Every time I have gone to Hobby Lobby in order to pick up my Acrylicos Vallejo fix, I have seen this piece of junk on the ‘Model Kits & RTR Train Sets Isle’ (seriously, they carry no individual rolling stock or locomotives or Model Railroad kits, another annoyance), which greatly peeves me.
To the point, can you recount any other instances of horrendous retail judgement in your modeling experience?
[soapbox][|(][8o|][:S][^o)]
They will carry only whats sells, day in, day out. First off the only reason they carry Vallejo is it sells well.
It’s often not judgment that results in this sort of situation so much as happenstance. I’ve more often found the case to be that a shop is filled with what won’t sell, because it’s sat there too long. Maybe the price is too high or it’s simply a roadname not locally popular. You keep going back, but it doesn’t change much. Which doesn’t mean they don’t sell stuff, but it’s filling customer orders, etc. But it is a missed opportunity in the age of intense internet competetion.
The LHS should stock fast moving, high demand item, but these are often the last thing you’ll find in stock. Darn!
The problem is poor choice in stocking the shelves and then getting that inventory on paper and not being able to move it. No sales, no chance to exchange the slow-movers for better selling product once a shop is over comitted this way. This real estate is too valuable and costly to let it lie fallow. Sometimes better to clear what you can at sale prices once it’s set there for months, if not years, and then restock with wiser product choice.
A shop that is firing on all cylinders will have stock on the shelves, but it’s mostly rotating in and out. You’ll find new stuff regularly and fast moving (and incidentally profitable) items will be restocked. There may be older product, but it also tends to change if no longer in production as estates are acquired, etc, while popular older models still available can also be found.
It’s a really tough job to make a LHS work, but if you cover basics like this you’re doing a better job than many are able to.
Even a knowledgable store owner will sometimes end up with unsold inventory. My LHS, now closed due to retirement and rising rents, had a few items on his “clearance” shelf that just never sold. Perfectly good locomotives, just the wrong roads. The one train set that didn’t sell at Christmas. A DCC system now made old and outdated by technology.
A general-purpose hobby store like Hobby Lobby probably doesn’t have a “train guy” who really understands the hobby the way we do.
How not to love and buy this wonderful set?
It says collector´s edition on it so it must be of value, not?
Now imagine the untrained buyer getting this set as a gift for a kid - how would you estimate the chances are this will make the kid into a lifelong model railroader?
Zilch seems to be already exaggerated!
At one time Hobby Lobby (or at least the ones I went to) had a genuine train department, but to my way of thinking the selection of offerings was often strange and chaotic (mostly cheaper stuff, but even then, it might be all right hand turnouts, no left hand – that sort of thing) and it seemed evident to me that H.L. was not being advised by a train guy but possibly was being used as a gullible dumping ground by some distributor somewhere. It was not surprising that they lost faith in trains since it was hard to visualize the sort of model railroader who would think to shop there. Scenery stuff was one exception perhaps because it spills over into other hobbies. Ditto for paints I suppose.
Of course even having a train guy (or guys) on staff is no guarantee of having an inventory that leads to profits. There was a wonderful hobby shop in the Milwaukee area that was joinly owned and run by a group of excellent modelers. Stories are told that if you were modeling at 2:30 a.m. and needed a partricular set of grab irons, that you could call some of the owners and sure enough they’d drive down and open up that shop for you. Another oddity - rather than separate models by manufacturer, they had shelves for the most popular (local) railroads and organize the inventory that way. Thus there were shelves for Wisconsin Central, Milwaukee Road, C&NW, Soo Line, and so on. The other stuff was organized by manufacturers.
When it folded and had its last day when everything was 70% off, it was very instructive to see what was still on the shelves at 70% off as the last minutes ticked by. Lots of Floquil paints. Lots of decals. Tons of detail parts for freight cars and diesel locomotives. In other words, all the stuff you’d see in the parts lists in articles in Mainline Modeler, Prototype Modeler, Model Railroading, Rail Model Journal … the owners were “those kinds” of modelers and evidently ass
Dave Nelson explained the reality pretty well; so I will join him in saying, welcome to the real world. Hobby shops are businesses and have to make enough money to keep the doors open. Believe me, I’ve been to many many shops in my travels all over the country and what you describe (model RR “junk”) is pretty typical fair in many of them.
Bottom line is, it isn’t horrendous retail judgement, it’s “practical” retail judgement. Before you ream these shop owners a new one, you need to put yourself in their shoes for a while and then there will be a big dose of reality.
What you, the hobbiest, needs to do, if find sources for the products you need and then use them. You’ve already found out, many hobby shops are NOT the ideal source of many products you want; instead go to large train shows, and find some good online vendors. There! Problems solved!
I don’t see the problem.
A) I met a guy at the Timonium train show. It was a Sunday. I assume he just came from church. He was immaculately dressed, Afro American and at least 85 years old. He said; “When I was a boy I used to look at the trains in (so&so) hardware store. We couldn’t afford them then but now I can.”
B) I have a 5 year old grandchild. I would buy him 3 of these sets before I would let him touch my BLI steamer.
C) None of these big box hobby stores are a serious MR store. They don’t know what to stock, but they sure aren’t interested in accumulating expensive inventory that’s just going to sit on the shelf. In Baltimore there is a package goods store just about every block. You don’t go to one of those to see their selection of single malt scotch. You buy your Johnny Walker and go home and play with your train set. [:D]
Sounds like to possible solutions to stress and anger management! 
Indeed…There was a shop located near Lima(Oh) that carried a wide line of Atlas,P2K, and Kato locomotives and the better line of cars(for that era) and had very little Athearn or Roundhouse car kits and no Athearn or Bachmann locomotives. What he did have was one of the best selection of Champ,Microscale decals and detail parts I ever laid my eyes on.
I went there every Saturday morning and seen a sight that should wake any hobby shop owner up,potential sales walking out the door simply because he didn’t stock Athearn BB engines and didn’t stock BB or Roundhouse car kits in depth…
That’s a Walmart website.
Even the hard-core train only stores make mistakes.
They cannot possibly know every item that will really sell versus the ones that will not, though they try.
My one friend has been a store sales manager since about 1992, and he does keep track of which customer likes which era of which railroad and will buy this or that, all in his head. However, he’s going to err on the conservative side and get only one or two of this or that BLI hybrid (for example). It is far better to sell them out right away and turnover that money into something else than to have inventory laying on shelves unsold. That is reality, and how they stay in business. That said, they do have an area of the store that is untouchable for internet/mail order sales, an area specifically set aside to supply the regular in-store buyers, where hopefully they got “enough” of each item to satisfy the locals.
I only last weekend got a T&P 2-10-4 because the plastic surgeon who would buy it in a heartbeat hadn’t been in the door yet, and others were also looking at it but I bit first. I was lucky–they only got 2 for sale (and I did not pre-order because I wanted to see one first).
John
After at these sets they’re really nice.
They’re not for YOU they’re for kids who wants trains.
Pretend your a child that doesn’t have electricity or can’t touch it but you have batteries, and you want to play with your train set.
If your child is already a train fan at the age of 3 and up than its the perfect gift. You might want to buy more cars for it.
Even I wanted to buy it, but I can get 2 good quality cars for that price.
Correct me of I am wrong but isn’t Hobby Lobby more like a Michaels craft store then a LHS?
I am quite aware that this set (and for that matter, numerous other train sets) are not made for the discerning gentleman model railroader, but are a rather cheap toy for small children. If I were a parent or a grandparent to children of that age group, I´d think twice before I´d buy yet another cheap plastic toy with a service life to be measured in days to be added to the junkyard which once was a child´s room. Our kids are getting flooded with this crap instead of getting good quality toys with a high educational and play value.
Marklin also started to market trainsets like the one shown. They are not intended to be good toys, but meant to generate quick high margin sales as they are produced in the cheapest possible way. Marklin was celebrated by the financial world for this bold move - how ridiculous!
This is a plastic version of wooden toy trains like Thomas the Tank. I can’t tell from the picture how good the quality is - but it’s definitely for the younger (3-5 yr old) set.
My experience with Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and A.C. Moore is that they are big on dustables with art, scrap book, and fabric supplies. There is also a smattering of other stuff, but not really any in depth.
Hobby Town is the chain that is more like a hobby shop - but the one near me has a small train department. Military and RC seem to be big there. But they carry tools, paint, strip wood, styrene, and other basic modeling supplies.
Paul
Well, whadaya know, maybe I’m coming across as too harsh [:$][;)].
I of course meant that while sets like these do have a great value as “toys”,if and only if they are high quality, I am viewing this from a “serious model railroading standpoint”. That said, this is a much better toy than roughly 90% of the sets that show up at Christmastime (Hey, c***y christmas train sets and your experience with them would be a great topic…[:D])
I am not agains these,but they should not, under any circumstances be marketed as actual scale models, which was what was taking place here.
I have been to Hobby Lobby for certain items on occasion like art foam board and CA adhesive, but never locomotives, or rolling stock, or track. Hobby Lobby is a strange place, selling a lot of junk in my opinion. I would never consider it as a true hobby shop. You can draw that conclusion as soon as you walk in the door. So, it should not be surprising to find a train set there.
Rich
I go to model railroad shops to purchase MRR items, not a retail chain unless I just need material.
SovietP36:
I don’t understand the vitriol about basic train sets for little kids. It is perfectly obvious who the train set is aimed at, and that is not you.
Let’s imagine a typical family scenario:
4 or 5 year old.
Parents (or aunts or uncles or grandparents) want to see if said child is interested in trains.
They have a choice of spending lots of dollars on high quality models, or they can spend $40 bucks so the kid can give trains a try. If his or her interest is peaked then they can move upscale. If the kid doesn’t give a hoot then they are only out the price of a decent bottle of scotch.
You choose.
As for hobby shops not stocking exactly what you want, I will apologise on behalf of all hobby shops for not reading your mind or for not figuring out your future needs before you do.[swg]
No disrespect intended!
Cheers
Dave