Why does it seem like half of everything advertised in the magazines is either not available or not released yet?
The hobby industry is filled with small "cottage industry" manufacturers. Even the largest of manufacturers in this business seldom have more than a few dozen employees. Because the cost of many of
the items is low, this means costs to manufacturer must also be kept to a minimum. One way to make this happen is to run products in "batches" where the manufacturer will estimate how any they will
sell during the coming year and produce enough to cover the expected demand. If a product hits it big, it will sell out and be unavailable until more are made. Because many manufacturers use contract
molders or rent the necessary equipment, it sometimes takes months before the necessary supplies become available. Model railroading, for example, has grown over 100% in the past four years. This
means more people looking for the same items. In fact, for manufacturers like Kato and others, it not unusual for the entire batch to be sold before the product evens reaches the stores. We
understand this is not a very appealing explanation, but it pretty well describes the state of the hobby industry. Manufacturers continue to seek ways to keep you costs low while producing enough of
a product to meet demand. To this end we salute the LifeLike's and Atlas' of the industry, who are quick to produce second and even third runs of popular products. In the event a product does not
sell well, manufacturers can hardly afford to have thousands sitting on the shelf. That just makes the next product more expensive. In the same fashion, advertising is often required months before a
magazine goes into print. It is inevitable that some products will sell out even before the mags hit the stands. Well, I guess so is life. If we could accurately predict everything, life would surely
be boring :-)
How do manufacturers decide what products to market? What kind of market research, if any, is performed?
Very often products from smaller and specialty manufacturers are personal requests, or products that are perceived to fill a gap in the market. (Such as RPP's modern diesel shells)
Which of the larger "manufacturers" (e.g., Atlas, Athearn, etc.) really do their own manufacturing, and which simply put their name on a supplier's product?
Athearn manufactures their own product. Con-Cor is shifting its production to its Arizona plant, so they manufacture most of their own product. Walther's does it's own freight cars, but the engines
are imports. Atlas' engines are imports (From Kato). Bachmann and I believe Model Power engines are imports.
ConCor locomotives are made mostly by Roco (GP's, SD's, E7's). The switchers (SW7 and MP15) were made by Kato. I believe that currently Roco makes the parts for ConCor and ConCor has them painted and
assembled in Mexico.
Atlas makes their own cars (N, O), track, and buildings (HO, N, O) Locos are made by Kato (GP7, C4xx, RS3/11, RSD4/5/12) or Roco (S2/4, RS1, FP7, and EMD's now sold by ConCor).
Bachmann engines are made in China by Bachmann (they own their own overseas production facilities). Bachmann (they claim) is the world's largest producer of model/"toy" trains.