I agree David. But the shops you mention above are the "Freds in the spare bedroom" according to those who wanted Märklin to react. The once who have forced Märklin to impose these "rules" are those shops that you and I never have heard of. Those with none or very limited presence on the internet.

I'm afraid that Märklin looks upon the dealers as their customers and us consumers as the customers of the dealers. They meet the dealers at "Messens", at MHI- and Idee+Spiel gatherings and they have frequent contact with them over phone. This obscures the fact that we are Märklins customers and that the dealers are only one way of supplying us with Märklin-products.

Physical shops will always be needed, but if Märklin is to survive in the long run they must find the most cost-effective mix of getting their stuff to us, the consumers. By trying to fix prices they are stopping the process of finding this "optimal mix". In the short run it might be good for some physical shops. For us and Märklin it's just bad.

/Torbjörn

However, if Marklin has in mind to increase the $value of sales, they might do it by producing a consumer range, and selling through shops that don't normally carry that stuff.
And they appear to have done that with the 'My World' range that might attract the buyers at the big toy chains, not just hobby shops. All the chains care about is, 'does it sell?'. They don't want to know anything about model trains, which is why they are terrible at selling what we call the 'enthusiast' product. Hopefully Marklin can use their considerable resources to get sales from toy chains, department stores, variety chains (Aldi?).

I know nothing about the European retail scene, so all that may seem rather academic.
I know that in Australia, the only train set you'll buy in a department store, is a Lego or a Brio, or a Thomas. Maybe that battery powered ICE is aimed at that type of buyer, and seems cheap enough.

regards
Kimball