Letter

[woOdy]

Dont know if you have already seen this - http://www.absima.com/absima_uploads...20Team%20C.pdf

[racingdwarf]

To me that says that no parts will be in the uk,they will all be in a ware house in europe as a central distribution point, we will just have a couple of reps in an office in the uk. a sadly common arrangement these days

[woOdy]

Originally Posted by racingdwarf

To me that says that no parts will be in the uk,they will all be in a ware house in europe as a central distribution point, we will just have a couple of reps in an office in the uk. a sadly common arrangement these days

True but it does work. For an example Kyosho. They have a big following in the UK.

[hotrodchris]

Hopefully the SMD TeamC drivers will be catered for directly rather than loose their employment?

[PaulRotheram]

The damage is already done - shame to say the following of the tm2 is narrowing already due to abismas actions. They need to act quick or loose it all together IMHO.

Plus the difference with Kyosho doing it, and Abisma, is that Kyosho is a world known successful company - Abisma was a small company that many UK drivers laughed at - SMD changed that and they thank them by parting ways, short notice, at Christmas - nice.

[hotrodchris]

I was not saying that the damage had not already been done and they could certainly of handled the whole affair better with a bit more fore thought, with what I have read it looks to have been handled quite calously from their end and are looking at damage limitation now?
All i was getting at was that the drivers mentioned could still possibly gain employment directly with them as it would possibly be hard for SMD to carry on employing them with the loss of the Team C/Absima product?

[racingdwarf]

Originally Posted by PaulRotheram

The damage is already done - shame to say the following of the tm2 is narrowing already due to abismas actions. They need to act quick or loose it all together IMHO.

Plus the difference with Kyosho doing it, and Abisma, is that Kyosho is a world known successful company - Abisma was a small company that many UK drivers laughed at - SMD changed that and they thank them by parting ways, short notice, at Christmas - nice.

Again, business mate, they most likely planned to drop SMD at some point all along, SMD do all the hard work building your reputation, once uk turnover hits certain point you drop them cut out the middle man and supply direct, as you feel your product has now made such an impact on the market your customers will follow the product no matter how it gets to them, and it's a great plan round the boardroom table and on a powerpoint display.BUT weather it works at ground level, well thats a different matter .Business has no heart its just all about money, 10min watching allen sugar, he's a lovely man

[tyreman]

Originally Posted by PaulRotheram

The damage is already done - shame to say the following of the tm2 is narrowing already due to abismas actions. They need to act quick or loose it all together IMHO.

Plus the difference with Kyosho doing it, and Abisma, is that Kyosho is a world known successful company - Abisma was a small company that many UK drivers laughed at - SMD changed that and they thank them by parting ways, short notice, at Christmas - nice.

I had heard this has been on the cards since April, but as it hadn't happened back then, maybe they thought it wouldn't go ahead.

[racingdwarf]

Originally Posted by woOdy

True but it does work. For an example Kyosho. They have a big following in the UK.

I agree,but not 100% took kyosho some time to get things right again, mainly due to the effort of two people.At first when FDL took over it was a nightmare,if I raced my 8th car on sunday I needed to do all my maintenance sunday night or monday morning,as if I needed parts from my LHS who supported me I needed to order them by monday to have any chance of getting them by friday or saturday and at that time they didn't want to post one small jiffy bag with one pair of front hubs in from france to the uk, so I went Mugen as stuart at Models in motion would post one little jiffy bag,and it would be there tuesday! And as for mugen now in the uk compared to the days of tedlongshaw then models in motion. Moving to centralised distribution in Europe did no favours for uk drivers, most of whom voted with there feet.

But al lthis said, if you put your business hat on it makes sense,and probably any losses they may make in the small uk market are covered by massive savings else were buy doing this Not that I like it, it's just the way it works and us stamping our feet will make very little difference

[deano43]

This is the email reply directly from absima concerning the current situation

We have decided that for the UK market we will service this directly from
Germany





If you can just bare with us for a few days, we didn't realise that SMD
would make the announcement as quick as they did.

We will service all UK shops, big or small.

If any of your racing collages who are sponsored currently by SMD for Team C
product's we are happy to continue this please pass this contact address on
for them to get in touch.

Once again, thank you for your email and we will come back to you shortly.

Best Regards
Absima

[deano43]

I would like to point out I was trying to find out about who and how they will supply spares etc to the uk, I still think it was wrong how they went about and treated SMD and hope the lads are kept on there, but for those who still have and want to keep their team c cars the email was to try and Alleviate the worry that they will no longer be able to get spares or it would be difficult. One thing I have thought of since the original post is what will be their minimum Order be to be able to make it worth while to send it to the uk and if it is more than smaller model shops want to order then that just leaves larger outlets were unless you live close enough to go direct then it leaves just mail order which will cost the postage on top of the retail price then you are relying on the post office to get it to you on time so if you don't say get paid until Friday and was going to your model shop Saturday to collect spares and then race Sundays you have a problem, don't get me wrong kyosho for instance have managed it but they are a bigger brand with bigger resources only time will tell but for me I am in right pickle as I love the car it's that good but I am worried about potential problems with spares availability say absima haven't got the spares in stock then they will have to come from China were team c them selfs are based so how long is that going to take ? .