Part II: Preorders
The preorder process in the model railroad industry can vary greatly between manufacturers. Each with their benefits and drawbacks. Before implementing our preorder program, we looked at these approaches and found most manufacturers use a process that falls into three general categories: Traditional Preorders, Continuous Preorders and Surprise (no preorders).
The Moloco Preorder Process
As modelers, we have all experienced these methods. With this in mind, we took our findings and implemented the following process:
1. Preorders are announced and are open for one month.
2. At close of preorders, purchase orders are placed with our factory in China to pre-book production timelines. These purchase orders take into account the total order volume and a percentage as a buffer to ensure we are able to have extras for any issues found in last mile delivery.
3. Once space is reserved, designs are finalised and we enter into the production cycle.
By following our unique process it ensures we are able to operate as efficiently as possible while giving all our customers the opportunity of getting their hands on the cars they want!
Reasons why we implemented it:
- imbalance between roadnames, it was hard to predict the taste of customers
- didn't want customers to be disappointed when product was sold out
- wanted to make customers comfortable if they did pre-order within the order dates they were guaranteed they would get their cars
- didn't want to over produce products, over production causes issues down the line, excess inventory sitting around, poor use of production time and investment is not applied to the next product
Stay tuned for later this week, when we open our next round of preorders!