I was asked to produce an O Scale kit of our original Union Pacific Trackside Warehouse and hesitated to do so. After about 24 hours of creating step by step directions and exploded view diagrams in AutoCad, I packaged up about 30 kits. I gave three of them away for review and constructive comment. I sold maybe a dozen of them and then sold four more at a discount off of my original asking price. I am looking at eleven of them as I write this. The balance we pulled from to do actual customer builds.
The kit has been on my website for 18 months and has been displayed at the last three York shows with absolutely no sales. In the mean time, the built up Union Pacific trackside warehouse is still our most popular model- ranging from the original 2 story version and now modified all the way up to five stories.
Granted, I have made it clear that I do not intend to produce any other kits at this time. I find the O Scale kit market one that there is virtually no potential for profit. I can build out our Union Pacific trackside warehouse almost as fast as I can put various pieces in various bags, label them, print instructions, put the contents it in a box and make it look nice. Here's the catch- I can't afford to sell the kit for less than $40.00 and the built version will not sell for more than $50.00. I will be chatting with a hobbyist at the Amherst/Springfield show next weekend about selling him blanks of our Paterson Silk Mill. He is familiar with the materials that we use and I am confident that he will be able to use our laser cut acrylic plastic elevation pieces for his project. With that said, I will entertain conversations about out building elevations, but there will be no written instructions and the buyer should have the proper equipment and blades to cut acrylic plastic.
