After closing 2 of its 3 hobby shops, HOBBYLAND in Mishawaka IN has announced that it is closing its retail location in the Town & Country shopping center.
Hobbyland had moved to a smaller location less than a year ago and greatly reduced its inventory. They did very little to make the move public and the new location was hard to find. Their inventory had been shrinking slowly over the last several years to the point where their business had declined in similar proportions to its inventory. All of this happened after getting rid of all employees that had any knowledge of the products they sold.
At least we will have the INTERNET available to us to keep us supplied with our hobby supplies.
No, it is a separately locally owned hobbyshop. They have been in business for over 30 years. The retail store is closing but the internet store is remaining open. Guess they are going to the internet, also. Will miss them, they supplied many of my hobby needs over the years.
John said:(snip)Guess they are going to the internet…
John,Its just to convenient to shop by the Internet…Write up a list,order it from your favorite on line shop and UPS or USPS will bring it to your door 3-5 days later.
Now then…
Its sad that the end results is closure of LHS due to price competitiveness and in some cases lack of new stock.
Went home at lunch and found a post card from another locally owned hobbyshop called the Mishawaka Railyard and they are going out of business, too. Hope this doesn’t keep up. The Railyard was more for ‘O’ scale but it was a nice shop.
Friends and I observe and hear from owners of shops in my area (SE PA) that business has fallen off.
On the other hand, coming out of Timonium on Saturday, followed the crowd up one exit on 83 to Klein’s. People parking everywhere, store bursting at the seams. Ten minutes to get through the cash register.
Klein even had a table at Timonium advertising they were hiring.
However, internet shopping is not convenient on Saturday afternoon when I’ve broken something that I need to repair before an operating session or train show on Sunday.
Or when I need a piece of track, a decoder or some other item to keep momentum going on a project. It slows me down too much when I can actually make time to work on train stuff. When I can claw away an afternoon to work on train stuff, I don’t appreciate having to wait 3-5 days to get something basic that I have run out of.
I’ve just always enjoyed seeing something before I buy it. Especially bigger items. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found things that I wanted, but didn’t remember until I was looking at the shop.
Sorry to hear about Mishawaka Rail Yard. I received my card in the mail today also.
The shop is in the old NYC Freight Station right next to the busy NS double track main line in downtown Mishawaka. The owners are real nice guys and really have a nice store. Their main line was Lionel and MTH with a very nice operating layout in the store. They tried H-O and N Scale, but even with a model RR club in the east end of the building were not able to make a go of the smaller scales. They will be missed!!!
Hobbyland , on the other hand, dug their own grave long time ago. I’m surprised they were able to stay in business this long. Their inventory had gotten to the point that there was really nothing there to bring in business. They had paint and glue and little stuff like that, but you can find that at Hobby Lobby. And nobody that worked there cared anything about customer service and was just there to take you money. Hobbyland use to be a great hobby shop but they let their other stores go under and I guess had forgotten how to run a hobby shop. RIP
Good point, but the LHS has to have the products in stock most of the time or they just can’t compete. I don’t mind paying more at the LHS and do it often unless it is full price. Most of the LHS now offer 10% to 20% off on most items and that savings is appreciated by me.
A good rule of thumb to start a LHS., You can be a millionaire running a LHS providing you have several million to start with.
That’s assuming you have a fully stock shop close by instead of one that is 26 miles away(a 52 mile round trip) that may not have the item in stock with that old familiar cry of I can order it for you and it will be here next week.
As far as a needed part…Laughable at best since most hobby shops I have visited don’t stock spare parts-some don’t bother to stock basic parts becuse they are slow sellers.Some don’t stock decoders or DCC items because locally they are slow sellers.Paint is a hit and miss-I can order for you is the normal reply.
And what modeler don’t have the basic spare parts on hand such as KD springs,couplers,extra trucks,spare wheels,drill bits etc? We all have more engines and cars then we really need and any problematic locomotive can be replace with another locomotive…Most cars can be fixed on the spot.
As far as needing a piece of flex track…Hmm…Sounds like miscalulation --and yes that has happen to me by miscalculating the pieces needed–still a 52 mile round trip was needed so,not a option for one piece of track I simply order extra flex track on my
John,That’s good if your LHS stocks the latest releases,paint,parts etc…
My not so local shop is a hit and miss-mostly miss-when it comes to having new products in stock–then its full MSRP if he does…Paint usually needs to be special ordered as does most common parts except KD coupler items-even though he had to order 6 packs of 148s for me because he was out of stock–yes I tried that route but,became disgusted with his lack of in stock items and the need to special order some basic items such as Polly Scale paint.