A general Carrera discussion

6967 Views 73 Replies 23 Participants Last post by thomas, Jun 29, 2004

moped rider

Discussion Starter · Apr 27, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

Really this is a response to Tropi who has made a comment aimed at the UK market but I do applaude the efforts of Thomas to bring us Carrera news and European Carrera fans no doubt all give Thomas the big thumbs up.

Ultimately its all about how pro-active companies are and the amount of investment they make in the marketing of slot cars to the masses.

No amount of service matters if a company does not promote its products. The products will just gather dust.

Its one thing e-stockists stocking product, but is the product selling?

The issue for slot car companies worldwide is the nature of return that they get from any marketing investment.

Like tobacco companies are they attempting to switch existing users of other brands in what is perceived as a flat market, or expand the market as a whole and create growth?

Most slot car companies know where there marketing bread is buttered. Some retailers in the UK are good at promoting product locally by getting out and seeing the people but they possibly get support for this. No doubt the same situation occurs in Germany and Spain. This is over and above direct promotion of the hobby by the slot car manufactures themselves which can be very expensive and therefore has financial risk.

Considering for example that Carrera have exclusive rights to the Ferrari F1 cars, have any of you seen any promotional spend by Carrera at all in the UK to promote this fact?

They are simply reliant on the goodwill of enthusiasts in the UK to purchase the cars.

Argos carried an advert before Xmas on TV promoting Scalextric which was as a result of some effort by Hornby. Would Carrera have been willing to have made the same investment in the UK market?

And how has the "Argos" sale gone down with many of the e-tailors that we support here? Some of us know the answer!

I have said this before and I will say it again. To the great mass of the population Scalextric marketing in Germany broadly promotes Carrera. SCX marketing in the UK broadly promotes Hornby Scalextric. Hornby marketing as Superslot in Spain broadly promotes Spanish Scalextric. This is the conundrum for slot car manufacturers. America is the one market where it is a true free for all IMHO but there are Americans at SCI who would say otherwise.

UKsqueezea and a few others know where I am coming from here.

Moped

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21 - 40 of 74 Posts

thomas

· #21 · Apr 28, 2004

...you're right in many points:
Nikko is the responsible UK distributor

Agros ordered special branded sets - not offered under the label Carrera, Agros is responsible for their price policy.

Carrera quality is still intact - -if there is any defect you'll receive a foc-replacement against the defective part - -here on the continent. There are not many defective parts - -I know the people working in the after market departement of Carrera - a boring job, not a lot of work!

Hope, this answered some of your questions - start racing and stop arguing

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PAULH

· #22 · Apr 28, 2004

just light the carrera touch paper and watch those fireworks!

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j-c

· #23 · Apr 28, 2004

As you can see from the earlier posts in this thread I was actively involved around 1430 today - I had read Moped's post and was composing a reply to it and then suddenly the last two paragraphs seemed to appear.

These appear to tone down the contribution.

Is this at all possible with the Forum notice board? I know it is possible to edit posts, but there is an indication this has happened or is there a period during which you can say one thing and then change your mind before the database is updated?

Anyway back to THIS thread and I tend to agree with Thomas, which ties up with what WAS suppositioned earlier. (Thomas , I apologise for my lack of knowedge in your connections with or within Carrera, but I may wish to explore those further for personal collecting reasons)

Argos can and apparently did order special "bundles"(as we call them in the software business) of product (cars & track) which were sold as "Mega Motors".

Argos can then sell them at whatever cost they like. Sorry, but no-one can tell ANYONE what the minimum price is. The people who lose financially are Argos - and I would think the buyer has lost his/her job and Argos will have other people consider the T's & C's of other negotiations they enter. (Unless the bottom line has still produced a profit).

At the end of the day personally I am satisfied - I bought some Carrera products for a good price - and I wil still buy Carrera cars.
Argos may have STILL made some profit -
I am sure Carrera have NOT made a loss on the deal.

I am concerned that an attempt was made to hi jack this informative thread into some way of knocking a product and its distribution for no other reason than it didn't fit in with a perceived method of marketing and being entirely negative about aspects that were more than likely beyond the influence of the manufacturer.

BTW - Thomas, if you would like to pass on my name to the Carrera people in Quality Control (UK Division) for testing purposes - please do so!!!

Jamie

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astro

· #24 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

J-C - people have been accused of knocking carrera here, but if you re-read the posts, you will find that no-one has criticised the products at all. Some people HAVE said that it is not surprising that carrera are not a widely known or sold product since Carrrera make no effort to market or promote the stuff in the UK, and their distributors do not manage to make the products widely available in shops.

If anything, such comments could be viewed as attempts to let carrera notice some peoples opinions of what has to be done if they wished to break into the UK market in a bigger way.

I think everyone thinks that the more manufacturers there are, and the better they are distributed and marketed, the better it is for everyone (enthusiasts, manufacturers and distributors)

PS - if moped edited something, it was probably to make what he was really saying clearer, not to 'tone down' a secret subversive message!

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peter

· #25 · Apr 29, 2004

Unfortunately Carrera hardly has one UK division. And even more unfortunately the UK distributor (NIKKO) even though seemingly competent as distributor for RC products - does consistently give a rather bad impression when it comes to Carrera products. Carrera seems to be a necessary evil for those guys - total lack of interest and if it does not hit them over their heads (a couple of times at least) they will not even notice... Never mind service, ability or knowledge...

Why would I say this - because I cannot accept that I within a couple of minutes can find out more relevant information about Carrera products etc than their own UK distributor. Also they have several times 'forgotten' to fulfill my orders... And to say 'oops we forgot' after being reminded more than a couple of times within six months or so is not really an excuse - after all they do not seem to forget to order the RC stuff. I believe that they would rather ignore Carrera if they could but they lack courage - and their mother company might have a contract to fulfill ofcourse. In any case not exactly an exercise in good business practice. Carrera should take full responsibility for their UK distribution themselves. Nikko UK does them no service what so ever - I believe that more than one of the UK retailers are rather tired of Nikko UK practice of sporadic Carrera distribution 'strategy' and practice.

So if Carrera gets fed up with Nikko UK and would want to set up a UK division

count me in

//peter

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peter

· #26 · Apr 29, 2004

Astro is right - remember some of us are big fans of Carrera products... nutters like me for example

//peter

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Difflock

· #27 · Apr 29, 2004

Me too! Just in case you lot didn't realise!!

Yes, I know that Carrera cars leave something to be desired in how competitive they are against other slot cars, but the product range is fun and interesting IMHO. Overall, the look and finish of the cars is superb, barring the odd hiccup which NIKKO UK seem more than willing to investigate. I will let you know of the outcome.

Mark.

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JEXY1

· #28 · Apr 29, 2004

In some strange way i do understand what moped is saying, but would say that each company has to do it's own marketing to promote it's own brand with the benifits that come with each system. I think most of us would agree that each system has it own benifits that set it aside from the competition.

But to answer one specific item Moped asked for:

Do they deserve it? Where is the Carrera Road Show? Where is the Carrera sponsorship? When are Carerra going to help local communites in the UK?

I can give you a straight forward and simple answer.

Carrera and thier UK distributor Nikko UK are one of the sponsors of the NSCC International Race Championship. They have provided cars for competitors to use at events, prizes, a four lane championship track, give aways and will be exhibiting at the 2005 25th Anniversary weekend. In short they have been excellent in supporting this event as have the other sponsors of the championship.

When we started planning the championship we set out to ensure that members of the public and our members would be exposed to as many different track systems, car manufacturers as possible. Hence six different cars manufacturers and five different track types.

To see the Carrera Championship track and have a play with all the Championship cars, come along to the Slough event in May (see NSCC section for details).

PS Carrera (via Nikko) also send the NSCC information and review models for the monthly Journal.

Gareth
NSCC

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Wankel Ickx

· #29 · Apr 29, 2004

QUOTE When are Carerra going to help local communites in the UK?

Forgot to pick up on that one the first time it appeared.

What on earth do you mean, Mope?

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Mecoprop

· #30 · Apr 29, 2004

Hmmm, do you think further encouragement is wise?

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jonny s

· #31 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

To be honest I`m getting bored of the same four `gun slingers` slugging it out. Unless you work for the organisations that you keep waffling on about you don`t really have a clue what`s going on. It`s a case here that you each want to appeaer to be more clued up than Moped and it`s a joke.

Jexy made a sound point about Nikko and I would just point out that John at Nikko was very helpful with the Phoenix event, supplying a set and cars. Yes it`s true Nikko didn`t turn up in person but then neither did a lot of you. I get the impression from talking to John that they are keen enough to help but face a big uphill battle in the Uk mainly due to the strength of the Scalextric brand. It`s hard to compete with scalextric in Uk but given some help Nikko will pitch in. I was going to suggest that Nikko take a look at the Forum for feedback etc but worry that they may go the same way as Gaugemaster Controls?

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moped rider

Discussion Starter · #32 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

I had forgotten about the support for the NSCC competition. Lets just see how things shape up over the next 1-2 years.

Don't really want to say much more for now.

Hi Jonny.

We posted at the same time.

Moped

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Wankel Ickx

· #33 · Apr 29, 2004

Gun-slingers and Prima Donnas, all are welcome I believe, if they stay within the rules.

And if anyone gets bored, they can simply avoid the topics where the gun-slingers, mud-slingers, prima donnas and teasers are listed as having posted last. Can't they?

I think the case, I think my case, was wanting to know what on earth our regular contributor was on about with his cryptic, "support for local communities".

But he seems to have gone all sheepish and doesn't want to say much for the next one to two years!

I'm sure our Nuro would welcome the arrival of a Nikko representative on the board.

LMP

· #34 · Apr 29, 2004

Is it just me or do we all know about carrera?

I do anyway. And how long have I been here? A month?

It doesn't matter about the first time buyers, the kids that never use their set or the unwanted gifts, Carrera are obviously target the more enthusiastic racers/collectors amongst us.

I'll bet there isn't one person on the forum who hasn't heard of carrera. So, IMHO, they've done just fine getting their name out there.

jonny s

· #35 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

Really Wankel? You keep adding fuel to the fire until you decide that you have had enough then you close the thread. Frustrating to those who want a sensible discussion and puts me off posting. If you mean by `prima dona` someone who actually races a lot and talks enthusiasticaly about that then I hope we see more of that kind of posting rather than a constant battle of the witless aided by a theasaurus.

I don`t think it`s that difficult to work out what Moped meant? But who really cares that much? He`s happy in his world and doesn`t seem to bother me with any of his theories that he comes up with.

Mecoprop

· #36 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

I think that makes 15 contributors to this thread so far.
It seems like a very healthy and free discussion - just what forums are for.
If I were bored, I wouldn't post - a very simple choice, really.

If no one was allowed to post 'unless you work for the organisations that you keep waffling on about', it would be a pretty lonely and boring place.

PS. 'Prima Donna' is simply a well-known term used for uncontrolled moodiness and bad temper. Often results in closed threads. I had not previously noticed any in this one and sincerely hope it stays that way!

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jonny s

· #37 · Apr 29, 2004

Hey `Jessie James` I aint bored of the topic, just the endless ganging up on Moped and the way threads go down hill until it ends up getting locked. Fair point? Because at that point it ceases to be a forum does it, when you can no longer post on a topic because you ladies have had your fun shooting it out and the rest of us are standing on the outside lookin in.

Wankel Ickx

· #38 · Apr 29, 2004

Hey, Tonto! Get off your high horse.

I think the track record for closed threads ain't that bad when you consider how many we have running here.

Can you tell me what Moped meant then because I'm keen to know. Does he mean that some of the brands are funding community centres, buying buses for the disabled???

What did he mean? It's a simple question.

Put off posting? You've 1513 to your name.

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jonny s

· #39 · Apr 29, 2004 (Edited by Moderator)

Inflammatory Text Deleted

Moped can and will I`m sure answer for himself but in my experience Hornby are the only manufacturer in UK to get off their arses and help anyone by making a physical effort and recently supported the Phoenix event big time. At the ending of filming the T.V. series "Short circuits" they gave away approx £18,000 of Scalextric kit to kids hospitals after I turned down an offer from them to me.

Like my old Grandad used to say..."There are those that know, those that don`t know and those that don`t know they don`t know" I reckon you can add to that there are those that don`t want to know.

On the subject of nick names mine is `Dagger` . `Tonto` is the nick of a mate who is also an SF member, nice bloke ex SBS so I`d be careful how you misuse that one.! Have you got a nick name Wankel?

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BEEJAY7

· #40 · Apr 29, 2004

Gentlemen

All this name calling is a little unproductive and does little for the image of this fine Forum.

I have to agree with Jon that Moped's post do appear to be singled out for attack by a few members.

Whatever you think of the content of some of his posts, (and I agree he sometimes does make statements which require, shall we say "clarrification"), Forum members should be allowed to comment on the content without Senior Members and Moderators attacking his every word.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one would like to see a little more tolerance.

Regards

Alan

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