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Old 2009.02.25, 11:16 AM   #31
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I don't understand how buying ecommerce vs. LHS got into this thread. Isn't this about someone noticing the lower quality of the new bodies while there is a price increase?
To me Kyosho is doing the opposite of what it should be in this hard economic time. People already have enough reasons not to pay for this hobby. Lowering the quality while increasing the price will just push some over the edge. In the past I would not think twice about picking up new bodies but now.......
I'm pretty sure Kyosho moved it's manufacturing to China. Labor costs should be lower. Now Kyosho needs to step up the education and QA of that work force as to what is acceptable.
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Old 2009.02.25, 11:18 AM   #32
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If you ask me, if the price goes up, so should quality!
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Old 2009.02.25, 02:06 PM   #33
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The cost of AutoScale bodies has not increased as much as it appear. In 2006 when I started, a body cost $25. The yen to dollars exchange is 120 to 1. Now in 2009 yen to dollars exchange is 97 to 1. Thanks to trade deficit debt etc. That accounts for 23% increase. Inflation is another 5% base on CPI. Now you are at $32. If you look at Chinese yuan, you are at about $31. Autoscales now are $40-$50. Some of the remaining difference may be explained by inflation in China which is much higher than in US until recently. Also, Kyosho may be making up for lost revenues due to recession by charging more for bodies.
Regardless, cost of bodies are still too high for healthy growth of this hobby. Many beginners will be shocked at the price of bodies. On the brighter side, there are other options besides Kyosho. Iwaiver bodies are still cheap. They may become more popular. There is always pan cars, and the Renault aftermarket body will be coming from Europe. Hopefully, competition will keep prices to reasonable levels. The only thing I hope will not happen is migration to polycarbonate bodies. They are just too cheap looking.
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Old 2009.02.25, 03:13 PM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Slipstream View Post
...To me Kyosho is doing the opposite of what it should be in this hard economic time. People already have enough reasons not to pay for this hobby. Lowering the quality while increasing the price will just push some over the edge. In the past I would not think twice about picking up new bodies but now...
Dito... That is exactly what I'm talking about.

I also agree with what benmlee said about inflation, but lowering the quality while at the same time charging more, that just goes against normal reasoning.
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Old 2009.02.25, 04:12 PM   #35
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Polycarbonate would be crap material and quality that we've come to love. It may work great and best for 1/10 scale where weight is more of an issue and detail quality not as important.
My other question is if the newer bodies are same as older pre-gloss coat bodies, then why the fancy term "Fine Hand Polish"? When I first saw this badge, I thought it was going to be even fancier than gloss-coat!
Anyway, I'll still collect AutoScales, simply cause I love the display factor, but I'll be even more selective for the newer models. One I'm most interested in is the white Ferrari F34 GTC test car. Sorry if I have the numbers wrong, but you know which one I mean. The pure white beauty.
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Old 2009.02.25, 04:25 PM   #36
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Old 2009.02.25, 06:55 PM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Slipstream View Post
I don't understand how buying ecommerce vs. LHS got into this thread. Isn't this about someone noticing the lower quality of the new bodies while there is a price increase?
To me Kyosho is doing the opposite of what it should be in this hard economic time. People already have enough reasons not to pay for this hobby. Lowering the quality while increasing the price will just push some over the edge. In the past I would not think twice about picking up new bodies but now.......
I'm pretty sure Kyosho moved it's manufacturing to China. Labor costs should be lower. Now Kyosho needs to step up the education and QA of that work force as to what is acceptable.
in part reading into mleemore60's post
Quote:
There are methods available to us if we aren't satisfied with a purchase. Return it for a better one. Invoke the lemon law so to speak. take it back to your LHS and swap it for a better one. Let him ship it back to the big K for credit or another unit. Oh. You didn't buy it at your LHS? You bought it from Ewho on Ewhat. Well email them and ask for a different one. Go ahead pay the shipping both ways and hope that the replacement is at least equal to the one you got in the first place at now nearly half again the cost. I'm just spit balling here but I wonder why the very first of everything is available some place that we can't walk into and shop. A company that goes as far as they do to properly liscense and produce as Kyosho does might just cull the junk off to the etailers and keep the first line pieces for themselves. If that isn't the case then why not just go ahead and bootleg it like so many others do? The fact remains that so many of you gotta have it now gen X&Yer's are being hard on somebody because of your own impatience. I'm as guilty as the next guy sometimes but I'm working on it. My LHS devotes about 30% of his floor space to RCP for about 10% of his overall business so I can race my investment. I wonder frequently why we haven't been blown down the road for outwardly showing off our E purchases while we are in the store.

On the other hand why do you suppose that The re sellers, even the ones that we all know and love here in the States seem to have the product before the LHS does? The LHS has a dealer agreement with the big K that says it will buy K products from K not the reseller. The last in line for product is the LHS at most levels. By the time his shelves are stocked we all have them already which means less sales for him and a growing un willingness to maintain an inventory of useable product and in a lot of cases a place for us to race. I am not advocating that any one of us do something differently than we do. Impatience is bred into us. We gotta have it first so we can show it off to our gotta have it first too friends. That is evident in our present economic state. None of us like the red licked off of our candy. There are options to the concerns we all have with quality. I have listed some of them. The choice is up to each and every one of us. Be part of the problem or be part of the solution.
it's not really relevant to the exact topic on hand but i got caught up in the moment i guess
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Old 2009.02.25, 10:56 PM   #38
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to help understand the hard place Kyosho is in we have:
-20% approx inflation of yen vs. dollar(makes more expensive for us)
-Kyosho is facing rising raw materials costs
-Sharp jumps in labor cost in China
-Yuan also gained on the dollar
-licensing
-Increased shipping costs(Kyosho bodies are still cheap if you live in Japan!)

unless you read quite a bit and really try to get an idea about why everything is rising in price, its tough to understand. Just yelling at kyosho about how your little rc bodies aren't shiny anymore may be the natural response of less informed people, but try to understand that there's far more than you know going on here. If you're young, you will long for these days again. It is unlikely you will see prices drop, they've always been on the increase after all!

I know Kyosho would not put these prices on us just for the heck of it, it is out of necessity, and they still have my support and understanding. They aren't growing their ego in these economic climates. Hmmm, toys or mortgage hmmm....

This isn't just RC car bodies, these price jumps are all over the place. Bike prices have jumped 20-30% for this year over the last because of associated production costs.

The price jump is for the new year, every year companies have to evaluate where theyre at and make decisions for the year ahead, and probly no doubt due to cost, K has had to increase their prices.

No one likes paying more for "less", but it isn't Kyosho you should be trying to reach on forums it doesn't read, it's just not their fault. There's new players on the global market, USA isn't the only big dog anymore. On top of that you have general resource shortages(lack of abundancy) driving costs up...really one could write a whole paper and more on the issue but hopefully you get it...There's little Kyosho can do, it costs what it costs them.
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Old 2009.02.26, 07:12 AM   #39
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Extremely well put. Thank you.
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Old 2009.02.26, 08:22 AM   #40
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yes indeed, very thorough review of the situation. again, it's unfortunate kyosho leaves this to us to explain.

yes, they do read this forum, to be more specific, persons employed by kyosho do read this forum and others. most major manufacturers do keep an eye on forums for consumer sentiment, response, etc.
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Old 2009.02.26, 09:06 AM   #41
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arch2b View Post
yes indeed, very thorough review of the situation. again, it's unfortunate kyosho leaves this to us to explain.

yes, they do read this forum, to be more specific, persons employed by kyosho do read this forum and others. most major manufacturers do keep an eye on forums for consumer sentiment, response, etc.
...and they should keep in mind that we are - after all circumstances and explanations - "just" customers.
Customers that finally just look at the price, quality and what they can afford.

"Fine hand polish" means polishing something else than the quality for me

No one of my clients is asking me to produce lower quality for higher prices due to economic circumstances.
Guess what they would do if I would follow this route?
Even if I would explain them:

"Yes, I built a very thin roof on your house for the 20% more than last time. No, I don't think it can stand rain and of course no snow. Ha ha ha, what do you expect, mate?! Listen! The chinese Yuan, the Yen and me.....bla bla bla bla....."
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Old 2009.02.26, 09:30 AM   #42
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jace1283 View Post
to help understand the hard place Kyosho is in we have:
-20% approx inflation of yen vs. dollar(makes more expensive for us)
-Kyosho is facing rising raw materials costs
-Sharp jumps in labor cost in China
-Yuan also gained on the dollar
-licensing
-Increased shipping costs(Kyosho bodies are still cheap if you live in Japan!)

unless you read quite a bit and really try to get an idea about why everything is rising in price, its tough to understand. Just yelling at kyosho about how your little rc bodies aren't shiny anymore may be the natural response of less informed people, but try to understand that there's far more than you know going on here. If you're young, you will long for these days again. It is unlikely you will see prices drop, they've always been on the increase after all!

I know Kyosho would not put these prices on us just for the heck of it, it is out of necessity, and they still have my support and understanding. They aren't growing their ego in these economic climates. Hmmm, toys or mortgage hmmm....

This isn't just RC car bodies, these price jumps are all over the place. Bike prices have jumped 20-30% for this year over the last because of associated production costs.

The price jump is for the new year, every year companies have to evaluate where theyre at and make decisions for the year ahead, and probly no doubt due to cost, K has had to increase their prices.

No one likes paying more for "less", but it isn't Kyosho you should be trying to reach on forums it doesn't read, it's just not their fault. There's new players on the global market, USA isn't the only big dog anymore. On top of that you have general resource shortages(lack of abundancy) driving costs up...really one could write a whole paper and more on the issue but hopefully you get it...There's little Kyosho can do, it costs what it costs them.
Wow... I almost shed a tear for poor, poor Kyosho.

I've been working in the Hi-tech industry (computer manufacturing to be exact) for 14 years, and I see pricing trends coming out of Asia on a nearly daily basis.

Kyosho happens to have a niche product which has very little competition. For this reason they can maintain an artificially high price because they know their product will sell. Their tactic of producing relatively low quantities of an item and making it available for a short period of time, does 2 things: creates demand and insures that they will not have to worry about excess inventory.

Where I work, we deal with the manufacturing of plastic components and such, and while the price the labor and tooling and so on has been slowly creeping up, 1-2 percent per year, the price of raw materials has come down in the last 6 months. Improvements in tooling and machinery have also driven some prices lower as well. Plastics like most other petroleum based products cost less today than it did a year ago. Overall, if you were to go get a price quote today for a injection molded piece, it will be the same or a little less today than it was last year.

Bottom line is that Kyosho is asking these price because they think they can get away with it. If they had any true competition for their product you wouldn't see these price hikes. Take a look at RC helis, competition there is more intense so yo can now get a better helicopter today, for less money then you could just 1 year ago.

As far as the quality of the product coming from Kyosho, I think it's due to a change in manufacturing. Kyosho does not have a manufacturing arm, rather they sub-contract it out, and they probably moved from Japan or Taiwan to mainland China, and you can see the results.

If Kyosho indeed does read these forums, I invite a rebuttal of these statements, but unitl they chime in, I'm not going to make excuse for them.
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Old 2009.02.26, 09:58 AM   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dudemeister View Post
Wow... I almost shed a tear for poor, poor Kyosho.

I've been working in the Hi-tech industry (computer manufacturing to be exact) for 14 years, and I see pricing trends coming out of Asia on a nearly daily basis.

Kyosho happens to have a niche product which has very little competition. For this reason they can maintain an artificially high price because they know their product will sell. Their tactic of producing relatively low quantities of an item and making it available for a short period of time, does 2 things: creates demand and insures that they will not have to worry about excess inventory.

Where I work, we deal with the manufacturing of plastic components and such, and while the price the labor and tooling and so on has been slowly creeping up, 1-2 percent per year, the price of raw materials has come down in the last 6 months. Improvements in tooling and machinery have also driven some prices lower as well. Plastics like most other petroleum based products cost less today than it did a year ago. Overall, if you were to go get a price quote today for a injection molded piece, it will be the same or a little less today than it was last year.

Bottom line is that Kyosho is asking these price because they think they can get away with it. If they had any true competition for their product you wouldn't see these price hikes. Take a look at RC helis, competition there is more intense so yo can now get a better helicopter today, for less money then you could just 1 year ago.

As far as the quality of the product coming from Kyosho, I think it's due to a change in manufacturing. Kyosho does not have a manufacturing arm, rather they sub-contract it out, and they probably moved from Japan or Taiwan to mainland China, and you can see the results.

If Kyosho indeed does read these forums, I invite a rebuttal of these statements, but unitl they chime in, I'm not going to make excuse for them.
Only thing I disagree with you on Dudemeister is "I almost shed a tear for poor poor Kyosho" ...I may pull out the world's smallest violin for them, but I would not play it, they would have to play it. After that I agree with everything else you said

I to would love to hear a rebuttal from Kyosho. But you know, it's like the gas prices, the barrel prices are low, I believe the last I heard it was around $40 per barrel and the gas prices are still slowly going up at that price per barrel the gas prices for regular should be around $1.25 to $1.40 not $1.70 to $2.00.
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Old 2009.02.26, 08:55 PM   #44
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in mini-z's, if people do switch to lexan bodies, it might not be as enjoyable to collect, but polycarbonate bodies are much lighter, shinier and durable than clearcoated hard plastic because they flex when hit, yet are stiff enough to retain shape even at crazy speeds that some modelers take them to (hint: 100mph electric 1:10)
i don't know what the future entails for the autoscales, but it might not be too bad to switch to polycarbonate. after all, some manufacturers can mold plenty of detail into a polycarbonate shell.
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Old 2009.02.26, 09:08 PM   #45
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lets hope iwaver comes up big with their bmw and other new releases.
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