III: About Partworks Kits

This is part of a highly detailed review of “Build your own R2-D2,” a “partworks” kit designed and sold by De Agostini/Modelspace/Fanhome. Here are some observations on the whole notion of partworks kits.

What’s a partwork, anyway?

Lots of people, especially younger North Americans, may never have heard of this concept before. Basically “partworks” or sometimes “build-up kits” are model kits sold and shipped like magazines, with weekly or monthly issues. The idea is you can build your model (ship, car, whatever) on a regular subscription basis over a period of a year or two, instead of buying a complete kit in a box. Each week or month you get a new shipment of parts, which you gradually build up into a completed model. The term is also used for subscription collections of various toys and trinkets, as well as these model kits.

This sales method became particularly popular in the UK decades ago, mainly because of lower discretionary incomes and a general lack of consumer credit in those days. It meant you could build a large, expensive model even if you couldn’t afford to buy it up front. Because the total cost of the finished kit is typically quite high, and the whole thing takes a certain degree of discipline and patience to build, partworks are aimed at middle-aged adults trying to reclaim their youth, not at a more price-sensitive, impulsive, and time-sensitive younger market. That said, there's a long and sordid tradition of partworks being sold using misleading advertising campaigns which only talk about the issue cost.

The kits, since they’re distributed across so many issues and across such a length of time, tend to be individually very simple. A given week’s parts might take just 5-10 minutes to assemble. This is sometimes part of the marketing as well - it's often sold as something that parents/ grandparents can do with the kids. It can be a fun leisure activity when another bundle of parts shows up at the doorstep.

The publications are distributed either by second-class/bulk post or through local newsagents (tiny independent shops specializing in newspapers and magazines, for those unfamiliar with the largely European concept) and are usually accompanied by a magazine. The first few issues may be sent to retailers in high-profile cardboard blister packs advertising the contents; later issues will be shipped to subscribers in plain bags. At least in the West. In Japan their partworks tend to have excellent high-quality packaging.

In the past, partworks publications mostly focused on stuff like steam engines, warships, and cars with middle-class aspirational appeal. But, as demographics have shifted, partworks companies have started to produce science fiction/fantasy products that appeal to an older market of people who grew up watching 1970s and 80s movies. Now-defunct Eaglemoss sold a model of the “Back to the Future” DeLorean car, Hachette sold a Terminator skeleton, and De Agostini have produced a Millennium Falcon, a Thunderbirds 2 model, and R2-D2.

As of 2021 De Agostini are now marketing their partwork products in the UK, US, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands under the name “Fanhome”, presumably to avoid the bad reputation that the parent company's name has generated.

The Deceitful advertising of Partworks

One particularly obnoxious thing about this business model is the companies' complete lack of interest in honesty.

Partwork publications are typically launched with carpet-bombing TV and print ad campaigns at the start of the run, with the adverts emphasizing the affordability of individual issues, while actively hiding the final cost of the whole thing; something which gets a lot of criticism for being a bit underhanded. Frequently the first couple of issues are extremely cheap, and generously equipped with parts, in an attempt to hook the punters, and then the price goes up thereafter.

In the case of the De Ago R2-D2, the ads talked about the £9.99 first pack price, and £35.96 a month. Nope!

Reality: this kit would have cost you £899, and at least £930 when its unusual batteries are added.

The fact that they don't include this simple information on their web pages, and that you have to calculate the numbers yourself just to figure out the basic cost, does nothing to enhance their reputation for fair pricing.

Or how about the Fanhome re-issue of the Millennium Falcon? That's advertised as “start for only £1.95”! Sounds awesome. But wait - only the first issue is £1.95, the second is "free" and the rest are £10.99.

Okay. So that's how much? Let's calculate it since they refuse to publish it. Oh, hang on - they separated out the shipping! An extra £1 per issue. So the total suddenly becomes £1166.98!

De Agostini and Fanhome, and I'm sure others, run online ads showing a photo of the finished kit, with the simple monthly price on it. Not the total price. Not a photo of just a month's worth of parts. Not "this is the price you'll pay per month, over X months". Nope.

The ad below included the text "£34.99" for the Ferrari that actually costs £699! And £28 for the Spitfire that costs £799. Anyway. You get the point.

Partworks makers claim that they're advertising a “subscription” like any magazine, so advertising a single-issue cost is fair. This is, of course, also a lie since a single issue of a magazine is fully useful. You can read it! However, a single shipment of a partworks kit is alone utterly useless. A partworks subscription kit is only useful once every single issue has been received!

In my opinion this is false advertising, and should be prohibited by law. Anyway.

Downsides of partworks in general.

• There may be a risk if the publisher decides to halt production of an unprofitable model or if the firm goes out of business. De Agostini, Hachette, and other firms, have a mixed track record. Eaglemoss went under in 2022, stranding buyers of their partworks kits, such as their enormous and badly designed Enterprise D and the Ghostbusters ECTO-1 car. (fortunately the original developer of the kits worked out a deal with De Agostini to carry them, resuming sales to those people who hadn't thrown out their incomplete kits in despair)

• Publishers may also test the waters for a product by releasing a few issues of a trial model, stressing that the kit isn’t guaranteed at that point. De Agostini also developed an elaborate Enterprise D model that was never released – seems like the Big D is a bit of a curse! There is also the real risk of getting stranded or delayed if the publisher runs out of parts partway through your subscription, as happened during the pandemic.

• The kit may also change during the run, and promises made at the start may not be fulfilled by the end. For example, the De Agostini 32" Millennium Falcon was marketed as a pre-painted model, and indeed the first parts were shipped painted and weathered. However, the complexity of the Falcon’s paint scheme, and the difficulty of maintaining it consistently across two years of parts manufactured in various Chinese factories, meant that the majority of parts shipped with just a base coat and some crude weathering. To this day the De Agostini/Fanhome advertise their R2 using photos of the prototype, which had visibly different parts from the version that actually shipped to customers. And the Millennium Falcon is shown fully painted and weathered, even saying that it's "pre-painted" when the factory parts look nothing like the weathered finished model!
  
  What the legality of this kind of bait and switch is I don’t know – I expect they hide behind “specifications of final product may change” language.

• Obviously, you can pull out of a partworks subscription at any time, and there won't be any penalty charges from the seller. But then you'll have a pile of unfinished parts that you can never finish, or else sell at a loss online, so there's a heavy penalty for the buyer right there.

• It’s unlikely to be a good investment for resale. Auction sites have tons of partially-completed partwork kits that people are trying to get rid of, and they generally go for a fraction of the original cost. No, if you’re buying this kit it’s because you think it’d be fun to assemble or own; nothing more!

• Finally there are lots of marketing gimmicks, like the so-called “free gifts” that turn up from time to time. Aside from being insulting of one’s intelligence, since the cost is obviously rolled into the subscription cost and the junk is hardly free, these things - pens, USB keys, caps - are generally of fairly mediocre quality and worthless. And "gift" is a lie since there's no way to obtain them without paying for the subscription! They're not free promotional items. There are also “premium” features like stands or access to online fora, which are largely of limited utility.

Does this all sound rather blunt? Yes, but the point of this review isn't to sugarcoat things. It's to state a realistic view of how this all works. If you're OK taking on the inherent risk with such a partworks subscription, that's cool, but it's important to recognize some of the potential concerns.

And, as noted above, I think partworks makers should be required by law to advertise the final completed cost, including shipping and required extras such as unusual batteries, not the misleading per-issue cost. Sure, these products are technically aimed at adults who should be able to figure that stuff out. But you shouldn't have to, first of all, and second, kids are an important sub-market for these products. Partworks also differ from magazine subscriptions in that they have a definitive end point.

De Agostini customer support

De Agostini are fairly notorious for having inconsistent customer support services. In some ways this is forgivable or at least understandable. The sheer number of different issues and thus kit components is extremely complex to track logistically. You can’t always predict what parts will have a higher failure rate than others, or what parts people might order separately, and so maintaining inventory levels will inevitably be difficult. Especially with the long lead times for production at the Chinese factories that make the components. (Injection moulded plastic and cast metal pieces, in particular, have to be produced in expensive batches - it’s not like they can be made on demand like 3D prints)

Most subscribers appear to have an okay experience on the whole. De Agostini seem reasonably good about replacing non-functional parts. Though I imagine part of the high sale price is swallowed up by the customer service expense of replacing pieces that buyers have accidentally damaged themselves, or which have become broken in shipping owing to the fairly lightweight packaging.

But De Ago does screw up from time to time - billing problems, inventory shortages, etc etc, - and when they do, their support is usually sluggish and inefficient. And mostly phone-based. If they underestimate demand or failure rates for a given issue, and they tell you they're out of stock, it can be a long frustrating wait with a partially built kit before you get the issue you need.

When I first wrote this article, for example, I was missing issues 45, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, and 61. Fortunately, this didn't affect me all that much, since I'm working on 3D replacement parts to fix all the errors in De Agostini's design, and so haven't been building R2 in sequence. But if I were someone keen on building the kit each month, I'd be stalled and pretty frustrated! Fortunately I did get all the shipments in the end. Mostly - I got two issue 52s and no issue 53, and had to ask for a replacement, which arrived after a few weeks.

They can also make seriously dumb judgement calls from a customer support standpoint. For example, De Ago at one point accidentally shipped out a binder to R2-D2 subscribers who hadn’t paid for one. Then, rather than just admitting a mistake and letting people keep the thing, they sent out shipping labels and instructed subscribers to carry the packages to a post office to send back. They also said they’d charge customers who didn’t return it.

Incredible. Not only did they not save much money by paying for return postage on a relatively worthless item, but they generated a lot of ill-will amongst their subscriber base! “Never make your customers pay directly for your mistakes” is sort of Introductory Marketing kind of stuff.

This sort of thing can frankly be a little disappointing. Given the complexity and sheer cost of the kits you’d expect customer service that’s a bit better than the customer service that comes with a mere printed magazine! What makes it all worse is that people who've had a lousy De Ago experience always end up complaining loudly about it all on Internet forums, which gets really tiresome.

so much bitterness

Any visit to online model-making forums reveals a surprising amount of anger directed towards partworks manufacturers, especially De Agostini/Fanhome since it seems to be the biggest maker using the sales model. The vituperative rage of some upset buyers of partworks kits may seem strange. But I think that, general Internet trolling aside, a big problem with the partwork business model is related to risk and perceived risk over the long subscription period.

The producer of the kit will obviously feel like it’s taking on a big risk. Will there be enough buyers of the thing who’ll hang in over the entire period to justify their investment? It’s a much more complicated product than throwing a single small boxed kit out there and seeing if it sticks.

But at an individual level it’s an even bigger risk for the customer, since basically all the cards are in the producer’s hands. What if they decide to throw in the towel before the kit is complete? Then you’ve spent hundreds of dollars or pounds on a useless and non-completable kit! What if the producer miscalculates and runs out of inventory on a specific issue? Then you’re stuck there, with this partly finished expensive thing and no guarantee - and no due date - that you’ll get the parts you need. It’s worrying for the consumer.

And as Yoda breathlessly said, "fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate leads to... suffering!"

IV   –  Conclusion and Useful Links

This review is © 2018-2023 3Dsf.info.