Walther's sells at more than 40% higher than us

For all those that are receiving the WALTHERS FLYER on the Mail, due the incorrect and unauthorized violating privacy use of the Marklin Club mailing list, to try to take advantage offering all sort of products including all those that we and many of the Marklin Dealers also carry, it is a good idea to compare the prices they have against ours.

In a review of the "SPECIAL PRICE" they show on the last Flyer April 2009 (sale ends 05-31-09 they say) we have found that ALL the products we also carry such as:
Faller, Vollmer, Preiser, Wiking, Bush, Noch are priced way above 40% from our listed price in our web site www.rocousa.com

Marklin and Trix are also offered DIRECTLY to end users, so now we have a new competitor.

But we can rest easy because their prices are way above 20 to 30% higher than ours.
For example a 37187 set for $ 559.99 when our price is just $ 397.23 what about that ah?
A 43614 for $ 149.99 when our price is $ 110.27
A 46329 for $ 144.99 when our price is $ 117.39

So this is just a confirmation of what I have being saying for many years: Walthers does not care for Dealers and much less for users. They want the pealed potato and that's it.

They always fought against Dealers trying to buy direct with the argument that we had advantage over Distributors, well, they are doing the same selling direct to end users, and unfortunately, every day it is a new idiot on the street that believes Walthers is the God of the Trains and will buy from them instead of searching where to buy the same item for a lot less.

Oh well, an other day

Big jump of Euro against Dollar

Today we had a big jump of the Euro against the US Dollar.
These are not good news and those who say they know about currencies, are saying that Euro will be even more stronger, what will have as a result, new higher prices for all those items imported from Europe.

As many have noticed, some items have arrived previously to this rise and can see that for those items we got, the prices were adjusted lower, so we keep our word to try to have the best price possible within the range of our possibilities.

To help a little bet, we have not increased our prices on all what we have in stock, so you may take advantage of those very low prices.

Marklin announces more cancelations

Marklin Germany officially has notified on March 6, 2009 that many items from the regular line pending from 2008 and many of the 2009 new items, are canceled so they will not- be made.
Please reed (in German only but understandable) the official letter HERE

This includes products from Marklin, Trix, Minitrix, 4MFOR and LGB.

This is funny; they just got LGB and already canceling what have not done yet.

Any way, as we said before, this is just an announcement of the problems that we will face ahead.

In honor of the truth

We have received notice from Brenda at Marklin Inc. that the decision to discontinue some Starter Sets from the 2009 program was not a Walther's issue but a Marklin GmbH.
Here is copy e-mail we received from Brenda (blue text) answering our concerns about these starter sets being available in Germany:

Dear William,

The factory discontinued the starter sets. We got an email from the factory and we worked with Walther's to get the announcement out to the dealers here.

Perhaps the factory’s sales department hasn’t notified the dealers in Germany yet? That would be strange because Jeff said he saw it mentioned in a German newspaper article.

Anyway, Walther's would never discontinue something on their own. Even if there is an order for one item they will order it if the factory has it.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Best regards,

Brenda

Marklin cancelling items from 2009 new items program

Marklin announced cancellation of production of some 2009 new items.

It is not clear if the cancellations announced by Walther's refer only to Starter Sets with 110 volts transformers used to be sold in USA only or if the announced products will be completely removed from the new items 2009 program.

If they are removed from Walther's only, then this mean the poor response Dealers had ordering anything trough Walther's and we can guess, that the rest of the program also has not good response from North American Dealers and pre-orders to Walther's are weak.

If these items have been removed from the program at Factory, then this means trouble on the horizon. Today a few Starter sets tomorrow who knows.

The items canceled now are all Starter sets, HO and 1 gauge plus all the starter sets by Minitrix.
Only one starter set by Minitrix was left that uses batteries instead of transformer.

ITEMS REMOVED ARE:
29011
29019
29150
29181
29477
29482
29757
55038
55039
T11127
T11128
T11487

In the troubles Marklin GmbH faces due the bankruptcy procedure, rumors from reliable sources say that Mr. Putta (the Trustee named to handle the bankruptcy) is negotiating with ALL the shipping Companies in Germany to avoid those Companies to seize merchandise sent by Marklin to their Customers in an effort to get paid for the debt that Marklin has with ALL the shippers in Germany.

This is grave. Shipments are being delayed when they are more needed. Marklin has to find a solution to this matter fast or recovery may be in jeopardy.

But this situation also has proven how weak is the stock at Walther's, as many of the most common parts and accessories are not in stock or not in enough quantities.

Rolling stock is imported in very low quantities, so if we [Dealers in USA] need 10 cars, maybe we can get 1 or 2 and all others go to back orders that take for ever.

Marklin will not disappear that's a fact. Someone will take care of the Company. Several entities have advanced interest in the Company including (rumor) Veissmann, the manufacturer of signals, catenary and electronic accessories including digital components and that is a strong industrial power as they also produce other products not related to Hobbies that allow them having the resources needed to take care of the Company.

But what is certain, is the immense list of products that have been discontinued at Marklin GmbH.

Just take a tour at http://www.maerklin.de/produkte/frontend/index.php and type a number 3 only on the search window (this will display all items starting by 3 that are of course all the locomotives) you may also type a 4 for cars.

Check it out, how many red lights are in the results and how many green. Less than 3% is green and those 2009 new items appear with yellow light. It is clear that reduction is profound and that very few items will be left on the regular program or will be reissued under new numbers maybe with new decoders or something like it.

Check number 7 and you will see that half the products for catenary are not available. Why? Maybe because Manufacturer of it (same who makes it for Viessmann) has not been paid, who knows why.

We hope this will be over soon and that we will be able to return to normality as the panic this has caused, made many Customers to place nervous orders of material they maybe do not need, or at least, not in the quantity they have ordered lately.

We will do our best to keep pace with the orders we receive and our stock is well balanced, but as everything in life, it might get a point where there is no more of a particular item. We can not guarantee supply for ever if we can not get shipments from Germany and by now, they are delayed. We ask for patience. This will resolve good.