What Kind Of Hobby Shop...

I think you may have answered your own question. You said, "Over the past several years I've watched his model selection and quantity slowly decline to the point it's almost not even worth my time to go in there anymore." What has he replaced the model inventory with? Maybe he's just seeing that models are no longer selling in his shop and is going to concentrate in other areas. And if he's not selling models, why sell modeling mags?

This shop also deals in R/C stuff and dabbles in model railway stuff as well. It's obvious his passion is thre R/C side of things, but there was a time when his model selection was second to none.

It makes it doubly frustrating that the next closest hobbyshop with a decent selection is almost 2 hours away. The attitude the plastic modeler gets when they go in leaves alot to be desired as well. All in all, it's turned into a place that most plastic modelers stay away from now and it's a shame. At one time it was THE place to go to get anything related to plastic modeling.

I know what you mean.  I'm into sci-fi stuff, and I love Gundam models.  There was a japanese toy store here that had the greatest selection.  I went a few times over a year or two and then one day I walk in and the owner tells me I can't come in.  He says he's only doing business online and was really rude to me.  I guess local kids kept coming in and stealing from him and he got tired of it.  Now when I drive by he has a sign on the door saying not to come in.  It's a real shame because he had the best shop and his prices were great.  My local Hobby Town has a crappy selection, the owner's an idiot when it comes to running a business, and he has steadily raised his prices to ridiculous levels.  I feel like the hobby is kind of dying and I got into it too late to see the glory days.

Guys, I hate to play the “old” card, but the first time I noticed a recession was in 1959, so this isn’t exactly new to me. EVERY time the economy takes a bad hit, we lose small businesses of all sorts, not just hobby shops, and economists are calling this one the “Great Recession”!

Like it or no, hobby building of models is a luxury …

SkullGundam

  Now when I drive by he has a sign on the door saying not to come in.  

Thats good marketing!

My old boss got rid of magazines at his LHS about 10 years ago.He got sick of the minimum order and the hassle with returning unsold issues. Plus the profit margin was tiny. So he took the money he spent on magazines and bought more models. Anyone who came in looking for the magazine, he gave them a subscription card showing them the cheaper price. 

Mike

I guess I might feel better if i saw where he was putting the money he was saving from carrying mags into the model section, but that's just not the case. It also doesn't help that he's pricing himself out of business ether. I'm sorry, but when you're gouging the customer for $64.99 for the 1/48th Revell A-6E intruder, there's a real problem there. I find it very hard to give him sympathy when his prices are that high to begin with.

Warthog Wrencher

This shop also deals in R/C stuff and dabbles in model railway stuff as well. It's obvious his passion is thre R/C side of things, but there was a time when his model selection was second to none.

There is your answer... he obviously prefers one area (R/C) of the hobby over another (plastic scale). Looks like you're one of those folks who has no real option but the internet to get what you want and need. With the occasional 2 hour drive to go on a binge

Warthog Wrencher

This shop also deals in R/C stuff and dabbles in model railway stuff as well. It's obvious his passion is thre R/C side of things, but there was a time when his model selection was second to none.

It makes it doubly frustrating that the next closest hobbyshop with a decent selection is almost 2 hours away. The attitude the plastic modeler gets when they go in leaves alot to be desired as well. All in all, it's turned into a place that most plastic modelers stay away from now and it's a shame. At one time it was THE place to go to get anything related to plastic modeling.

Is this a Hobbytown by chance?

Also, I know I've asked it elsewhere, but I've never received a satisfactory answer. How can R/C be pushing other forms of modeling to the far corner in shops like these? 

I just don't get it. R/C is 1) far more expensive 2) harder to just "pick up" 3) if it involves things that fly, finding venues is a beast if you live in a populated area, 4) R/C stuff typically takes up way more room than static plastic. Also, there's plenty of cheap R/C stuff out there that doesn't require dedicated shops (I've seen the kiosks in the malls)...so what gives? 

I will say, when I do make the 2 hour trip to the other shop, I do end up sinking at least $200 there, but I only go there maybe once every 6 months or so.  He does love seeing me walk in though and I really do enjoy chatting with him and going through all the new stuff he gets in since my last visit.

There are modelers who found that its cheaper to have a subscription than swing by the LHS for a copy. Also there are other venues which stock FSM on their shelves such as Barnes & Noble.

Magazine publishers have changed their return policies, unsold copies meant if the store operator was willing to take a little time they could get credit. This usually meant sending back in the covers or part of them anyway. The rest was tossed. Time and the cost of mailing them in to claim a credit wasn't necessarily good enough to warrant doing it, so many who saw sagging sales along with minimum copy requirement decided to stop selling them.

There too are those who wear out those in the rack and never purchase them, leaving a dog eared copy that no one else wanted to buy. You know we modelers want it pretty and untouched!

Those items not returning a solid margin which take up valuable space are often discontinued for items that do sell.

Oh yeah, lets not forget about the internet too. It is the cause of every LHS failure since its inception.

I've always subscribed to model rags, never even looked at the mags in the LHS, except the old back-issues of aviation or military mags that were marked down to .50 cents a copy... 

Heck, I remember when ALL scale models were WAYYYY cheaper than R/C cars and planes, too... Ain't that way anymore..

My local guy did the same thing, cutting the magazines, about 4-5 months before he closed up shop. Up until then, it was rare for me to buy FSM anyplace other than his shop. I figured even if it didn't make him a whole lot of money, I'd rather see the markup go to him rather than one of the big distributors.

I can see why R/C is pushing plastic models to back shelves in the LHS.  When I was having the magazine discussion with the owner, a gentleman walked in and started asking questions about R/C stuff.  Well, needless to say, my trivial magazine gripe fell by the wayside when he saw the opportunity to make a potentially hefty sale.  Long story short, before the other gentleman left the store, he had spent over $500 on a new R/C car and radio setup on an "impulse buy" as he so lightly put it.

When the owner came back to me, all he did was smirk and shrug his shoulders. "What can I say?", he asked. I had no reply. I just thanked him for the years he did dedicate to this side of the hobby and wished him the best of luck. Now, I know customers like that are rare and the exception to the rule, but when someone dumps that kind of money all in one relatively short visit, how can I argue the point of him not carrying magazines anymore?

It's more frustration than anything else. We get preached to everyday about supporting our LHS, but it makes it danged hard when the LHS owners won't support US!!!!

That depends upon the shop. The shops I frequent do not carry any R/C. When someone walks in or calls asking for that sort of stuff, they refer them to the R/C shops in the area. There is a definite divide in the branches. The shops I have seen that carry both do not serve the scale modeler well, so there is no point going there when there are other shops in the area that dont carry R/C that do support us well.

TomZ2

Like it or no, hobby building of models is a luxury …

Isn't that the case with any hobby?

Reasoned

 

TomZ2:

 

Like it or no, hobby building of models is a luxury …

 

 

Isn't that the case with any hobby?

Not if your hobby is subsistence farming.

But that'd be a crappy hobby.

Where's the rim shot emoticon?

you won't loose your business over magazines. 

It is an unfortunate state of the times....  many local shops are cutting specialized  inventory and concentrating on selling to the masses.

So many (me included) have switched over to web purchasing....  although, I did begin subscribing to FSM way back in the 80's. I just found it easier than purchasing at my local HS.

Reasoned

Where's the rim shot emoticon?

You can have a copy of mine..

Long story short, needless to say, FSM has a new subscriber.

Nuthin' wrong with that... It's cheaper than buying the rag off the stand, and it also opens up the entire FSM website for ya, which has a lot more stuff that they can't get in the magazine...

What value you get from the "Subcriber Only" content of the site is strictly up to you though.. Myself, I use it a lot...

Bottom line about LHS's though, is that they're all gonna go the way of the dodo if they don't go where the money is, since the prices of kits keep going up & up, and the LHS owners aren't gonna stock many kits for a niche market, which is what we're fast-becoming...

Heck, there's a brand-new hobby shop that opened up about 35 miles from here about a year ago.. I went down there, was gonna drop a couple hundred bucks (that's a LOT for me) and guess what ? Not ONE scale model kit in the entire joint!!!  It was ALL R/C, CDs, Games, and Game Stations!  And it actually had "Hobbies" in the name!

I thought that Hobby Lobby had a small selection of models, but when a hobby shop doesn't carry ANY model kits, that's a death-knell, IMHO...  I used to be able to treat my local "mom & pop" shop like it was Floyd's Barber Shop, but those days are gone, same as that LHS... 

This used to be an inexpensive hobby, but the kit-prices have gone out of control in the last ten years...  Luckily, I have enough on-hand to keep me gluing styrene for the next 20 years or so, if push comes to shove... By the time I run out, my kids will have put me in the Old Soldier's Home anyway... (Although, I told my daughter I'm moving into her basement if her Mom goes before I do... Then I'll see how SHE likes it when I sneak out at midnight with my whole SS check and a fistfull of really good prescription stuff, lol...)

Hans von Hammer

 

Reasoned:

 

Where's the rim shot emoticon?

 

 

You can have a copy of mine..

We need that!

Hans von Hammer

... (Although, I told my daughter I'm moving into her basement if her Mom goes before I do... Then I'll see how SHE likes it when I sneak out at midnight with my whole SS check and a fistfull of really good prescription stuff, lol...)

Ha! With some people whose parents are living in their basement, the kids end up taking the SS check and leaving G-ma & pa with nothing but an empty bank account.

I agree with all that's being said here. I remember it wasn't too long ago when WalMart was labeled the bad guy for selling models at a fraction of the cost the LHS was selling kits. Then WalMart stops selling kits and people complain they can't afford to go anywhere else to buy kits.

When I was in the LHS last week and was browsing what few models he had, I saw the new Revell funny car releases on the shelf. He is getting $29.99 per kit. Well, while I was at K-Mart yesterday getting outdoor stuff with the Missus, guess what I found. There was a whole rack of models. The drag cars my LHS is getting outrageous money for is going for $13.99 there. On top of that, they had all the tom Daniels re-releases and several other kits on the shelf. Now, I agree the cost of kits has increased with the times, but c'mon people. There isn't THAT much of a markup for the LHS. I also am turning more to the internet to find what i'm looking for and will most likely begin making the longer trips to bigger shows to hit the vendor areas and get them that was as well.

It's just ironic now that WalMart dropped the kits that K-Mart has picked them up and is selling them at very reasonable prices.

Never like WalMart's selection only because there were only like 8 aircraft kits to choose from, and was the same ones over and over...   Gonna have to check K-Mart though...  Haven't been in one of those for 10 years, I'll bet..  I remember that they USED to carry Tamiya kits..

Hans von Hammer

Never like WalMart's selection only because there were only like 8 aircraft kits to choose from, and was the same ones over and over...   Gonna have to check K-Mart though...  Haven't been in one of those for 10 years, I'll bet..  I remember that they USED to carry Tamiya kits..

 

Hans:

K-Marts I've visited in Chicago metro area sell only Revell / Monogram kits.

I actually visited WalMart because of the 21st Century kits

Unfortunately, I was unable to pick up many because the kits weren't stocked regularly and sold out fast.

Warthog Wrencher

When I went into my LHS on Friday looking for the latest issue of FSM, I was informed by the owner he was no longer carrying FSM or any of the other Kalmbach Publications. When i asked him why, he simply told me he wasn't making enough money selling them so he decided to drop the whole line.

What kind of hobby shop stops selling the very publications that help keep him in business? Maybe it's just me, but it seems like he's cutting his nose off to spite his face. I've always been of the mindset the model publications help sell products and vice versa. I also never really considered magazines to be "money makers" in the hobby business, but to each his own. For me, this was just another nail in the coffin when it comes to me doing business there. Over the past several years I've watched his model selection and quantity slowly decline to the point it's almost not even worth my time to go in there anymore.

Long story short, needless to say, FSM has a new subscriber.

Print has never been harder than it is now.

But my local shop doesn't sell much to me from the shelf. I am an impulse buyer to be sure, but I need to get what I want, not pot luck. Thus, I order my kits. My local shop has wisely seen to it I get last years catalogue if not the current one for Tamiya and Dragon. That and she is good about giving me the occasional discount. To look at the shelf in the store, one would wonder 'Is she doing any business at all?'. But I came out and asked a while back and she mentioned 'Oh yes I have a number of guys that come in regularly and get kits special order'.

So not all of a store's sales will be readily apparent. But if they do nothing to inspire ordering, I guess their days are numbered.