No more Tamiya Euro cup here in Holland. What is going on!!

[Mr.Nismo]

Sadly Tamiya Holland doesn't participate anymore in the Euro-cup races. The only thing they will increase is giving demonstrations on motorshows, fairs and stuff like that.

The main reason for Tamiya Holland to end the Euro-cup is, for example, there are driving 15 TA05 cars from wich 5 come from Tamiya Holland. The other 10 come from ebay or shops that use Tamiya Germany as there importer. The other reason is the money it takes to reserve the circuit and people that are in the organisation.

I understand that the Euro-cup is a pure marketing tool to let people get involved RC racing and Tamiya in particular. From a marketing point of view i can understand that if you look at the costs and benefits, they choose to stop the races.

But there are some more points i don't understand. Tamiya Holland talkes about the fact that there are more cars driving that there were sold via Tamiya Holland. Most of them come from shops that use Tamiya Germany as there importer. The reason for this can be that Tamiya Germany has a much less agressive way of doing business and that the German Tamiya importer is cheaper to buy from. The latest problem is that Tamiya Holland is opening there own franchise Tamiya shops. I have heard a rumour that the stuff in these shops are cheaper than in a shop that is just a dealer of Tamiya kits. This way Tamiya Holland is undermining there relations with the Tamiya dealers. Some of the shops have chosen the buy from Germany.

The other thing is ebay. More and more people become familiar with internet and buying from internet. More and more RC fans find there stuff at ebay (also the beginners). Is this wrong????? I think not. Technology and internet is growing day by day and for some RC fans it is not an isseu to just buy there stuff without the service, personal contact and garantee you get at your LHS. When you just look at the prices for some cars......Lets take the Ford High Lift. This car can be bought on ebay for 300 euro's including shipping (that is without any import tax)! Here in Holland the car costs about 450 euro's. If your just looking for cheap and know how to build the car, ebay is the way to go. Maby Tamiya Holland have to take measures so people are less willing to buy from ebay or internet.

If the costs are to high, maby they have to increase there effort to get more people on a raceday. Maby a fee of 5 euro's per contender is an option. If you give the drivers more value for there money, 5 euro's shouldn't be a problem. When looking at the website, it is not up-to-date, you can not find any information about new releases etc. In Germany, UK etc Tamiya has a special website related to there Euro-cup.

The power of the Euro-cup is that you can race a car right out of the box. For any kind of person and wallet there is a class to drive in. The atmosphere is also very good during the races. It is different then the National championship Electro 1/10. In this series there is more serious competition and there are sponsered drivers etc. I can't imagine that you would drive the National championship with a standard TT01 car without any kind of experience.

Well, maby in the end it's all just a case of lack of money, people and effort. 

Please give me your ideas about this case. I like to share some thoughts on this one.

[meridian]

I'm in the USA  and don't know about Tamiya events in general anywhere, but I was talking to a hobby shop in California - same state as TamiyaUSA is located - and he told me a lot of employees there got fired and there was a big restructuring going on at TamiyaUSA. I think he said they are not going to do a big race(s) like they used to every year at TamiyaUSA. I think he said they were downsizing and maybe either moving or renting out part of the building they are located in. he didn't know exactly what is going on but a lot of people did get fired he knows for sure and changes being done for sure. 

 I'm not suggesting that this has anything to do with near you but apparently big changes are being made in at least two Tamiya locations so far.

[Mr.Nismo]

Well, maby that is just the case. Maby it's just difficult to make a good profit now days as Tamiya importer and the way to solve this is to fire personal and stop organize races.

[Singapore_959]

Well that is sad news.

 In eastern europe I have seen the interesting situation where a country Tamiya importer is effectively a daughter company of the bigger Austrian or German (deliberately vauge) Tamiya importer, and it is more interested in the static models and craft products. And as a result sells the r/c products at 'standard' prices with no discounting. Thus they are expensive to customers.

 

The independant shops offer much better r/c prices for the same goods, because they source from

•  - get this - Germany and Austria; buying in bulk there, getting discounts there, and on selling in eastern europe
  
• buying online from HK (rcmart and others), and on selling retail in eastern europe at prices still lower than the local official agent
  

Therefore the mother companies are effectively screwing their daugher firms (at customers and their own overall profit's expense), and pushing more serious (ie. would be repeat/frequent) r/c customers to ebay.

 

It is the independant shops who organise our race series, and in an ironic twist last Christmas one of the Country importers had to turn to an independant shop to buy stock ! because they had run out and only the independant had enough stock to supply to the official importer!

 

I would think that Tamiya Europe needs to think about alternative structures to their current arrangement with country agents. Perhaps splitting r/c from the static models is a possible option. As it stands currently, the static models seem to carry more sales, hence profit and focus, with the country agents. The independant r/c shops put in more effort, are already operating at lower margins, so they if they were made official r/c importers they should be content to supply 'officially' at prices lower than the current agents and more customers will support the officially imported products.

 

Anybody else?