World famous UK train shop closing down

Hatton's bought the owners of woo woo woo last year. They closed the retail store down and were planning to move the warehouse for online sales to Nebraska.

 

The usual non-financial reasons a business is forced to shut down - a dysfunctional supply chain and crushingly heavy red tape.

A great loss for Brit model railroaders.

 

That bolded part is no doubt harder for UK business post-Brexit.

 

After Brexit for people in the EU it became almost impossible to buy in UK, even when possible, shipping prices skyrocketed.
I was used to buy model railroad stuff both at Hattons and at many others, especially small businesses selling spares or accessories.
Due to the red tape, most shops stopped selling to EU, losing customers and revenue.
Yes, Brexit was a good idea....

 

And staying a part of the burning dumpster fire called the EU was better? Bizarre regulations on things like toasters and sausages? It seems like the EU just wants to punish the UK for leaving it.

 

I answer this and then end the OT: UK basically self punished by cutting itself off its biggest commercial partner. All the rest was a logical consequence that anyone with a grain of common sense and a little knowledge of how economics works could have forecast.
EU is far from perfect but the alternative is like all 48 continental US States decide to secede and start putting border controls and have completely different regulations, currencies and you name it....
As my grandma said "union makes strength".
Sorry for the OT, OT closed.
It is anyway very sad to see Hattons' go.

 

It is always sad to see a hobby shop closed. What is going happen to M B woo woo woo/some train store.

 

The red tape I think being referred to is Extended Producer Responsibility legislation. In short a manufacturer of new products has to break down what each individual product and its packaging is made of and attain a licence for each material.

For example I was selling an oil filter adapter (I'm in Australia) and I would have to attain a permit for aluminium, a permit for steel, a permit for plastic and a permit for cardboard.

But wait there's more !

I would have to attain each of those permits for each European country. From memory I think France was going to cost me 395 Euros for aluminium alone. Aluminium is a material that can and is recycled. In short the total price was really really high.

As best I understand it even a manufacturer in Germany (or any other EU country) has to attain these licences just to ship next door to France for example. They (EU countries) are all imposing these licence costs on one another.

For a couple of years I'd seen news items about the Australian government trying to get a free trade agreement with EU countries as they had attained with the UK. Now I know why.


As for Hattons I'm quite saddened that they are closing. If there is any chance they will re-open I'd be very happy to be their customer again.

The key part of their business model is the "Trunk". I was able to buy anything from one very small item to a whole lot of trains but I did not have to ship it straight away. Instead of shipping it went into my "Trunk".
Once I was happy that I had purchased enough to warrant paying postage I could ship all or some of it.

I was in many cases I paid a little more for the actual items but shipping became realistic and spread over quite a lot of stuff.

Other retailers could do quite well by adopting this system.

 

Interesting, just went to the woo woo woo site and they have a notice stating they are "not accepting any orders pending a company reorganization"
Hope this turns out well, they are a "go-to" for me.

 

If by reorganising they mean adding a "Trunk" service that would be fantastic ............. otherwise ..... errrrrrrrr.

 

woo woo woo woo woo woo web site says they have shut down. Sad to see.

 

I've heard of "Killing Two Birds with One Stone" before, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS!


I really hope it's still possible for someone or some entity to purchase the Popular Suburban Baltimore Online Hobby Shop from The Entity Formerly Operating as Hatton's, since the Popular Suburban Baltimore Online Hobby Shop has such a huge customer base and market share among customers. They really were a growing operation and when I visited the physical store of the Popular Suburban Baltimore Online Hobby Shop 9 years ago, they were even posting "Jobs Available" notices for their warehouse/fulfillment staff. I still can't fathom a world without the Popular Suburban Baltimore Online Hobby Shop.

 

In the current business climate, nine years is an eternity ago. Unfortunate, but true.

 

Nearly every single piece of US prototype N scale vanished from Hatton's a couple of days ago. I got my "trunk" shipped at that point sadly.

I had see times where over 1000 second hand Micro Trains cars for sale on their site. I'm wondering if any other store in the UK even has the capacity to receive batches of cars this large.

I see woo woo woo has put their web site back up but the "reorganisation" has simply changed to "ceased trading".

 

And "ceased trading" strikes me as a British term, so there you go.

Woo woo woo, that's the last run.

 

Yahoo.com has an interesting story about the little resale stores. It describes how most are now sell items over the price in upscale stores and how so many are now selling at online resale store at very high prices like on e-Bay. This one sounds much the same. Most hobby shops are closing down here. As well as computer sales and repair.
Sad how so many are getting greedy.

 

"It has ceased to be , It is an ex-parrot!"

 

"As a favour to our esteemed traders, we shall have an inventory sale by the lorry-load within two fortnights. Many are anticipated to queue along the pavement outside our doors. Cheers!"