Sorry if you came here for some trains sanctuary away from all the crap that is currently life in Britain. I’m afraid you’ve arrived at me having a despairing whinge about the state of the nation and wondering whether it was even worth carrying on.
I have to confess recent news have left me pretty despairing and seriously concerned about the future of my business and my therapy is to have a rant about it here on my blog.
Now, things have been going to hell in a handcart for sometime with rising prices and the scam that is the current (lack of) government. So we’ve been sold energy prices going up four fold then they borrow shit loads of money (that we’ll have to pay back ) to make us feel good that they’re only going up two fold. Fuel prices, shop prices, supply shortages & business closures all affect us.
After a bit you become almost immune to it so its easy to give it some “La La La” and go and play with your model trains.
When the latest budget nightmare from Kami-Kwasi meant the USD/GBP exchange rate plummeted to a world record low the shell shocked me thought “that won’t help” and went back to spraying my model.
Then this morning…….
- Customer #1 “can you get me some Banta Models stuff”
- Customer #2 “Can you get me some Micro Engineering stuff”
My first thought was “Nope, not a chance” but then I thought I’d better look into it a bit more.
Now when I import stuff from the USA all sorts of cleverness happens in spreadsheets that takes the dollar cost, adds in the other cost such as currency transfer fees, customs duty, VAT and import fees. All very complex and cleverly sorted out in a spreadsheet to arrive at a UK cost price excluding VAT to which I then add a margin (my bit) and then UK VAT to arrive at a UK retail price.
There was a shortcut if someone said to me “if you ordered me such and such from the states how much would it be”. You tell them that the USD retail price was $X and the UK price would £X ie just change the sign. Pre-Brexshit when the exchange rate was 1.65 this gave a pessimistic view and you looked good when you charged them a bit less than they were expecting.
Post Brexshit the rate went to 1.25 ish and the estimation just about held good but its been under pressure.
NOW ITS BUGGERED!
I thought I had better quantify it given the enquiries so I got the spreadsheet for my last Banta order placed when the exchange rate was 1.28 and recalculated it with todays 1.08. Still doesn’t sound that bad does it but here is what it does to a sample of those prices.
That won’t be the end of it as it doesn’t consider these factors
- I haven’t increased my margins in years but all my costs are going through the roof whilst availability of items plummets.
- Sales are falling as you all feel the pinch
- USPS shipping costs have doubled whilst service has deteriorated. They go up again on 1st October.
- All your toy trains made in China are paid for it USD so all that’s just gone up by another 20%
- Watch out for lots of guaranteed prices not being so guaranteed anymore.
- Businesses are failing or just calling time. One of the main etching companies, whilst apparently busy and viable quit with little notice in the face of coming energy bills.
Not a very optimistic view is it? What am I going to do about it? Well, for the moment, where’s that model I was painting…….
