret,and are Marklin able to copy them?

Questions,questions.....

Edited by user 24 August 2015 12:29:46(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I have been helping my dealer sell myworld start set the last few shows. Before my world came out, we would only sell 1 or 2 hobby start sets. They were around $250. When my world came around we now were selling 15-20 my world start sets and still sold 1-2 "my start" (hobby) start sets. They now go for $350 but have track and switches and a lok with sound and MS2. Much more bang for the buck.

I asked my dealer if there were any repeat customers who bought my world at the shows. He said some...perhaps 5-10%. He has gained new customers so the my world is worth it for him...but not by a whole lot. You have to remember we are in Canada where European stuff is not interesting...but I know that we had sales because the my world and my start were far better quality than the NA stuff.

I think that Marklin's gamble with my world is paying off. If those cheaper loks are as robust as the older loks from the 50-60's, that will be a good thing.

This is the natural outcome of growing up with the customers that got hooked on my world.

Will there be less detail? yes. Will it be a problem for the customer, no but perhaps long later yes. Can the customer do something about it? Yes, either buy expensive loks later in life or do what many North American modelers do, add the detail your self. Other manufactures add a bag of stuff you can add depending on the prototype. This is fine too. If you don't care for detail, less work and less parts falling off. If you do care, you add it yourself and will naturally be more careful in handling and finally, be more proud that you did it yourself.

Will there be less items produced each year at the level of quality that we diehards want and expect? Yes. That trend has started in 2000. The 2000 catalog was so big and has so many interesting new items that they had a catalog per gauge. The catalog has been getting smaller ever since.

The my world turn-around is starting but it will take about 10 years to get to our level. The supply of well cared for used loks and rolling stock hitting the market will not help Marklin or any other manufacture for a while. Yes, interesting times ahead.

Harald,

The sting in the flesh for Marklin is the apparent need to keep employment in Germany and the rest of Europe.
If this need would not be there,it would be easy enough to let everything be produced in the Far East,take the profit and run.
For some reason,this is not being done (yet).
One of the key values for Marklin is quality,contained in the famous wording Made in Germany.
It would be silly to throw away such an important key value,right?
I get the impression that Marklin will come up with two different productlines,one like the Hobby line they had before and one more professional and more expensive line.
I wish them every luck in the world with that!

Again about cars,if you buy a modern Skoda,you in fact buy a Volkswagen,albeit at a lower price,a lot of parts will be typically Volkswagen quality,including the engine.
Perhaps Marklin can do the same.

Volkswagen own Skoda and Seat for 100 percent.
Hence,they use engines and a lot of other parts for Volkswagen,Seat and Skoda.
If you buy a Seat or Skoda,you in fact buy a Volkswagen,albeit at a lower price.
Because labourcosts in Spain and CZ are lower as compared to Germany,Volkswagen can sell those cars at lower prices.
The purchasing of materials will be centralized so that based on huge volumes,Volkswagen get the best discount on parts.

Volkswagen have 3 productranges for familycars:
A) Volkswagen,made in Germany,the real thing,the statussymbol (Golf!).
B) Seat,for the young at heart.
C) Skoda,for people trying to keep a tight budget,not interested in status.

What could happen is that Marklin would continue to produce the highly detailed models in Germany ("Made in Germany"!) and the less detailed models in for example Hungary.

An old Dutch TV commercial for Skoda,drivers of Skoda seen as clever people who will never pay too much:



Cheers,
Paul.

Hi,

To start with, some Märklin products are still made in China, including some locomotives that were newly designed in 2014, such as the Nohab/AFB diesels and the S 2/6, which is highly detailed. We don't know if Märklin will continue to have some of their products manufactured in China in future, but the new owner and CEO has said that manufacturing in Hungary may even be cheaper than in China and that he doesn't like the quality of the Chinese-made Märklin products.

Those plastic Märklin or Trix coaches or wagons which are made in Europe are all manufactured in Hungary nowadays because the Märklin factory in Göppingen has focused on locomotives for a long time. Back in the 1960s, Märklin opened a factory in Schwäbisch Gmünd to produce rolling stock. Later that was replaced by Sonneberg, and when that factory closed as well, rolling stock was either produced in Hungary or China.

The metal parts of all Märklin or Trix locomotives made in Europe are produced in Göppingen, but in most cases the locomotives are then painted and/or assembled in Hungary. That's also true for most highly detailed models, though some expensive locomotives are probably still assembled in Göppingen, but it's hard to tell which ones.

For example, Märklin TV showed us the new Class 50 being assembled in Hungary a few years ago, but this year, they showed the assembly of the new 37835 in Göppingen. Are all 37835 made in Germany or only the pre-series? Märklin doesn't really want us to know, do they?

37835 in der Produktion
Märklin TV Folge 50

Best regards,

Mark

No.73

No.73 now on Marklin site -

GERMAN - http://www.maerklin.de/d...chungen/maerklin-tv.html

ENGLISH - http://www.maerklin.com/...s/video/maerklin-tv.html