Yes they are but it is a case of last man standing which Amazon hopes to be. This country has a bunch of people who invest in such things, some times it works like Google and some times it dosn't (Blockbuster, which is also a prime example of what making a wrong move can do in the modern world).
rrebellYes they are but it is a case of last man standing which Amazon hopes to be.
Last man standing - wouldn't that violate antitrust laws?
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/antitrust-law.asp
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Only if they buy up or otherwise collude with every competitor, or engage in other such nefarioous tactics to gain market share. I really hate the Microosooft example - at the time, every fresh install of Windoows laoded not only an IE icon, but one for connecting to AOL (clearly not a Microsoft product) right on the desktop.
Going to be hard for Amazon to take over in some of the more specialized areas like model trains. Yeah there's 7 pages on Andre's link - but half of it is junk, duplicates, or just books or some really garbage video content some people are trying to market (you can get better for free on YouTube, not to mention paid content for less with MRVP)
Did the internet change things? Greatly. But some stores were able to adapt, others sat by and watched the world pass them by. MB Klein transformed from a large storefront with mostly in person sales to one of the biggest internet model train dealers. Caboose is still around (have to remember to stop in there when I am in Denver next month), still has a retail storefront, but they too are a huge internet presence. Dinosaurs who refuse to change are going extinct. Or changing to other hobbies with a larger following. My former LHS is still there - and if yoou are looking for out of production Walthers kits, it's probably the place to go, they have shelves stacked full of dusty boxes that have been there probably 20 years. Still have BB kits, and others, too. All at full MSRP. If you know someone, you cna get 10% off. Stacked oon shelves as high as I cna reach, with narrow aisles (added more rows of shelves after the palce was built - so the lighting is bad, often over the shelf instead of over the aisle), so the train stuff pretty much never moves. Little new inventory. They will order from Walthers, but always at full MSRP. And only once a significant number of orders stack up. Frankly, the owner doesn't give a darn about trains, they are there for RC cars (and some planes). Provide a poor experience, and no wonder people turn to internet sites to order stuff. The supposed demise of the LHS is in many cases self-inflicted.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
How true, happened at all the ones I used to shop at here and they are all trains only, if you are not a people person why do you run a train shop. Prime example of this is a local shop which every year had a swap meet for people to sell their want to get rid ofs train wise and of course the store was open too. The line to buy stuff in the store was at least the length of the building and it was that way most of the day. They stopped doing it because one of the swap meet people happened to work at another train shop 40 miles away, they thought he was selling stuff for the other shop (which was not true). They lost their biggest sales day of the year and a lot of once a year customers like myself and all my freinds.