Yes, I know this subject has been covered pretty extensively here and that it is a sad state of affairs for both the business owners and the hobbyist who might want to visit such a shop.
The only thing that prompted me to post this one is that the statement that is on their website makes some interesting points about the hobby climate today… sort of a companion piece to the “where are we heading” thread.
Here’s their statement:
My friends, sadly the era of Franciscan Hobbies has come to an end.
I have been given the responsibility as bearer of bad news, but I speak for Bill, John, and the entire crew.
The tight profit margins and reduced sales volume caused by the pricing policies of the distributors, suppliers, and the internet have left us with little to no room for the needed profit margin to remain in business in the city of San Francisco.
The blame game is useless because the fact is no one specific thing caused this. It was the preverbal death by a thousand paper cuts. In all honesty, our suppliers became our own worst enemy. While they sold to us, they sold the very same products on their own websites at below our cost. Of course the youth of today, as a whole, has little interest in a model airplane or a steam train, when they can play on a Ipad or a Xbox. This, coupled with the vast amount of cheap phony merchandise available to the masses on the internet, has spelled the demise of an “old school” establishment such as ourselves.
I share these details with you not to blame, but to explain how a 68 year old business can be slowly, but steadily, squeezed out of business. Its sad to say, but is a small consolation that five hobby shops in the bay area closed this year alone. This indicates it wasn’t something we were specifically doing wrong - its the hobby industry as a whole that’s doomed i
Seems like he is saying EXACTLY what i say every time this stuff comes up.
The old “distributor” business model is dead. If you cannot be big enough to buy direct, you can’t make money in this business.
The elimination of the middle man has lowered the street prices of most products to levels just a few percentage points above what use to be “wholesale”. The sall shops don’t have a shot.
store sales for all retailers were down DRASTICALLY this past Christmas season.
Were the customers just not buying?
NO…they WERE buying…
WHere were they buying then?
ONLINE, of course! SO Much so, that UPS could NOT deliver everything before Christmas as promised because their systems “could not handle” the volume.
Now the so called “online E-tailers” may not have had a better price than the stores, and there is shipping costs, but it sure beat out the assumed “crowds” at the store, the “gas to run around”, and it comes directly to your door. How convenient.
SO it is with the hobby. {people buy on line, due mainly perhaps to cost savings, but it also comes right to your door.}
ANd there IS the final point that youth of today don’t want “grandpa’s hobby” they want video games…Just like the youth of the 1920s no longer wanted “equestrian hobbies” with the advent of the automobile…or “gentleman farming” wiht the advent of mass food production.
THERE MY BE a "die out of the hobby’, and with no manufacturer to manufacture such things as track, it further does not help the hobby to thrive.
But in the meantime, us “old geezers” {or whatever youth today call parents and grandparents} will still ENJOY it til the day we die!
It is a growing trend. People can’t be bothered leaving home if they don’t have to. Driving a car even a few blocks is darned expensive. We just didn’t care before, but with so many scaping by to make ends meet, every serious consideration is being given a lot more thought and time these days. In Canada, Best Buy is in bad shape, having just laid off several hundred. Sears Canada laid of about 900 a month prior to Christmas (now there’s a holiday wish for you!), and then laid off another 1600 just two weeks ago. That number may not cause a heart-skip in the USA, but in much smaller Canada, t’is a very bad sign.
Even with shipping and handling, as Sheldon says, the middle man’s loss is a big gain for both the consumer and the seller when the transaction takes place on line. Who knows, it may even breathe new life into our respective postal systems.
I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit to enjoying my hobby shop experiences. Still, they did involve more than two hours away from home and a 50 mile round-trip drive. That can only come under discretionary income, and for me the far better bargain is cross-border-and-wait-for-it.
Reading the OP’s post reminds me of when I was a kid, and all the aunts and uncles of my grandfather’s generation were dying off- every few months, another funeral to attend. Other than “thank you for your service”, as I say to other veterans I talk to (and the young ones of today), there is little to add to such a eulogy.
I am only 59, but perhaps- in my remaining lifetime- the distributors and manufacturers will also begin to die off and we may be left with going to local or internet “swap meets” to obtain increasingly rare (and pricier!) modeling materials and equipment. I hope that is not the case, but I have not been to a local swap meet (Yet) that was not full of other similarly-aged model railroaders and E-Bay’s railroad listings appear to be growing, not shrinking.
Sorry for his loss, sorrier for the change in culture over time that has precipitated it…
In a sense, I wish this thread were locked as soon as it was posted. That way, we could simply read that message and reflect. Any reply that any of us offers seems lame in comparison to the message posted.
Thanks for posting that message for all of us to read.
When I was a kid in Highland, Indiana, I used to love the occasional car trip–or more frequent bike ride of 4 miles–to G&G Hobbies in next-door Griffith, IN. Not having lived the area in 20 years, I have no idea if they’re still there, though I have my doubts.
But now as a 40-yr old who works in the semiconductor industry, I realize the internet IS the future of retail. I understand that many of the older members here, and a (very) few of the younger ones, lament the decline of the local hobby shop where drinking free coffee and BSing used to be rites of passage, but the fact is that anything I can buy in a physical store is available cheaper and, quite frankly faster, over the internet if the shop wouldn’t have had what I wanted in stock. And the sharing of knowledge–hello, this forum–is faster as well.
To the point that personal mobile devices are the instigator of the supposed decline in model train interest (of which I’m not sure exists completely), the fact is that other aspects of hobby models have come way down in price. I have a couple of Blade RC helicopters, as well as a way-over-the-top (for my needs) transmitter from Spektrum, simply because it’s readily available, immediately fun, and doesn’t take much space. I don’t know that it’s a complete abandonment of physical hobbies in today’s youth so much as it is that some hobbies–RC–have come so far down in price. To blame PMDs for the decline in model railroading–such that that decline exists–is missing a larger point.
The world we knew as kids in the 50’s - 70’s is gone. I was just commenting to my wife when she asked me what her phone number was, I have not had to memorize a phone number since the early 2000’s. She of course has a different number than I do and we have no land line. The business model has changed as well. It is so much easier to run a small business from your home, and a lot less expensive, than it is to have a store of your own. We do a LOT of our shopping onlne as it is so easy, and easy to get carried away I might add.
I do feel bad for the businesses that close up shop. I suppose in a lot of ways the Mom and Pop stores we knew as a kid have gone away, but also they are still here but now they are known as Mom&Pop.com. However I will always love heading into a hobby shop and seeing all the engines, rolling stock and other items on shelves.
When My father started his oil business there were 13 oil distributors in the area, The bigger ones started buying out the smaller ones until a few years ago there were just 4.
I use to joke (brag) that there were the big 3 and me. Well the joke was on me. I should have sold out sooner.
The big get bgigger and the small just fade away …
I would only take serious issue with Bruce on two points. Even the guys I know who purchase almost exclusively via the internet do that primarily for the big ticket locomotives and highly desired limited run rolling stock. For the plain old work-a-day stuff like rail joiners, bottles of glue, extra couplers, and the like, they still go to the LHS, and will be upset if it closes. But no shop can make a go just selling that little stuff.
And when you are in mid project and you need that certain size of Evergreen styrene strip, or that certain color of Tamiya rattle can paint, or those Kadee washers to make the coupler height come out correct, you want that ASAP and might even be willing to pay more for it. If the LHS doesn’t have it you curse the LHS. Then you sometimes learn that even Walthers doesn’t have it either. But if the LHS does have it, being able to have it in your hand that day still has value.
As to whether the sharing of knowledge on this forum is as reliable as what you might hear at a hobby shop I am reluctant to opine, being somewhat of a knowledge-sharer myself. I will freely concede it is faster as a rule. Have enough people answer one question and one of those answers is bound to be right. Which one it is is still up to the questioner.
I actually think we agree on this point as well. Now that I live in Dallas, there’s a Hobbytown USA a mile away–and I frequently go there for the little purchases. It’s great for that. But that’s not what’s going to keep it–or any other non-franchised store in business. In fact the local Hobbytown is where I bought my helicopters–somewhat higher dollar (and margin) purchases. But for the previous 14 years in Maine, all hobby orders were strictly internet based simply due to location.
I will say though that I DO prefer to buy my train purchases (mostly Blackstone HOn3, but other items as well), from places that are still trying to make a go of it with a physical location. I appreciate what they were to the hobby and are still trying to be, so I try to patronize them, but the 21st century reality is working against them.
Oh man, waited too long, Franciscan Hobbies was on my list of places to visit.
Mom and Pop Hobby shops, corner grocery, hardware, butcher, lumber yard, barber shop, etc., going away or already gone. As the old folk song said, “better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, cause the times they are a changing.” Changing for the better, time will tell.
Cedarwoodron, When I see many of the Ebay listings showing various collections, older stock, unfinished kits, etc. it makes me wonder how much of this stuff is generated by estate sales, kids and grandkids selling off grandpa’s “toy train collection”? That may have some role in the increase in volume.
This thread seems to have kindled some stories of fond memories of visits to the hobby shops of our youth. Of course it is not just the hobby shops demise that saddens us “old timers.” Try getting a decent cheeseburger and hot fudge sundae at the Woolworth’s lunch counter or have your oil checked and windshield washed next time you "fill 'er up.
Anytime my family was on vacation or I was travelling anywhere with my dad we would always get out the Yellow Pages and see where to find the hobby shops in town! My first trip to New York City (back in '66 on the E-Ls Lake Cities) one of the FIRST places I had to visit was Polks Hobby Shop (FIVE floors of Trains!)
These times they are a changin’. Better or worse… well, that’s a mixed bag. Human interaction is losing ground fast! The internet, the video screen at the take-out window, ATM, self serve gas, Amazon… they all remove the human element as is tru
I am my own LHS. I stock kits, couplers, trucks, paints, wood and plastic shapes, strips etc. I do this because the hobby shops closest to me don’t. They sell mostly 3 rail O gauge with a smattering of RTR for HO and N all at list.
My “distributors” are train shows and internet businesses.
Now the closest LHS to me is a 45 minute’s Highway drive away, AND they have a website too, at the well-known and popular wholesaletrains.com!
I have only ordered stuff online for the last 3 years IF I needed it and had not been in their brick and mortar store since 3 years ago.
Its a toss up to pay for gas to go or to pay shipping. Of course if it is not on the shelves, then the only way to get it is to order online and wait the week for it to get to me.
Here are the things I noticed when I went there for in-stock Xmas items for a deserving 4 y/o:
1} they had moved, and I failed to notice it online…only down the street, to Maybe? a bigger, better {probably cheaper} building. They said they moved about 3 years ago. They chidded me about not visiting more often!
2} their stock of MRRing stuff had GREATLY DWINDLED from the previous store. They used to have a “wall” of shelves and shelves of HO Scale RR cars/locos about 6 foot tall and an aisle in length! NOT so now, just a single shelf stacked no more than about 6 RR cars/locos high.
3} they used to have quite a bit of stock in N scale equipment, but not now just a half shelf of stuff.
4} they used to have BOXES and BOXES AND CASES of ATLAS track and other brands, but now thanks to the Atlas shortage they had just a few short peg hooks of track…
5} They DO carry other hobby items such as RC planes, but that stock, too, looked “thin”.
I had checked the stuff for “next day”, meaning in stoc
When I was a kid, there was a hobby shop about 1/2 hour from my home. That is where I purchased everything for my frst layout. At that age, I pretty much only worked on the railroad in the winter months as in the summer there was too much going on outside. Then one year we went there just before Christmas & I found that it was now a video & hobby shop with very few modeling supplies. This was in the early 80’s. Then I found another about an hour away and by this time I had my liscense so I could drive myself, unfortunately after buying a car, gas, and insurance there wasn’t much of a train budget left. Last time I went there, in the early 90’s, the store was a sporting goods store. When I moved to a different town a year later there was a nicely stocked hobby shop, unfortunately the owner wasin his 70’s and when he retired there was noone to take it over. Once the internet took off I was able to get modeling supplies again without a 3 hour one way drive.
Within the last year, I did find another hobby shop in the town I live in. It seems that the owner opened it within the last year. Suprisingly, this owner started by selling on the internet, and eventually had so much buisness that he decided to open a brick & mortar store. It’s not a spectacular shop with mostly RTR equipment & very little scratchbuilding supplies. He didn’t say it but I suspect that hiss internet sales supports the store. It may not be the greatest shop but it’s refreshing to see a hobby shop opening in this day & age.
First of all, this is a sad letter but it is indicative of what is happening in so many places. The writer lists several of the reasons we have discussed many times here before and we all can add to the list.
The fact is that many of the institutions we knew in our younger days are slowly dying. I can remember there being a Memorial Day parade in my hometown which was a huge event and involved hundreds of people. Today it is almost nonexistent because the people who supported it have died out. Another personal example is my church - 30 years ago it had over 4,000 members - it now has 1600 and is in a long painful decline. We all can name similar things. When it hits home like the closing of a favorite store, restaurant, hobby shop, hardware or other much loved place it is a sign that the world and marketplace are all changing.
And unless there is concerted effort of the part of many people these closings are going to continue. There is a much loved book store located in a resort city in northern Michigan that was in danger of closing when the big name stores opened in the mall. This downtown store survived because people simply refused to let it die and now it is going better than ever. Other mom and pop stores are no different and one way they may survive is if we continue to give them business.
I was the person who recently posted the question about the future of the hobby and I received as many opinions as there were responses. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that the hobby is also changing and if it is to survive for another generation then instead of beating ourselves up for once again discussing the issue, the bigger question is what can all of us do right now to help preserve it.
Franciscan was my local hobby shop for a few years when I lived in the city. Not to blame the victim completely, but many of their problems were self-inflicted in terms of inventory, failure to address the Internet, etc. This has been coming for a while.
The manufacturers disappear? Not a chance. New ones are starting up (Rapido, et al), including hundreds of small ones that could not have happened without the Internet.
Distribution is changing, for sure. But the sky is not falling and the hobby is not dead. For people who actually do model railroading, the hobby is changing (and surviving). For people who spend most of their time only talking about it … well, that is another story.
