Originally Posted by
CristianTabush
The internet is finally another contibuting factor to the changing face of racing. Yes Pro-style hobby shops can't compete many times against the on-line retailers' prices. But you can't blame the customer for this. This is due to the most simple of Economic principles. We have unlimited wants and limited resources. People will naturally try to stretch thier dollar to get the most for it. Pro-style shops are simply an obsolete business model in a world where impulse buyers can purchase items at 3am in the morning from an online retailer and have it in their hand in as little as 24 hrs. On that same level, on-line specialty or mass shops will never put the Diversified hobby shop out of business. They simply have a larger Target market and therefore will cross-sell a whole lot more products due to their INMENSELY diverse client base and their best asset of all, a show room floor where people can get to touch, see and feel the product, (and let their good 'ol impulse buying instinct take control of themselves.)
I will respectfully have to disagree. As an individual who works part-time in a hobby store, I can give you at least ten examples of people who walk into a local hobby store, do all their research and ask the RC guy 10,000 questions, then go home and order their Savage on-line because it's $6.00 cheaper. So I could have been selling a helicopter, or park flyer to an actual customer, and making the store money, but I wasted my time talking to some dude who wanted to save $6 online. I have no problem with distributors offering on-line shopping, I just think they need to stay within the MAP pricing most ditributors lay out. It's definitely an unfair advantage for them, that does in fact, hurt LHS sales.
And the best part about people like that is when they have an issue with their product, the first place they go is the LHS. Our store does service work, and our policy is $15/hour if you bought it here, $50/hour if ya didn't. We break-in nitro vehicles purchased in our store for free, $75 if purchased elsewhere.