I was in a LHS today. Nice people. O.K. stock. Not great N Scale, just O.K. More HO than N. All list price. When a manufacturer increases prices, all the old stock is marked at the new price. They complain how much work it is. Then it sits. They have locos that no one else has because of their prices. Never a store wide sale. Anyway, I feel sorry for them. They really don't get it. I hate to see them go out, so I try to buy something every time I am there. I don't buy stuff that I will never have a use for, but sometimes I buy something just to give them some business. A car, a tool, a detail part. A "Sympathy" buy. Ever do a "Sympathy" buy?
NO...because: O.K. stock. Not great N Scale, just O.K. More HO than N. All list price. When a manufacturer increases prices, all the old stock is marked at the new price. They complain how much work it is. Then it sits. They have locos that no one else has because of their prices. Never a store wide sale. .
Yup, When I travel on business, I look for LHSs. If they are not outrageous, I try to make a small local purchase, just because I enjoy browsing and don't want them to disapear
If I go to a new LHS shop for the first time,if they're nuts,I scan the place,see if they have anything I might need in the future,or absolutely need right now.Even if it's a must have,I'll usually pass if it's something expensive I can get elsewhere next week..The only time I've ever paid outrageous prices is when I'm on vacation out of the country,and I'm looking for something "local" to take home..I have 3 shops right here stocked to the gills that I haven't bought a THING from in years.There's a shop in the Allentown area,I swear the owner is trying to put together the worlds largest hobby collection,I've stopped even wasting the gas to stop there if I'm in the area,never see anybody buy anything there..I'm gonna be driving past it twice on Tuesday..
I'm New yet I don't know who LHS is please help me help them I need something that they'll probably have so point me to their website.
I always feel guilty if I don't buy something but I refuse to buy if something is too expensive. My LHS stocks mostly beginner stuff so I stopped shopping there. My son works at a different shop so I can get real good prices but it is mainly an R/C hobby shop so I have to order most of what I want. And they get stuff through Horizon so what I want is limited. For anything else I have needed, I have ordered a couple times from Mike Fifer because he is nice and friendly and he visits these forums. Craig
Never done a sympathy buy. I feel if a LHS gets good enough items at a good price, they won't sit. If you stock Bachmann cars with rapido couplers and wonder why they don't sell, your in the wrong business. With the economy the way it is, I want my dollar to go as far as possible. If that means buying only from on-line dealers with the best price, well, thats the route I go.
If the dealer is too stupid to run his own business then why should i buy something just for the sake of it. I was in one shop where the owner told me he could not order anything from Walthers because he only orders from them twice a year January and Sept. and too bad i asked him in the middle of feb. Even though my oder was for $175.00 he refused to order it because it was not either his Jan. date or his Sept. date. The wholetime i was there he was complaining about his lack of business, ge i wonder why?? Of course he was out of business about 8 months later. Dave
Ironically, if they had a website, stocked things, and sold for a fair price, they probably would not be disappearing!
Never do the sympathy thing. If they want my business, they need to be courteous and willing to negotiate a little to earn my business. Why do I say negotiate? Because I go in looking to establish a long term relationship. In fact I normally drop about $1500 on the first visit to show that I am sincere. I do not try to drive a hard bargin where the shop gains nothing, that is counterproductive. And I never vocalize that I have seen lower prices on the internet as I have seen some folks do. I always believe in a win/win solution. I get a fair price, and they get a fair profit. Also, if I see marked up prices on old stock, I walk out immediately. I figure if they are going to cheat customers like that, then I don't think I can trust them not to cheat me at some time or another. While I do most of my purchases online because of low local selection, I always venture to the shop first, and if they do not have the item, I then go online to acquire it. I get a pretty good discount now from the local shop because of my history with them, and I get great customer service and the owner values my ideas and opinions. Sympathetic purchases - Never Good Service and fair price purchases - Always!
I wish my Local Hobby Shops were more competitive I usually keep my LHS sympathy purchases below $10. I figure it's like an admission charge. Most times I can't even bring myself to spend that much. Every now and again I'll buy a locomotive or some unique rail cars or buildings. It's nice to have local shops to browse, but I wish the shops in my area were more competitive. When I'm already looking at paying 10% extra to cover Washington sales tax, I just don't feel like paying another 25% a LHS is going to charge me.
Never strictly from sympathy. If they were nice, but didn't have much, yet had something I really needed... Boxcab E50
Yes, I'm guilty. Last Saturday I visited a LHS (The "L" part is rather loose of a definition since it's a good 40 or so miles from my house (there are many stores within a closer radius)) but completist I am, I wanted to visit every LHS in my region and I've never been to this one before. This one was one of those stores that have way more inventory than square footage, so a lot of the stuff is stacked. I came looking for a particular decal and some intermodal containers, which they didn't have, but they did have an MTL 89' TOFC flat in TTX yellow (with 45' trailer), something I've honestly never seen in a LHS before. They sold it for $39.95 but they have a 10% discount on everything at the counter for first-time customers (and 10% off for repeat customers if they pay in cash). I could get these on eBay for less than half the price but the store people were some of the coolest human beings around, and they have a reputation for being good, friendly folks. One of the co-owners even asked me if I was also going to visit the other LHS nearby; apparently that didn't bother them one bit. They didn't have too much in N scale that I was interested in aside from the flatcar (their specialty is large scale), so I just bought that. It wasn't a total sympathy buy since it was something I couldn't find in any other LHS, and the people who ran the store treated me more like a friend than a mere client (they treat everyone who shops there like that). I've been to a LHS where people were downright insulting and condescending regarding my choice of scale (There was a somewhat controversial thread on that particular store on this forum about 3 years ago), but these folks were the polar opposite of that. After I left that store, I went to a nearby hobby shop that had a much better N scale inventory and found some of the items I was looking for. Some of the items were sale-priced (especially the $1 Microscale decal blowout). I ended up buying 9 individual items and spent roughly the same amount I spent at the previous shop.
Yes. My best friends brother in law owns a small shop mostly dedicated to Radio Control. When I'm there I will "rescue" one or two freight cars from oblivion.
This sums up my sympathy purchases when I am on the road. I do like to spread the biz around and buy stuff at full price if its hard to get, or I may need it. Or, I just buy a magazine if not. At home, we have one great shop, two smaller but friendlier shops that kind of make you want to buy something (and who sometimes have things that the big shop doesn't because of some snit with a distributor or supplier, which I never have quite understood) and the closest shop to me, which specializes in books and magazines which is all I buy there to save gas money.
I don't do sympathy purchases for the most part. Since I travel here and there, I'll usually buy a car at every shop (if they have my era) I visit. If the prices are too high, I'll look around but buy elsewhere. I have several good LHS's around here, one in particular has prices at MSRP. There are quite a few cool engines that you don't find in stores often on the shelf, unfortunatly, the prices are three times that of what you would find online. For instance, he has 2 CC warbabys, but he wants 300 for each, yeah right. I do buy cars there since my boys enjoy picking them out, the price of the smile on their face is more than worth the extra few bucks.
Spoken in Neo-American webonymism - BTW, IMHO an LHS is a 'local hobby shop' AFAIK... LOL ROTFLMAO. OMG... of course, 10 years ago I would not have known how to say that. So... back to the topic. In the case you're stating... the hobby shop owner is not really competing for business in todays internet world. That's almost a recipe for failure... but... it really depends on the clientele of the area. Either not many of them 'surf-the-web' or their clientele is staunchly behind the owners and don't care if they pay extra. The lack of discounting could be a result of the cost of living in that area of the country. The MSRP is usually set at a high level to allow for places with high expenses/or very low volume to sell at a profitable level. It would then stand to reason that a hobby shop in an area with lower costs of living... or ones with high volume of sales... could offer discounts off of the MSRP. My LHS does discount and hold an occasional show where they will 'blow-out' old stock at lower prices. I go to them every so often just to give them business even if I can buy stuff cheaper on the web. There is a trade-off between paying shipping and paying local sales taxes too... so its not such a 'sympathy' buy if you want to get something relatively inexpensive at an LHS versus buying on-line. Where my LHS becomes a 'sympathy buy' situation is on the more expensive items where the difference in the 'discount' from MSRP plus the sales tax greatly overshadows the cost of shipping/handling charges. If I buy a high price item from my LHS... it would be a 'sympathy' purchase in my case... I call that "throwing them a bone". Here's an example: AC-12 has an MSRP is $329.95. My LHS discounts only 15% therefore... $279.50 plus we have a state/local tax of 7% so the purchase would be $299.06. On-line shops have discounts as high as 28% for the same item... and since they are not in this state... no sales tax is paid... but shipping/handling charges are added... E-tailer#1: $250.00 plus $8.50 S/H = $258.50. That's a savings of $41.00 of sympathy. E-tailer#2: $247.50 plus $8.50 S/H = $256.00. That's a savings of $43.00 of sympathy. E-tailer#3: $237.50 plus $8.50 S/H = $246.00. That's a savings of $53.00 of sympathy. So there are at least three I know of that could save me a good chunk of change... which could buy several other items. The limits of my sympathy for overpriced retailers has its limits... I would not buy from the LHS you're visiting because they are simply too expensive on everything. Of course... My LHS is a good place to buy small items which would be prohibitively expensive to get on-line... such as a tube of plastic cement, paint brush, bottle of paint... etc... So... that may be all your LHS is good for as well.
