Walthers lowers prices to Dealers for Marklin, Trix, 4MFOR new items 2009

After we posted our complain for high prices from Walther's to USA Dealers, we have just received the following letter from them:

"February 13Th, 2009

Dear Marklin Dealer:

Given recent dealer feedback on our 2009 Marklin new item pricing and the volatility in exchange rates, Walther's and Märklin GmbH would like to announce that we have reviewed our pricing and have lowered them to close the gap with pricing in Germany.

Attached are updated order forms for each of the new item product groups. Over the course of the next couple of days we will be working to update our system with this new pricing.

Please be sure to get all of your new item orders to Walther's by February 28th., 2009 to earn your early order discount. [added by us: (3% is the discount, same in Germany so this is not any extra advantage)]

We value your business and hope this new pricing addresses some of the issues you have brought to our attention.

Sincerely,

Kevin Copsey
VP of Sales
Walthers"

Well, this is the proof that what we said was correct [Walther's prices are well over 35% to 40% higher than Factories to Dealers in rest of World] and that we had the reason about Walther's returning to their policy of high markups to Dealers, however, the new prices are still not good.

I will recognize that Kevin Copsey is very concerned about all this and that he is trying to do his best, he listens to us but the policies at Walther's is what is wrong. One person can do nothing there.

Walther's has reduced about 10% to 12% the old published Dealer purchase price for new items 2009 but this is still too high compared with the prices in Europe to Dealers there. Starter sets are not included on this reduction and juust a few bucks were discounted, not even worth to mention it.

However, they have announced the prices for LGB and here AGAIN we have the 30 to 36% gap.
Why they don't lower all the rest of regular products in the same percentage, why only new items 2009 from Marklin, Trix and 4MFOR?

We can not trust Walther's and I ask for a campaign to avoid buying ANYTHING from them as all is overpriced.

They tried to sell us at that high price. If it wasn't because we complained and spoke with them, we will still have the original price. This is not right. Why we need to complain to get better price? why they must have these high margin?

Even when I'm on risk to be singled out and even removed from my dealership at Marklin, I will keep fighting against Distributors greedy that only makes our products a lot more expensive and harder to sell.

This year of uncertainty and heavy recession, we can not tolerate this unfair practices that deepens our concerns and possibilities to stay alive in business.

It is not fair either that one person must fight as I do to get a small piece of bread.

Food is for all and must be at the same price and in the same quantity. I agree with scales of prices based in volume of purchases, but the base price must be the same for all.

What Micro Macro Mundo has done since 1994 in benefit of the collectors is well known. Always trying to get the best price and conditions not only for Customers but for our Competitor Dealers that take benefit or our work without any danger or risk on their part.

But this will also end. I'm sick of be getting things for others. From now on, or you join the fight for Factory Direct Sales or you are OUT of my fight, now I'll be fighting for my self only.

This discount will benefit all Dealers, not to us as we do not buy new items at Walther's, so enjoy now and at least have the decency to recognize what we do for you [Dealers]

Prices for new items 2009 posted

Prices for Marklin, Trix, Minitrix and 4MFOR new items 2009 have been posted.

We have listed the "Retail Price" set by Walther's and our price as "Our Special Sale Price" that is what we will charge you for pre-orders placed NOW until end of February 2009.

The price will be in force if Euro fluctuates between 1.28 and 1.32 per US Dollar.

If Euro goes under 1.28 at release date, then we will recalculate the price at the rate at that time and price will be lowered in US Dollars accordingly. Same will be done in the other way if Euro goes over 1.32 per US Dollar.

We have listed prices for 4MFOR and those are our pre-order prices. We do not have any Retail Price set for those products, so the price you see is the price you will pay (exception made on exchange rates as above explained).

If you have any doubt, we will be happy to give you the price in Euros that is FIX. The price is Euros will not change if Marklin does not change prices.

On September 1st. Marklin has announced an increase on prices across the board, so all items will rise.

Marklin Bankruptcy

Sad news.
On February 3rd. 2009 Marklin GmbH, the owner of Trix, Marklin, 4MFOR and LGB, declared insolvency after a 50 million Euros loan was denied by the Banks in Germany to the Firm based on concerns about many changes too often in the High Management of the Company among others issues.

Based on this, the Company had no choice than file for what is the equivalent to chapter 11 in USA (Bankruptcy protection).

At just 2 days from the opening of the Nuremberg Toy Fair, this news were like a earthquake shaking the Industry, as many other manufacturers are also concerned on the future of the Industry if Marklin disappears.

Employees have been working without being paid for more than one Month, what also made the things worst as unions are pressuring the management (completely ineffective as we have said in many occasions) to take the measures needed to rescue the Firm from imminent total Bankruptcy.

As we said 3 years ago, repeated 2 years ago and also said past year on each Toy Fair, the Management of Marklin GmbH was inadequate, completely uneducated on Train Businesses and what was worst for us, completely ignorant of Global Markets as they are now.

We have the proof in our hands: The meltdown of the market in USA and the deep recession we are in has not been avoided by the rest of the Globe. It is clear that we started this thing in USA and now, is a Global problem.

So why Marklin did not see that they had to take care of their business in exports to other Countries and have a UNIVERSAL price, same conditions for everyone and avoid having "Distributors" that only make the product more expensive without any need and consequently, makes it more difficult for Dealers to sell it and results in lower sales that are the same than lower purchases to Marklin GmbH and end on this bankruptcy?

Because a President that knows about "perfumes" can not understand about Trains (first of all, perfumes are more focused to women than men when Trains are more focused to men than woman), and one export manager that have no idea where each Country is located, how many people live on each Country nor what is the potential of one of the biggest Markets in Earth, the United Sates of North America and Canada.

This individual is the artisan, along with Fred Gates, the ex-president of Marklin Inc. of this mess in USA and the naming of Walther's trains as their Distributor exclusive in USA for Marklin, Trix, 4Mfor and now LGB.

Well, this year, if Dealers are still forced to buy at Walther's, the markup for Dealers compared against what a German Dealer pays in Germany is an average of 40% higher that guess what, will be passed to our Customers.

Is this fair? Is this something that can solve the problems of Marklin or will deepen them as less purchases based on less sales will occur ?

This is what the management of Marklin has not seen and has never liked to ear from me. That they are wrong keeping Distributors in USA that we do not need and that make those huge margins. (Marklin Inc. was also a marker up on an average of 28%)

Same as those CEO's that have taken money from the bailout Government has given to them to only pay them self huge amount in the million of Dollars as bonuses and parties for the worst performance they never had. (see AIG, see Ford, see GM, see anyone you like, all are the same)

So where we go now? TO HELL

I will keep an eye on the latest news to be posted here, but this posting must stay for history:

Marklin GmbH will not survive if does not take measures logical with the actual market. some of them in my opinion are:

1.-Global Pricing
2.-Stop forcing German Dealers to have a Store in Store: they are Marklin Dealers and NOT furniture show rooms.
3.-Open Factory Direct Purchases for any Dealer that likes to buy direct at the same price than German Dealers.
4.- Close Marklin Inc. A waist of money for nothing. (sooner or later it will happen anyway)
5.- Remove all Distributors around the World if they can not sell at the same price Marklin GmbH does to Germans.
6.- Do not force Dealers and Customers to buy set of tons of cars not needed. Better make one car at the time than sets of 20 or that many "trains" with bunch of cars no body wants.
7.- Forget the "collectability" of any item. Since eBay exists, there is no More "collectibles" so why to produce hot items in short quantity. Make them available as many as Dealers order.
8.- Create new items, do not repeat same item again and again just with a new road number.
10.- Fire all those "consultants": that have proven as we predicted, not to have any idea of anything other than huge bills to Marklin.
11.- Fire Fred Gates as "consultant". We do not need a consultant that did what he did in USA.
12.- Met with your Dealers that are they who knows what people want and how to do it and what can be sold and what don't.
13.- Do not compete against the Dealers selling all your products on line or at your own Stores.
14.- Stop Dealers Sales on eBay. This is hard to control I know it, but can be done if you police a little bet more eBay.
15.- Stop the BS of One Time Run when you know you will make them again and again. See 37993 it was supposed to be only 37990, but them came 37991 and later on 37992. Well now we have 37993 and in the future we will see many more of these if you survive.

16.- CALL ME. yes I have been always the fighter against the Goliaths in the Industry, but at least I have proven that I was not wrong.

(Next two points suggested by Mr. Peter Paul and they seems god points for us, so we publish them.)

17.- Make the Märklin catalogs available on their website as pdf's. Costs them nothing extra, it's fabulous marketing, and most people will buy a paper catalog anyway when it's convenient. I know, they earn a few bucks from selling catalogs, but they lose out on a lot of excitement and collector interest. Much modeling is impulse purchases, but with increasing web ordering rather than local shops, digital information is essential.

18.- improve the Märklin website with USEFUL technical information. List the type of motors (Ac/Dc, shield/clock/anchor) in each loco model so you know what components you can use to upgrade heritage pieces onto a digital lay-out, what is compatible with what (and what not), etc.

Numbers say the truth. Marklin may have had more sales in 2008 but were based in forcing Dealers to buy many sets that are still on the shelves and that will revert in less purchases/orders for new items in 2009. Do you want to bet that orders this years will be less than half?

Do not criticize my English. It is not my mother language. Better tell me where it is wrong to correct it.

New increase in shipping rates by FedEx and UPS

If we have not enough, a new increase average on 7% has been announced for shipping rates in USA by FedEx and other carriers.

I just don't get it. When the Country is sunk in a heavy recession, big Corporations keep rising prices without any reason other than the greed to make more money.

They need more money not for gas, not for employees as they are firing thousand of them, so why? To pay the big BONUSES to those CEO's good for nothing?

Try to get paid for a parcel damaged by them. I challenge you to try to get paid if they have damaged a parcel. They will say "IMPROPER PACKING" so no pay.

Improper packing, what a joke. WE send hundreds of parcels a week and one time to time is damaged, so how come not all our parcels are damaged?.

Any of our Customers that have received parcels from us knows how well pack are the products we ship, almost impossible to damage them, but FedEx and UPS manage to damage parcels.

O well, don't say anything. Stay at home quit. Accept all what these Corporations want and be happy with this unregulated freedom to Corporations. Pay for all their loses and mistakes (not talking about their thieves on front of them)

New Dealer Prices from Walthers for new items 2009 announced

Whoa.
Today we got the complete list of prices for New Items 2009 Marklin, Trix, Minitrix and 4MFOR that Walther's Trains will sell to North American Marklin Dealers.

Note that Marklin GmbH (Germany) has forced all the American and Canadian Dealers to buy trough Walther's Trains after they named them as their "Exclusive Distributor" for North America and Canada.

If you review my postings in our web site, you will find my predictions done a year ago, where I said "prices used by Walther's to USA Dealers in 2008 are just a laxative to keep Dealers shut up and to prevent a revolution among Dealers against Marklin Inc. and of course, against Fred Gates, the architect of all this mess, and try to say that Walther's was a fair and good decision for Marklin to name them "Exclusive""

Well, today I have the proof of what I said and AGAIN, I was right.

The prices Walther's has set for USA and Canadian Dealers for Marklin and Trix/Minitrix compared against the prices any German Dealer gets is a whooping average of 36% to 41% higher for USA and Canada Dealers.

One thing I do not understand, is that each item has a different percentage in its markup. It seems that they sell higher by what they believe it is a popular or nicer item thank those they believe are not that popular or not nicer.

Any way, this will kill almost 90% of the Dealers in USA that have no way to get merchandise from Germany, as they will not be able to compete against let's say Dealers such us [Micro Macro Mundo Inc.] and those other 3 big in USA and Canada.




We can sell (and we will) to end users LOWER than the price Walther's has set for Dealers.
Example: Our price for Marklin 36216 $ 132.81 Walther's price to Dealers $ 146.99 (Walther's offers a volume discount that can go to a maximum of 7% to Dealers based on Purchases on the previous years. Just very few have this amount. The most Dealers have just 2% to 4%. We had past year an 8% because of our larger purchases during 2007 direct from Marklin, that even with it, our buying price will be higher ($ 135.23) than our selling ($ 132.81) price if we buy from Walther's now.)

This is the same pattern they [Walther's] always had with all other products they carry such as Faller, Vollmer, Trix, Brawa, Preiser and many others, where the markup they have for Dealers is a minimum of 40% compared to the prices those same Factories sell to us Direct.

Of course, we have a factor unknown that is the exchange rate, however, all indicates that the cycle is going in our favor now and that the US Dollar will gain strength against the Euro very fast and maybe we will see soon Euros at $ 1.20 what will make even more attractive our prices.

We remain all our Customers and friends as well as SPIES that we price our products based in actual exchange rate at import time (release time for new items) and that we only make a very modest mark-up so all those that order "blind" from us get the advantage that they pay a fair price that will be set at shipping time and that can save them good bunch of money compared with those that pre-order at fix prices.

We can also have a pre-order price based in an exchange rate between a range, lets say between 1.28 and 1.33 Dollars per Euro but that will change in the same percentage that rate changes at release time if it goes over or under these rates.

We would like to have your opinion on this mater on how to price our products.

So be alert and have the eyes open to our new items for 23009 for Marklin and Trix Minitrix.

In the mean time, we demand to the new Management of Marklin GmbH to open again the Factory Direct program and have only one UNIVERSAL Price no matter what Country the Dealer might be.

We consider this measures and prices by Marklin and the Distributor to be a discrimination to all collectors on this Country as we, the Dealers, are forced to sell at higher prices than those in the rest of the World to only feed a Distributor that we do not need at all.

It is a fact now that repairs and spare parts can take several months before we get them back, that most of the new units damaged must be sent to Factory by the Tech Department of Walther's as they are unable to repair electronic boards and that is only be done every 3 month in average we were told.

We do not need this kind of service. WE can not deny that Walther's have done good progress in shipping in good conditions and protecting their packages and receiving stock from Factory faster, however, replenishing stock of regular items is an other story and they have NOTHING nor dates when they will get normal products back to stock.

This is damaging more our economics and our source of business and Marklin GmbH/Walther's must be liable for the lost of revenue of Dealers due their prices and policies.

List of Marklin New 2009 items

Click on the product number and will take you to a full page with picture and details.
You can also order if you like from there.
Orders received before March 1st. will enjoy a larger discount than anyone else ordering after that date.

Marklin 00773
Marklin 00774
Marklin 00776
Marklin 00778
Marklin 00788
Marklin 10110
Marklin 16064
Marklin 18103
Marklin 18145
Marklin 18146
Marklin 18310
Marklin 26551
Marklin 26552
Marklin 26553
Marklin 26555
Marklin 26556
Marklin 26590
Marklin 29011
Marklin 29015
Marklin 29019
Marklin 29150
Marklin 29161
Marklin 29181
Marklin 29477
Marklin 29482
Marklin 29534
Marklin 29610
Marklin 29757
Marklin 29791
Marklin 31859
Marklin 36216
Marklin 36422
Marklin 36600
Marklin 36601
Marklin 36602
Marklin 36650
Marklin 36741
Marklin 36742
Marklin 36743
Marklin 37023
Marklin 37052
Marklin 37097
Marklin 37193
Marklin 37225
Marklin 37226
Marklin 37256
Marklin 37268
Marklin 37269
Marklin 37308
Marklin 37309
Marklin 37320
Marklin 37321
Marklin 37334
Marklin 37335
Marklin 37356
Marklin 37416
Marklin 37501
Marklin 37502
Marklin 37503
Marklin 37546
Marklin 37556
Marklin 37575
Marklin 37626
Marklin 37671
Marklin 37723
Marklin 37732
Marklin 37940
Marklin 37941
Marklin 37993
Marklin 39012
Marklin 39013
Marklin 39110
Marklin 39123
Marklin 39140
Marklin 39182
Marklin 39230
Marklin 39235
Marklin 39390
Marklin 39403
Marklin 39404
Marklin 39502
Marklin 39682
Marklin 39803
Marklin 39836
Marklin 39836
Marklin 39971
Marklin 41321
Marklin 41730
Marklin 41874
Marklin 41875
Marklin 42229
Marklin 42230
Marklin 42250
Marklin 42251
Marklin 42260
Marklin 42269
Marklin 42652
Marklin 42653
Marklin 42654
Marklin 42726
Marklin 42954
Marklin 43500
Marklin 43501
Marklin 43550
Marklin 43808
Marklin 43809
Marklin 43818
Marklin 44198
Marklin 44199
Marklin 45097
Marklin 45250
Marklin 45260
Marklin 45649
Marklin 46206
Marklin 46303
Marklin 46331
Marklin 46341
Marklin 46455
Marklin 46541
Marklin 46618
Marklin 47012
Marklin 47017
Marklin 47041
Marklin 47070
Marklin 47071
Marklin 47072
Marklin 47562
Marklin 48009
Marklin 48159
Marklin 48719
Marklin 48811
Marklin 48948
Marklin 55038
Marklin 55039
Marklin 55332
Marklin 55563
Marklin 55641
Marklin 55962
Marklin 56190
Marklin 58156
Marklin 58165
Marklin 58166
Marklin 58167
Marklin 58206
Marklin 58364
Marklin 58625
Marklin 58689
Marklin 60128
Marklin 72150
Marklin 72796
Marklin 72797
Marklin 72798
Marklin 78051
Marklin 78054
Marklin 78150
Marklin 78151
Marklin 78157
Marklin 78158
Marklin 78159
Marklin 80020
Marklin 80319
Marklin 81441
Marklin 81450
Marklin 82100
Marklin 82356
Marklin 82624
Marklin 86201
Marklin 86571
Marklin 88300
Marklin 88610
Marklin 88632
Marklin 88888
Marklin 88999

Marklin 2009 New Items announced

Marklin has just announced and we have published the list of new items for 2009. It also includes Trix and Minitrix.

You can follow the links to "New Items 2009" and browse this magnificent new items.

Highlights on Marklin are a new Big Boy item # 37993 and the release of item # 31859 containing 3 crocodile locomotives to commemorate the 150 Anniversary of Marklin.

A new Mega Starter set with 3 trains and 2 new Mobile Station is included in this new release.

A total of 173 new Items for Marklin.

Trix and Minitrix also have a very large selection of new items you can see them HERE including a large selection of Digital units in N gauge.

As always, we were the first publishing these pictures and we are already taking advanced orders for them.

Anyone placing orders before March 1st. 2009 will enjoy our lowest price at release time guaranteed to be the lowest in the United States. Orders placed after March 1st. still will have a lower price than anyone else but will not have the dip discount for those that order before that date.

We recognize that ordering without a price reference is tough, but our Customers know us and they know that we are the cheapest, fastest and more reliable source for all your European Model Train products.

In the pages for New Items of Marklin or Trix, we have included a link to the Brochure of new items. On it you can see the "List Price" in Euros what can give you an idea relative the price.

We do not sell at retail of course, so our price will be substantially lower (converted to US Dollars of course) than the price seen on brochure.

The brochure is in German language but is the only that has prices published. English brochure does not have prices.

We will try if time permits, to place a reference price in Euros on each item in our web site.

We invite you to navigate our new items now.