Hello,

Last Year I've opened an own modeling business in Poland.
Actualy I'm creating an innovation with the diorama's buildings in scales 1:35, 1:48 and 1:72.

Actually the buildings I'm offering are as below:







All of tchem are made in very high quality (computer diameters and 3D printing technology) and are representing the true buildings - mostly still existing so I could take tchem as a reference.

The material is plaster and some cartoon elements for windows and door.

The big advantage is the total simplicity in assembling and excellent match each part to other, so assembly proces should take about 3 hours.

You can create damage to each wall or floor as You wish (In plastic or styrene its a bit harder, and the effect sometimes does'nt look too realistic).

I've alredy gave some of my building to testing and thats the effect:












In Europe our buildings are availble at:
http://www.mojehobby.pl/manufacturers/Archetypon.html

And here is the main problem.
I need help with starting delivering My products to USE, Canada, Australia and other European and Asian countries. I can send the product for testing. I can cooperate with any hobby shop or individual modellers. Just want to give opportunity to buy my products.



Please let me know who can help me in this thread or by provate message. I'm a hobbist like you, not a businessman.
Also You may see the official Archetypon site on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Archetypon-1492840631040936/

Thanks for any help in advice!

Anyone can help?

Hi Lukasz:

Your buildings look fantastic. The fine architectural details are very well done.

Have you explored selling direct to the US etc? If you can keep shipping reasonable that would allow you to retain control. I am perhaps a bit on the cautious side, but I would consider a slow expansion to both test the market and build word of mouth. If you expand too big to fast then it becomes all about volume with a low profit margin. Keep in mind distributors will want a large discount.

Hope that helps. The quality of your buildings look impressive so I hope you succeed.

Cheers!

Chris

Looks very promising!

Thanks Chris for advices.

As far as I can read from You the visual quality is ok, and there is a place on US market for our stuff.

If You know any shop for modellers which could be interested in distribution of our products just give ma a sign.

Will try to make our buildings availble in Your country.

I'm certainly not a pro sales wise but I would think Ebay and/or Amazon might be your places to go. They sure charge their share for using the platform but I doubt shops would ask for less than that to distribute your products. Plus, the mentioned platforms might have a lot more visitors than local shops do and you could even drive your customers to your own shop for a continued business (include watermarks on your images, business cards in the parcel, discount codes for first time or long time customers, etc).

Just my two cent's worth!
Cristian

Try and sell on Ebay to people always sell pro built diorama buildings on there

your prices are really good but as you get more popular your quality of product could command more money

Well,

Of course I was thinking about eBay and other selling platforms, but in first place We want to cooperate with the shops and people who know their domestic markets, so They could give us a feedback about what directions We should take to match the demands of customers.

As to the proces, we don't fight with other producers with low price, its rather fight with hiqh quality with optimal price.

The modelers are most important for me, not their money. I want to see a lot of great dioramas with use of our products.

If I fail to make any contacts, then it will be a time to think about eBay and other.

If you have any contacts for Your favorite shops (especialy people who run tchem) let me know.

I agree with using Amazon.

At least in germany it has the added Boni of "if the money is handled by Amazon I think it is trustworthy" and "I can pay the old fashioned german way instead of using PayPal / CreditCard that I do not own/want/need anyway"

And indeed if I only travell in (at least, didn't try others yet) Germany/France/Netherlands/Belgium/Irland and, within limits, GB I really do not need a CC just the "Maestro" card that most germans with a bank account have/get for free to withdraw cash and pay fuel/hotels etc. So many germans, more so older ones like many modellers, do not have CC or PayPal

This is a small sample of what You can achieve with a little of patience.

The material we use for production is easy to sculp into bricks if you wish to make this kind of damaged texture.

nice work.

Actually, We're creating a pre-order list for international modellers.

Maybe there is an option for You tu order multiple buildings for multiple modellers, and send it as one parcel to US?

The prices for buildings in 1:35 eg. normandy is 9 dollars so it should ba a good price.

Lukasz, these look to be great buildings and pricewise they are fantastic.The main problem that I can see you encountering if you go down the lines of supplying retailers is the massive discounts they inevitably request. Having worked in retail when I was a lot younger I could see that some small niche market companies had a hard time making a profit due to retailers greediness. As a modeller you know how much of a rip off some companies are with their prices whereas your prices seem to be making buildings a lot more affordable to the modeller as I would imagine you've looked at it from a modellers point of view as in "what am I getting for my money" rather than "how much can I squeeze out of modellers for this". Personally if I was manufacturing, as you do as a modeller, I would set my own web shop up like for instance Great North Roads. Word gets around very quickly as you know and if you are providing a quality item as cheaply as these they will fly off the shelves and the money ends up in your pocket not someone elses. You see the full benefits of it. The retailer will stick at least 100-200% on the price and people will probably pay it. Why let someone else, who has no interest in the hobby just money, make twice as much for a product that you designed and made for other modellers. Look at Mini Art buildings. They hold the corner of the market for 1/35th buildings and they're not cheap. Nor are they ideal.. A wide selection of types and styles of building but are horrible to build. (I've got quite a few to build for a dio and keep putting off starting them as they're a ballache). If you could manufacture similar generic buildings-shop fronts, city houses etc you'd definitely be onto a winner. One of the main problems I find with plastic buildings is you tend to be stuck with blown up buildings most of the time. Due to you working in plaster, if you made a full building customers would have an option of adding damage. One thing that really frustrates me (and I would imagine others) is it is near enough impossible to build a street due to one end of the building being blown off. You couldn't use the same building on opposite sides of a T junction as they'd both be missing the right hand side of the building. If say you produced an intact building with left and right walls you could have the same building on opposite sides of the road with opposing damage. Does that make sense? As your buildings are complete it gives that option. Maybe start off with a web shop on EBay and once that's up and running start a proper web shop like I mentioned earlier. Personally I would much rather buy from a modeller selling his own products than a shop selling other peoples at inflated prices. As there are no LHS's in the county I literally buy all of my stuff online. Paints and sundries from a couple of sites and the bulk of my kits off E Bay. Once I find a seller who has something that I need I'll keep going back to them and browse to see what else they've got. Only this morning I ordered some stuff from an EBay webshop which I found while browsing their shop for something completely different. That's the way I'd go about it anyway. EBay shop to start up then an online shop selling your own products

The kits look nice but IMO the hardest part will be to overcome the shipping cost. Plaster is heavy and it costs me anywhere from $50 to $100 to ship a couple of kits overseas..

Randy Pepprock
Dioramas Plus