Was not aware of the gray/blue top/bottom combo.

I have yet to be in any HobbyTown USA LHS that has been worth a hoot.

We had a local HobbyTown about 7 miles from my home for about 5 years.
During it's initial opening few months, the owner wanted to give a presentation to my local R/C Aircraft club.
When the Q&A portion started many of the questions revolved around "Will you be giving club members discounts" and "Will you be PRICE competitive with Tower/Omni/Horizon, etc?" the owner seemed to get offended and fed us the tired old bit of "We offer service they don't"....we made it clear that beginners need that guidance, club veterans dont put a "Full retail" value or even close to that for "service". He needed to offer something the other 3 LHS's did not.
He chose to price at full retail and proceeded to lose his butt over the next 5 years. Price within 15% of Tower and he would still be in business.
The fool could not even fly R/C nor did he have ANY knowledge of his products. His "BIG" offer to clubs was 10% off RETAIL fuel prices and 10% off purchases over $100. The only time we bought anything from him was in emergencies as his shop was 5 miles straight up I-75 from the club field.

Hobbytown vs Clubs
 

Back in '96, we had the local HT-USA be more or less 'connected' with Tripoli Tampa, as well as the THOR section I flew with. AT first, it was a great arrangement, as they carried AT HPR loads, all the way to 38mm, and gave 10% off of those. That wasn't bad, especially considering the availability. Just go in, and pick 'em right up off the shelf.

Not many LHS types ever did that.

They also gave TTRA access to a good club meeting venue, which was a small unoccupied storefront nearby.

Then, the owner started being an ***hole, and everything changed. No more HPR stuff, no discounts, no club meeting site, nothing but full MSRP. Not only this, but he severely cut back on the rocketry stuff to make room for a slot car track. Went hogwild on that stuff, even hosting the club for that. Dump HPR, for that?!? :chuckle:

The final straw was them initially sponsoring a new NAR section, Modellers Associated Rocketry Section, and soon ran off anyone who was not a 'real' HT customer. That, of course, included myself, and other serious types. Needless to say, that club vanished pretty quickly, and the store pretty much a pariah to HPR types and even NAR weenies.

Never could see paying MSRP for rocketry stuff, and that so-called 'service' bit, HA, sure, like what can you do for ME at THOSE prices?? :mad:

Even the LHS here in Lakeland suffered the same fate years ago (not HT). :(

And now you know why so many hobby shops are no longer with us. There is NO WAY a hobby shop can price it's product 15% over Tower Prices and stay in business. I owned a Hobby Shop back in the late 1980's and couldn't last but three years. I discounted just about everything in the shop 20%. Tower was the king of mail order back then and purchasing stuff online didn't exist.

Don't get me wrong I purchase a great deal of my stuff online these days since there is NO Hobby Shop within 40 miles of my house and most wouldn't carry the airplane stuff I need anyway since I am mainly a scratch builder.

John Boren

I completely agree with you, John.

We've gone from 4000 hobby shops nationwide in 1990 to around 1000 today.
Three major hobby shops have closed in San Diego in the past four years alone.

When price is the only factor you care about, you get what you pay for.

Estes Industries began life and sustained itself for several years as a mail order company. My guess is that hobby shops didn't become a heavy hitter for them until Damon bought them.

There was only three hobby shops within 50 miles of me growing up (probably within 100 miles, but I can't say for sure). Two were model airplanes and trains, but no rockets. The third was Duffy's Home Center, a hardware store with the owner being a huge train buff. Mr. Duffy carried trains and model rockets in the back corner. I'm guessing his son may have been into rocketry.

I'm not familiar with the history of model airplanes and trains, but my guess is that they have a much stronger historical association with brick and mortar than model rocketry.



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Sadly all the HT-USAs in the Twin Cities are now gone.

I don't think I've ever been in a hobby store, even at the height of the space program, where hobby rockets had more than 15 or 20 linear feet of aisle (one side). 30 feet, tops.

Doug

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There is a Hobby Town in far west Houston (Hwy 6 and Westheimer Road), I've only gone there to get stuff I can't find at Hobby Lobby. Yes, this Hobby Town sells all of their rocketry merchandise at MSRP.

For "experienced/real" hobbyists in rocketry and especially R/C price IS the main factor. Supposed 'expertise' of hobby shop employees doesn't mean a heap of dung to me. We had a local hobby shop for about 8 years that catered to the local R/C club and we gave him a free lifetime membership to the club and paid his AMA dues for him every year. He was a retired USAF B-52 pilot from the Vietnam era. He would order anything for us at 15% over Tower price (basically it covered his cost), gave club members 25% off his prices on stocked items, and sold us Glow Fuel at 5% over his cost. He made the R/C car kids (parents) pay almost full retail. He eventually closed up his shop and over a week he sold off the entire R/C and Rocket inventory to us for 40% of the marked price which was below his cost. Once the shop closed we continued to pay his AMA dues from the club treasury as a token gesture to his many years of service to our country in the USAF. He continued to fly with the club until his passing into the great airport in the sky.

There is one HobbyTown USA within reasonable distance for me. It has a fairly extensive rockets aisle and most things are at or near MSRP. However, bulk motors and bulk kits are both discounted pretty substantially to support local school and scout groups. So I do some business there from time to time as makes sense.

But mail order rocketry stuff is the norm for me and was in my first rocketry period in the late 1960s-early 1970s in New Mexico. Pretty much everything I got back then came direct from the elves in Penrose. These days it is much the same, though I do shop Hobby Lobby as well. Heck, most of my RC airplane career was mail order, since I was into electric power 20 years before lipos and brushless outrun motors......and the local hobby shop that existed back then turned to me for advice.