Tarangus Models

[Weaver]

New manufacturer, apparently.

Aircraft kits (injection)
TAR48001 1:48 Saab A32A Lansen (this is injection moulded NOT resin as we first advertised)  £64.99  £54.16
http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/TAR48001

[Daryl J.]

Viggen delayed.  Moulds being done in steel instead.   
1/72 Tunnan coming soon. 

[Captain Canada]

Have they said anything about the Tunnan ? Wonder what quality their kits are ? Guess I could research the 'net myself, but hey, this is where I like to hang model wise ! I've always liked that aeroplane, and would like to build a 'proper' one, be it CDN, German or au natural....

[Green Dragon]

Built the Matchbox Tunnan a few times and got another in the stash, should probably get the Heller/Airfix one too and hope the Tarrangus one isn't too pricey so I have them all. 

Paul Harrison

[NARSES2]

They have now produced a 1/72 Lansen. However £29.99 seems a tad steep ?

[PR19_Kit]

They have now produced a 1/72 Lansen. However £29.99 seems a tad steep ?

Phew, is it three times as good as a Heller Lansen? 

Somehow I doubt it...........

[Dizzyfugu]

Same goes for the 1:72 Tunnan they offer. Certainly a decent kit, but the prive tag is oversized. After all, it's just an IP kit.

[jcf]

Same goes for the 1:72 Tunnan they offer. Certainly a decent kit, but the prive tag is oversized. After all, .

Which is the most expensive form of kit to produce, especially with hard steel, high-pressure moulds.
Combine that with a small sales base, and unit cost is going to be high to even come close to recouping
development and production cost, never mind making a profit.

[PR19_Kit]

Combine that with a small sales base, and unit cost is going to be high to even come close to recouping
development and production cost, never mind making a profit.

It's fine line between making enough to just scrape by with a 'small sales base', and pitching the price lower so it attracts more sales across a wider base. With neither model available from other manufacturers in this scale just now they have the market to themselves, and to my mind could have pitched their prices somewhat lower, aiming for larger sales overall.

If I wanted a 1/72 Lansen or Tunnan I'd be looking on ebay for the older Heller mouldings.

[Leading Observer]

If I wanted a 1/72 Lansen or Tunnan I'd be looking on ebay for the older Heller mouldings.

To be fair, if you look on ebay for a 1/72 Lansen, they are pretty rare and the prices, if you include p&p aren't that much different to the new offering

[Weaver]

Combine that with a small sales base, and unit cost is going to be high to even come close to recouping
development and production cost, never mind making a profit.

It's fine line between making enough to just scrape by with a 'small sales base', and pitching the price lower so it attracts more sales across a wider base. With neither model available from other manufacturers in this scale just now they have the market to themselves, and to my mind could have pitched their prices somewhat lower, aiming for larger sales overall.

If I wanted a 1/72 Lansen or Tunnan I'd be looking on ebay for the older Heller mouldings.

Problem is that you have to be very sure of your market research and projected sales data to go down the lower-profit-higher-volume route. They're a small company and it might just be that they can't afford the amount of professional research it would take to make that decision with confidence. Plus, the model market must be fiendishly difficult to analyse. Models arn't commodities that get consumed and re-bought: you might sell a load of Lansens from the first batch, but then find that the people who bought them first time arn't going to buy again at any price because their desire for one has now been satisfied.

It can work though. A few years ago, BMW Motorbikes found that the GBP/EUR exchange rate had moved strongly in their favour, so they had the choice of taking a bigger profit margin or cutting prices to expand the market. They made a ballsy decision to do the latter, and it paid off because the bikes are genuinely good, so the new, broader customer base stayed with them when the prices inevitably went up again.

[jcf]

There simply isn't a wide sales base for something as relatively esoteric as Swedish fighter planes. 

Also, as Harold points out, Tarangus is a small company and, unlike the major players (Revell, Airfix, Tamiya, etc., even Eduard)
they don't have a backlog of existing tooling or other products to stabilize their finances.

[Dizzyfugu]

To be fair, if you look on ebay for a 1/72 Lansen, they are pretty rare and the prices, if you include p&p aren't that much different to the new offering

That's true, and the Heller kit is actually not truly up to date, with raised panel lines. Hard to find one at decent prices, it took me years to finally get hands on my specimen in the stash for a price that I was willing to pay. Still, the Tarangus products are too expensive for my taste. Yes, the big price tag is the company's business modell, and it may be a dead end in the long run, or just cover the production cost. But they just fill a niche-in-a-niche, I have doubts about this strategy. But that's just me.

[Dizzyfugu]

Tarangus has an 1:72 Saab 32 Lansen (B or E version) out. Looks nice, but the price tag is obviously out of scale... 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/SAAB-J32-B-E-Lansen-Einsitzer-Jager-Tarangus-Plastikbausatz-1-72-NEUHEIT-/111920911986?hash=item1a0f019672:g:EaMAAOSwPc9W1IHA

[PR19_Kit]

Tarangus has an 1:72 Saab 32 Lansen (B or E version) out. Looks nice, but the price tag is obviously out of scale... 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/SAAB-J32-B-E-Lansen-Einsitzer-Jager-Tarangus-Plastikbausatz-1-72-NEUHEIT-/111920911986?hash=item1a0f019672:g:EaMAAOSwPc9W1IHA

Jeepers, that's expensive for a 1/72 kit! 

They must have head-hunted their marketing manager from Hasegawa.