Is it just me...or are model kits getting dearer!

[chola]

Well, as the title says....

I don't have a hobby shop I visit regularly (need to drive an hour for a half decent one), but I've noticed over the past 18 months the prices of kits seem to be getting quite high. Don't seem to get too much change out of $60 Australian for a fairly run of the mill Tamiya 1/24, and not a lot from $90 if you want a clear bodied F1 or something a little special.

I realise that kits are now produced with much more complex tooling and production methods, but with the improvments in technology and production, I would have thought the prices should still be a little less than they are, considering now 99% of the kits made are curbside there are less parts!!

I remember seeing the old Tamiya F40 in K-Mart for $24.95 about 10 years ago, now the same kit in the shops is near enough to $55!

How do the sellers on Ebay sell a current Tamiya kit for as little as $5 USD and still make a profit?

Interested to hear from other AF'ers about your local kit pricing, are we just getting ripped off in Australia?

[matador88]

in year 2008, in the time of eshops and ebay its a rant on a wrong grave.
if you want tamiya use HK, or JP eshops

[DVST8R]

Everything has gotten stupidly expensive lately, not just model kits. I won't buy any kits locally unless its something OOP. Everything on HLJ is half the price of buying it locally.

[jano11]

Yep Asia internet shops have good prices. However even there the prices went up during the last 12 months, all this because kit manufacturers increased the kit prices (just take a look on Fujimi's site, you pay more for a simple kit than you were paying for an Enthusiast Model).

[jmwallac]

Don't ovelook the obvious. Have you seen what crude oil is doing? It's now flirting with $120USD a barrel. Since plastic is made from petroleum, it's only natural the price of the finished product will go up with the cost of the raw materials. I'm sure licensing fees aren't helping either.

Since I haven't been in the hobby for very long, just about any kit out there is new to me. I've picked up about 15 to 20 kits on eBay for less than $15USD shipped.

[MPWR]

New kits are definitely more expensive, for alot of reasons. Kit makers pay licensing fees to car manufacturers that they didn't have to pay 10 years ago, which hugely impacts the prices of kits (and as much as any other reason is why we don't see many new car kits these days). The increase in the cost of oil hits everything, from freight costs to actual plastic costs (made from oil, in a sense). Inflation and exchange rates take a bite, and of course hobby shops must charge more to pay for their storespace- they're competing with online shops without the same overhead, and have to make up for their lost sales somehow.

But really this is still an incredibly cheap hobby. You can start for well under $100US, full equipment costs are under $300 (airbrush and compressor), and if you build four kits a year (even if they're uberexpensive Tamiya kits for $50 a piece), that's still only a couple hundred a year. Many of us don't consume kits even that fast....

[rockinanko]

gee, from all the points discussed, i wonder where's this trend heading to?

where do we, the car modelors, go from here?
pay premium for kits & make good with whatever there're available, now that such simple plastic kits have 'evolved' into such complex commercial issues!?

i just wonder if there's anymore future in this hobby, when come to my sons' turn to build...10 years down the road?

sigh...

marc
SGP

[chola]

Thanks for the replies.

Well. the times they are a changi'n......as the song goes!

All points very valid...I just used to remember the thrill of saving a bit of pocket money (at $2.50 a week this took a while!), going to the LHS and picking up some sort of Ferrari, Lamborghini, or other car that I could only dream about (or mostly only saw on the Cannonball Run Movies!), getting it home, diving right in and doing all the wrong things, brush painting the body, superglue the windscreen and all that..totally buggering it up, but I was very proud of my new creation, which, overall, was very cheap...I would love for my kids to be able to experience the same thing, the same joy...but kits are almost too expensive to give to a kid just to 'bugger it up'....yes I know, kids need to learn and all that....so I don't mean that in a bad way....also the joy of saving the money and going and walking into the shop and walking out with something was often it's own reward...now the process is much different....save their money for however long...mum and dad inevitably have to tip in a few $$$...go to the shops to see what is available, then go home and do the usual searches of Ebay, HLJ etc, then wait a few more weeks for the thing to arrive, and hope like hell in the meantime it actually does arrive...or at least arrives undamaged, or worse, explaining to the above mentioned kid why it didn't arrive because of a dodgy seller on Ebay and they've done their cash! (yes, yes, all usual precautions taken, but I've been ripped off by a seller with over 99% positive feedback on 500 plus transactions, who closed his seller account just before Christmas and before any goods were sent..took the money and ran).

I don't think this hobby will ever die (I hope not anyway...I enjoy it too much and there will always be a demand, and there will always be modellers who are willing to pay a premium for a certain kit), but the manufacturers probably need to think of ways to encourage new and younger modellers, the only way to do this to those on a limited income (from pocket money earners to first year apprentices) is to make the kits cheaper, or at least re-issue some of the older kits...hey, they've already got the molds, already paid the licensing fees, so aside from the slight increased cost of raw materials (and when spread across tens of thousands of model kits, that IS a SLIGHT increase in the cost of raw materials), I see no reason why a 'beginner' kit from Tamiya couldn't be on the shelves for under $35 AUD! Maybe delete the engine sprue and seal the bonnet or something.

Maybe we suffer a little on this side of the planet....the freight alone on a new Tamiya kit from the US, or Japan for that matter, can easily be close enough to $40 in some cases. But consider this....$30 to $40 freight from Japan for a 1/24 plastic kit....now I just purchased a 1/8 scale Pocher Ferrari F40 from Germany (yes, metal, so weighs abouyt the same as at least 20 Tamiya kits and is packed in 2 boxes with atotal measurement of about 2.5 feet long), and the freight was $85, airmail by TNT and insured!

Maybe I'm sounding a little old fashioned...I'm only 33 and not an old man (though my wife may argue!)..and romaticising the whole thing..but I just remember the joy a new model brought me when I was aged 10, my parents knew I didn't have the skills to make it a masterpiece, but it was cheap enough, and I feel a little sorry that my kids won't get to enjoy it the same way.

Now, time to que the song...light a candle.....raise your hands.......and sing...'we are the world, we are the children'.......

[hirofkd]

Sounds like you are ripped off.

When I bought 2 Fujimi kits (the detailed 126C2 and the curbside F430 Challenge), Finisher's Urethan Clear and 2 bottles of GSI paints, it fit the weight bracket of 1.8-1.9kg, and I only paid 1980 yen for Small Packet SAL from Shizuoka Japan to Houston, TX. Since Australia and the US are within the same distance group according to the Japanese postal service clasification, you shouldn't be paying $40 for one Tamiya kit, unless you used the expensive express mail.

FYI, here's my shipping chart I post here every now and then.

[jano11]

Let's make on thing clear, oil prices have nothing to do with kits getting about 20% more expensive, and this is about the price charged by the kit manufacturers not hobby shops.

Yes a kit is made of Plastic which is made of oil, but the plastic in that kit doesn't cost more than 2$!
Not mentioning that the oil prices sky rocketed in US$ but much less in Euros or Yen.

Generally, prices go up because of the need for companies to please their share holders with higher profits every 3 months! It's all because of the economic climate, a very unhealthy one which brought us to what we see today, a recession.

End of rant!

[cyberkid]

Originally Posted by jano11

Let's make on thing clear, oil prices have nothing to do with kits getting about 20% more expensive, and this is about the price charged by the kit manufacturers not hobby shops.

Yes a kit is made of Plastic which is made of oil, but the plastic in that kit doesn't cost more than 2$!
Not mentioning that the oil prices sky rocketed in US$ but much less in Euros or Yen.

Generally, prices go up because of the need for companies to please their share holders with higher profits every 3 months! It's all because of the economic climate, a very unhealthy one which brought us to what we see today, a recession.

End of rant!

took the words right out of my mouth.
If they upped the prices like 5-10% fine I could live with that... but seeing some of you guys pay 20-100% more than I do really pisses me off.
I live in Asia and get the kits at around 60% the cost you guys do... I rarely shop on HLJ or any of the other Jap or HK estores for kits (even if they are OOP). Why? Because its a lot cheeper to get it off the shelf of my LHS or from a Yahoo Taiwan seller.
Although I love Tamiya stuff, but I'm REALLY getting pissed at them. Prices for the sh#t arse kits (I mean in numbers) they are putting out now is a joke.
Frankly this isn't just going on with the automotive models, this is going on with a lot of japanese modeling companies....

[rockinanko]

gee, for a moment i thought this price increase is a norm due to progressive economy inflation around the world now. you talk about fuel prices, rice imports etc...everything certainly had gone up nowadays.

but one thing remains, and that's my pay check. no changes for the past few years, and my money's getting smaller & smaller...i'm not working hard enough or something. i thought this was the main reason why i felt kit prices are higher & higher, because of my earnings' standstill...not in tandem with the inflation.

but with so many AF members blaming the point of expensive-ness, i felt relieved here...that the problem is NOT with my pay check, and i'm still OK!

(i wonder if there's anything we the AF can do about this trend, besides raising our concerns & unhappiness on this issue.)
marc
SGP

[drunken monkey]

Originally Posted by jano11

Let's make on thing clear, oil prices have nothing to do with kits getting about 20% more expensive, and this is about the price charged by the kit manufacturers not hobby shops.

Yes a kit is made of Plastic which is made of oil, but the plastic in that kit doesn't cost more than 2$!
Not mentioning that the oil prices sky rocketed in US$ but much less in Euros or Yen.

Generally, prices go up because of the need for companies to please their share holders with higher profits every 3 months! It's all because of the economic climate, a very unhealthy one which brought us to what we see today, a recession.

End of rant!

i) oil is used in pretty much every stage of the process from manufacturing of goods up until it hits the shelves; it isn't just about models being plastic.

ii) internationally, oil is traded in US$. What the increase is in Euros or Yen is not relevant.

iii) because of oil price increases now, all corporations have to make assumptions about what the prices are going to be like in the future because they operate in a much longer time-frame than you and I and because oil pretty much affects everything.

While there is a certain truth to the increase in prices being simply imposed by the manufacturers, it isn't entirely arbitary which is what you are suggesting.

Perhaps there is truth in the old saying about if you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it?

[chola]

G'day,

I think we all mostly understand that inflation is affected world wide now, seeing as the planet has gotten smaller! Oil prices and manufacturing costs generally increase and I personally cannot see it improving....in light of this though, how many Tamiya kits are now MADE in Japan as opposed to China? I'll bet hardly any, but I am willing to be corrected....what was the ratio 10 years ago? Obviously china has much lower labour costs that could easily offset any increase in fuel prices.

Yes, company shareholders and needs to meet annual profit forecasts will increase the price of kits....though question remains...are these companies going to price themselves out of business?

"Perhaps there is truth in the old saying about if you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it?"

Could be..they used to say that about Rolls Royces!

Affordability is one aspect, albeit a major one, though I think you also need to consider if the price is worth it? This will vary from person to person of course.

Yes, oil is traded / priced as US dollars per barrel, though the current exchange rate to the various countries does have bearing, as it is the inital currency from which it is converted from. Obvioulsy if the price is $100 USD a barrel, yet this equates to $130 in the domestic currency, then, in siomple terms, it is that $130 that the end consumer has to end up compensating for. If the Euro, GBP, AUD, JPY etc is stronger against the USD, in theory, the end product, fuel, plastics, manufacturing etc should generally be cheaper, though these savings are very rarely, if ever passed on. Oil prices is probably going to go down in history as the biggest cop-out this century!

Rockinanko...don't feel bad...my income hasn't changed greatly in the last 4 years, but kit prices sure as hell have!

All you need to do is listen to a financial report on the news, usually you will find figure like wages have increase about a quarter of that of inflation inflation...combine that with the current interest rates, don't be confused that mortgage interest rates have gone up...many of you young blokes (and older ones) who have a car loan will also be feeling the pinch.

Everything is going up in price, but I still reckon for long-term survivability something needs to be done about kit prices..maybe like I said before, have the 'full-house' Enzo's, F-50's, Porsches etc, price them accordingly...at least in the meantime people will still buy them, but have a basic kit version, or re-release old kits (I reckon plenty of modellers would love to get a few of the older ones).

[drunken monkey]

Originally Posted by chola

how many Tamiya kits are now MADE in Japan as opposed to China?

not the most difficult of things to check; have a look on the boxes.

And it's not just oil costs that have an effect; it's just the thing that affects the most areas.
Most basic area, what powers most powerstations?
Another big reason for cost increases in usually to do with new taxes. Have you looked at new fuel taxes recently?


Also, as I seemed to have failed to answer the initial posting question.
Nope; I haven't noticed much change that isn't in line with inflation.