Thursday 31 December 2015

Scalextric – evolution, revolution or death

Scalextric are clearly going through a difficult time at the moment, even our local Hobbycraft store has just sold off it’s Scalextric stock but has retained it’s Hornby railway stock.  Going back to the early years Scalextric was always an expensive, aspirational toy, everything was expensive in relative terms.

Today there is a lot of competition for the slot cars market with manufactures like, Artin, Ninco, SCX and Autoart to name just a few.  The market has become squeezed too with so many other things for people to do; the internet, computer gaming etc.

So how do Scalextric fight back, well, we have a new Scalextric Sport track system and we have the Scalextric digital system.  There’s also no doubt that Scalextric are not the best at electronic innovation and the digital chips are no exception.  There’s a high failure rate, we measure at about 5% to 10% which is crazy for modern electronics.  Scalextric should sort it out or ditch that part of the market.

Our solution for Scalextric?  Go back to the basics, simple cars with OK detail and basic track systems.  Get rid of these blacked out windows and let’s have some interiors back, basic one or two piece mouldings is OK, just like the old Scalextric cars.  Ditch the Scalextric Start system and simplify the main product line up.  Scalextric must waste a fortune and time on innovations like Scalextric Start – why bother?

Finally, sort out the project management, as all these late deliveries from China are causing chaos in the market place especially for the Christmas market.  I support you Scalextric, but you must do your part too.

Another great insight from Scalextric Car Restorations

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