People have only recently been blaming their financial woes on the economy, so I’m not quite ready to point in that direction just yet. I believe the nature of the business has changed, and if LHS aren’t ready to adapt, then they’ll more than likely fold. Granted there are probably so many factors in running a LHS that I couldn’t account for (I have no sense of business) that make it difficult to compete with internet based businesses. But as someone pointed out, if you can’t compete on price, you better compete in other ways (service?!?).
We had two LHS’ in my isolated desert town. I used to frequent one that was more hobby oriented (not the fantasy games). However, poor service, dusty shelves and products, high prices, and they never had what I was looking for. They closed down last year. The other store is much nicer but overpriced. And the owners are nice folks, but don’t have a clue regarding model railroading. Based on this, I do all my shopping on the internet.
I’m rather tired of hearing the doom and gloom about the death of model railroading, but everyone’s entitled to their opinion. We have a model train club in town that always displays their layout at the annual fair, and their building is always packed at fair time. Despite it’s size, it is rather poorly scenicked and the folks running the layout don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to how they do things. Which is fine [:)]. I went to a couple of their meetings, but I was looking for something more organized and based on prototypical ops, so I’ve gone solo.
In any case, the hobby won’t die with me (I’m 27), and there’s enough inventory of stuff that it would be several years before all that stuff sold out anyways! [:)]
I moved from South Carolina to Atlanta in 1993. One of the main reasons was because of all the hobby shops here (and book stores, computer stores, etc.) I loved frequenting them and contributed a good % of my paychecks to their bottom line. Then in the late 1990’s, the internet stores came online and I realized that despite my fondness of the local shops, I could not justify paying $125 for the same locomotive that I could now get for about $80 online. I still made a lot of local purchases, but eventually, the savings online were just too much. Then a new “discount” store opened here and most of the “old school” stores were gone by around 2000. I really think this timeframe was a transition from the old way of shopping to the new way. By the way, there are now two “discount” hobby shops in Atlanta that I know of and they are both doing well. And combined they have a much better selection than what was available in town 15 years ago anyway. So although part of me longs for the old days when I would visit all the local hobby shops in the back of MR every time I travelled to a different city, I actually think the selection, prices and quality are much better now than then. Jamie
BTW, I find it more than a little amusing, ironic if you will, that someone with a screen name like John Galt would, 1) pose this question in this manner to begin with, and 2)wax nostalgic about the “Clinton Years”.
Think about it! The natioal average for gas is $4.11 a gallon. In my neck of the woods $4.29 a gallon. I spend roughly $28.00 on gas just to get there and back to my LHS. It just easy to spend that on the internet for some thing I need for my layout. Oil is a big deal and I see it from both end’s being a truck driver that has to haul’s it in. Oil is the major contributer but alot of stuff is be shipped by rail to save on cost. In my area I don’t see a down fall in LHS right now. Matter-of-fact we just got a new LHS just in my little hick town that we are. He’s catering to the hobby in our area because we have a large group of model railroaders in the area. It may be in your area because I haven’t see it here yet.
In the 80’s ( 19 that is), I worked in midtown Manhattan. On 45th street there were 3 great hobby shops all devoted exclusively to model trains. One was the Red Caboose which was located on the 4th floor of a building that only had access by the smallest and slowest elevator this side of a Paris hotel. Another was Model Railway Equipment Corp and was located in a basement. MREC had a world renowned reputation and was owned and operated by a women The Red Caboose was elegantly described in Sam Posey’s book “Playing With Trains”. Sometime 22 yeas ago after I move to Memphis, only the Red Caboose remained standing and had moved into the basement of the original MREC that had closed. Last month on a trip to New York, I tried to look up the address of the Red Caboose but it was not listed in MR. I Googled it and printed out the address and was saddened by the following words in their advertisement: “On this site since 1946 there has been a hobby shop. While we still do model trains in a variety of scales, we are strong in die cast planes and cars, electric slot cars, plastic kits, model figures in many trains and architectural scales model paints, we also have a vast range of hobby supplies, paints, tools, glues etc, and a large book and video department.” End of story.
I bought my house (with a basement in it for my model train layout) in 2006 prior to the “change”. Like you, I doubt that I could do the same today.
At that time, gas was $2.58 a gallon and oil was $66 a barrel. Thank god someone stepped in and saved us from those evil oil men and their cronies! [:-^]