OK, here’s my question. We all know the problem local hobby shops face competing with the internet sellers. In my area, my favorite LHS recently closed and there are only 2 left within 20 miles of my home. But I was looking at the nearest shop’s website and an engine I am interested in is $100 more ($369 vs. $275) than it is available online from an out of town brick and mortar shop that also has a large web presence. In general, my LHS is always about 10% to 15% off MSP, while the other is closer to 25% to 35% off. I want to support my local shop, but that’s a big difference. I don’t mind as much when I want things like building kits, cars or track, but for larger purchases, it’s an issue. What would you do?
Like many of the others, I’ve spent a lot of money on MR stuff over the years, but especially so in the last 10. When it came to “big dollar” items, and there was a good savings from an online source, that is where I would shop. Otherwise, everything else was bought from the two local hobby shops (Larrys & Spring Crossing). Of course both of those are not history…
This is a tough call.
Back in 2007, I still had three LHS within a 20 minute drive of my house. I patronized all three of them, but one in particular was my favorite. I had a pretty good relationship with the owner and his right hand man. The two of them really guided me from the time when I first started into the HO scale side of the hobby back in January 2004.
By the time that LHS closed in 2007, I was buying everything from them, ignoring the Internet store discounts. By the end of 2007, all three LHS had closed. At that point, I had no choice but to shop on the Internet.
If I started into the hobby today and if that LHS were still open, I suppose that I would opt for the greater discounts from Internet stores. My LHS always gave me a 20 percent discount, but the Internet store discounts are typically higher.
My advice to you would be to reconcile the greater Internet discounts with your relationship with your LHS. In my case, I was regularly receiving invaluable advice from the LHS guys, so the trade off was obvious. If the only thing that your LHS provides is discounts on purchases, then if I were you, I would choose the greater Internet discounts. But if the LHS provides you with good advice, then you probably don’t want to give that up.
Rich
I always shop my “local” hobby shop first.
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I am in a different situation though. My preferred “local” shop is 70 miles away in Sarasota, Gulf Coast Model Railroading. There is a newer shop only about 15 miles away from my house, but I still prefer to shop with Kelly and Dave further away.
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I never choose mail order discounts, but I do shop mail order when it is an item I cannot get in a local store.
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-Kevin
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May I be blunt? I would pocket that $100.00 and order the engine from the on line store. I owe no fealty to a LHS.
OTOH if the savings isn’t sufficient after shipping then the hobby shop will get my business.
I used to shop at these shops but once I realized that I could get things cheaper on-line I went with that instead…
I think you should read through Rich’s (Richhotrain) reply, and go by your relationship with the LHS your talking about. His he there for you if something goes wrong with the loco? and the extra shipping from the internet store?
If you can’t justify the cost difference in terms of value and support from the LHS, than by it on line, and take your chances.
Mike.
I try and support my LHS as much as possible. I generally purchase general supplies (track, roadbed, adhesive, paint, etc.) and rolling stock (kits) from them because I can physically hold it or look inside the box for BLT dates and condition. Bigger ticket items like locomotives though I usually purchase online at discount. Since I spend more of my hobby budget (and support my LHS) on supplies over a longer period of time, I don’t feel pangs of guilt for purchasing the occasional bigger item to save some money.
If an item I’m interested in - like a locomotive - is only a little more expensive (<$50) but readily available at my LHS, I consider the S&H costs of purchasing online and will get it from my LHS to help them out. They are struggling to stay afloat like many other brick 'n mortar businesses so I’m glad to support them as often as I can. I’ve also developed a relationship with the owners so that carries some weight, as well. There’s also the cost of gas for me as my LHS is 1/2 hour away.
I also feel a loyalty towards smaller businesses (e.g. hardware stores) because of the personal help and great service I receive from them vs. the larger home improvement stores (e.g. Lowe’s & Home Depot). However, the larger stores allow me to see a number of larger ticket items up close and personal so that I can make better informed choices. I have also received good-quality service having work done on my house through places like Lowe’s.
Tom
Old but still interesting topic. Being due to my religious and ethnic background, I’d buy a dead water buffalo complete with maggots if the price was right. And I have found many such “dead water buffalos” on line, but the real picture is the future of the hobby. I have found that on-line purchasing, besides price is mainly for folks shopping for items they need and/or know about with the emphasis being on the latter.
Two major problems with this…#1, when the last LHS shuts down, do folks really think that staples such as paint, glue, strip wood, advice, service, etc. will be found on line. and #2, possible newbies? Other than atending train shows, clubs, and friends with trains, where will they come from? I come from a time as many of you do when a person could walk into a train shop, and become hooked…big time. Photos and listings on line??? Possibly I’m ignorant to today’s trends as I am a confessed dinosaur and still live in the past…but it works for me.
Getting back to the topic…Personally, I shop for service and I am willing to pay more for this. Henceforth I will support and make my purchases from an LHS assuming it is an excellent shop. In my area we are all lucky to have several wonderful train stores within a small radius.
HZ
HZ
The two hobby shops closest to me (over 25 miles away) have very small model railroad sections. And of course don’t carry S scale.
So online shoping and train shows are necessary for me. Oddly enough, a number of things I buy online are list price (the big discounters only have American Flyer and compatibles) as there isn’t as much discounting in S as in HO, N, and 3 rail O gauge.
Paul
Nearest LHS of LION is 200 miles away in a direction that we seldom travel and has rather limited stuff anyway. As an ex-New Yorker, I am happy to call TRQAINWORLD my Local Hobby Shop. I did not stop there the last time I was in New York, but there was nothing that I kneaded to buy.
SEW: LION has no problem ordering on lion.
ROAR
And when your order comes on a Lion, there’s little chance anyone will mess with it while in transit.
Nearest LHS is about an hour away from me. A great place if you want Blue Box kits, because they have them - same ones that have been in inventory for the past 15 years. Top row of boxes is all dusty. All marked at full MSRP. They are big enough with all the other hobbies they support, they could easily have an online store in addition to the physical store, but the owner is just way too stingy to spend money on anything - they needed more space so they just squeezed the aisle down to add more shelves, and the lighting no longer lines up with the aisles - some rows are extremely dark as a result. And he’s not old or out of touch, I’ve been going there since he first opened up, he’s maybe a few years older than I am (I used to live within an easy bike ride of the place - before I was old enough to drive).
–Randy
I am fortunate to have a great LHS that is happy to order anything i need from the big suppliers. He can usually match or better my online price. I have preordered many new Walthers stuff and model cars this way. I can then inspect before i pay.
This is indeed an old topic and I can recall MR editor Linn Westcott mused more than once in the mid 1960s that a hobby shop could and would not survive selling bits of stripwood, grass mats and cement – the low profit leftovers – while the toy stores sold all the train sets dirt cheap at Christmas and the mail order shops could undercut them all year long on all the basic bigger ticket items from track and power supplies to cars, locomotives, and structures. After all AHC America’s Hobby Center had been running ads with tantalizing prices in MR since at least the 1950s, and they weren’t the only ones. And some of the price differentials mail order vs LHS were just as big then as they are now, maybe bigger on a % basis, since very few hobby shops discounted back then, and when they did it sometimes was for NMRA members only.
My nearest LHS is Walthers itself - really - and I go there pretty often, but not out of any sense of loyalty or duty. If I can get it cheaper at a swap meet or train show I’ll do so. But I do like the “I want it now, I can have it now” sense of leaving with the item I want, same day. Maybe Amazon and its drone deliveries will kill even that slight advantage.
I would say that I do make a deliberate effort, and perhaps pay a little more by doing so, to patronize my nearest local hardware store. First because I do not enjoy the “big box” home goods type stores that are nearby, and second because I really benefit from their expertise and advice and services and do not want to lose them. So far they are hanging on but I do admit that when I need something like a dehumidifier I do sometimes check out what Menards or Home Depot is selling them for.
Loyalty has its limits. Or, as Papa Boule says in the wonderful Burt Lancaster film The Train: “four francs is four francs.”
Dave Nelson
Howard,For us old folk that shopped in hobby shops we know the value but,my Grandson’s generation of modelers are computer/ smart phone savvy and would rather order on line because of lower prices and convince.
Personally I grew wary of hearing either one of these excuses.I can’t get it or my order was short several pre-orders.
In one case all of his friends and top customers got theirs and I and several other didn’t get ours and I spent a lot of money in his shop. I didn’t shed any tears when he closed shop due to a divorce.
There was an LHS in my area that I had been going to since I was a little kid. They closed last year, so now there are only 2 LHS in my area. One only handles R/C models and the occasional train set, the other’s in a place where bars are frequent fixtures on windows, so most of the time I could go (after work), it’s not the best idea.
I also shy away from that store for ethical reasons. On their last day, the LHS had a 70% off event, and I got quite a few good items, but this other store sent a guy to hand out flyers to people waiting to attend the event, and leave additional papers on windshields. I found that to be a bit of a “kicking them when they’re down” move and it didn’t endear their business to me. I’ll probably go at some point, but I do have some reservations about their business ethics now.
If I see something I like while I’m at a store I buy it. I’m there, it’s there, no problem. I have the item in my hand right then and I can open it as soon as I go home. No waiting around for the mailman which might not have it for a week or two.
My problem is that my local store doesn’t have much selection and they have most of it behind the counter where it is awkward to browse through it. So that kind of eliminates impulse buys. They charge MSRP also plus a rather high sales tax which internet stores in other states don’t charge. On top of that they are only open four days a week and close early. It seems like every time I want to go there they are already closed. You have to go there at lunch, you can’t wait until after you get off of work. Most of their business is RC, airplace or car models or arts and crafts.
The local stores which had large selections and discounted everything closed a long time ago. They were a half hour or longer drive away but when they were open I never bought anything mail order. I always bought from them.
If a retailers is smart he should be able to offer discounts because the faster you move the inventory the more you can sell and you make your profit off of the cash flow. If you sell lots of items a smaller markup works fine.
Maybe one day Michaels or Hobby Lobby will have more selection instead of just a partial aisle with just some average items.
I treat hobby shops philosophically the same way I treat convenience stores. Yes, they’re there, they’re open, they have stock, and they’re friendly…
…but…you’re gonna pay for all that. I’m on a military pension and not quite flush for cash as a home owner who has repair costs and taxes to contend with.
What is my time worth if I drive? What about carbon footprint? It costs each of us about $2 just to turn our engines over on startup. Most of us never realize this expense, but starting your engine has a cost to you…and to the engine. It adds up.
I find items on sale all the time on line, but I have to pay GST often when the items cross the border into Canada. That GST is inflated because of the rate exchange between the two currencies. Many don’t figure THAT into the costs of purchasing on line. It adds up.
I’m afraid that, when I pass by the only hobby shop within driving distance (trips up to Campbell River to see my daughter and son-in-law), I rarely drop in. I did twice this past year for maybe $70 worth of stripwood, paints, some flocking…oh, and I purchased my only loco last year from them…a Christmas gift from SWMBO. It was an Atlas Classic RS-3 with LokSound.
Would I be disappointed if the hobby shop closed? Yup, surely. It has been on the market ever since I first set foot in it. No apparent interest, or not the right kind.
I get 95% of my hobby ‘stuff’ on line. No muss, no fuss, decent prices comparatively, and in 13 years I have only ever had one decoder fail to turn up. I got a replacement from the seller at their cost.
I usually buy on line but from brick and mortar hobby stores! I have two favourites: Action Hobbies in Kingsville, Ontario and Hobby Wholesale in Edmonton, Alberta. They both have great websites and great service. The one in Ontario has great prices and the one in Edmonton has a great selection, usually in stock. The closest hobby shop is Credit Valley in Mississauga. Their pricing is too high for me and their shipping costs are twice what the other two stores charge.
I used to spend a lot of money on eBay, but, now that I have pretty much all the locomotives and freight cars I want, my money goes to the hobby shops.
IMHO the only way a hobby shop can stay in business these days is to get onto the web bigtime with a professional website.
Dave
I’d talk with the owner and ask what kind of price he can give you. Don’t insist that he beat the other price, but if he can come down a bit you’ll both be happy.
My LHS closed about two years ago. It was a popular shop in a strip mall. The strip mall changed ownership and increased his rent beyond what he could pay. So, he retired (he was thinking of it anyway) and closed the shop. That store is vacant to this day, so by being greedy the strip mall owner ended up with nothing.