How do you open a succesful train shop like Spring Creek Model trains? Is it better to just have a "tent" shop that only travels to large train shows? How do you have a shop that carries a lot of stock from all different roads, have a nice building, and still make a profit? Thanks guys!
Indianapolis Railroad - Indy Rail! Route of the Brickyard Flyer! Established 1976.
Hi!
And a belated "welcome to the Forum"!
To answer your question, the short answer is "you don't".
The fixed costs of a brick & mortar shop will drown you in expense. A traveling tent shop has its own kind of expense (travel/lodging) and other than the northeast and upper midwest, train shows are sporadic at best.
Putting together an "online shop" is perhaps easier to start, but the competition with established and well known net sites would be significant.
As a general rule of thumb, a retailer may get his supplies from wholesalers (like Walthers) for perhaps 60 percent of MSRP. A 40 percent spread sounds pretty good, but in order to make your monthly "nut", you will have to sell a lot of product. And frankly, you will have to sell at less than MSRP in order to sell at all.
Said another way, I (an MR for 60 years) would rather spend my money with a known entity than a newbie - unless there was some real price incentive.
Of course there is another avenue (or competitor) and that is Ebay and related auction sites. Buying on Ebay is easy and somewhat protected, selling on Ebay meets with lots of competition and frankly it is work (I know way too well) to do it right.
I'm a retired business analyst, and I really dislike being "negative", but it is what it is...............
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Some advice I read somewhere earlier this year on these forums when someone else asked the same question, started out "Begin with a large fortune" or words to that effect.
It then went on to explain that you would need to have at least $25,000 invested in beginning inventory alone, not counting any other start-up expenses such as rent, utilities, business license fees, etc.
TrAcKr76 How do you open a succesful train shop? How do you have a shop that carries a lot of stock from all different roads, have a nice building, and still make a profit?
How do you open a succesful train shop?
How do you have a shop that carries a lot of stock from all different roads, have a nice building, and still make a profit?
Alton Junction
There's an old joke.
Q: How do you make a small fortune running a train shop?
A: Start with a large fortune.
That's unfortunately more truth than humor.
The only advice I might offer if you're serious about this is to look for a train shop that's closing because the owner is ready to retire. He already has set up a business that's at least self-supporting, and he has an established customer base.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasley He already has set up a business that's at least self-supporting
He already has set up a business that's at least self-supporting
It is possible and like in any other field, only the best survive and do well. You must be inventive and proficient with current marketing trends. If you do not really love retail hobby/model train sales....RUN...don't just walk away!! This is a labor of love.
Smart retailers follow trends, Brilliant retailers start trends. I believe that if a really hot fire is lit under your butt, coupled with business sense, a new upstart model train shop could succeed. There is so much more to this topic, but also inaddition to above, proprietor must be a people person and understand how important presentation and what follow up mean.
I owned a rather successful train shop from 1973-1975, and mistakenly sold it to follow an offer which literally paid me several times what I was making from the store. What was incredibly succesful was offering used merchandise. this became almost 50% of the shop, was rather unique which attrated many, and cost were considerably less than basic less 40% from wholesalers. When I got back into hobby retailing in 1982, I co-founded The Great Scale Model Train Show in Maryland....and loving every minute of it until we sold it last year after 32 years.
Good luck, and remember....nothing ventured, gain is impossible!
HZ
Thanks for the laugh.
Seriously, if you have the MR online access, go to a MR from the 60s 70s or 80s. Count the number of LHS in the back of the magazine. Now flash forward to the present day and look in the back of the latest issues.
What does that tell you?
Better to open a ebay store and keep your present job.
Jim
There are successful shops out there, though. I keep coming back to the cable TV show Bar Rescue, where an expert in running bars helps guys who are going broke trying to run a bar, which is apparently about as easy to do as going broke trying to run a train store. I think there are similar factors: a lot of guys open bars because they want to party at work. Bad idea. A lot of guys open train stores because they want to mix their hobby with work. Another really bad idea. It sounds to me as if the most successful train stores are run by people who are in business to make money, not as a sideline to their hobby.
A guy published a photocopied book on this subject some years ago, which may have some bearing: for a brick and mortar store, you have to look at market, traffic, the neighborhood, parking, rest room available, and so forth. You absolutely need adequate capital. You may need to look at sidelines for enough business to survive. Mail and web are a whole other issue, and they take even more capital in order to buy in quantity to sell at discount.
But then you have to look at service. It sounds like, in order to get staff who are bright, knowledgeable, and motivated enough, you have to look for retired guys who are willing to work part time and at less than they might earn before retirement. Hiring a jerk in his 30s with the issues that result in him working at a train store for a living is a bad, bad idea. (I quit going to my normal LHS when the owner started hiring young jerks.)
It can be done, but not by a guy who vaguely thinks it might be fun!
richhotrain quipped: Not necessarily.
Not necessarily.
Unfortunately, that's often not far from the truth. At least, though, he's not losing his shirt every month, or he wouldn't have lasted until retirement. I'd agree that a lot of shops are run by mature gentlemen who do it more out of love than out of financial need.
I just retired, and was discussing this at my LHS. The owner, to my surprise and dismay, mentioned that he, too, was considering calling it quits. I was shocked. He's a couple of years younger than me, and seems to greatly enjoy what he does.
This would leave a great empty space, both in the marketplace and in my heart.
Ten million dollars would be about right to open the complete, well stocked comprehensive model train store in all scales/gauges and set up a good web site to go with it.
The northeast or upper midwest would be the only logical location since the southwest already has a good shop or two, and most of the people who buy model trains are in the northeast and midwest.
I managed a train department in a hobby shop years ago, and we looked into the idea of opening a "super store", with big inventory and low pices - neve rcould find enough investors.
Sheldon
Anyone who has been in the hobby and observed hobby shops over time know that it's a very diffucult way to have a successul (i.e. profitable or "gainful"). As others have noted, the way to make a small fortune is to open a train hobby shop and invest a large fortune into it. Or at least, the say to go broke or deep in debt, is to borrow enough money to start a train hobby shop and have it close a few years later still in the read.
So at best, it's a major challenge to open and run profitably a train hobby shop in this day and age. Most go out of business after a period of months or a few years. The ones that do make it successfully know the business very well, and include internet/online sales as the major component to their business model.
So unless you know the ropes really REALLY well, the odds are stacked severly against you and you will probably lose money, likely a lot of money, and close up with in a year or two from opening. It's a really tough business to get into - long story short.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Another option is to set aside money towards a shop and wait for someone to retire and sell thier shop. Many of the better known ones have changed hands over the years. The client base and stock is mostly there and carried over to the new owner. Allied model trains is a good example. Nobody gets rich selling model trains, most do it out of a love of the hobby, the desire to keep the hobby moving forward as best they can and it can help upgrade your collection if you deal in estates. One of the most sucessfull shops down in Indianapolis survives mostly on used equipment that comes in from estates. From older brass to tyco. It all sells for the right price. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Depending on what kind of standard of living you want to have should be the determining factor as to whether you open a storefront shop or not. If you can be happy with low income, go ahead and open a small shop in a low end retail location. I think the stress of paying the bills every month would not make for an enjoyable experience.
Sheldon is not kidding when he says you need ten million to get started and be successful. I am familiar with the situation of the third largest model train online retailer in the world. I was invited to invest in it when a public offering was made ( buying stock in the company) to really get it up and running. I declined at the time and am kicking myself now. Really the only way you can be successful is to have a lot of start up capital.
The cost of labour is the largest cost to any business and the retailer I am familiar with has a lot of staff and they work hard. They are not standing around waiting for a customer to wander in, they process orders of already sold product that are spit out by their computers. No down time for staff.
The one thing I will disagree with Sheldon on, is where your market will be. If you have a store front your market is xxx miles from your shop. If you run as an online retailer the world is your market place. I have been at the shop I am talking about a few times when Canada Post has sent the truck for pick up at the end of the day. It is a pretty big truck. The funny thing is they send more North American type trains overseas than they do to North America. All you have to do is look at the population distribution of the planet to understand this.
You either need very deep pockets and a lot of knowledge or a lot of knowledge, including knowledge on how to raise startup capital to get started in this day and age no matter what the business.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Also, you must consider that retail itself is getting pounded, as a whole. Niche retail, outside of things like boutique clothiers and ethnic foods (not resturants) in well to do areas, is all but dead.
The hobby shop people I talk to do more than just trains. They have often told me that trains do not support the hobby shop. Most also do internet sales.
Even if you don't do mail-order, you have to have a website presence. You don't have to hire a web developer anymore. I set up my website all by myself through wix.com and pay $19.95 a month for a business platform and $5 a month, and about 3.5% of sales to Paypal for their eCommerce shopping cart application. (If you don't need eCommerce and don't mind "Wix" displayed on your website, it's free.) Wix provides templates and it's just add, drag and drop of photos, apps, buttons and text. It’s cloud based, handled on its server and uses HTML5, so you shouldn't have any security issues. (All the eCommerce and customer personal information is handled off site on your ecommerce application's server and is encrypted.)
IMO, Ebay is not what it used to be, possibly partly because the economy never recovered and partly because Ebay keeps raising the fees. (Sure, employment is up and the stock market is soaring, but there are still plenty of unemployed people out there and others just working part-time and/or for much lower wages than they did before. I know, I was there.) IMO, on Ebay, many folks are only looking for deep discounts or product they can resale. (I sell very little product on Ebay, but together with its partner, Paypal, they take about 15% of my sales in fees and commissions.)
My brother has owned his own successful business for a long time, and he says that these days you have to "everything right" and it's “customer, customer, customer”. I agree. Business is good for me, but I wouldn't touch the hobby shop business with a ten foot pole, though I buy from my local one and hope it stays in business. I may not get deep discounts, but I get free shipping and someone to help me find what I need. And the retired, part-timer behind the counter knows trains. I also enjoy going to the hobby shop and don’t have to wait if I need some paint or material to finish a project.
Banks? I had been an accountant and a controller for 25 years before I started my own business. If you want a fun trip, try borrowing money from banks now days for your business. They want a sure thing and are very, very risk averse. Collateral? In addition to your business assets, they often want guarantees on your personal assets. And if your business goes south, they get really mean. They can foreclose on you before the business goes under if they don't like the ratios, etc.
Victor A. Baird
www.erstwhilepublications.com
Have fun with your trains
cacoleIt then went on to explain that you would need to have at least $25,000 invested in beginning inventory alone, not counting any other start-up expenses such as rent, utilities, business license fees, etc.
A friend used $25,000 to start a very nice Hobby Shop in 1970 - He was out of business within 30 months....
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
We have a club member here in Arizona who moved from the Chicago area last year.
Practically all the hobby shops he patronized when living in the Chicago area have stopped selling trains and now concentrate only on model planes.
They all tell him the same reason -- people are always crashing their planes and looking for repair parts or buying a completely new plane to replace it, but when a model train crashes there is usually minimal damage and nothing needs to be repaired or replaced.
When I first moved to Arizona there were 6 hobby shops in Tucson, 70 miles away, that specialized in model trains. Today there's only one, within an Ace Hardware store. All the others closed up when the owners wanted to retire and no one was interested or had a good enough bank account to purchase their business.
Several years ago I was chatting with the owner of a local hobby shop, when, during a five minute period, two young people came in asking for donations to some sort of fund raiser for their school or scout troop or whatever. The store owner told me after they had both left that he gets 10 more more people like that coming in every day and if he contributed to every one he would go broke within a week.
The one thing I can tell you about train shops is most are not good buisness people! You can run a successful shop but you need to run it like a buisness. Even here, most people do not understand retail. The little things that people say are not profitable are the things that will make you money in the long run. Example, a company like Home Depot sells a toilet, they make no money on that but instead make all their money on that product by selling you the 1/2 dozen other things that finish the job and by upgrading certain parts (like the seat). Same with alot of the other things they sell and they tell you how to install it too. One very sucessful shop I knew had an install buisness besides the train shop. He had a few partners in this side buisness and of course all most materials came from his shop. Today you can sell on the internet too.
At one time Walthers would not recognize a dealer unless they had a real brick and mortar presence. (The problem was that guys or clubs would band together and call themselves a hobby shop to get their trains and wholesale prices.) I wonder if they are as fussy now. Once you eliminate building/parking, insurance, and employees, with low enough overhead it could be that being a train-show-only dealer could make money, at least for a while. Until you guess wrong and end up with merchandise that does not move. And that happens.
One possibility that to my knowledge has not been explored much is the notion of subletting the train area of a larger general hobby or craft store. I was surprised years ago to learn that in the larger department stores the perfume and make-up areas were not owned by the store but by sub-lessees. That at least might lessen some of the risk and initial start up costs, particularly if the shop already has a train area that they are thinking of dropping or downsizing due to lacking a person who knows trains to stock and run it.
The train shops that do seem to make a go of it also seem to involve owners who themselves are the primary employees -- and work their fingers to the bone.
It is true that older issues of MR had way more hobby shops, but from decade to decade there was also considerable turnover indicating even back then I doubt if it was ever a lucrative way to make a living. But current times seem pretty bad. I just heard rumors about one of my favorite LHSs closing its doors soon. Not that I was doing much to help it make money -- now and then a package of strip styrene, a rattle can of Tamiya paint, a Milwaukee Road or Soo Line historical society magazine -- peanuts. Not to mention I had a 10% NMRA member discount.
Dave Nelson
I think Dave Nelson above has a good point, why not try a sub-lease? One of the train stores in Kamloops is in a crafter/antique mall, although in that case I think the trains are the driver but the rest help to pay the bills.
I wonder if a co-op model might work--a small scale REI for trains. No brick and morter, just a virtual presence.
Richard
Hmm,
SOUNDS like a good idea, but a stitistics: something like 67% of all new small businesses will fail in years 1 through 3.
1} you HAVE to Have "working capital" to cover anything from: inventory, employees wages/tax payments, to utilities, to advertising to toilet paaper in the employee restroom! i.e.: Walthers may require you to buy in initial investment of, say $10K worth of products that you may or may not sell just to get started. They may require any subsequent orders total up to $1k JUST to be placed with them.
Let me give you some real ideas form Actual small businesses:
1}gas station: a close friend and her husband opened a gas station with husband as primary mechanic. She was secretary/phone answerer, gopher/pumper/inspectionist, etc. EACH TIME the GAS TRUCK comes to deliver gas {at least once a week, usually twice}, they HAd to present a CERTIFIED BANK CASHIERS CHECK for $10K {thats right $10,000.00}, regardless of if he pumped 1 gallon into their holding tanks, or if he dumped 10,000 gallons into their holding tanks. Payments were "settled" at the 1 year mark. They usually filled twice a month. That mean they payout $240,000.00 a year. IF they only filled up twice a month, and it was a "seasonal area" so there were 4 excellent months of sales, 4 medium months of sales and about 4 months of fairly "dead sales", except the nostalgia of Christmas setting in during those 4 worst months. BUT they STILL had to pay the $10K for every delivery twice a month!. Think about it... nearly HALF a MILLION dollars JUST TO HAVE GAS available for customers!
2}I also know of a TRAIN shop locally here I frequented. One day I was in and bought a magazine, big whoop, right? the gentleman he was talking to he said this to: "See, now I sell a magazine, I make a buck,{cover price wsa $9.95} but do you know how many mags I must sell at a buck to keep the lights on for one day?"
ANd another day I happened in on a day he was talking to the local electric supplier on the phone. Because he is a business, they are billed at a higher rate than homeowners,and on ballanced budget he was paying $3K a month! He was open only 8 hours a day, only 6 days a week, and the costs covered LIGHTS only and outlets hat had a computer, a handheld corldless phone, a security system and a register plugged into them, that was IT. He was told, they'd settle up at the end of his "year" of balanced budget, but as a business, he needed to pay the $3K per month until then.That was the business fee. Boy was he rattled that day!
He explained to a group of us one day that he would "tell Walthers how much of a "package" they wanted, say for the "Christmas package"....it would be as small as a $5K package, or a $10K package, and on UP.They had to PAY IT UP FRONT. It would be made up of trains/train sets of all kinds, usually to the area's history, track, kits to build, and various scenery stuff. That should 'last them until the summer package'.All other orders to Walther was to be at at least $500 worth of stuff in between.He often would not get "special orders" for Walthers stuff to make his $500 mark to place an order! So all those pesky $2.49 items you want, even though you want a dozen of them + other's $1.99 items they order month after month hoping to get, well, now you can see WHY they don't come in. He never made his $500 minimum cost order to Walthers.
3}Another stunner: A small business who DOES do well, will have two higher costs: the product inventory, and the human element. The inventory is what it is, good or bad, selling or not selling. DIscounting may make it sell, but not guaranteed. No one in NY is likely to model the "Arizona VAlley-New Mexico Mountaintop RR" {narrow guage, no less.}. NOW the AV-NMMRR MAy be popular out in Arizona, but not in NY.SO If Walthers sends them a loco for it, it may sit and sit and sit until they sell it at cost or below. They also complained that the price they often paid was the same price customers could order it for directly form a Walthers sale catalog! It was BIG DEAL to train shops that places like Walthers would "undercut" them in such a manner.
4}Now the human element: IF a business can afford to hire someone and pay the resulting taxes/fees to the government agencies as required, they have to decide what to offer/not offer and what is required by law. And the pay? MAYBE you'll get a guy who will work part time for minimum wage and be so greatful for the job he'll be your best saleman! CHances are NOT! You will get somone who doesn't care so much as he is minimum wage, the work is long and hard for being short part time work,and he wont take his turn at cleaning the toilet in the employees lounge{if you have one},and if he partied too much last night calls in sick. He wants his 11 paid Holidays and paid sick time too..oh, and since his medical costs under ACA is $80/month, he expects that cost to show up as extra pay in the weekly paycheck!
That shop now closed,and we wonder why another one bit the dust?
5}My aunt and uncle bought a gas/convenience store too.No mechanics, just comvenience. SAme deal on gas as above, only higher as the first one was in the late 80s,and theirs was the late 90s. They thought they "bought themselves jobs". But even the frito-lay man wants a high chunk of change each delivery and will give credit later for those that didn't 'sell by date' removals. Cigarettes was a nightmare, as the cig companies paid for shelf space/location, so ONLY those cigs could go there. The beverage companies were just as greedy, and the payment they make for the space? Relatively small in comparrison to the amount they charge to carry the products in your store. But in razor-thin margins to get a paycheck of anykind is hard work. They paid only minimum wages to themselves for a few years, and then they upped as they "grew".They had never worked minimum wages before, being a truck delivery driver and a plant worker previously. this was their "retirement dream", to own their own business and it took the retirement funds to do so. They sold it off finally. FOr about the same as they paid into it.
It may be a dream to open a shop, and to make money hand over fist, but unless you have lots of cash to pour into it, don't dream too much!
I'll stick with my meager income and leave the hassles ot the "pros" or "risk takers" who will pour all thier money into it, and see little back.And if they make good? bully for them!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Sounds like a lot of people signed bad deals. First rule of buisness is to have a business plan, if the numbers don't work, you don't buy in!!!!!!!!!!
dknelsonOne possibility that to my knowledge has not been explored much is the notion of subletting the train area of a larger general hobby or craft store. I was surprised years ago to learn that in the larger department stores the perfume and make-up areas were not owned by the store but by sub-lessees. That at least might lessen some of the risk and initial start up costs, particularly if the shop already has a train area that they are thinking of dropping or downsizing due to lacking a person who knows trains to stock and run it.
Pathfinder asked and I think my answer here cover's Dave's otherwise great idea. Those train depts pretty much guttered out back in the 70s. This would actually have been a great idea, say with Woolworth's or Kmart where you might have been able to do this across a chain of stores. Might have kept shops in 100s of more places...but then Walmart would've come along anyway to kill Wollies or the Big K anyway. Would a train shop-within-a-shop have saved them from the retail bullies from Arkansas? I think not.
Still a great idea, just wish the world was different. Lots of good advice here. Bottom line, a storefront as an auxiliary service of a primarily internet-focused buz is about the only way to make a go of things in this day and age.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman Pathfinder asked and I think my answer here cover's Dave's otherwise great idea. Those train depts pretty much guttered out back in the 70s. This would actually have been a great idea, say with Woolworth's or Kmart where you might have been able to do this across a chain of stores.
Pathfinder asked and I think my answer here cover's Dave's otherwise great idea. Those train depts pretty much guttered out back in the 70s. This would actually have been a great idea, say with Woolworth's or Kmart where you might have been able to do this across a chain of stores.
One of the last examples I can remember of that were the Longs Drug train ads I used to see in MR magazines. When I lived in Californa many moons ago, I worked in Longs Drugs in a few different cities, but I think it was one in particular in southern California which sold trains for a while.
Bottom line, a storefront as an auxiliary service of a primarily internet-focused buz is about the only way to make a go of things in this day and age.
Thats pretty much it. There are some business that people have overly romantic idea's about which have extremely bad odds of being successful, one is restaurants and the other, probably even worse, or model train shops.
Not sure what happened to the original poster - did we scare him away?
mlehman I was not thinking so much of inside a larger department type store, but rather in one of these crafter/antique malls we see around here. Went into one in Chemainus that has around 30 vendors under one roof, one till, etc. That idea may be more viable. dknelson One possibility that to my knowledge has not been explored much is the notion of subletting the train area of a larger general hobby or craft store. I was surprised years ago to learn that in the larger department stores the perfume and make-up areas were not owned by the store but by sub-lessees. That at least might lessen some of the risk and initial start up costs, particularly if the shop already has a train area that they are thinking of dropping or downsizing due to lacking a person who knows trains to stock and run it. Pathfinder asked and I think my answer here cover's Dave's otherwise great idea. Those train depts pretty much guttered out back in the 70s. This would actually have been a great idea, say with Woolworth's or Kmart where you might have been able to do this across a chain of stores. Might have kept shops in 100s of more places...but then Walmart would've come along anyway to kill Wollies or the Big K anyway. Would a train shop-within-a-shop have saved them from the retail bullies from Arkansas? I think not. Still a great idea, just wish the world was different. Lots of good advice here. Bottom line, a storefront as an auxiliary service of a primarily internet-focused buz is about the only way to make a go of things in this day and age.
I was not thinking so much of inside a larger department type store, but rather in one of these crafter/antique malls we see around here. Went into one in Chemainus that has around 30 vendors under one roof, one till, etc. That idea may be more viable.
dknelson One possibility that to my knowledge has not been explored much is the notion of subletting the train area of a larger general hobby or craft store. I was surprised years ago to learn that in the larger department stores the perfume and make-up areas were not owned by the store but by sub-lessees. That at least might lessen some of the risk and initial start up costs, particularly if the shop already has a train area that they are thinking of dropping or downsizing due to lacking a person who knows trains to stock and run it.
Regarding Long's Drug in Moreno Valley, the issues with this were covered by the local press around the time the train department there closed. My understanding is that the store manager was a model railroader. His version of what happened was that the chain encouraged local managers to develop a particular sideline or focus for the stores, and the manager chose model trains, at discount. I'm not sure if he had a clear business plan for this approach -- my guess is he thought it might be a good idea to mix his hobby with work, and the chain gave him the rope to hang himself. He sold at discount for several years, but a lot of what he stocked didn't sell, even at discount. So he periodically had even bigger sales for his stuff. Moreno Valley was a low-rent area anyhow, and a lot of people just waited for him to hold an even-bigger discount sale, at which point you could hardly get into the store.
I visited there fairly frequently during those years, and my take is that he had a big problem with staff. Since he was the store manager, he couldn't tend the train department himself, and the people he had were often AWOL or even resented being bothered to fetch something from in back, etc. That probably wasn't the biggest issue, the biggest was that he apparently didn't have a good idea what would sell, even at discount -- one question is how the bigger current discounters buy in quantity to discount successfully, and whether he could leverage that -- or if he simply screwed himself (and his employer) buying at standard markdown and then cut his margin freelance.
At a certain point, the manager and Long's came to a parting of the ways, apparently the train department being a big factor. He then opened his own discount train (exclusively) store a mile or so away, but that didn't last long. I think he had a deal with Intermountain to discount their overruns or whatever, but it didn't last, and that one fizzled.
Meantime, Long's kept trying to sell the stock they still had, but it didn't move any faster than it did before, and the staff was less and less motivated. Eventually Long's had one last blowout and then donated the remainder.
I would say a good part of the problem was wanting to mix hobby and work, and not having an adequate business plan.
Pathfinder I was not thinking so much of inside a larger department type store, but rather in one of these crafter/antique malls we see around here. Went into one in Chemainus that has around 30 vendors under one roof, one till, etc. That idea may be more viable.
There you go. Yes, it is, as it nicely matches the demographics of the venue itself, tending towards antiques But seriously, that the tendency in the hobby, so why fight it. Go where the old folks are.
On the other hand, I've also seen malls like that which concentrated on renting stall space/storefronts/whatever to a much wider variety of businesses. The wife and I visted Toronto a few years back and we shopped at a mall that was primarily Asian imports of various kinds, but what a selection, everything from Chinese to Vietnamese to the Indian subcontinent. One that served hamburgers might work better for model RR stuf, but it's getting to be an international hobby, so hey, wherever the rent is cheap and you customers can find you easily.