On Monday night almost everyone in the known universe (or so it seemed) had an email from Hattons. This in itself was not unusual, but the information contained in it was a bit of a surprise. I’m not in the habit of perusing RMweb and the like, but I can imagine that the people who buy lots of stuff will be up in arms and scrambling for an alternative pusher.
Interestingly, included in the reasons given on the website are ‘changing demographic’ and Brexit. Or are we at peak price now and people are saying ‘I really think that £300 for a DMU is too much?’
Quite honestly a toss I do not give. It’s a shop. The population as a whole would say toy shop and if you really dig down deep they’d be absolutely correct. Disregarding the history (and there is a little of this over on Phil’s page) they have been of late the king of box shifters with a token shop front bolted onto a warehouse full of racking. So let’s flip this around for a minute. In recent times, and by this I mean the last 20-30 years, people have endlessly bemoaned the demise of the local model shop and that wonder word… service. But then, happily pick up the phone to save £5 and order the item they desire from Hattons/Kernow et al, the ones with the big ads in the magazines. Result: these do well and the one-man-band local shops disappear. Will this change things? No, because this business will be picked up by Olivias/TMC/Cheltenham/Kernow and it will all be the same next month. The losers as ever will be the smaller retailers and the magazine advertising receipts.
Keep calm and carry on. Maybe Railmatch will return.
