My take on this is that WNW have been in effect subsidising the whole operation up until now - to our benefit - but are now putting themselves on an even keel financially.
I think you are absolutely right there Kai.
However I would welcome a proper UK distributor channel (not just Nigel Hannant adding anything he likes to the dollar price.)
My beef has always been how much it costs to get these superb wonderful models delivered to my door. If I lived in many parts of the US I would still be delighted after the recent price rises. I could order, say a DH9, for 129USD and that would be the total cost. If however I order it in the UK, it will cost me 165USD to get it delivered to my door. The import costs adds 25-28% to the dollar price - and something similar for most other EU and other countries.
If, above that, I had to fork out another 20USD, say to get it shipped, then I would buy very, very few more WNW kits.
However if we look at the retail model, I would expect any loss of gross margin to WNW would be balanced out by access to much larger markets (now they have established the brand themselves) and larger sales volumes. Many people fight shy of ordering direct from abroad, I don't know why, but Nigel H makes his margins.)
(WNW might even change from "limited run" to normal batch production - which I'm sure we'd all welcome.) Their sales forecasts and shipping would become much simpler to manage
For me, the consumer, I would expect market forces to come into effect such as they do with all mainstream kits. I mean when did you pay full whack for a Roden kit? I've got the whole series of 1/32 WWI subjects and have paid between 20 and 30GBP for each including shipping. (RRP here is over 40GBP.)
The big Tamiya Mosquito is regularly available here with a 20% price discount.
Even paying top price I'd be happy that I was paying the same as elsewhere in the world and my government wasn't taking happy advantage of WNW's current pricing policy to stiff me for a bullshit import fee!
There is an anomaly in WNW pricing in that my invoices always show the full dollar price for goods - but GST (NZ tax) at 0%. Since (I believe) they sell at the same price internally in NZ, the dollar price must include 15% GST - so there already exists an, NZ-only, goods price lower than the export price. If nothing else this price could be used to sell to distributors, still resulting in a UK price no higher than we're paying at the moment, if we assumed a 30% dealer mark-up.
I'd better hide from the wrath of the stateside guys now, as this would of course not work for them - but maybe WNW just keeps the direct sales line for countries where the tax people don't fillet the customer.
All in all I'm just glad I have over 30 WNWs in the stash, including all the ones I want, and I few that I probably won't ever get round to building. Hey I might even sell them and make a profit!!!
Sorry for the ramble.
Sandy
