information

[MikeFlea]

Bear with me, I'm new to this, I was looking for information on what happened to, or why, St. Aubins Station, in Woodstock, IL closed. I recieved a postcard in the mail on Fri 3/30/12 saying they were having a blowout 30-90% off sale on 3/31 and 4/1, and unfortunately due to prior commitments, missed it. Tried to call, phones were tied up, website closed, and I guess they sold everything by c.o.b. 3/31. So I was just wondering if anyone else in northern Illinois had a clue - Thanks

[vsmith]

Mike welcome, there are already a couple threads on mylargescale.com and on largescalecentral.com that offer reasons why the store closed, most said the store was never the same after the owner passed, but that the main issues seams to have been with the constant overseas price increases, declining customer hobby funds, the inability of companies like Aristo to even provide stock, and it just became too much.

[Greg Elmassian]

There is some other information. You will note the store was never the same after Pat died. On reliable information, and by just powers of observation, the very large bulk purchases went away. This raised prices, and if you compare the prices in their ads in GR, you will see the slow rise in prices, and also fewer products advertised in the ad.

Pat's kids are more involved with the nursery business, which is the larger and older business.

His oldest is a horticulturist, not a train enthusiast.  There are other factors that give the timeline for this happening when it did, but really not for public airing or discussion.

Since their business was based on some of the lowest prices on the net, raising them just gave the competition more business. When you are the low price leader, if you raise your prices, what do you have?

It's too bad, they carried everything, and I got some good deals from them. That said, customer service was not their long suit.

Regards, Greg