The Local Hobby Shop must Change or Fail - a perspective

[richg1998]

 The hobby shop a few miles from me seems to be doing pretty good but they cover a wide variety of hobbiesas well as trains. Well. they are still in business.

Pioneer Valley Hobbies in West Springfield MA.

They bought a hobby shop in Northampton MA some years ago that was mostly trains at the time.  Cannot remember the old name. I do see the old name once in a while in Northampton on the side of the old building.

Rich

[ChevelleSSguy]

There is a hobby shop near me that has 2 locations. The prices are pretty much retail. I have no problem keeping them in business buying stuff thats just not worth the hassle getting it mail order. However, now days, with the stiff competition of internet and mail order companies. You have to be very foolish to continue that practice. I stopped there once about 3 months ago and picked up a few small items. However, there was a lot stuff still on the shelves that were there the last time I visited over 6 months prior to that. You cant stay in business when its so easy to order online and save a considerable amount of money in a hobby thats already getting expensive to begin with.

[Anonymous]

 Frankly, I don´t see a way to keep the friendly neighborhood LHS alive on the basis of discounts, which can be obtained by on-line shopping. Stocking all those little tidbits, which we dearly need, costs a lot of money, which has to be earned. No one can run a business just for the love of model railroading. It finally boils down to an either-or question. Either we are willing to pay a reasonable price and keep the LHS alive as a ready source for the products we need, or we have to live with limited availability of the small, but important things. I do believe, that in the end, all these on-line businesses will also face hard times, as the manufacturers and importers turn to direct sales via the internet.. BLI has its Factory Direct trains and there will be more to follow, as the cost of setting up an online-store are minimal.

My LHS closed 2 years ago. It used to be a fountain for building materials. Styrene in any shape, balsa wood, wire, brass tubing and rods, scenic materials of all sorts, the whole range of Preiser figures, the whole range of Revell paint - whatever you needed, he had it on stock. He closed down, when his earnings did not cover the rent anymore... He left a tremendous gap!

[CNJ831]

Heritagefleet1

CNJ831

Somehow folks here feel baseless opinion consistently trumps facts if there is a disagreement. It honestly verges on the pathetic.

CNJ831... Don't look now, but your Crawfishing. (defensive)

Why are you on the defensive over others on this thread asking you to verify where they can access the information you claim to be factual? You keep saying 'its right on this site' or something to that affect yet, you spell out no specifics.

Heritage - The situation remains that folks here, including yourself, seem incapable to looking up anything for themselves, as has been increasingly demonstrated by the content of threads presented here on all subjects in recent years. With the exception of Joe Fugate, I have never once seen anyone here cite a published hobby statistic, or published fact...only endless personal opinion, most of which is wildly erroneous and totally baseless. The latter never allows any meaningful conclusions to be drawn regarding the disccusion, or situation. Now, I appreciate that this site is composed mostly of newbie and entry-level hobbyists, but one would think that at least some of them have developed the ability to research and intelligently present information supporting their opinions, but such is clearly not in evidence.

Once again, the sources I made reference to include the NER Coupler #218 (concerning NER/NMRA membership that is not computer literate). The post here, in part entitle "Milwaukee Magazine", is where a statement regarding the number of hobbyists there are (provided almost unquestionably by MR, considering the other info in the article) is to be found. And, as I'm sure the latter has already been read by at least half the folks here, it is really quite sad that no one gleaned the relevant information from the article on the first go-round. As to the monthly circulation numbers for MR, as I've also indicated previously, they are readily available by consulting any January issues of MR. As I said, MR's editor has ask me not to post them here. 

Now, please, if you wish to continue this discussion on any intelligent level, consult the references I've cited first and then find any conflicting data you can that can be cited, before replying. I regard it a waste of my time replying to people who think they can debate a point with BS posts and no actual subject knowledge.

CNJ831   

[tstage]

Same topic...same discussion...same outcome.  Let's move on.  Thanks.

Tom