I’ve read so many threads predicting the death of the LHS. I am lucky to have a job that allows me to travel a bit, and I have seen many LHS that seem to thrive, including the LHS of my own town. So, I suggest we combine our observations and identify what seems to make a successful LHS. Here is what I’ve observed:
-The obvious: large city, good retail practices: good service, good manners, parking, etc.
-Offer of products in “parallel” markets that share common tools and basic products: RC planes, military models, other hobbies.
-Store location: near a railway. I think that being close to a railway attracts people to the hobby. There is nothing like seeing a real train up-close to want to model one!
-Inclusion of a “mail order” business line, via Ebay or a Website.
-Expert guests: the owner of my LHS brings in a DCC expert once a month to answer questions.
What have been your observations?
Simon
I frequent a local R/C shop as he has racks of paint of all different brands with hundreds of colours. Bass and balsa wood selections are impressive as are the styrene and metals. The owner sells little in the way of MRR stuff but has a huge MRR clientele as we want quick access to the little stuff. The expensive items like Loco’s are bought online at prices he can’t compete with.
Mine has a suburban location in a small strip mall. That keeps his rent low. It’s easy enough to get to, though, and parking is no problem.
There are no trains very close by, but the owner has a lot of knowledge of the B&M, and stocks local railroad models, books and even calendars.
Mine has his own website. If I want something he doesn’t have in stock, he will order it from Walthers or Athearn and I’ll have it in a few days. That way I don’t pay postage and he gets the business. The last time I bought a locomotive through him, he beat Trainworld’s price. Yes, really.
He is a DCC expert, and does installations and repairs. He only does trains, HO and N scale. There is a shop layout, very nicely done. It’s even been featured in RMC.
He greets me by name when I walk in. That is something any shopkeeper could do, regardless of what he’s selling, but so few pick up on it.
Sometimes I think selection and quantity can matter more than price. When I go to a stunningly well stocked train department I tend to see things I never knew existed and want immediately. Comparison shopping is then not the point if I want it now. Some of the better shops try to feature some of the “basement” manufacturers whose stuff is not usually seen – that is a plus too.
I think Des Plaines Hobbies in Illinois is a good example of what I am talking about.
Dave Nelson
This is a thread I love to comment on…I may hold some kind of a record as when serving as a corporate pilot for over a decade, I would always carry in my flight bag a current issue of MR with the hobby shop directory tagged and during layovers (and there were many in every state except Alaska and Hawaii), I’d grab an FBO van, cab, or whatever and visit the local LHS. I can probably claim that I visited several hundred and quite franky only a handful were worthy of special note. Overall around 85% were just fine, but the word…“boring” seems to come to mind.
What makes them successful?..Here is my 25 cents:
Great location with easy access and free parking; Excellent lighting, Friendly, helpfull, attractive, and knowledgeable sales folks…in addition to the owner; Excellent stock chosen with great thought and beyond the standard distributor less 40% plastic stuff; support items and tools, scratch building supplies and materials, clinics, displays; a large selection of used models from brass to affordable be it purchase or consignment; know the full meaning of follow up and customer service; repair and custom work department; know how to eliminate the stale look…change things around often: close out tables; special discount items and sales; showcase for customers work; section for new items; discount coupons; and excellent promotion and advertising; and last but far from least…be current in today’s high techology…mainly web site and possibly social media.
Here in the central Maryland and Southern PA area, we are lucky as we have several really good shops. I love Tommy Gilbert’s in Gettysburg, and the epitome of what I just wrote about is near by in Blue Ridge Summit, PA…Main Line Hobby Supply. When I lived in Jersey, Ted’s Engine House was incredible and then some!!!
Oh yeah…know the full meaning of wholesale, very wholesale, and really very wholesale. Knowing how to buy is as important as knowing how
One can make money at almost any buisness, but it has to be handled as a buisness! 85% of all new buisnesses fail in the first 5 years. You would be suprised at how many new buisness owners I have talked to that don’t have a plan or even did the ground work to see if they could make a go of it. Hobby shops are notorius for rude owners and bad customer service in a lot of shops.
In times of a dwindling customer base with less and less free income to spend for the hobby, while at the same time the competion through Internet shops is getting ever stronger, there is one critical success factor - it´s dedication! And dedicated you need to be, with 100+ work hours a week, a capital employed figure in the 6-digit area, which is not giving you much of a return, write-offs which pull your last hair out and an income not much above the poverty line.
To my mind fresh stock and a 10-15% discount on large (say $60.00 or more) purchase at checkout would cause me to drop on line shopping and become a regular customer.
I’m not to sure about “experts” giving clinics…I would prefer the local talented modelers do this.
The reason is simple…I had my fill of supposed “experts” over the last 60 years that wasn’t all that knowledgeable since the majority complicated the simple while overstating the obvious. .
I come at this from a different point of view, and that is, why do so many LHS fail.
I used to have three of them within 15 minutes of my home in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, buit now all are gone. These were full service shops with discount prices, knowledgeable ownership and staff, and a well-stocked store.
Now, the closest LHS is a good 30 minute trip each way, and I always call in advance because the availability of product is always in question.
The main reason for closing is always the same. The rent is too high and getting higher.
Rich
I’ll echo what Howard said. Main Line Hobby Supply is just about as good as it gets for us in this neck of the woods.
The shop owners have their own building on a State highway in a very small town. Sounds like a bad location until you consider that it’s centrally located, within easy reach of Chambersburg, PA, Hagerstown, MD, Martinsburg, WV, and Gettysburg, PA. It’s a longer drive from places like Baltimore, Harrisburg, Cumberland, Winchester, Leesburg, or Washington DC, but most of the drive is through pleasant countryside, so it’s not as bad as one might think. Within that area, Tommy Gilbert’s (which has virtues of its own) is the only other truly full-service, well-stocked hobby shop for scale model trains. Pro Custom is also good, but their stock is more limited. I’m not counting tinplate specialists.
At Main Line, the person behind the counter is likely to be one of the owners. Staff is knowledgeable. If they don’t know the answer, they will refer you to someone who does, rather than lead you astray. If the knowledgeable person isn’t there, they’ll tell you when he (or she) will be working next. Bonnie, one of the co owners, is generally as well informed as any man, so there have been a few old stick-in-the-mud types who have been taken by surprise and forced to reevaluate their old fashioned ideas about women in the hobby.
Every year in September they sponsor a weekend open house with special sales and promotions, plus layout tours hosted by customers who choose to be on the tour. Typically, twenty to thirty layouts of all sizes, gauges, and levels of completion are available.
The selection is broad and eclectic in the classic definition of the term: a diverse selection of products, tending towards the higher quality products, but with some items available to suit any pocketbook. There’s a wide selection of detail parts and
My local hobby shop is Hobbytown in Carson City…30 miles away. There are no others in my area. Nearest otherwise…is Sacramento…150 miles away. The Hobbytown here has been around for nearly 20 years and seems to be doing well. The key thing to his longevity here, I believe, is that he stocks small selections of model railroading, model cars, planes ships, and rockets, but can order anything you want, but he has an extensive selection of radio control in cars and planes since that is what’s most popular here in northern Nevada . He knows his customers and I see everyone leaving with a purchase in their hands when I stop in. Most of my needs going in there are for the spendy small things that are hobby specific.
Mark H
In otherwords, profit to business cost ratio is not good enough to stay in business, despite all the wondeful characteristics of many brick and mortor shops. And this echo’s a theme we are seeing played out in shopping malls across America. They are closing at record rates because buying is shifting en-mass to online vendors who have a distinct advantage vs. the strictly local sales B&M shores. In the past couple years my local K-mart and now JC Penny closed down, just recent victims to the dying traditional retail sales model.
Like a few others, I have traveled alot to many cities and states and made it a point to visit 2 or 3 hobby shops on each trip, but IMO, those observations don’t really seem as relevant as the online sales effect on B&M stores.
Sure, in past years, I could see what I thought ma
I have only visited a few hobby shops, and unfriendly staff really turns me off. It is enough to keep me from doing business there. Also, disorganized or messy areas in the store. No reason to not have a neat and well organized store. I would love to do business locally, but it is reasonable to have some expectations of professional service, as much as we spend.
Main Line Hobbies is about the only thing I miss about PA since I moved back to Maine, the land of no LHS. As far as what makes a LHS successful, I think it can be summed up in just 3 words:
Stock On Hand
I am always willing to pay a bit extra to keep a shop in business so that I can have a place to go and see things in person. But, in the world of being able to order things cheaper than what the LHS is asking, if I have to wait a week for it anyway…
A customer base willing to support the lhs with their high dollar purchases and not just glue and paint.
Several things strike me. I think one of the best-known LHSs in Southern California is headed down the tubes – one thing that formerly contributed to its success was that it formerly hired retired guys on a part-time basis. They tended to be smart, experienced in the hobby, and friendly. For whatever reason, the shop has switched to younger guys working full-time for whatever he’s paying, which means they aren’t smart, don’t care about the hobby, and are terrible to deal with. (They resent having to go into a drawer to get decals by number.)
I used to shop out of the Walthers newsletter and give them my orders for sale items, saved things like big-ticket DCC components for them to order. But when the boy geniuses couldn’t get the orders right, I gave the owner several chances to fix it. I have several LHSs in reasonable distance, but why bother for most items?
I’ve said here several times that more people need to watch the TV show Bar Rescue. Maybe MRVP needs to have Howard Zane run something like Train Store Rescue.
Location, customer base, competitive pricing (yes, I know you don’t discount like some of the big guys, but don’t charge me double what I can pay online…), friendly, knowledgable staff (the knowing you by name after one purchase is a nice touch), and having selections in stock, or available (relatively) quickly at a decent price. (If you need to order it for me, at least be close to the same price as I would pay elsewhere.)
Location, important that there is ample free parking (or do what Tom does near me, knock a quarter [$0.25] off the price to pay for my parking meter. Kinda a nice touch.)
Customer base, while somewhat location dependent, is also needed. No customers = no store. Loyal customers, won over by you and your store, will come back. This is really needed.
Competiteve pricing, not overcharging me just because you are giving it to me now… If it costs me less with shipping online, and is by a considerable amount (I’ve seen as much as $100 difference counting shipping online vrs one store on a locomotive. I do not buy at that much higher. And, other end of the spectrum, again referencing the one local store, Tom discounted one item by 10% just because I got it from him! and was not there looking specifically for it. Needless to explain why I preferred buying from Tom over the other store…)
Friendly staff, needed to be smiling, and knowledgable about what you carry/sell. (Learning who I am is a plus, but I will overlook that, especially when I only come in about 2-3 times a year. However, one LHS, now closed due to rent fees, did indeed learn who I was, by name, after my first visit. He ended up getting my biggest orders, but only after he had been so friendly and knowledgable. He cared enough to learn who I was, what I was looking for, and took the time to answer my questions first. Never forgot that!) Know what you have, can order, and what it does at very least. (One store had someone who knew everything about video games, but nothi
I tried that just last week at my LHS. M.B. Klein had BLI Pacifics for a certain price and I gave my LHS a call and asked him how close he could come to their price. His price was $90.00 CAN. more than M.B. Klein. I would have gone $25.00 more than M.B. Klein, but not $90.00. I guess you have more loyalty than I do. [(-D]
The same thing happened when I bought my new truck. I went to the Ford dealer and to the same salesman I had bought my previous truck from and told him to give me his best price. When I got home there was an E-Mail waiting for me from another dealer for $3400.00 less than the salesguy quoted me at the dealer where I had been going for years.
I let my loyalty slip once again. Oh the humanity.[:'(]
Not many willing or able to do that anymore - I certainly can’t afford support an LHS as if it were a church or charity and “tithe” to keep them open.
I think Howard nailed it.
I loved the old Arlington Hobby Crafters when they were next to Parkington Shopping Center in the 70’s. It was only a little off my commuting route, so I stopped in there once a week. Probably bought more than I should, but the owner was very friendly and not pushy - just a nice guy to talk trains with.
I’ll have to try Blue Ridge next time I’m in the area.
Enjoy
Paul