I went down to what only remotely resembles a hobby shop, looking for the N-Z Walther’s catalog. They only had a 2005 version and it was marked $22.95. He told me that he would give it to me at half price.
I told him the 2007 were only $7 and he just shook his head.
$11 was the best he could do.
They have had a Proto 2000 FA-B for sale there for !179.99 since they opened. I got one two years ago for $49.99. The box is faded almost white. I wonder if they’ll ever sell it.
I’ve been trying to point them in the right direction–you know, explaining that selling horn hook couplers was not that great an idea, that most people remove horn hooks in favor of Kadees, but it seems if it’s not a slot car, he doesn’t care.
Some people just don’t get it. I must presume that this guy’s business plan includes being out of business in the near future-perhaps as a tax write-off? Not a place I’d choose to do business with at all if avoidable.
Your experience sounds like one I had a couple of years ago at a hobby shop in Willcox, Arizona. The only train item he had was an old Bachmann Christmas train set that looked like it had been sitting in his shop for 10 years it had so much dust on it. Everything else in the store was dolls or quilting supplies.
When I asked where his model train items were he said that was all he had because no one in Willcox was interested in model railroads. At the price he was asking, I quickly understood why. If there are any modelers in Willcox, they no doubt shop the Internet or drive to Tucson. And this guy advertised in Model Railroader!
Another time I went to a place named “Tucson Hobby Shop” that was listed on the LBF web site as being one of their authorized dealers. No LBF trains anywhere. So I asked the proprietor where the LBF items were, and his response was, “Who is LBF and what do they make? I’ve never heard of them!”
When I explained where I had heard of his shop, he was at a loss to explain how such wrong information ever got onto the Internet because he didn’t even own a computer and had never sold trains.
“I’ve been trying to point them in the right direction–you know, explaining that selling horn hook couplers was not that great an idea, that most people remove horn hooks in favor of Kadees, but it seems if it’s not a slot car, he doesn’t care.”
People who build, race and sell slot cars are descendant from the seed of Cane! It’s in the Bible!
I’m going to take a wild guess and say this is probably a LHS that has only a small part of its floor space for model trains. The rest is probably filled with model cars, slot cars, ships, and radio controlled planes. They aren’t going to sink or swim with the railroad sales. While there is nothing wrong with a business like that, I find that such shops are usually a poor place to buy model railroad stuff. Once in a while you might get lucky and find a good buy there, but usually, their train inventory looks like it was an afterthought. I am very lucky to have a LHS that is exclusively for trains. Their livelihood depends on staying current so they do. I used to live 5 minutes away from the place but I moved away about 5 years ago. Even though it is now almost an hour’s drive, it is still my LHS.
i guess he’s waiting for some complete fool to walk in and pay full price or even half price for a 2 year old catalog . i would have thought any retailer who knew how to use a calculator would realize that getting any money at all for that catalog would be preferable to having it sit on his shelf another year . even if it meant he’d sell it for less than he paid for it .
sorry to hear about the lack of model railroading shops in your area
Don’t feel rained on Chip. I get the same (you know what) out of my old LHS owner too with his greedy self. That’s why I’ve gotten to where I do most of my business on ebay anymore… I’m not paying him $15.00 for a piece of rolling stock that I can buy off ebay for $6.95 + $2.50 shipping.
I always cringe when I hear any business referred to as greedy. All businesses are in business for one purpose, to make money. They are there for their benefit not ours. That is true whether we are talking about your LHS or a giant oil company. Any business wants to maximize profit. They set their prices based on what they believe will accomplish that. Asking too high a price will reduce sales. Asking too low a price will cut profit margins. Somewhere in between is the balance point that will yield the greatest profit and that’s what businesses try to achieve. In the case of the two year old catalog, the shop owner may not be smart asking for $11, but I wouldn’t call him greedy. If he thinks he can get someone to pay $11
Chip you know, there is a shop near me like that one, faded boxes, overpriced stock etc etc but they always find some sucker who will pay them for it, normally it will be someone who is a first time buyer for MR stuff,
Yeah, I feel your pain seeing faded boxes, but one time I went into a shop in Michigan while on vacation and saw some faded boxes (3 Walthers undec auto racks) and asked the owner (presumably) if he wanted to move out that part of his inventory. They had MSRP on them, and I offered him $10 each. He seemed reluctant, but I told him he could either accept my offer, or he could sit on them some more, pay inventory tax on them again, and hope and pray he could sell them later, and that, by the looks of them, they had already been there a while. It was a case of “a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush”. He thought about it and said “sold”. OK, I didn’t really NEED 3 more undec auto racks, but they will end up painted eventually. I thought it was a fair price for both of us. In his defense, he did have reasonably fair prices on most of his stuff, and inventory for the most part was fairly current, it was just some “old” stuff he had on hand. I’m surprised some of these shops don’t even know what “clearance” sales mean, or what they are for. I usually look for Southern Railway equipment especially when in the north or west, I hope I can pick it up cheap. Brad
I think this thread captures the true reason why your local hobby shops are slowly slipping into the abyss. The small business model has changed drasticly over the last 30 years. In order for a small business owner to survive, they must know that what every they purchase has a ‘shelf life.’ Most products depriciate over time and that includes if they are sitting on the store’s shelves. A business must move a product out the door before the selling value drops below the purchase value. This is all really basic knowledge that we all know, but the store owners described in this thread are trying the wrong solution.
Instead of sucking up the loss, they would rather wait it out and get at least SOME profit off the product. They refuse to acknowledge that the less quantifiable costs are actually making them lose money. Costs like:
Potential profit from other, more desireable products that could be placed in the space this old one is taking.
Decline in reputation by maintaining a rediculous cost on an item.
If these people just took a look at the same marketing schemes they fall for at their local wal-mart, they could easily revitalize their business.
For instance, order 100 walthers catalogs and offer them at cost or $1 off cover price. Make sure they are towards the back of the store so customers have to walk past a lot of items. Make sure to mention that the store can order anything in the catalog for the customer. The store could save money on shipping by ordering lots customers orders at the same time and then pass that ‘savings’ on to the customer, thus increasing reputation a little.
The shops that practice good marketing techniques are the ones surviving, but the older ‘ma and pa’ shops are closing up one by one. Sad really, but that is the way of the winds of time.
In stock market trading, this is known as the bigger fool syndrome. When you overpay for a stock, there is always the hope that a bigger fool will pay even more for the same stock and you end up making a profit. The internet bubble that burst early in 2000 was a classic example.
I know what this shopkeeper was thinking. He knows what he paid for the catalog and was reluctant to sell it for less. He was hoping that on another day, a bigger fool might come in and pay enough for it for him to make a profit. Of course the downside to that thinking is that it is more likely that catalog will continue to dwindle in value until it becomes worthless. It is always painful to sell something for less than what you paid for it but sometimes, the smart play is to cut your losses. The buying public doesn’t care what you paid for it. They only know what it is worth now. It is unlikely he is going to find that bigger fool.
This is one of those 6 of one, half a dozen of another things…you can’t please anyone so you might as well please yourself deals…but maybe I can defend some or other shop owners a little here.
All these complaints in these threads, even though not specifically speaking of my own place, I can see my shop in some of that light.
But for all the complaints from my customers and others that I hear about Wal-Mart, I can’t think of a worse business model to follow. If you haven’t noticed lately, they are not the goose that laid the golden egg afterall.
And I’m not deaf, my customers come in and tell me how they found a cool old discontinued so-and-so on eBay and got it for X amount of dollars…sometimes quite a bit more than they would have paid had I still had one on the shelf! Some of you obviously know there is a market for older “surprise” been-lookin’-for-this-for-years-can’t-believe-you-still-have-one-on-the-shelf finds. I know when I go into another train shop, I like to find things from awhile back. I’ll bet others on this forum like that too.
That being said…and I hope this doesn’t fall under the no advertising rules (if all the “30% off at Hobby Lobby” posts don’t…) but I do clear out some inventory, I do dust off old inventory when I can, and I quite frankly would never have a 2 year old Walthers book still on the shelf at MSRP for several reasons.
I hope anyone new to the hobby around this time of year doesn’t get the wrong impression from some of the threads about local hobby shops or model train shops if they are lucky enough to have a good one in their area. Contrary to some statements, we aren’t all in it just for the money and not all of us wait around for the next sucker to come through the door. Pardon me for the chip on my shoulder, just thought that should be said.
I always cringe when I hear any business referred to as greedy. All businesses are in business for one purpose, to make money. They are there for their benefit not ours. That is true whether we are talking about your LHS or a giant oil company. Any business wants to maximize profit. They set their prices based on what they believe will accomplish that. Asking too high a price will reduce sales. Asking too low a price will cut profit margins. Somewhere in between is the balance point that will yield the greatest profit and that’s what businesses try to achieve. In the case of the two year old catalog, the shop owner may not be smart asking for $11, but I wouldn’t call him greedy. If he thinks he can get someone to pay $11 for it, why would he sell it for less.
You don’t like “greedy”? How about “stupid” (in a lot of cases they’re synonymous)? A hobby shop may not be in business for my benefit, but I don’t part with my money for anyone’s benefit but my own or that of my family, except when donating to charity. IOW, I’m not in the business of subsidizing those whose business sense may range from diminished to completely lacking. I’ve seen too many hobby shops run by people who appear to lack the remotest acquaintance with business sense. Unfortunately, shops run by this type are the first ones to whine about “unfair” competition from competitors on the 'Net. If you’re going to sell at list, you’d better have something to offer in the way of courtesy, knowledge of the hobby, a wide selection of current inventory and the ability to provide decent, if not top notch service. Otherwise, knowledgeable modelers are going to go elsewhere.
My favorite LHS (well, it’s not quite “L” but that’s another issue) gives roughly a 20% discount from MSRP. That’s great as far as I’m concerned because even if an e-tailer sells it for a lower price, that e-tailer is not in a position to give me a lo