In certain geographical areas, the brick & mortar store will always live on. I lived in Gettysburg PA for 10 years and there was a large enough population to support 3 shops. One mostly railroad, the other two only railroad. Now that I am back home in central Maine, there just isn't enough of us here to support a shop. The closest to me now is over 3 hours drive. And to be blunt, while it's a nice shop, it's not nice enough for that much travel. Some places the local store will never die, some places it's been dead for decades.
Does anyone watch the cable TV series Bar Rescue? A big premise of that show is that lots of bars go out of business, but it's possible to change owners' and employees' attitudes and turn them into moneymakers. Whether it's possible to do that with train stores, I can't say, although it simply doesn't help to have a big store with guys behind the counter who don't know what an F7 is (no joke, and this isn't Toys R Us, this is a serious train store). And they resent it when you tell them they ought to know what an F7 is!!
In Maine, it is more of the same. Hobby shop owners are aging out of the business, they want to retire, but no one wants the business or has the money to purchase their stock. Or the building owner raises the rent to a level that the owner can not make sufficient profit to live on, while getting squeezed from the other end from on-line discount retailers who can easily undercut their pricing.
In the past couple of years 3 or 4 good shops closed and none opened
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Depends on where you are I think. Within 1.5 hours of my home (Palmer, MA), I have 9 (off the top of my head) that have a decent or better railroad-related supply, 5 of which are dedicated train stores. Although I could probably find what Im looking for online, they all have opportunities to find something, and I place orders with the 2 closest frequently. All have varing stock, and can supply different things. One right in town is good for parts and cheap finds, while one in Springfield is good for paint, styrene, and other supplies.
I would also imagine larger stores, such as Caboose in Denver and Des Plaines near Chicago (both of which I've visited) do well because they double as internet stores, not just as brick-and-mortar.
Modeling whatever I can make out of that stash of kits that takes up half my apartment's spare bedroom.
Dying out and gone. Unless the whole business changes, it is not reasonable to expect any store to stay open much longer. Unless you are in the very largest markets, or also have a large internet presence attached with your store, or you simply don't really need to make an income off of the store... perhaps those can remain open. Everything is stacked against you these days.
I owned and operated a model train shop by myself for 16 years. Closed it down last year. Should've closed it down five years ago, but ever the optimist.... just kept hoping things would get better. They have not, and will not, get better.
I was visiting family in another part of the country, and since I'd have half a day or so for railfanning, I went on the web to find out what to see in that area. A site said, "when you visit Wampus Yard, be sure to stop by Big Stan's Hobby in Ragweed Grove, a great traditional train store." But when I stopped by, Big Stan's Hobby was three empty storefronts, for rent. So much for another traditional brick and mortar store.
My nearby local hobby shop is another large, traditional brick and mortar store. It caters to the high end, with a lot of brass. Over the past several years, it's been going downhill -- there used to be helpful and knowledgeable staff; now not so much. I recognized they couldn't stock everything, so I ordered through them, especially via Walthers sale items, which allowed them to profit from matching discount prices. But as quality of staff declined, they screwed up my orders more. On top of that, even though this is a major store, they apparently suffered from Walthers credit limits, so if they were over their limit, my orders from Walthers would be held up.
Then I decided to convert to DCC. Almost nobody on the staff knew anything about it. I wanted to order big ticket items like boosters throuigh them, but the increasingly un-knowledgeable staff would screw the orders up. A couple months ago, I remonstrated with the manager, trying to explain that if they'd stock DCC items, they'd make a lot of money through me alone. He answered "Well, if you talk to me when I'm here on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I can make sure we order the right stuff." I replied that I didn't want to have to fit my schedule to his so the store could make money -- I wanted to get stuff when I needed it. In addition, even if he got the order right, there was still the issue of whether Walthers or another distributor would hold the order up over credit. And the unhelpful other staff didn't want anything to do with DCC, and sort of resented that I wanted to deal with someone who knew about it.
I notice this store is running down inventory, with emptier shelves. Years ago, though, it stopped stocking Accurail on the reasoning that the markup was lower than, say, Kadee or Tangent -- but if you can move Accurail stock more quickly than the higher end stuff, doesn't that still justify the shelf space? And the lower price means there's less reason to bypass brick and mortar and order the same thing at discount on line. I would guess this store is headed to the same place as Big Stan's in Ragweed Grove.
The other day I drove a little farther to another big store in my region because I wanted a DCC decoder and knew I wasn't going to get one at my regular place. I chatted with the owner about this and other problems with my regular place. He said he'd been hearing the same complaints from many other people, also driving farther to find a decent store. He mentioned a number of things he did to keep his business up -- not stressing the high end, giving people a range of price levels, and providing a wide stock. The atmosphere in the place also seemed a lot better -- but the atmosphere in several stores in my area is better than in my regular one.
Is the demise of brick and mortar train stores inevitable, or can things be done to keep them going? The decline of my regular store may be the result of bigger trends in the hobby, or it may be the unwillingness of the owner to adjust to changes in the business.
I'd be interested to hear the opinions especially of people who know something about the hobby business.