Hattons Model Railway Shop to Close

[Claude_Dreyfus]

A few on here will no doubt have used Hattons Model Railway shop in the UK in the past. Sorry to hear that the store will be closing sometime this year after 77 years of operation.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail?id=1498

[SwallowAngel]

Pardon me: WHAT?

Sad to see such a large Shop close down though...

The more suppliers we lose the more dependant the hobby as a whole becomes dependant on the manufacturers who, well, don't exactly do the most customer friendly stuff...

[bill937ca]

Looks like they are gone, not just going online.

[brill27mcb]

I also don't understand. Hattons just took over M B Kleins / modeltrainstuff.com in the U.S., causing an uproar here among model railroaders. What's going on with them?

 

Rich K.

[railsquid]

Ooof, that is a shame, I first ordered things from them back in the days when you sent off a paper cheque in an envelope and waited up to 28 days for delivery.

[bill937ca]

I wonder if the US deal exhausted their credit lines.

[Oxbox]

Well that is quite a shame to hear, they are one of those "legendary" shops you hear about everywhere. I did just give in and buy some Peco code 55 turnouts in their closing sale as even with shipping it is well under half the price of buying them locally here, I was planning on getting some eventually for another planned layout so figured why not.

[Kingmeow]

18 hours ago, brill27mcb said:

I also don't understand. Hattons just took over M B Kleins / modeltrainstuff.com in the U.S., causing an uproar here among model railroaders. What's going on with them?

 

Rich K.

 

14 hours ago, bill937ca said:

I wonder if the US deal exhausted their credit lines.

 

This is pure speculation rumors that I've heard.  It's kind of odd that you buy a business (MB Klein) and then go under yourself.  The rumor mill is that Klein will still operate, just moved from Maryland to Nebraska.  Why Nebraska?  Cost of doing business is much lower than Maryland.  This gives a pathway for the owner(s) of Hatton to "move" the business to the US while liquidating the UK branch.  I've heard that it's expensive to do business in the UK with Brexit and all those laws that I have no idea how they impact any business. 

[cteno4]

Sad to hear, but sounds like a lot still unknown to unfold.
 

Sad to see Kliens go, but they were internet only for a while now. also pricing and shipping had greatly increased. Use to be a great go to place for Unitrak as they usually had large stock and good pricing and reasonable shipping. But last year I needed a few bits and prices were no longer really competitive and shipping horrid. It was like they were adding a big handling charge for packing and shipping, but without a good discounted price. I’m betting their stocking some Japanese trains will go away, I don’t think they were ever a big seller for Kleins.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

Sad news indeed although I hadn’t bought from them in a very long time. Their used items, even beaten up, were still very expensive and I wonder if they expanded too quickly after the sales increases during lockdown. 

 

The British market seems a little rocky and prices are just skyrocketing and with disposable income being pinched by mortgage payment and cost of living increases, I wonder how other shops will fare the weather. The price point of many models will not attract new interest.

 

One example, Hornby are asking almost £200 for a DCC ready 08 or 09 shunter which seems a little crazy. 

 

https://uk.hornby.com/products/br-class-09-0-6-0-d4100-dick-hardy-era-11-r30369

 

The mentality seems to be to appeal to their older, wealthier customers,  but it may very well price others out of the market. Even the lower cost of entry level products seem overpriced for what you actually get. I think the UK hobby needs a bit of a shake up but we may well see other retailers struggling in the coming year. 

[disturbman]

1 hour ago, Kamome said:

The mentality seems to be to appeal to their older, wealthier customers,  but it may very well price others out of the market. Even the lower cost of entry level products seem overpriced for what you actually get. I think the UK hobby needs a bit of a shake up but we may well see other retailers struggling in the coming year.

Same as for other European models, at least on the N scale market. Models are mostly aimed at older, wealthier customers with unnecessary functions becoming the norm (DCC+Sound, raisable pantographs, etc). The European brands are forgetting to make affordable DC locomotives and are almost exclusively focusing on nostalgia items. I have said it before, but if I hadn't discovered Japanese model trains, I would never had come back to the hobby. The European models are just too expensive for younger/less wealthy modellers.

I think the part about "changing demographics" in their FAQ explaining their reason for closing made a lot of us laugh, and not in a good way.

[Tuga]

The reality is that since the death of the previous owner, Hattons has been losing the plot, service has not been what it used to be, stock levels fallen and prices risen.

 

We are living through tough times, but Hattons made huge mistakes that made them more vulnerable.

 

They recently moved, to a very big warehouse with associated overheads (rent, insurance, etc).

Then decided to go head-to-head with Bachmann, because of the 00 Class 66 which Bachmann was also producing. Obviously Bachmann decided not to supply them anymore. This was their biggest miscalculation.
Being downgraded by Hornby's was another big blow.

 

A business like Hattons that needs cash-flow, but it's not capable of supply their customers (especially in N) can't survive to long.

It's sad to see them close, but I have to say I am not overly surprised.

 

Unfortunately other's will follow.

Edited January 10 by Tuga

[cteno4]

Well it won’t be total simplicity here. Within the USA there will be individual state and county sales taxes to deal with potentially (and limits for e@chnstate can differ), and taxes vary. But good news is that these are automated with most online systems now. Similar international collection of taxes may also happen if they don’t happen with traditional customs duty at the boarder.
 

International shipping will be expensive though, it’s really gone up here dramatically (as it has elsewhere). Also the new customs forms are a bit onerous to do and have been one of the reasons shops in the us have terminated doing overseas shipping. Maybe they have streamlined it for businesses, but I have not heard that. I’ve given up trying to do it online as system sucks and then they type much of the info back in at the post by hand!

 

Also not sure if demographics will be a whole lot different here as well as the hobby is aimed at older, more financially flush modelers as well. Even Ttrak which is aimed at being more economical, for smaller households, and to attract younger audiences is not all that keen on more inexpensive options. Competition is also going up on the Internet side as more of the shops that had traditional mail order have beefed up their presence there with more professional systems as the brick and mortar has faded for them. New owners and moving the shop will also probably cause some cautiousness on the part of customers with Klein’s as well.

 

jeff

[Claude_Dreyfus]

To be honest, the last time I used Hattons was to sell some second-hand items. Since my move to Japanese N, and subsequent German/Austrian H0, my interactions with them have been pretty minimal.

 

For many years they, along with Rails of Sheffield, Kernow and Gaugemaster, have been the 'big boy' retailers in the UK. They have diversified, their RTR offerings have been well-received, and expanded; but there have been issues. Their well-publicised spat with Bachmann did not help, but overall the general change to the market is no doubtthe key factor.

 

Hobby shops have struggled in the UK over the last couple of decades. Hobbyzone most notably going bust a few years ago. The overall market has been squeezed by manufacturers such as Hornby scaling back on retailers, as well as smaller producers offering targeted models directly (Revolution for example) , or through limited or exclusive retailers (Rails of Sheffield being a notable player in this respect).

 

I do wonder if Hattons were maybe not as innovative as they could have been? Expansion is one option, but sadly that does not seem to have worked. It is worth emphasising they have not gone bust. They are still solvent, but are calling it a day. Maybe the writing was on the wall and this was the most sensible way to finish things.  

 

Is it a shock? Not sure, even if it will send shock-waves across the hobby, but personally I am not surprise one of the big players have struggled and Hattons seemed to me to be more vulnerable than others (not a wholesaler like Gaugemaster, or as diverse in their business as Rails, but still a large player with large overheads). Will it happen to more shops? Almost certainly. Internet shopping has contracted the market, but other factors such as less disposable income will have a wider impact on the hobby worldwide. This won't be the last model shop to disappear. 

 

As always, there is the human element, and my thoughts are with the staff impacted by this. 

[beakaboy]

3 hours ago, Claude_Dreyfus said:

 

 

As always, there is the human element, and my thoughts are with the staff impacted by this. 

Totally feel for the staff. Alot of business closures or redundancies seem to happen around xmas/ new year period  

[cteno4]

Yes hopefully there was handwriting on the walls for them and not a very rude shock.

 

jeff

[Cat]

I haven't bought from Hattons in a long long time.  Sporadic purchases from the UK tend to be the N Gauge Society shop, PECO, or Rails of Sheffield.

[railsquid]

23 hours ago, Kamome said:

Their used items, even beaten up, were still very expensive and I wonder if they expanded too quickly after the sales increases during lockdown.

 

The thing with their used items is that the good stuff often went very quickly after they put it online each day, and what's left is mainly the overpriced junk. Though I feel the last couple of years weren't so good in terms of what they had and the prices they were charging.

(I acquired a lot of my UK stock and a fair bit of German stuff 2nd hand from Hattons, particularly post-2016, and it helped that they put the new items up around the time of my late afternoon coffee break).

[chadbag]

I read they didn'' get stock in before Christmas and couldn't fulfill Christmas orders and that killed their cash flow.  Just what a UK person said in another forum.  I don't relaly know.  But the US arm is supposedly continuing (whatever the MB Klein will be called in Nebraska).

[Welshbloke]

On 1/11/2024 at 6:21 AM, railsquid said:

 

The thing with their used items is that the good stuff often went very quickly after they put it online each day, and what's left is mainly the overpriced junk. Though I feel the last couple of years weren't so good in terms of what they had and the prices they were charging.

(I acquired a lot of my UK stock and a fair bit of German stuff 2nd hand from Hattons, particularly post-2016, and it helped that they put the new items up around the time of my late afternoon coffee break).

 

They had a big clearout of used stock before Xmas. Which mostly meant items at sane prices rather than the "only marginally less than a brand new one" levels they had been at. I bought a good handful of odds and ends I otherwise wouldn't have (Fleischmann, some Minitrix, Atlas and Micro Trains).

 

IMO their worst offence on used pricing was asking only slightly less than new prices for a damaged model, often one spare parts simply don't exist for. I don't mind mending and even fabricating parts I can't simply replace, but the asking prices were such that by the time you'd bought the model and such spares as you could find you'd spent the same as a fresh from the box new example with a guarantee. And at the same time you knew the people selling to them were seeing only a tiny percentage of what you were paying.

[brill27mcb]

And now the other shoe has dropped.  modeltrainstuff.com has unexpectedly closed down, too.

 

Rich K.

[bill937ca]

That was fast.     https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/

 

We regret to inform you that MB Klein Inc. (Model Train Stuff) has now ceased trading. 

Thank you for your custom and support over our incredible 111 years of continuous operation. 

[tossedman]

Apparently Hatton's bought MB Klein last year and dragged it down with them when they went out of business.

[cteno4]

Very sad to see that last bit of kliens go down. It was our local go to store (even with an hour drive). we would take club trips over to dig around even though not much in Japanese stuff usually, it was just fun being in a big model train store! When they moved out to the fairgrounds from downtown they sold us a pile of greenmax structure kits for a great deal. The old downtown store was so great as it was crammed to the gills with stuff with isles just wide enough to walk down but not bend over facing a shelf! Stuff floor to ceiling. The new store out at the fairgrounds was very roomy so not the same charm but even more stock out on display. 
 

Klein’s was apparently in trouble before being bought, so probably a shaky deal all around.

 

jeff

[Welshbloke]

And they've gone. As of 2pm this afternoon (GMT).

 

I've been running the Atlas/Kato BN U25B which was one of my last orders from them (just over a month ago).