WNW........what's happening here???????????

[GazzaS]

20 hours ago, Dekenba said:

I actually emailed Richard Alexander to say that I hoped WNW weren't going to start releasing specific pilot boxings, as there were rumours beforehand.

I felt it would end up as pretty divisive & inevitably political.

Richard said "you can't please everyone", or words to that effect - fair enough (and good on Richard for replying to customers emails) but I'm not sure who WNW were pleasing by releasing Goring?

 

They'd have done better with Udet.   He is at least clean of war crimes, and led an interesting interwar existence as both stunt pilot and aircraft designer/builder.  I have to admit that the idea of weathering an all white plane is a bit interesting as a challenge goes.  But for what I paid for it, I'd hate to mess it up.  

[Clunkmeister]

On 4/19/2020 at 6:35 AM, HubertB said:

It’s too easy to be smart when you have insight of what happened after the decisions were made, and to shoot on ambulances, but one can list many strange choices, like (it’s not a complete list) :

1) At the same time as they decided to stop the free shipping policy, transfer order and shipping management to Weta, who made a disaster of the move, and were not organised to ship small parcels worldwide.

2) Not only did they include shipping charges, but they also added VAT on many transactions. I am sure that triggered a massive drop of sales as prices skyrocketed and service plummeted ...

3) Sticking to a policy of weird releases and ignoring « obvious » demands like the Dr-1 or French - or italian - fighters

I was personally never a believer that because it was created on the whim of a passionate and very rich man, WnW did not have to answer the basics of business management, as I read many times... And it now seems that, not only did he not have the deep pockets a lot of modellers were dreaming about, but these pockets may rather have been the Kiwi taxpayers’ pockets...

I am grateful that WnW was created. It triggered an extra interest in 1/32 scale, as did Trumpeter beforehand. It enabled many modellers to produce great looking kits without the need to be a superhuman master modeller, and they released projects I could only dream of. Just the Felixstowe will make it a mythical brand in my agenda.

And I wish that the unique talents assembled in the WnW team will find sooner rather than later jobs to continue make us dream.

Hubert

I have a few of my own observations on that, and it's simple conjecture with the benefit off 20/20 hindsight.

1. The release of the DFW series.  It was preceeded by alot of fanfare, secrecy of the type to be released, only saying that it's the "most widely deployed German two seater of the war", yadda yadda yadda.  Well, I was morer than a little bit underwhelmed when I saw it, I wasn't familiar with the type, and to me it looks like a pregnant Rumpler, both versions of which were still nowhere near sold out.  I bought a couple out of loyalty to the Company.  The Halberstadt, a real sleeper of a kit, should have come instead.

2. The UWD.  WHY?  Offer an add-on kit and be done with it. Or let the AM figure it out. Aviattic might have jumped all over a float kit, or even HPH might have stepped up.  I bought one out of loyalty to the Company.

3. The Dolphin.  OK, it's fuggly, and for similar investment, we could have had a 1 1/2 Strutter or a Baby, both much more popular.   But, I'm not normal and actually LOVE the ugly Dolphin, so I bought a few to build.

4. FIVE Camel boxings.  Why?   Offer add on sprues and decals. save the huge costs involved with the various boxings, artwork, etc.  They did the same with the D.Vll's, FOUR boxings of that gem. But they learned their lessons and have us another boxing, and sold add on sprues to make other versions: smart.  I bought NONE, but traded for a few. It's not my favorite bird, and for this, I lose my honorary Brit card. 

5. O-100, O-400, and two Lancasters, all at the same time. WHY?  The cost of tooling all those HUGE kits at once must be bloody astronomical. A massive financial red pill to swallow and a forever nut to crack, just to get back to being in the black.  MASSIVE mistake.

6. No Dr-1 untill now. OK, never.  It's only 6 years late, no biggie.  That, like the Albatros and the D.V11s, was a cash cow that was ignored all too long.

7. Stillborns:  DH-4, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Albatros C-anything, and a Be.2c and e (the flippin RE.8 sold out in a year. People wanted a Be.2 so bad they could taste it.),  No SPADs,  WTF? Another absolute cash cow.  Add Caudron, Voisin, etc....

 

Winners lately? Few and far between, but the Junkers D.l was a stroke of genius.  The Halberstadt, to me, had all the look of a winner, it's an amazing kit, but it'll never get a chance.  The Lanc could have been the best kit by any manufacturer, ever, anyplace.   That kit was hot and droolin' sexy. 

Observations?  WnW was right about one thing: They'd never release a kit of the Dr.1. Ever. And you can take THAT to the bank.

 

[Guest Dekenba]

5 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

I have a few of my own observations on that, and it's simple conjecture with the benefit off 20/20 hindsight.

1. The release of the DFW series.  It was preceeded by alot of fanfare, secrecy of the type to be released, only saying that it's the "most widely deployed German two seater of the war", yadda yadda yadda.  Well, I was morer than a little bit underwhelmed when I saw it, I wasn't familiar with the type, and to me it looks like a pregnant Rumpler, both versions of which were still nowhere near sold out.  I bought a couple out of loyalty to the Company.  The Halberstadt, a real sleeper of a kit, should have come instead.

2. The UWD.  WHY?  Offer an add-on kit and be done with it. Or let the AM figure it out. Aviattic might have jumped all over a float kit, or even HPH might have stepped up.  I bought one out of loyalty to the Company.

3. The Dolphin.  OK, it's fuggly, and for similar investment, we could have had a 1 1/2 Strutter or a Baby, both much more popular.   But, I'm not normal and actually LOVE the ugly Dolphin, so I bought a few to build.

4. FIVE Camel boxings.  Why?   Offer add on sprues and decals. save the huge costs involved with the various boxings, artwork, etc.  They did the same with the D.Vll's, FOUR boxings of that gem. But they learned their lessons and have us another boxing, and sold add on sprues to make other versions: smart.  I bought NONE, but traded for a few. It's not my favorite bird, and for this, I lose my honorary Brit card. 

5. O-100, O-400, and two Lancasters, all at the same time. WHY?  The cost of tooling all those HUGE kits at once must be bloody astronomical. A massive financial red pill to swallow and a forever nut to crack, just to get back to being in the black.  MASSIVE mistake.

6. No Dr-1 untill now. OK, never.  It's only 6 years late, no biggie.  That, like the Albatros and the D.V11s, was a cash cow that was ignored all too long.

7. Stillborns:  DH-4, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Albatros C-anything, and a Be.2c and e (the flippin RE.8 sold out in a year. People wanted a Be.2 so bad they could taste it.),  No SPADs,  WTF? Another absolute cash cow.  Add Caudron, Voisin, etc....

 

Winners lately? Few and far between, but the Junkers D.l was a stroke of genius.  The Halberstadt, to me, had all the look of a winner, it's an amazing kit, but it'll never get a chance.  The Lanc could have been the best kit by any manufacturer, ever, anyplace.   That kit was hot and droolin' sexy. 

Observations?  WnW was right about one thing: They'd never release a kit of the Dr.1. Ever. And you can take THAT to the bank.

 

I agree. WNW has been run as PJ's plaything, 

The upside is that there is a great deal of improvement available should the company be sold or burst back to life.

Concentrating on fewer kits, reducing the length of the development process, kitting aeroplanes that have high demand, utilising moulds with huge sunk costs & low marginal productions costs, actually making enough to meet demand, avoiding kits that are too esoteric, boring or just plain pricey, embracing the retail model of distribution, branching out with overtrees style kits at cheap prices, & special edition kits with PE, brass & decals, to meet everybody's budgetary needs, ramping up production runs to lower average cost of production, dropping the aversion to kit French subjects, doing proper marketing by having a release schedule to entice customers, maybe kitting in smaller scales to open another revenue stream, consider the interwar period, which currently relies largely on resin niche players, look at utilising different suppliers, etc, etc.

There seems tremendous potential to improve the business model sufficiently to make reasonable profits.

[smitty44]

Don't think the 0/whatevers were intended to be at the same time as Lancs. Delays in this and that just brought them both in conflict. I see this mostly as a cost thing, because I have no doubt they both would have sold just fine.

[Clunkmeister]

Now that we’re firmly in the realm of conjecture, I will say that going full worldwide distribution as a massive mistake and only served to nicely remove whatever operating profit they were realizing.

They had everything except for production under one roof. R&D, prepping, shipping and receiving, warehousing, sales, QC, advertising, and marketing.   Not the biggest, but the very best, with costs directly under their control, all QC easily overseen, and a shipping department that actually cared, was easily reached, and modelers like us.  Matter of fact, they were SO successful, they gained an unheard of cult following that still exists today.

Then they subbed it all out with the grandiose plan of going global.  Great idea if you’re Tamiya or Revell, but WW1 models are a niche of a niche within a niche. The market just ain’t there.  They expanded it greatly, but it was about as big as it was going to get without expanding their market reach.  In essence, they gave away the gravy. Third parties taking the easy money off the top, but WNW’s workload never decreased. Work hard for less money.

I’ve never been a WalMart business model: sell 2 gazillion copies for a cheap price and make .20 per unit profit each.

Instead, I’ve been more of a boutique kind of guy: supply the very best product humanly possible, with blow your mind personalized service for a high but fair price. In other words, BE THE BEST.  

Thats how you become what they used to be. 

[krow113]

. You're quite loquacious.

[BlrwestSiR]

9 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

They'd never release a kit of the Dr.1. Ever.

I think they saw what the test shot looked like so they decided to call it a day before the rivet counters found out.

I'm not sure if the figure is supposed to Von Richtofen or Jay Leno. 

[GazzaS]

It's all just one huge disappointment.  What were they thinking?  The list of slow sellers is pretty big.  Whatever they were doing, it wasn't about making money.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Ernie has listed many of the Turkeys. so I won't repeat it. 

 

I don't care if the Czechs or Chinese re-pop everything that was produced.  I have enough of the ones I wanted. (unless you have an unwanted Pfalz D.III sitting around)   But now I feel bereft of hope.  There is no tomorrow when a new WWI aircraft model will be released.  Let alone 2-3 a year.

[Guest Dekenba]

1 hour ago, GazzaS said:

It's all just one huge disappointment.  What were they thinking?  The list of slow sellers is pretty big.  Whatever they were doing, it wasn't about making money.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Ernie has listed many of the Turkeys. so I won't repeat it. 

 

I don't care if the Czechs or Chinese re-pop everything that was produced.  I have enough of the ones I wanted. (unless you have an unwanted Pfalz D.III sitting around)   But now I feel bereft of hope.  There is no tomorrow when a new WWI aircraft model will be released.  Let alone 2-3 a year.

Steady on!

I'd not say they were "dumb". They'd still be beavering away now, if it were not for a virus that is causing - according to the Bank of England - the worst recession in centuries.

It was simply PJ enjoying his hobby in the most grandiose style imaginable. He wanted a DFW C.V, he wanted a Gotha on floats, he wanted 4 types of Eindecker & 6 boxing's of Fokker D.VII's & 5 types of Camels, he wanted two massive HP O series bomber types to go with the three Gotha's & two AEG's, to say nothing of a pair of Felixstowe's.

We were lucky that he decided to share his hobby with us.

Personally, I thought it was glorious. If WNW has been run as a profitable business, it would have kitted maybe one or two boxing's a year, mainly of single seater stuff, it would have probably reduced mould quality & detail  somewhat to reduce costs, whilst still being the best 1/32 WWI modeller out there, prices may well have been higher - at least initially - the fancy artwork may have never been commissioned, the instruction booklet may have been predominantly black & white, they'd never have offered free shipping for 5 years, etc.

PJ, with half a billion dollars of wealth behind him, put his tastes - and fellow modellers ability to share his hobby - ahead of profits.

We'll never see it's like again.

PS I have a spare Pfalz, once we return to semi normality I'd be happy to ship it over to Oz.

[GazzaS]

50 minutes ago, Dekenba said:

Steady on!

I'd not say they were "dumb". They'd still be beavering away now, if it were not for a virus that is causing - according to the Bank of England - the worst recession in centuries.

It was simply PJ enjoying his hobby in the most grandiose style imaginable. He wanted a DFW C.V, he wanted a Gotha on floats, he wanted 4 types of Eindecker & 6 boxing's of Fokker D.VII's & 5 types of Camels, he wanted two massive HP O series bomber types to go with the three Gotha's & two AEG's, to say nothing of a pair of Felixstowe's.

We were lucky that he decided to share his hobby with us.

Personally, I thought it was glorious. If WNW has been run as a profitable business, it would have kitted maybe one or two boxing's a year, mainly of single seater stuff, it would have probably reduced mould quality & detail  somewhat to reduce costs, whilst still being the best 1/32 WWI modeller out there, prices may well have been higher - at least initially - the fancy artwork may have never been commissioned, the instruction booklet may have been predominantly black & white, they'd never have offered free shipping for 5 years, etc.

PJ, with half a billion dollars of wealth behind him, put his tastes - and fellow modellers ability to share his hobby - ahead of profits.

We'll never see it's like again.

PS I have a spare Pfalz, once we return to semi normality I'd be happy to ship it over to Oz.

Perhaps my view will come around once my period of mourning is over.  

Thank you for the kind offer!  I'll look forward to normality, then.  It's a sweet build of a kit, if you haven't had the opportunity, yet.

[Guest Dekenba]

1 hour ago, GazzaS said:

Perhaps my view will come around once my period of mourning is over.  

Thank you for the kind offer!  I'll look forward to normality, then.  It's a sweet build of a kit, if you haven't had the opportunity, yet.

Please remind me if I forget, I have a terrible memory.

[Bill_S]

I'm very sad to see the demise of WNW. To me, they accomplished a couple of things:

They raised awareness of the vast numbers of aircraft designs from the Great War. Quite a few of their releases were unknown to me.

Right out of the gate, they set a standard for quality that is rarely seen.

They spawned an entire AM cottage industry.

They generated God knows how many TOS pages of conjecture on the selling price of the Lancaster.

[Clunkmeister]

12 hours ago, krow113 said:

. You're quite loquacious.

yep

 

[Clunkmeister]

1 hour ago, Bill_S said:

I'm very sad to see the demise of WNW. To me, they accomplished a couple of things:

They raised awareness of the vast numbers of aircraft designs from the Great War. Quite a few of their releases were unknown to me.

Right out of the gate, they set a standard for quality that is rarely seen.

They spawned an entire AM cottage industry.

They generated God knows how many TOS pages of conjecture on the selling price of the Lancaster.

OK, I just spit up my coffee. Truth.

For anyone even slightly contemplating it, build a Felixstowe.  It's an amazing and liberating build.

[GusMac]

6 hours ago, Dekenba said:

Steady on!

I'd not say they were "dumb". They'd still be beavering away now, if it were not for a virus that is causing - according to the Bank of England - the worst recession in centuries.

It was simply PJ enjoying his hobby in the most grandiose style imaginable. He wanted a DFW C.V, he wanted a Gotha on floats, he wanted 4 types of Eindecker & 6 boxing's of Fokker D.VII's & 5 types of Camels, he wanted two massive HP O series bomber types to go with the three Gotha's & two AEG's, to say nothing of a pair of Felixstowe's.

We were lucky that he decided to share his hobby with us.

Personally, I thought it was glorious. If WNW has been run as a profitable business, it would have kitted maybe one or two boxing's a year, mainly of single seater stuff, it would have probably reduced mould quality & detail  somewhat to reduce costs, whilst still being the best 1/32 WWI modeller out there, prices may well have been higher - at least initially - the fancy artwork may have never been commissioned, the instruction booklet may have been predominantly black & white, they'd never have offered free shipping for 5 years, etc.

PJ, with half a billion dollars of wealth behind him, put his tastes - and fellow modellers ability to share his hobby - ahead of profits.

We'll never see it's like again.

PS I have a spare Pfalz, once we return to semi normality I'd be happy to ship it over to Oz.

I'm not so sure that this is all down to COVID. My suspicion is that the kicking he was getting in the NZ media may have been a bigger influence and the virus just put the lid on it.

Whatever the cause the outcome is painful for the staff involved who're redundant through absolutely no fault of their own. They've striven and succeeded in making just about the best product out there and I'm sure weren't party to the decision to sub-contract out the profit! As usual those at the bottom suffer and those at the top walk away relatively intact.

[GusMac]

13 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

I’ve never been a WalMart business model: sell 2 gazillion copies for a cheap price and make .20 per unit profit each.

Instead, I’ve been more of a boutique kind of guy: supply the very best product humanly possible, with blow your mind personalized service for a high but fair price. In other words, BE THE BEST.  

Thats how you become what they used to be. 

There's still a lot of truth in the old saying that 'you get what you pay for'. 

I'd always be prepared to pay a bit more to support craftsmen and local businesses than pour more cash into the conglomerates. Especially at the moment, we're getting virtually all our food from local farm shops rather than go to the big supermarkets. One of the few advantages about living in a rural area.

[Clunkmeister]

9 minutes ago, GusMac said:

I'm not so sure that this is all down to COVID. My suspicion is that the kicking he was getting in the NZ media may have been a bigger influence and the virus just put the lid on it.

Whatever the cause the outcome is painful for the staff involved who're redundant through absolutely no fault of their own. They've striven and succeeded in making just about the best product out there and I'm sure weren't party to the decision to sub-contract out the profit! As usual those at the bottom suffer and those at the top walk away relatively intact.

It is, and I agree 100%

I just deleted a comment I made because it borders on political. There's plenty of places we could go here, but I'm glad we're keeping this on the rails.

[Guest Dekenba]

13 minutes ago, GusMac said:

I'm not so sure that this is all down to COVID. My suspicion is that the kicking he was getting in the NZ media may have been a bigger influence and the virus just put the lid on it.

Whatever the cause the outcome is painful for the staff involved who're redundant through absolutely no fault of their own. They've striven and succeeded in making just about the best product out there and I'm sure weren't party to the decision to sub-contract out the profit! As usual those at the bottom suffer and those at the top walk away relatively intact.

Time will probably tell us what happened.

I think his treatment by some of the NZ media has been pretty short-sighted. He's placed the country on the movie-making map, provided thousands of very well paid jobs, and probably pays a great deal of tax as well. His net benefit to the NZ culture & economy has been astounding, as not that long ago NZ was known to have a good rugby team that choked under pressure, and lots of sheep.

Some NZ people are trying to kill the goose.

I have sympathy with the employees - losing your job is crappy at the best of times - but perhaps bear in mind that PJ allowed them to work as they did for a decade, focusing on quality first & foremost, rather than profit, in a relatively laid-back atmosphere where the single goal was to give PJ what he wanted. That sounds a very, very good place to work, and all things come to an end at some point, although it seems the end in this instance was not managed well at all, at least partly due to the virus.

Anyhow, I've no doubt that the world will see WNW's kits in other guises in the coming years, whether that be a competitor buying the assets, an employee buy-out, PJ resurrecting WNW or just an entire new team investing in the moulds, backed by financial investors.

My money is on PJ breathing new life into WNW at some point next year. But I'll probably change my mind, over & over, until I disappear up my own bum. 

 

[Clunkmeister]

5 hours ago, Dekenba said:

Time will probably tell us what happened.

My money is on PJ breathing new life into WNW at some point next year. But I'll probably change my mind, over & over, until I disappear up my own bum. 

 

well, my money is on me going home tonight, cracking open a big bottle of cheap Fireball, and proceeding to become rip roaring, staggeringly commode hugging, moon howling drunk.

And maybe while I'm doing that, fondle some plastic.

 

[krow113]

6 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

yep

 

...and succinct too.

[Clunkmeister]

1 minute ago, krow113 said:

...and succinct too.

I tell ya, I know, absolutely, no doubt about it, uhh huh.

 

[krow113]

I'd like to see some pics of your Gotha... before your sh&tfaced.

[Clunkmeister]

Just now, krow113 said:

I'd like to see some pics of your Gotha... before your sh&tfaced.

Wilco.  I think there's an RFI somewhere on the board here.  I will warn you, it was almost my first WNW kit, so it's not up to my standards of today.  

[krow113]

5 minutes ago, Clunkmeister said:

Wilco.  I think there's an RFI somewhere on the board here.  I will warn you, it was almost my first WNW kit, so it's not up to my standards of today.  

This does not concern me in the slightest.

I liek to see any and all examples.

There are a few on the website that range from meh to holy crap!

All of them commendable for the effort and finishing the model.

[Clunkmeister]

Well, it's here somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.