The smart retailers have a strong internet presence, and offer the same level of service to their web customers that they do for their walk in’s. MB Klein and Feather River are two examples that stand out in my mind.
I’m very much a price shopper, but I’m another one of those who live “outside the bubble” and have to rely on mail-order and internet for most of my needs. There’s a Hobby Town about 20 minutes from me, and since it changed ownership, it has gotten noticeably better for train supplies, but their prices are pretty much at list price, so I rely on them only for the “gotta have it now” piece of track or bottle of glue. They do a pretty brisk business in R/C, so I expect they’ll be around for awhile, and I have noticed they have to re-stock the Atlas c55 N scale track pretty frequently, so someone’s buying…
The locals that ignore the internet, or spend more time and energy complaining about it are doomed to fail. Hobbyists are scattered far and wide, and you simply can’t rely on walk-in business anymore. And as a growing number of hobbyists discover the resources available on the net, I dare say it will become the number one source for hobby purchases in the coming years.
Again you are astute with your observations and comments…except I may have a disagreement with you on Thomas trains, better known as "Thomas the un-American tank engine.
Just five years ago, we would not have allowed Thomas trains or any other similar pre-entry level trains in our Timonium show. Young and I started this show in 1982 as a venue for serious scale model railroading in all scales sans tinplate. The show immediately became popular and we were swamped with fine dealers who sold strictly items for the intermediate and advanced modelers. Over the years things changed. With many scale modelers retiring or just dying off including many of these scale only dealers, we found that the new entries were not keeping pace with the folks leaving this hobby or attending our shows.
Then tinplate collectors started taking their choo choos from theirs shelves and actually began playing with them…thus giving birth to what is know today as HI-RAIL. Companies like Weaver, Sunset, Pecos River, Williams, MTH, Lionel, and several others began producing wonderful scale models to run on three rail track. Hi-Rail is now today scale model railroading (to an extent), but on three rails. When we began our shows and well into the 21st, we would not have allowed any three rail into our shows. BUT…?? How could we not allow a fellow with a beautiful Lionel UP 4-12-2 and then allow someone selling a table full of Tyco choo choos including a “Chattanooga choo choo”?
POINT of this…In the past year we have been encouraging Thomas and other similar pre-entry trains to set up…not that we really believe that the little tykes will become model railroaders (could be, though), but to introduce this hobby to the families who had no clue that any kind of trains existed beyond Thomas toys. Just in the past year we have seen this to be quite successful as many familes have returned…and not just to purchase Thomas
I think the main reason that hobby shops will keep on closing is the fact that almost all of them charge MSRP. Those prices are almost always 30-40% more than ‘‘internet prices’’.
Now it don’t take a rocket scientist to figure how much you can save by buying online.
The only time I go to a LHS is get something small that I need now, or to look at something that I know I can buy online for a lot less.( i.e. a set of 8 Kato Nscale Bethgon Coalporters at the LHS sells for 120.00 plus tax comes to total of 128.00 plus gas to get there and back is another 10.00 - 12.00. So now I am at 140.00 for somthing I know I can buy online for about 80.00 -90.00w/shipping … NO BRAINER )
I usually don’t make a special trip there either and I have 3 decent LHS’s within a 45 minute drive.
These days it is all about the $.
I know this first hand as my income (I am a self employed carpenter in new home construction)has dropped from $125,000 a year in 2004 to $45,000 in 2007. I don’t know many people that can take a hit like that and still throw away money at an overpriced LHS. Thats my take and I know that I am not alone in this way of buying trains and supplies. Sorry LHS owners thats the way it is.
That many suggest the disappearance of hobby shops is simply a sign of the times and does no real harm to the hobby itself, is extremely short sighted. Visiting the LHS has always been a great source of inspiration and a primary stimulus for new modelers through exposure. While many champion the Net and on-line media sources as today quickly replacing the LHS and the hardcopy publications, these work well only for those already in the hobby…they do not serve to recruit new members into the hobby.
As indicated, interest in model railroading is clearly generated by exposure to trains, be they real, miniature, or electric toys. That is something that is almost totally lacking in today’s society. The LHS is one of the last important existing examples of broad public exposure for our hobby. There simply is no evidence, whatever, to suggest that a one-time visit to some train show, or a pre-K child’s enthusiasm for Thomas, results in any life-long interest in model railroading. I find it interesting that Joe F. has now put forth in this thread the concept that the great interest in model trains from the late 1940’s through the 1960’s was something of a “fad” and that it is unlikely to ever be repeated, or even approached. I would hasten to point out that this “fad” encompassed an entire generation of Americans, the Boomers, and it is the progeny of that specific era that consitutes at least 70% of hobbyists active today and making the hobby of model railroading what it is. Just what will be left of our hobby when this generation’s numbers begin to seriously dwindle over the next decade and hobby participation should return fully to the “pre-fad” levels, as Joe suggests (i.e. about 25,000 hobbyists, or less)? Think prices are high now and product runs limited? You’ve seen only the beginning of such things so far. The same goes for the viab
Not at all. It is perfectly self evident that younger people will frequent a LHS (if one is available) for innumerable reasons: the purchase of plastic vehicle model kits, kites, school project supplies, Pine Car models for Scouting, et al. But at the same time it places them in an enviroment where model trains are distinctly evident.
When in such a shop, one’s natural instinct is to spend some time looking around at items which might otherwise be outside one’s current interests. It is the nature of humankind to be curious and attracted by action, bright colors and sound (thus the enormous popularity of video games today). In a shop that includes perhaps an operating layout(s) with a sound system, display cabinets containing rows of colorful locomotives, and racks of magazines with strikingly beautiful images of model railroads,&n
ok , I’ll tell you where I’m going. Since I live in NYC, a quick ride to TrainWorld or TrainLand is most common. There is only one other hobby shop I go to in the city, and it’s not Red Cabbose -that’s for sure!
I don’t even order through the mail with TW or TL. And because of their stocking practices their prices are ususally the best if they have it. I only order online when I can’t find it anywhere else.
On CBC radio the other day there was talk about the impact of personal communications devices and how the digital age is, and I quote two terms now, “digitally rewiring the brains of our youth” so that they live in a world of “partial attention”. The buzz around multi-tasking has, according to this expert, led to a generation that pays passing attention to their cell-pod, to their Game Boy, to their text-messaging, etc…all concurrently. There is no room for intrusions for all but the most basic of needs. That means when it comes to exchanging value for value, our world economy is changing from what we understand. What they’ll do for value so that they can exchange for value is not what you and I hold dear, and rapidly becoming even more separated from our familiar market exposure.
Kids can’t walk into an LHS if they don’t accept that it has anything to offer them. Their partial attention lives flit from process to process, almost always associated with the media, so that they can get information.
My bet is on virtual living and the associated infrastructure and software. Having to construct a useful track plan is as intriguing and promising as a cold cup of coffee to those who follow us, now a full generation removed.
The internet is the best hope for marketing. These briefly interested kids will want the latest i-pod for all their manufacturer promises in its new way of marketing. Stumbling off the street into an LHS will just be a convenience to get out of the rain.
CNJ831,Most kids I know frequent the big box stores for their school needs or Hobby Lobby.Few (if any) even knows about the 4 hobby shops(2 train/2 other) in Mansfield.
Ask 'em about Thomas/Shining Time Station and most has heard about or watch the show when they where"kids" and some simply roll their eyes.
On the other hand I notice during the week of the County fair many kids made several trips around the layouts and many(including girls) ask general questions about the hobby.
Is there a tie in between that Blue Tank engine and model railroading as a hobby?
Not at all. It is perfectly self evident that younger people will frequent a LHS (if one is available) for innumerable reasons: the purchase of plastic vehicle model kits, kites, school project supplies, Pine Car models for Scouting, et al. But at the same time it places them in an enviroment where model trains are distinctly evident.
When in such a shop, one’s natural instinct is to spend some time looking around at items which might otherwise be outside one’s current interests. It is the nature of humankind to be curious and attracted by action, bright colors and sound (thus the enormous popularity of video games today). In a shop that includes perhaps an operating layout(s) with a sound system, display cabinets containing rows of colorful locomotives, and racks of magazines with strikingly beautiful images
Paul, what evidence can you point to that supports your views? Exactly why would anyone without any previously existing interest in model railroading come to this, or any similar site, in the first place? What would be the stimulus to do so and from what would such an interest in model trains arise? You are assuming prior interest/exposure to the hobby by the individual, yet in modern-day America virtually the last existing example of such exposure have been the hobbyshops and they are vanishing. When broad public interest in model trains was indeed abroad in the land, between WWII and the 60’s, real trains were a basic part of everyday life, hobbyshops abounded, hardware and department stores sold Lionel and sometimes Flyer year-round and at Christmastime had crowd-drawing window displays of same. Concurrently, both Lionel and Flyer also sponsored weekly TV train shows aimed at pre-teens and their dads (not pre-K kids). Nearly anywhere one turned, they saw evidence of the hobby.
Fast forward to today and where is the quivalent exposure coming from that introduces the general public to model railroading? In Thomas? Please! Today our hobby has virtually no real public exposure, with even the train shows largely based on preaching to the chior. Now we are loosing the hobbyshops which served as the main outlet for our hobby’s mag
It would not suprise me one bit if virtual model railroading takes over the hobby. It has been possible for some time now to devise a track plan on a PC and then actually run trains over the layout in 3-D mode. Up until now, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in that type of railroading because the graph
If we are talking about getting kids into the hobby the Internet is the way to do it. The LHS is not. The LHS that I’ve been to have not much on display and not very good layouts to show of their stuff. But that is irrelevant.
I’m educating my self to become a teacher for 15-19 years old kids and also university students. These “kids” spend a lot of time searching the net for any info they want. They are accustomed to searching for the info online rather then sit on a bus or a train for an hour to get to there LHS(which they do not know exist), they want that info available ring now and then. This is how they do most things in school and in their private life, atleast among the student that I’ve had the privilege of teaching.
If anything, for this hobby to grow or remain then Internet presence have to grow! Not shrink back to some obscure LHS. I was shocked with how bad most online shops are in this hobby when I started 2006. They where many years behind and I still think that they are. There is a massive lack of information and help for the newcomers and it is extremely hard to know what to get until you learn the basics and then some. So better websites for the train hobby would be a priority. I have plenty of friends that play a game called Warhammer, a war game with miniatures that uses a lot of things in common with the MR hobby. Despite this large amount of kids(ages 10-25 is common) they almost never buy MR stuff because they can not find it easily on the web. These are people who wants to buy trees, paints, landscaping materials and buildings in a scale that is roughly 1/70(I do mean roughly). This is a group of people with a shared intrest that should present an excellent recruitment pool but uses the Internet as a tool and thus misses a lot of the good stuff.
All of them build or atleast use a lot of terrain, still, almost no one knows of Woodland Scenics! That should say some.
Are not hobbyshops in business to supply the needs of those with hobbies? Do not hobbies include such items as model cars kits, coin collecting albums, Pine Derby cars, RC cars and a host of other similar items? Have not young people always been the traget consumers for the majority of these products? Is it necessary that I cite the stock of several LHS to prove that they are in business for this purpose?
Regarding the widely recognized aspects of human nature, is it truly called for to cite texts on human psychology to affirm that for tens of thousands of years man has been a creature whose world revolves around curiosity, the noticing of motion, bright colors and sounds? By virtue of that fact, can there be a better salesman, or a more logical choice, for garnering the attention of customers than a colorful, moving, chugging-tooting-clanging train display in the LHS? J.L.Cowen knew this over 100 years ago and made tens of millions from Lionel via it. Need I say more?
Now look at any poll, hobby survey, or compilation of author bio’s from MR, addressing a person’s initial contact with model trains. Examples that have appeared here and others are to be found on various forums. I’d think most of us had seen some and I can certainly l
The more things change; the more they stay they same.
Radio didn’t go away after television appeared. Nor did movie theatres even after TV, VCRs, DVDs and pirated movie downloads!
Computers are cool and you can do all kind of things with them.
But it’s nothing like making something with your own two hands.
The creative impulse that drives us to build model railroads (or tanks or airplanes) or paint pictures or do woodworking or knitting or whatever is not going to be erased in humankind just because we have PDAs now.
Companies that don’t keep up with the times go out of business. But that doesn’t mean that the business itself goes away.
You make a good point, Craig, but if a person only has so much time in a 24 hour period, and they are largely consumed with exposure of self on a communication device (the new society), something else has to give. Studies are still required by law in most jurisdictions, and a body will demand to eat and to defecate…those things will not change, I agree…but the market for “free time” and “free money” is changing. Hobbies may still commmand some attention and money, but it won’t be the market that the hand-helds of this kind can command.
Not at all. It is perfectly self evident that younger people will frequent a LHS (if one is available) for innumerable reasons: the purchase of plastic vehicle model kits, kites, school project supplies, Pine Car models for Scouting, et al. But at the same time it places them in an enviroment where model trains are distinctly evident.
Self evident, how? Just from personal experience, the first time I went to an LHS was AFTER I had been to a club open house at the Antelope Valley Fair in the early 1950’s. I’ll grant you I was already interested in trains (hard not to be since we were living in Mojave at the time), but I had no idea such heavens on earth actually existed as I was only about 7 at the time. Your typical LHS is not located in the venue most youngsters are familiar with today, the suburban mall. Mall real estate is expensive and not conducive to success in the hobby business. Witness the demise of “The Great Train Store”, a hobby chain that started with with high hopes and ended up going under fairly rapidly. My own LHS is located in an old strip mall with an Ace Hardware store, a barber shop, a beauty salon, a Japanese restaurant, a liquor store and a travel agency. Fortunately, it’s at the intersection of two busy streets, the area is not in any way “depressed”, does quite a mail order business even without a 'Net presence and was founded by someone with quite a bit of hobby AND business experience. It’s also one of those fortunate few hobby (actually trains only) stores where the original proprietor retired and his son took over. That rarely happens and it’s the only instance of which I’m aware. There was a very large (almost big box) general purpose hobby store up in the Palo Alto area that closed within the last few years simply because the owner wanted to retire and couldn’t find anyone willing to take the thing over. For a general purpose hobby shop,
If an LHS closes, then it’s because they didn’t adjust their business practices to reflect modern times. I’ve heard of a few hobby shops that have closed their brick and mortar store to become an online only entity. This to me implies that they have had better sucess with online sales than with people walking into their shops when they had it. Hobby shops like this will no doubt have more sucess than a hobby shop that refuses to invest in going online.
For big purchases, I look online. My first priority is to save money where I can, after all, this is a hobby and not a charity. I won’t go to a full price LHS to make a major purchase when I can find the same item for a lot less on the net.
For a change, Andre, we are largely in agreement. Hobby shops have become very much an afterthought in our society. High rents no longer allow them occupancy in the high-traffic downtowns of cities, or in large malls. Those that try are very short lived today. Likewise, 95% of kids do not engage in any sort of craft hobbies, so the potential for exposure to trains at the LHS is small but it is still the only viable venue.
Incidentally, the shop I frequent most is a general purpose hobby shop but nevertheless has two display layouts: one for HO, the other tin-plate. I’ve often seen folks in the store for other interests amble over to the HO train layout and watch fascinated for several minutes, often commenting that they never realized there was anything like this beyond Lionel. Incidentally, this particular shop does sell books on coins, as well as various collector albums to store them in. While not a place for a serious numismatist, for dabblers in common American coins and such, it’s still quite suitable.
As to train shows serving as a media for exposure, with the exception of one or two examples I can point to, over the past 20 years I’ve seen a dramatic drop off in the attendence of most…and the decided majority of those folks staying home were already hobbyists. Here in the Northeast many shows have closed their doors for good, including some of the big traveling shows, due to falling gates. The all important free advertising in the pages of MR has been lost, leaving RMC the only other major magazine with coverage. Once a place to get bargins, most train shows today have items priced fairly close (sometimes even above) the LHS. It is eBay that has largely replaced shows as a source of low cost hobby products and answers for much of the decline in shows. With their recent track record and the rising fees charged by the show venues, I give most train shows less than a decade before they disappear. Ev
I just don’t believe our hobby hinges on the local Hobby shop. A great many young Model Railroaders have prior exposure to the hobby from their Parents or Grand Parents.
Also…to the forum poster that spoke about How kids could get exposure to the Hobby by going to their local Hobby Shop to buy Kites, Pinecars and Coin Collecting supplies: Ummm I don’t know what century you live in, but here in the 21st century Kids have zero interest in such things. If it’s not X-box, Facebook, Jackass the movie or southpark most Kids could care less.
Our local Scout chapter closed about five years ago due to lack of interest, I haven’t seen a Kid fly a kite in Fifteen years, and if people think our Hobby is facing demise they need to check out Scale Model Building, R/C Modeling or Slot Car racing. These guys have been forced to buy from catalogs and off the net for years because their hobbies are considered “niche” at best.
I just don’t think that some rotund shop owner that insist on charging MSRP for stock that is years old, and uses the phrase 'Fircking Kids" any time anyone under Thirty enters his shop is the ambassadors of the hobby like some insist they are. I would argue that our local clubs serve this function, and for the most part they do this extremely well. Our local club has a very active youth membership, and many of these kids (Mostly between the ages of Fourteen and Seventeen) never even considered that Model Railroading could be more than setting up a Choo Choo around the tree once a year.
Our Hobby has survived and even thrived under much harsher conditions. I remember reading in MR on the experiences of a Modeler and his club in the Former soviet Union, and marveled over some of the beautiful scratch built pieces the gentleman created using whatever he could scrounge, and the challenges these guys faced even meeting. I wonder how some of our forum members would handled being questioned
While again, I agree with most of the post, I have to agree with Paul here. My son got a train set for Christmas that came from an outlet store. On December 27th, I jumped on the net and found this place. Three months later I bought my first MR.
There is so much more information here than 3 months worth of MRs. My town had no hobby shops and when I looked after the fact, my local library and bookstore had no books on Model Railroading.