Editorial
Dear Friends, Welcome to the August newsletter editorial. New releases for August are on sale from today, and to the contrary, yesterday saw the end of the pre-order offer of the MiG-21F-13 in Czechoslovak service, on our e-shop. This is of course a very specific target item, strongly geared towards our home market and Czech and Slovak customers, but we still managed to get very decent numbers for pre-ordered kits. Although we do not have any orders from retailers yet, according to our experience, orders on the e-shop are approximately 20% of the total number, so it looks like we will produce and sell
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the August newsletter editorial.
New releases for August are on sale from
today, and to the contrary, yesterday saw the
end of the pre-order offer of the MiG-21F-13
in Czechoslovak service, on our e-shop. This is
of course a very specific target item, strongly
geared towards our home market and Czech
and Slovak customers, but we still managed
to get very decent numbers for pre-ordered
kits. Although we do not have any orders from
retailers yet, according to our experience,
orders on the e-shop are approximately 20%
of the total number, so it looks like we will
produce and sell approximately 1500 pieces of
this kit. To understand the reasoning behind our
actions, we find out the exact current demand
through pre-orders, and, based on that figure,
we produce as many kits as we can actually
sell and no more. We apply this sales method
to the new Royal Class releases, and we will
also apply it to other ‘hyper specific’ and tightly
focused products. To put it bluntly, we don't
want to overshoot the production numbers of
such kits, which have only a limited number of
customers, and then not sell them or sell them
later at a massive discount or even a loss, but
we also don't want to underestimate the market
and limit what we can earn for our efforts.
Which is something that unfortunately happens
quite often today. We determine the production
figures of new products based on pre-orders
from retailers. In very simple terms, we produce
twice as many pre-ordered items as the figures
tell us for all new products. For accessories,
photoetching, masks, Brassins, Space Sets and
other aftermarket products, we then maintain
the stock level according to current demand
and monthly sales. For kits, we produce a set
amount, which we then sell until the given
item sells out. This is usually several months
or even years. This is desirable for Profipacks
and Weekends, less so for Limited Edition
kits. We consider it ideal for them to remain
in our catalog and available for three to six
months. If they sell out faster, we ask retailers
if they are still interested in these kits and
how many of them they have, and depending
on demand, we may reissue said items. This
happened, for example, with the Kamikaze
Tokkōtai kit, where we sold out the first edition
almost immediately after the kit was released.
Modelers are confused by this procedure, and
they then discuss on forums and Facebook
why we are releasing a Limited Edition kit as
a re-release, while we are putting other Limited
Editions on sale at a discount. This is because
we are selling off the kits at a discount for
which we have overestimated demand and
they remain in stock. This happens especially
in times when market conditions are changing
and it is difficult to predict how a particular new
product will sell. In the post-COVID era and in
the months after the start of the Russian war
against Ukraine, it happened that estimates
were optimistic, but the market was already
slowing down quickly, which led to a slowdown
or even a halt in sales of some items. Today,
on the contrary, there is considerable caution,
which in some cases leads to faulty estimates.
However, as can be seen even in today's cautious
market, it is possible to produce a kit that
exceeds expectations. Such as the Kamikaze
Tokkōtai or the Royal Class P-40N. These really
confused us in July. Both are complex kits with a
lot of components and, above all, sprues. Larger
orders led to greater production requirements,
which we could not quite keep up with, and we
couldn’t keep up with plastic production, which
slowed down the packaging and assembly of
the kits and subsequently delayed shipments.
In the end, it was quite a drama, exacerbated by
the fact that a similar situation occurred in the
Brassin department, where we also have large
orders for some kits, such as unsurprisingly, for
the P-40E and N kits. The situation there is also
complicated by the fact that we are still in the
process of replacing old 3D printers with new
ones. We already have seven new ones, but that
is still not enough. We should install four more
printers in August, and that should stabilize
production.
We should be well prepared for the sending
out the F-13s. We have all the molds ready,
we have six of them tested and we are slowly
starting to press plastic from them. The pre-
orders are planned to go out at the end of
September and the beginning of October. From
EDITORIAL
INFO Eduard4
August 2025