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Post by eh49 on Jan 9, 2015 14:18:49 GMT -8
What was at one time the shop in the Pgh area has apparently been closed since August. When they were located on West Liberty Avenue in Dormont, and the owner was Ed Charles (Mr. Charles) to most, it was hands down the best shop in the area. He had anything you would have wanted. However, health issues got the best of him maybe 10 years ago and the business passed to his son Scott. Well, that was the beginning of the end...Scott was not a train man like his dad. He moved the business to the Red Barn in Mt. Lebanon and trains were forced to a small room in the back. Then apparent money problems cropped up and distributors were not getting paid....hence, no new merchandise. Which caused long time customers to go elsewhere. A few years ago he got rid of the employees not in the family....including the man that was running the now diminished train section and made attempts to sell off the remaining new/old merchandise with promises new stock was coming. It never did. Then due to high taxes in the area, he moved the business to McMurrey....because the were more affluent people there. I went to that store once, saw no reason to go back. It was a long slow death because he really had no clue what he was doing.
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Post by tom on Jan 9, 2015 16:46:04 GMT -8
Yes I enjoyed going to A. B. Charles when it was in its old location. He had everything there. Even now I still have paint, styrene, and detail parts with the A. B. Charles price tag on it. You to to have fun my taking the light rail from Station Square up to Dormont and then a short walk to the store.
Not surprised me that the "new" store has finally closed. I went once or twice and found it to be a depressing store. No great loss that it finally closed
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Post by llxlocomotives on Jan 9, 2015 17:29:34 GMT -8
B&M retail has a real problem, apparently, today. They have to have inventory, but don't want to put up the funds to have it. Yes, everything costs more today. Most things have only gone up by the cost of living. The problem is the number of buyers have gone down. Reducing inventory actually further reduces buyers. I know this has been discussed over and over, but the problem to me is the same for all retail. If your plan is only looking for local buyer support, then your most likely to fail. What a pity. With the technology and various sites today, the world should be your oyster. Not that the world will walk through your front door, but the world may buy more of your stuff.
The Mr. Charles' lived in a different world. Even in 1972, things were slower, you went to the library to look up something. You used the yellow pages to find out who sold something. You actually went out of the house to go shopping.
That old model is no longer consistent with the buyers needs. I would bet that a very high percentage of shoppers never leave their home. I know I only go out shopping with my wife for groceries. Everything else is on line.
This shop and all other hobby shops have to realize that. In today's society, time is a critical factor. Why do I want to spend two hours trekking out to your shop when I can get the same thing at a lower price for a few clicks on my computer. That leaves me an hour and fourth-five minutes to do some modeling, or something equally as important.
Change is a hard lesson for all of us. It is particularly hard in today's retail environment. Dealing with it, at the very least requires a lot of hard work and a change of focus. Neither of which are easy. The outcome inevitably is like this, quit and move on to something else.
Larry
llxlocomotives.com
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Post by eh49 on Jan 9, 2015 17:36:56 GMT -8
Maybe I am old fashion, but, I want to see the product before I buy it! Hence, I still prefer to go to a hobby shop for my needs.
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Post by atsfan on Jan 9, 2015 17:38:16 GMT -8
Don't both Athearn and Walthers still require a physical store to be their customer
Not counting direct sales I mean for dealers?
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Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Jan 9, 2015 18:07:11 GMT -8
Don't both Athearn and Walthers still require a physical store to be their customer Not counting direct sales I mean for dealers? I know of at least one Athearn and Horizon dealer that operates out of a warehouse with no retail space in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. They have a website and sell on e-Bay. When they opened in the same town as my friend, who had a real bricks and mortar hobby shop, my buddy was intrigued by this occurrence. He had been a Walthers dealer since he opened his physical store in 1994. When he became a Horizon dealer to gain access to Athearn, he still had to prove he was an actual retail outlet with signs, hours of operation, etc.. Then this other place opens up in a group of small warehouses on some dead end side street in town. So maybe the Walthers and Horizon have changed their criteria for being a dealer. As long as you buy X amount of product every month and pay your bills, your in business. |
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Post by lvrr325 on Jan 10, 2015 2:10:02 GMT -8
So far as I know Walthers requires a physical store, although proof is a photo of it; with Athearn/Horizon you had to commit to a ridiculous dollar amount in sales. I know of one guy who does the show circuit who has a backdoor, not sure exactly how, he's a decent guy so even if I did know I'd keep it under my hat.
But unless you're a huge shop you almost have to get together with three or four other retailers and make a pact to be able to buy enough to keep an Athearn account going. The dollar amount you have to invest is fairly high. And I still see them six months after the fact on the internet for bargain prices, if they're not perfect.
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Post by Brakie on Jan 10, 2015 4:06:12 GMT -8
So far as I know Walthers requires a physical store, although proof is a photo of it; with Athearn/Horizon you had to commit to a ridiculous dollar amount in sales. I know of one guy who does the show circuit who has a backdoor, not sure exactly how, he's a decent guy so even if I did know I'd keep it under my hat.
---------------------------------------------------
I know how that works and its a win/win for the parties involved as well as the manufacturer since they sell more product.
Don't bother asking I won't share that knowledge.
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Post by atsfan on Jan 10, 2015 19:22:55 GMT -8
I wonder now long Athearn will be able to keep forcing high monthly sales totals on dealers.....
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Post by llxlocomotives on Jan 10, 2015 21:36:08 GMT -8
I suspect their strategy is to force the marginal dealers out, one way or another. It seems that they would prefer to sell directly to the end buyer. It may never get all the way there, but they can make sure there is a lot of product going through the dealer pipeline. Moving product is after all what makes money. Larry www.llxlocomotives.com |
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Post by enginseer on Jan 12, 2015 6:04:08 GMT -8
While online shopping is the way I prefer to do business, I do miss going to the local "brick and mortar", having a cup of crappy coffee and talking with the staff and customers for an hour or two about all things train related.
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Post by iccn1000 on Jan 12, 2015 9:12:29 GMT -8
I wonder now long Athearn will be able to keep forcing high monthly sales totals on dealers..... I have never heard of this or a quota per month... Yes, Horizon and Walthers both require a B&M for a dealership. However, some were grandfathered in. Thanks Rob Gruber www.dcctrain.com |
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Post by atsfan on Jan 12, 2015 9:37:29 GMT -8
I wonder now long Athearn will be able to keep forcing high monthly sales totals on dealers..... I have never heard of this or a quota per month... Yes, Horizon and Walthers both require a B&M for a dealership. However, some were grandfathered in. Thanks Rob Gruber www.dcctrain.comWord is since Horizon took over the quota exists. I didn't say Walthers. I heard from several dealers of a monthly minimum sales quota for buying Athearn. |
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Post by eh49 on Jan 12, 2015 10:02:38 GMT -8
The owner of a shop near me told me he can no longer get Athearn because he does not order enough so they dropped him.
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Post by lvrr325 on Jan 12, 2015 20:37:41 GMT -8
Yes, quota has been around since day one and the dollar amount is fairly high. Not that it's hard to get up there with the price of new things today, but it's hard for a single shop to meet it.
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Post by WP 257 on Jan 13, 2015 8:18:06 GMT -8
Athearn/Horizon is not the only one with the high monthly minimums.
Atlas's beancounters instituted it too, and then cut off a number of long time dealers (including 2 I frequent, who were not very happy about it). Since then, they backpedaled, but not all the dealers are rushing out to sign up to sell Atlas again.
I guess it's the times in which we live...
One dealer I know is still selling Atlas, but no longer being a distributor means they have less profit margin to work with on any discount--and cannot compete with the big mail order/internet sellers on price--even though this is one of the largest dealers remaining in the state (with a significant online presence).
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Post by jaygee on Jan 13, 2015 8:21:07 GMT -8
Way too bad about A.B. Chas. I send my local business up to Cranberry with HObby Express....where yunz can still find chooch people. This where I'm getting the Walthers Beano Capital Limited, and the San Fran. Chief.
Ask for Mike, Doug, or Gwen, Harry and Beth Ann !
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Post by eh49 on Jan 13, 2015 9:28:22 GMT -8
Beth Ann Rocks!
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Post by lvrr325 on Jan 13, 2015 13:00:45 GMT -8
It's hard for a small B&M store to compete with mail order houses and eBay sellers who frequently sell items for at or close to what it costs him to bring it into his store. Heck, it's hard to be a fairly large store and do it. The bigger the store the more money you have to sink into it. When your profit margin is 0%-30% or so you need to turn a lot of inventory to pay the bills.
Everyone is hurting right now, too, a lot of your shopping mall stores are either cutting back, or a few have closed up entirely, the entire chain, poof gone. Even the local flea market is like a ghost town the last few weeks. I do my next train meet this coming Sunday, will be interesting to see how it goes, it's usually decent.
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Post by iccn1000 on Jan 13, 2015 14:43:55 GMT -8
News to me.. I have never heard of a problem with a hobby shop with either of them. Thats interesting! Thanks Rob Gruber www.dcctrain.com |
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Post by llxlocomotives on Jan 13, 2015 15:00:27 GMT -8
lvrr, I'll be interested to hear how the show goes. It is my feeling that there are fewer buyers. I think there was a lot of pent up demand in 2013 after the recession, but the last twelve months have been pretty quiet. Not sure why, but the shops not taking on the inventory is an indicator that they are not seeing the buyer traffic to sell it. The irony is that prices keep going up even in a soft market. Maybe, I'm wrong...... Larry www.llxlocomotives.com |
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Post by umtrrauthor on Jan 13, 2015 16:27:26 GMT -8
Not sure how reliable this is but it did come from an LHS: Horizon used to send out disposable cameras with a list of items to take pictures of, including the door, the signage, the hours painted on the door...
I don't have the exact Horizon dollar requirement in my head anymore, but I do think it was well into four digits, at dealer cost, per month. I believe that included anything that Horizon sold, so Athearn plus R/C stuff was OK.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 17:13:48 GMT -8
lvrr, I'll be interested to hear how the show goes. It is my feeling that there are fewer buyers. I think there was a lot of pent up demand in 2013 after the recession, but the last twelve months have been pretty quiet. Not sure why, but the shops not taking on the inventory is an indicator that they are not seeing the buyer traffic to sell it. The irony is that prices keep going up even in a soft market. Maybe, I'm wrong...... Larry www.llxlocomotives.comThere is no evidence that there is "a soft market" for model railroad items. But posters allude to that every single week. The fact that brick & mortar stores are suffering isn't new, sales are just shifting online- By looking at the huge and growing variety of what's avalable, the hobby is healthy and growing. It's exactly like looking at the decline of brick & mortar video stores while ignoring the explosive growth of Netflix, Amazon, Roku, etc. and coming to the conclusion that people are watching fewer movies at home. Exactly. Show me the numbers. |
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Post by atsfan on Jan 13, 2015 18:44:55 GMT -8
lvrr, I'll be interested to hear how the show goes. It is my feeling that there are fewer buyers. I think there was a lot of pent up demand in 2013 after the recession, but the last twelve months have been pretty quiet. Not sure why, but the shops not taking on the inventory is an indicator that they are not seeing the buyer traffic to sell it. The irony is that prices keep going up even in a soft market. Maybe, I'm wrong...... Larry www.llxlocomotives.comThere is no evidence that there is "a soft market" for model railroad items. But posters allude to that every single week. The fact that brick & mortar stores are suffering isn't new, sales are just shifting online- By looking at the huge and growing variety of what's avalable, the hobby is healthy and growing. It's exactly like looking at the decline of brick & mortar video stores while ignoring the explosive growth of Netflix, Amazon, Roku, etc. and coming to the conclusion that people are watching fewer movies at home. Exactly. Show me the numbers. Your logic is not correct. Simply saying there is a "huge and growing" variety of what is available, without providing any "numbers" does not mean the hobby is healthy and growing. You have no facts to back up your claim, no more than people who say otherwise. Yet you decide you are correct and others are wrong. Where is your "evidence" and "numbers"? Your logic is also flawed comparing Netflix to a video store. Where is the huge replacement for all of the closed train stores? It isn't a new online only presence. Kliens was and is a train store. They do internet and mail order. Where is the outfit larger than Kliens selling online only that didn't exist before? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 19:21:15 GMT -8
There is no evidence that there is "a soft market" for model railroad items. But posters allude to that every single week. The fact that brick & mortar stores are suffering isn't new, sales are just shifting online- By looking at the huge and growing variety of what's avalable, the hobby is healthy and growing. It's exactly like looking at the decline of brick & mortar video stores while ignoring the explosive growth of Netflix, Amazon, Roku, etc. and coming to the conclusion that people are watching fewer movies at home. Exactly. Show me the numbers. Your logic is not correct. Simply saying there is a "huge and growing" variety of what is available, without providing any "numbers" does not mean the hobby is healthy and growing. You have no facts to back up your claim, no more than people who say otherwise. Yet you decide you are correct and others are wrong. Where is your "evidence" and "numbers"? Your logic is also flawed comparing Netflix to a video store. Where is the huge replacement for all of the closed train stores? It isn't a new online only presence. Kliens was and is a train store. They do internet and mail order. Where is the outfit larger than Kliens selling online only that didn't exist before? You're the one who need to provide facts indicating declining hobby. You made the claim over and over... You've tried to sluff it off on other's before- that doesn't cut it. Put your cards on the table. You are not paying attention- I wrote " By looking at the huge and growing variety of what's avalable, the hobby is healthy and growing." That is true, read it carefully. There is clearly a MUCH larger variety of items available now than there was five or 10 or 15 years ago. How can you say that is not indicative of a healthy market? Every year, a larger variety of items are available. How do you see a declining hobby in that? Chicken littles like you have been crying "The model railroad sky is falling!" for at least 50 years. Always wrong. And "Where is the outfit larger than Kliens selling online only that didn't exist before?"? Good God man, that doesn't even make sense. |
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Post by llxlocomotives on Jan 13, 2015 19:27:18 GMT -8
Just to clarify things a little here. I sell on line. Everything I do has remained the same. Same general stuff , quality etc. Same number of items at any given time.
I have been doing this for fifteen years. In ernest for the last nine, since I retired for my day job. For the five years from 2008-2013 sales were good, not great. Certain things would sell immediately just because of name or type. 2013 sales were exceptional, due to fantastic early 2013 numbers. Roughly twice the best previous year. Since September of 2013, sales are twenty percent below the five year average from 2008-2013, during the recession.
Realizing I'm not the whole market, to me things seem soft. The afore mentioned numbers are the reason. It could be that I'm not where the sales are. That is why I said I'm interested in how lvrr's show goes.
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Post by Donnell Wells on Jan 14, 2015 16:38:27 GMT -8
This topic is on the verge of being locked! NO "death of the hobby" discussions!
Donnell
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Post by curtmc on Jan 14, 2015 18:37:18 GMT -8
The tough last year is what I'm hearing from many...
I guess that here on this forum any band not playing "I'm Happy" will be silenced as the Titanic sinks...
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Post by Donnell Wells on Jan 14, 2015 20:24:29 GMT -8
The tough last year is what I'm hearing from many... I guess that here on this forum any band not playing "I'm Happy" will be silenced as the Titanic sinks...
Curt, if you spent as much time modeling as you do complaining...
This forum is about promotion of the hobby. Your constant negativity is counter productive, and only contributes further to the discordance concerning this issue. Further you are quick to highlight shop closures and speculate on its dismal implications, but offer no solutions to the alleged problem. So, no. No discussions about the supposed demise of the hobby.
If the future of model railroading is as gloomy as you profess, maybe you should find alternative hobby to participate in. Why would you want to apart of something dead or dying (rhetorical)?
Donnell |
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Post by curtmc on Jan 15, 2015 20:18:51 GMT -8
Donnell that rhetorical question is an excellent example... You ask as if you think nobody wants to be part of a dying hobby... Which is right in line with your apparent feelings that discussing the issues will make some/many run away from the hobby instead of trying to find answers to the issues. Is that why you don't want discussion of the issues? Do you think it will send people fleeing from the hobby?
The hobby isn't going to die overnight... Like any hobby the end will be long and slow (look at stamp collecting, coin collecting, baseball/football/hockey card collecting and others as examples...) There is only so much disposable income and when newer hobbies catch on the older ones suffer.
We hear of long time successful train shops closing... Some say those sales have gone to online sales, but there have been several large online model train sellers - very healthy in 2005-2009 - that are no longer in business, some online sellers who are still in business are reporting decreased sales, other online sellers are now only shadows of what they were a few years ago, and overall production numbers are down (direct word from major manufacturer rep)... On the other end, average modeler age is going up, estate sales are increasing, manufacturers are having to do more products each month/quarter to make sufficient revenue, and prices are skyrocketing due to lower production numbers...
Did you go to the National Train Show in Cleveland in July? Did you see how small the crowds were? Did you see the manufacturer reps walking around to talk to each other because there were few/no people at their booths? Did you hear the reps complaining/commenting on how few people were there? I've been to a lot of National Train Shows and I'd say that more people attended the typical 1990s to mid-2000s shows (including Columbus and Cincinnati, OH) in the first hour than did all day on that Saturday at Cleveland.
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