Our hobby shop closed years ago and it may have been for the reason few people shopped there. Do you model builder and slot car guys still buy from hobby shops in your town or have you gone the Wal mart/ Internet route? I ask because I am considering opening a project shop that will carry tons of electrionics, art supplies, and just about anything to build a project, like sheetmetal, wire, heatshrink, glues, plexiglass,tools and military surplus. I would like to carry models and stuff but I dont have any clue as to whether people even still shop at hobby stores. We have a university (50k+ students) here which will help with maintaining the project stock Thanks
in NJ you have a few shops. Mainly the dungeons and dragons type card games and books and stuff then the rest RC cars and model rockets. there are a few models though. its a niche market, but if you have a customer base, with anything I cant see any big problems. =Rob
Hobby shops have felt the squeeze of larger retail outlets that can easily beat them on price. (Often, the same model car kit available at your local hobby shop in the $15-$20 range can be bought at Wal Mart for $5-$12! Wally World even sells SOME supplies, basic paint colors, glue, etc.) That said, I still go to the hobby shops for more specific paints, tools and detailing supplies as needed. Craft stores such as Michael's also offer a value priced alternative. (I worked for a local Michael's and discovered TONS of detailing supplies 'hidden' in the bead making and other sections, in addition to good prices on kits and paint!) Michael's regularly runs a coupon in the local Sunday papers allowing you to take 50% off of any non-sale item in the store...making them tough to beat on price as well! In short, the mom-n-pop hobby shop is working it's way to the top of the endangered species list! Some still thrive here locally through sales of radio controlled planes and cars, and fantasy gaming supplies not available elsewhere, but even those markets have been softened for the local business by mail order houses and internet sales. It's a tough business to make into a profitable venture...especially if you're competing against another 'established' hobby outlet in your area. A friend of mine was considering the idea of opening a hobby shop, and even hired a financial planner to help him with every stage of his plan. They concluded that the risk factor outweighed the slim chance for acceptable profitability, so he never went through with it. Not trying to talk you out of it, just affording you some observations from the vantage point of a long time hobbyist who's been in about every hobby shop in lower Michigan over the past twenty-some odd years! With the right local customer base NOT being served elsewhere, you do stand a reasonable shot at making it. Do your homework and make note of the trends in your area. A college nearby carries with it the promise of easily distracted young hobbyists...but also ones with limited financial means. Think it through!
Yeah, Wal-Mart is cheaper, but crappy selection, (ours has mostly ricer stuff, and the snap together kind). The hobby shop we go to is mostly R/C (we've got like 50 of those ), rockets, airplanes and scale trains., but they have a great model selction and a million paints! But hobby stores allways have a better selection of models and supplies then the chain stores have.
I think our hobby shops here survive primarily on the fantasy gaming segment, although the one seems to wish he could cater primarily to model railroaders (fun hobby but expensive and space consuming). Neither has any decent models. Wal-mart has the best stuff here and it's way cheaper. The only reason I go to the local hobby shops anymore is for paint colors you can't get there or at Meijer.
Just about every Hobby store I've latched onto has closed up, and it sucks. Sometimes Wal Mart will have a kit on sale for $5, and Hobby Lobby will have a half off sale...but lately I've been sticking to a 'mom and pop' kinda store I found. They have a GREAT selection, kits that have been out of production and discontinued for years, all the paint I could want, plenty of scratch building supplies, etc. The kits only cost a few dollars more than a chain store, so it's worth it (even if the place is 40 minutes away). Now if I could just get them to start selling resin bodies... Long live independent businesses!!!
it might be a good idea to provide an online catalog, or find a venue with lots of foot traffic. or both, like a small shop in a mall where kids hang out, you could have your more impressive stuff there for hands on viewing and also have an interesting web site with tons of cool stuff for perusing. Paul
When I was a kid, we had four hobby shops in the vicinity, thre was Bob's on Fourth street in the same block, possibly the same store front as the Starlight '50's collectibles shop, and one on Long Beach Blvd in North town, one on Studebaker & Carson near where the HAMB BBQ was Sunday, and the one that last time I checked was still on Bellflower Blvd in the old downtown Bellflower. The other's one by one went out of business. But I don't think it was for a lack of business, I realized one day, after I was an adult, it was always a case of an owner, or a couple of partners being really into their hobby and their hobby had outgrown the spare bedroom or garage and rather than continuing paying retail to someone else, they got their own business license so they could feed their own need for cost and get a nice business tax write-off to boot. You see the one common factor was they were all run by "gray beards" or even "white hairs" before they went away... Logic - pay rent on a garage to "play" in = $loss Pay rent on a small store front and have the occasional shopper interrupt your model assembly = tax writeoff or maybe even a small profit. Now there's "Hobby People" chain store on South at Bellflower and a family "Hobby Wharehouse" on South and Lakewood, and another the name escapes me, on Atlantic just N. of Carson that the owner operator is there and open 7 days a week that is the best because he has tables set up in back and lets people build right there in the store and has after school building "classes" for kids, That's a win-win because he sell s them all the stuff. I shop at Michaels some times, but it is a corporate chain that was owned by IHOP in the 60s and who knows who now, so they are kinda impersonal about getting stock. And I BOYCOTT WALMART totally so that's nevr an option even though this town's stupid government/gang gave them licenses to open TWO OF THEM in L.B.!
I think one of the coolest things about the Mom and Pop hobby store is that I can look through endless catalogs and they have no problem with special orders. Try that at Wal Mart.
Their invaluable for the R/C (remote control) hobby! Always sucks to have to order a part out of a catalog from Hastings and get the wrong damn part! Ours went out of business here in Stillwater, due to Hobby Lobby, and miss-managment (think drugs here).
This is a small part of the death of America. I have a close friend who owned a real hobby shop here in my town- pop 10,000. He didn't have any of the gaming stuff mostly RC stuff, bicycles and some minibikes. He was a member of the local RC modelers club. They wouldn't even support him. They would load up and drive an hour and a half away to Tulsa to the big discount shop. He lasted about 3 years. He still owns the building in the old downtown and it is a great place to hang out. Full of model airplanes, motorcycles, a mini lathe- even a Stingray hanging on the wall. I hope you succeed.
I get most of my stuff at one of the big model car shows when they have their annual shows. I can go to Knoxville,Memphis,Chattanooga,Nashville,Atlanta,B'ham,Cookeville these show usually have 200 too 500 models entered in the show. Lots of vendors. You can also find out of production models too. I once got a 53 Pontiac sedan body with a crushed top,sliced and narrowed a 53 Chevy sedan top glued it on,filled the gaps,shot it 2 tone primer and slammed it. How many 53 Pontiac models do you see? I once payed $100 for 15 sealed models that were hard to find in my town at a show(maybe .50 over wholesale). I then turned some over at a friends NASCAR diecast store, they got about a dollar for everyone I sold and if I didn't sell them,I just have to keep them. I have close to 500, 200 sealed. We do have a hobby shop in Huntsville,AL and they keep a good stock, RC stuff holds them together.
The town I live in(population about 12,000)has an ENORMOUS hobby shop(J-Bar Hobbies in Tecumseh)run by a couple(Jerry and Barb)in their 70's.This place has the hugest selection of obsolete kits I've ever seen.They're pricey but I've been here over 10 years and they moved once into a BIGGER facility just to contain all their stuff.They have everything from cars,aircraft,trains,Franklin Mint stuff,obscure European and Japanese kits,you name it and if they don't have it,it probably doesn't exist.I patronize them whenever I need anything related to modelling and wouldn't go anywhere else.I never hear them complain of it being slow so they must be doing OK.JMHO
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