5 complete E5 Shinkansens for sale from Seattle, WA

[cteno4]

we are forgetting SAL here. its as cheap priority mail for smaller packages if you can wait two weeks. yes it does not have tracking or insurance, but i have never had one in over 200 packages go poof yet.

 

I guess the main question is how close can you get the price to japanese street price? to get close would mean you would need to get down near the bottom of the distribution channel to get a price low enough to cover export costs and your resale costs and profit. i think it will be really tough to do that, but more power to you if you can approach that.

 

if costs were close then the speed of delivery would really help with much cheaper priority mail vs ems shipping costs.

 

again i think this type of business plan will require a premium cost or 10-30% to buy from w/in the us and get local, priority mail shipping. but you may have a good market of folks there that just dont want to order from japan and are willing to pay a small premium for this. plazajapan use to run about 10-20% higher than HS and HW total cost (usually close to list price and higher sal charges), but many bought from him because it was thru ebay and all in english with paypal payment thru ebay. i think it gave many a big comfort. btw plazajapan's prices for somethings gets low as he does not seem to change his dollar prices much or often when the yen shifts higher.

 

we talk to a lot of folks at the train shows when we have the jrm layout there and how to get the trains is a big stumbling block for newbies. they are use to running down to the local hobby shop or web site to grab stuff. having to order from japan usually gets you a concerned look. even when you talk through how easy and safe it is and its more reliable than many us based web operations, many are still a bit set back. its a hard step for the newbie to take ordering from a foreign web site as well as having to dish out their cc to an overseas company (even though they are just as protected as using their cc at a local store). paypal is a mixed bag, some like that option, others have had bad experiences with paypal.

 

so im thinking that perhaps the best market to shoot for to start an operation like this would be to aim for the newbies. make it easy to get started in the hobby and as affordable as possible. this will limit the inventory you will need to carry some and give you a customer group to focus on (best to have one, main customer group to start a venture on as you can focus your efforts on them, many try to spread themselves too thin and end up being of little use to anyone). newbies will probably be willing to pay a bit more if they know you are focused on serving them and willing to answer questions and have some good solutions for them to get started. web sites are perfect for allowing you to have some getting started info. they will not be as aware of the routes to get stuff a bit cheaper and probably will not want to go those routes until they are more comfortable with the hobby. that part of the crowd that always wants the cheapest price is a no go anyway as they will be willing to go over any hurdle to shave off a few percent, so not worth worrying about them as you will go out of business trying to satisfy them i think.

 

more advanced users are going to be your difficult market to make happy. they usually know all the ways to get things and prices and ups and downs of each option. they may come to you if you were to have smaller things they needed fast and was prohibitive to order a small item from japan (ie finetrak), but even then most of us that are into the hobby are usually posting a order to japan every few weeks so we just wait and throw it into the next order (if you have the patience!). trying to stock or special order stuff for the more advanced users could be hard.

 

the most prime area that even advanced users have is parts. if you could provide special ordering for parts easily you might have a good business there with the advanced users as there are not magic bullets for that currently. downside is that most parts are pretty cheap items so the profit per item is pretty low for the special work it will take you to do them. does get you good will and hopefully that might be repaid by them ordering better profit items from you to pay you back later (i know i have done that with sources that have done something nice like ordering a part for me and i then buy something i know they will make a buck on to pay them back even if its not the best deal for me). shipping is usually the issue with parts as well as if it comes sal its like $14 minimum for ems. you can use small packet air mail which is really cheap (ie small envelopes, not SAL), but its not the normal shipping route for suppliers. one idea would be to just do a shipment every two weeks sal or ems to bundle a bunch of parts coming over to save on the shipping costs, then redistribute them in the use via first class to keep those costs down. again i think even advanced modelers would be willing to pay a premium for parts and even wait a while if they knew you could get them the particular part. it would all depend, though, on your sources in japan and how much labor you were willing to put into this...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Tecchan]

Just saw a Kato Portram in a shop in Geneva: roughly 19'000¥.

Now, THAT'S expensive (8500¥ on HobbySearch)...

[cteno4]

one small thought hit me on the importing japanese trains that has come up in the past and that is what about service/warrantees? most japanese train manufacturers say pretty much out of luck if you buy outside japan. Kato will sometimes do a little thru KatoUSA but thats really fickle. Many non japanese collectors that have bought a japanese kato train in the past here in the states when KatoUSA has brought over some have not gotten much satisfaction at times for repair or even parts and really gotten upset with kato and screamed long and hard on the lists (ie not good for business). microace and modemo are especially tough as they sell no spare parts and only take returns for repair from w/in japan.

 

this brings up the point that the newbie crowd is going to probably be the most demanding group to have to support for repairs and replacements and going to maybe expect it to happen quick, free/cheap, and easy. the more advanced crowd will probably be more use to this issue than newbies, but have the other issues of expecting a lot larger product range and lower prices...

 

sorry dont mean to be a wet rag, you seemed to want all the issues brought out into the open for discussion so i have kept this churning in the back of my mind for all the issues that have been brought up around here at jrm when we have discussed this. i really applaud you for attempting to do this and hope to support the effort where ever i can!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[clem24]

To be honest, it's a business. You can run your business how you see fit. Most of the points that i have have already been discussed. For myself, I think the only real profitable way to run a business selling Japanese trains in North America is to sell them at a higher cost to the newbie crowd as a niche product (say at trade shows, etc...). There's just not enough sales volume to be able to deliver the product at a price that either undercuts or even equals resellers from Japan. At least that's from what I gather.

 

I think your business on this forum will definitely be a tough sell. I went through some of your train auctions and most of the stuff can be easily gotten, and at lower prices. For example, your Tomix Tsubame set is going for $100. If it was brand new, I think you might have a chance but it's, in my eyes, severely damaged. $100 is the same price that HS is offering on a brand new set on pre-order. If you got this stuff relatively cheap, my advice would be to put it all up on auction, starting at $1. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how many people will bid on it (vs. using buy it now). And there are MANY occasions when I've seen bids top a previously BIN listing, on the exact same item.

 

Also because you're not an official dealer for any of the major brands, I can't see how you can offer any kind of "servicing" model that won't bleed money. I mean, aside from refunding money for a defective train, I can't see what kind of service you can offer, other than taking it back and maybe trying to fix it yourself. But without an abundance of spare parts, not sure what you can offer here.

 

In any case, I am not trying to be offensive, but looking at this realistically. I think your price on the E5 train set is actually quite competitive, but *only* if I can pick it up locally (and I've thought about it but I just don't want the E5 bad enough at the moment hahahah). Otherwise the cost from PlazaJapan and HS is cheaper and if anything, he can probably actually offer service on the model.

 

My 2 cents...

[rpierce000]

clem24 - We are in the BIN format on eBay instead of auctions due to their fee structure. It is VERY cost prohibitive to list things that do not sell repetitively. Our used items we generally try to mark down from HS prices, new ones we try to match.

 

Yes, much of our stuff is not hard to get. We are not claiming our stuff is "RARE" unless it is sold out at the online retailers. Rare to us means you can't just go buy one. I would love to use another set of words, but you only have 100 characters in a title.

[rpierce000]

We intend to honor all service and warranty issues. We will be stocking and selling parts. We know that these two things are where we make a lot of money, but we do see it as an integral part of becoming a quality retailer.

 

When we start to stock parts I intend to start with the power train and then move to detail parts. Are there other types of parts that you find yourself needing on a regular basis?  Personally I keep breaking the $%#&& pantographs on my personal collection, so I have a box of them I keep to do replacements.

[rpierce000]

Tomix track is in the plans. We intend to pull over at least five of each of the pieces, but not the sets. Do you find yourselves buying the sets or the pieces more regularly? When you buy is it one or two pieces for a need or a bunch for a new part of or complete layout?

 

We just got in some Wide Tram track. PM me if you want a list before they go up on eBay, the JNS forum discount will be 20% on presales.

[keitaro]

I've found the sets to be more popular as works out cheaper as long as it fits your plan.

 

Single track is always necessary though to fill in those missing pieces from the set.

[cteno4]

We intend to honor all service and warranty issues. We will be stocking and selling parts. We know that these two things are where we make a lot of money, but we do see it as an integral part of becoming a quality retailer.

 

When we start to stock parts I intend to start with the power train and then move to detail parts. Are there other types of parts that you find yourself needing on a regular basis?  Personally I keep breaking the $%#&& pantographs on my personal collection, so I have a box of them I keep to do replacements.

 

rpierce,

 

wow thats great. i dont see how you can make a lot of money on parts or warrantee stuff though, but more power to you if you can!

 

service will be integral if you deal with newbies, parts for the more advanced users. yes power train stuff is the stuff that tends to blow out the most (and be the most critical to having a functional train) drive shafts, trucks, motors. then its the pantographs and diaphragm connectors that tend to break next. finally its the little detail parts, but those tend to be the hardest to find...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Tomix track is in the plans. We intend to pull over at least five of each of the pieces, but not the sets. Do you find yourselves buying the sets or the pieces more regularly? When you buy is it one or two pieces for a need or a bunch for a new part of or complete layout?

 

We just got in some Wide Tram track. PM me if you want a list before they go up on eBay, the JNS forum discount will be 20% on presales.

 

ive always done individual track as i sort of know what i want to do first and buy the track to do that, sets have never had what i really needed except for the kato double viaduct oval set, but that was very early on and a very good deal.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Most of my track is separate parts, I only have 1 set. Like many others, the sets usually don't contain what I need, so even if they are cheaper, they still end up being more expensive because I'm not using half of it. The exceptions would be stuff like elevated station sets, and probably elevated track in general.

 

Spare parts is always difficult. Many of the things often needed aren't available as spare parts (hand rails that snap, pins for driving rods of a steamer, stuff like that), but some common things are replacement couplers, traction tires and motors to a certain extent. What's also often hard to get (or at least, often sold out at HS) are Tomix interior light kits. Tomix doesn't seem to manufacture them constantly, but rather at 3-4 month intervals..

[The_Ghan]

For Tomix track I usually buy sets and fill in the blanks with loose parts.  I don't buy sets if I'm going to have more than a couple of pieces left over.  I recently bought 8 x 1092 - 10 x 280mm straight track.  Very handy for stations and sidings.  I needed 2 x left hand and right hand curved points but chose not to buy the set because I didn't want all the other parts.

 

Here's another idea: a friend of mine runs a D&D gaming shop in the suburbs of Sydney.  I was sure he was going to go broke, but instead he made a killing.  Selling D&D related books, cards, models and figures was only part of his plan.  He set up a gaming club and hosted gaming nights, afternoons and even competitions.  He added drinks and snacks.  Then he set up a workshop room where he ran classes on just about everything D&D related from painting your figures to finer points of rules, building uber characters etc.  In the end, he sold the business for around 8 times what he put into it and drew a respectable salary all the while.

 

Perhaps this expanded business model might assist.  Start your own club.  Offer a club layout.  Do the road trips for shows.  Run classes on airbrushing ( I'm hopeless), model making, scratch building, etc.  In short, make your business THE place to be.  I know I'm on the other side of the world, but I don't think anyone has done that in the US yet.

 

Just my tuppence worth!

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[cteno4]

the club idea or model nights or a come and play layout (even if just track set up on tables) is a great way to get more folks interested and buying. only rub will be finding enough people in what ever area you are in (seattle?) to make a go of it. in the US it seems like the only density of japanese modelers currently is here in the DC area and in the SF bay area and even then its only a dozen or so that are currently on the radar. im sure there are more and a lot of potential newbies, its trying to find them and get connected with them.

 

we keep hoping that our club layout at events will grab more newbie eyes to want to come play, but even though a lot of people get excited, it only turns into a member or two a year. may be a chicken and the egg thing where if its not easy to get the trains that is just enough to keep them away. we offer folks to contact us with questions and we can help them get started with where and how to buy etc and on the web site we try to show a lot of different things folks are doing with japanese rail modeling so hopefully the newbie can find a direction they may be interested in. eventually we hope to do some beginner how to articles, but good content takes a lot of time to develop and its hard to get lots of folks to develop content like this! we also dont do a lot of just 'club' train events that might help newbies come and learn, but those also take a lot of effort and a small group can only muster so much effort -- its a fine line between burnout and fun...

 

a good website with lots of beginner info can help do the same thing as a club to give some advice to get started. the internet is a good way to put up a flare for those looking for it, but unfortunately its not so great at localizing people, its a wide net. to localize you need advertising (gets expensive fast) or publicity (usually only comes with a rolling ball). the forum here is a good community for nebies to get involved with, but again its pretty distributed.

 

perhaps contacting some of the local train clubs to see if anyone there is interested in japanese trains at all and offer to help? you would have to be careful to not look like you were trying to poach members, but perhaps help set up a sub interest group within the club?

 

creating a show layout could be a good way to get eyeballs. the JRM layout really gets a lot of attention at train shows and non train events. we do get a lot of folks asking us if we sell trains. at local shows we can have a couple of tables for members to sell off excess stuff. the japanese stuff moves pretty slowly, but usually its not the newbie 0, 500,700, etc stuff out there or lots of simple track sets and buildings, so i dont know if that stuff would fly off the table if we did have it or not. our first layout was all unitrak set up on the fly. took a lot of work to set up and break down, but it was an amazing selling point for what you could do on your dining room table as a newbie! also tomytec buildings and vehicles are also a great selling point for newbies due to cost and simplicity of assembly. the first layout also was mostly perceived scenery with construction paper to create different scenery effects of roads, dirt, grass, cement and buildings and vehicles just plunked down. it really showed what you could do fast and simply (and the japanese temporary layout concept as well) and again really attracted the newbie's attention. only down side to these shows is that they cost money to go into as a dealer and are a lot of work. also a good chunk of money and time to create your show layout.

 

the one dealer that usually would bring a good stock of the more japanese greenmax, tomix, and kato buildings to train shows usually sold them out at each show (a little to us, but mainly to the rest of the crowd) as the other dealers would only have a smattering of the real plain jane stuff.

 

best of luck!

 

jeff

[keitaro]

Ghan don't suppose that is tin soldier in penrith ??

 

That guy does same thing seem to be making a killing to me. But they have a larger customer base the model railroads In aus.

 

Bunch of ppl from my work do warhammer / mordeheim.

 

Having said that I think it would be possible to get more ppl in us than here into that.

[cteno4]

Having said that I think it would be possible to get more ppl in us than here into that.

 

actually australia seems to have the biggest localized group that does stuff together with the australian model railways group in melbourne. i think they have over 20 people and was growing from last i heard.

 

biggest issues in doing some sort of group thing is finding a place to meet and where will you get your track to start out... then its finding people.

 

rich kerr and rich cook have been very successful in finding a small group of (some converted) japanese modelers in the philly area here by branching off from the east penn traction club. they have meets about every month on a weekend in a great multipurpose room for folks to set up whatever they want on tables to run and play. i wish they were closer to dc!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[The_Ghan]

Keitaro,

 

Nope!  Burwood.  It is now owned by GoodGames www.goodgames.com.au - and my friend now works for Hasbro, the company that holds the rights to D&D.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[rpierce000]

Guys, I will be honest with you, I need to sell at least a couple of these E5's this month. Make me a reasonable offer and I will consider it.  Only 10 car units, please.

 

Bob