Quote:
Originally posted by DirtyBird
This is a personal point of view albeit a very valid one. The people who actually collect these things dont give a rats *** about marketing, and if you read my statement carefully you will see I said StarJets took over the "collectors market". The fact of the matter is when you put a Herpa Wings 1:500 and a Starjets side by side all that marketing crap you've been talking about goes out the window. Do you honestly think I am gonna go buy the crap Herpa makes when I can see with my own two eyes that Starjets is much more accurate! But this is all besides the point, I started this hobby back in 1997 collecting Herpa Wings, all through these years we begged Herpa to fix the landing gear and do a better job with their molds, but they didnt listen, they just kept on producing the crap and we kept on buying because there was no alternative. Well along came Starjets and they introduced the scaled landing gear which herpa at the time told us they could not do, they fixed all the things that were wrong with the Herpa molds and today they are rewarded for their efforts buy being the number one choice of collectors in 1:500. Herpa's latest efforts with the NG models is too late too little, and even so the NG models are still not as accurate as Starjets. I personally no longer collect 1:500 but I still own a large collection of Herpa 1:500's and no Starjets, but if I were collecting 1:500's you bet your *** I would buy Starjets regardless of what you've said about marketing.
I know you have ties to Herpa Andy so this might be hard for you to accept, but I'll say it to you again. Herpa primarily produces scaled cars and trucks and they do an excellent job of it, the wings portion of the company is almost like an after thought. Its just another way for them to make money with minimal effort, which explains why they made no effort to fix their crap all these years. For a while they were king in the scaled airplane market because there was no competition and just like any monoply they sat back and milked their customers, well no longer! Unless Herpa really pulls the chains and does something spectacular in the near future they will go the way of Schabak, end of story.
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DirtyBird,
I regret you are not well-informed here. First of all, I do agree that StarJets made many people collect 1:500 models (those people who did not buy Herpa's 1:500 before). But: this does not mean that StarJets took over control of the whole 1:500 collectors' market. As opposed to your assessment, I know many people who used to collect Herpa Wings before StarJets emerged the market. And guess what?! They still do. For these old freaks (regarding the die-cast collectors market), the Herpa Wings story goes on and on.
Furthermore, you should be informed that Schabak performs well in the market. They never really cared about the collectors' market in the past, so they do not now. The airline contracts make up approx. 96% of Schabak's business, the collectors' market only 4%. Schabak releases now releases more new models per year than ever before (around 50 new releases p.a.). If that's going to be Herpa's fate... well, it's going to be a bright future for these (ugly) planes.
Just to stay with the facts.
Daniel