With the thousands of kits now on the worldwide market,and with companies constantly selling dies and moulds for them every few months to far flung countries,the selection of available kits is constantly buoyant,however it has come to my notice recently that certain unscrupulous manufacturers are creating a false market with some devious tactics that have not gone un-recognised by enthusiasts,we all know that moulds for kits are sometimes reworked and improved to make them more acceptable in todays detail conscious age,this is fine providing that extra detailing or corrections are made in the interests of the modeller,however recently a spate of what are supposed to be new issues from brand new tooling were not to be the case,the practise of trying to disguise an old kit and put into the box a set of new decals is fine,but to increase the price threefold at the same time and declare it as 'new issue' is not on,manufacturers must realise that modellers have a long memory and will recognise such sharp practises if they are deployed.
Another tactic that is becoming even more noticeable,is that of creating a false market overnight,by declaring a kit as restricted issue so that supposedly a set number are pressed to meet a collectors demand,without actually numbering the issues as they do in the diecast world then there is no proof of just how many are produced,by upping the retail price a lesser more specialist market is artificially created for a shorter and more likely pre-booked run of kits,so one minute the kit is available and the following week the kit is marked as 'out of stock' what has actually happened is that demand created by the manufacturer has not been met by the collector/public and the kit quickly withdrawn.
Now my thoughts are that if a product is good then it should sell itself,without any intervention whether well intended or otherwise ? from experience any mass produced products can usually be obtained fairly quickly,without the need for anyone to be press ganged into an early purchase by the marketing people for them,if a product is good enough to produce then it is good enough to fill a mass market,even if it is a long forgotton kit that has been re-tooled and re-issued.
Another tactic that is becoming even more noticeable,is that of creating a false market overnight,by declaring a kit as restricted issue so that supposedly a set number are pressed to meet a collectors demand,without actually numbering the issues as they do in the diecast world then there is no proof of just how many are produced,by upping the retail price a lesser more specialist market is artificially created for a shorter and more likely pre-booked run of kits,so one minute the kit is available and the following week the kit is marked as 'out of stock' what has actually happened is that demand created by the manufacturer has not been met by the collector/public and the kit quickly withdrawn.
Now my thoughts are that if a product is good then it should sell itself,without any intervention whether well intended or otherwise ? from experience any mass produced products can usually be obtained fairly quickly,without the need for anyone to be press ganged into an early purchase by the marketing people for them,if a product is good enough to produce then it is good enough to fill a mass market,even if it is a long forgotton kit that has been re-tooled and re-issued.
Comment