I was looking for the best price for 25 peices of Atlas code 83 flex track. looked online and wrote down prices. Then i emailed my local hobby shop and got a quote. He emailed me back and said because i am buying so much he can sell them to me for $5.00 a price. That is about the same price as it is online but less when you add in shipping. Thanks to my hobby shop to pay for shiping. Some were quorting $15 for shipping.
It does pay to cover all the bases. If you have something that could reasonably be characterized as a "local" hobby shop, and if the owner can spread the cost of shipping around between items, sure, you may find it a really sensible decision to buy locally. In my case, my closest hobby shop would be about 45 minutes drive away, and even in a frugal Toyota Corolla it will cost me 35 cents per mile to drive (factoring in depreciation, wear and tear, gas, insurance, and replacement cost for the vehicle). The distance, round trip, is 50 miles. That makes my "local" hobby shop a trip costing me about $15-$18. My time is free. Just one problem, though: I have ordered twice from that LHS and not once have they filled my order. Fool me once....and, yes, I now consider myself the fool. Not for dealing with internet establishments, though. Not one of them has let me down.
I guess i have all the luck these days. My closest hoby shop is about 2 min away from my house. I know the owner personaly and he usaly gives me extra discounts on stuff above the normal discounts. maby its because i order a decent amout of stuff through him. I work 45 minutes away from home and in that city there is also a hobby shop this one about 6 min away from work. Sometimes they do do not have the best prices but they carry some of the supplys i need. If i am in a pinch and need it before i can ship it i check them out.
Its good to hear a LHS owner offering competitive prices for large orders. On the personal side. I recently bought 2 Athearn fantasy CR GP60s..My not so local hobby shop gave a competitive price deal and he got the nod for my purchase. It felt like old times.. Such hobby shop owners should be commended and supported for taking those extra steps..
I would do that, Larry, but have found that, aside from the pleasant experience of actually being in a hobby shop, and enjoying the personal interactions, pricing can be a sticking point. My further LHS, round trip of 140 miles, sold me my first steamer, actually my first purchase in HO. It was a BLI J1 Hudson. I was green, eager, and perhaps impulsive, but I really wanted that engine, and I had just walked in after the New Year on a whim. I won't tell you what I paid for that first-ever HO steamer, but I can tell you I never purchased another engine from that man. Think 150% mark-up. Yeah, he must have seen me coming. I do miss that place, though. He retired about three years ago now, nice fella, and I know he had to make a buck. I enjoyed being able to read labels, look in display cases, pick up stuff and inspect it. I miss that.
I have a similar situation. I take transit to and from work which is about 20 miles each way. So I buy a monthly transit pass. $88. I consider any trip I can take on Portland's Transit system that isn't for work to be a bonus, zero cost and it just so happens that there are 2 Hobby shops that are only 3 blocks from MAX Train stations. One is a general hobby shop and they don't discount their train stuff much, but they're good for magazines and the occasional purchase if you need what they have. The other one is a further train trip, but he does discount lightly and he has an absolutely fabulous Consignment and used case, plus a couple junk shelves that will occasionally reveal gems. (I just got 3 Con-Cor Passenger cars for $8.36 a piece plus a 15% discount on top of that. The cars were new in box ) My 3rd regular hobby shop is 13.6 miles away each way, so it costs some money to get there, but he also has a fabulous used and auction table where I've gotten just wonderful stuff at great prices. He's got a flat discount of 20% off MSRP which puts him in line with non-sale Internet pricing typically. Sometimes less. My cost per mile, if I'm in the more efficient Volvo would run about $0.15 a mile or so. which makes it well under the typical cost of shipping...plus there's a Dutch Bros. Coffee on the way which makes it worth it.
I agree pricing can be a sticking point in fact if he wanted full MSRP for those GP60s I would have shop on line..For small orders or 1-2 car purchases I found there wasn't much savings after I added shipping compared to the hobby shop price(full MSRP unless haggled over) and then there's a 52 mile round trip. A long way to shop? Could be for some but,then there's Coney Island restaurant (yum-o) or Skyline Chili for lunch.
Yeah, it's always nice when you can turn the trip into an "outing." I overcommited myself this weekend and I'm going to be missing one of the better swap meets. I'm displeased to say the least, though my wallet is less so.
Don't feel bad about distance. The "local" hobby shop (by local I mean it is in the same city) is a 50 mile round trip. And I drive a pickup. What really makes me mad is when I do make the trip to pick up a few items, they are out of stock.
My local hobby shop is 40 miles up a turnpike (factor in a Pikepass, plus gas, wear & tear), so when I go, I also put in a little railfanning at the local railyard and the two local shortlines, plus try to eat at my favorite pizza joint (its mother store saved me from 4 years of bad dorm food back in the day at Okie State in Stillwater). I have been alerted to another shop a little further north of the same town, so I'll have to make a run up there- oh boy, TWO more railfanning chances, one involving a port and another a shortline. And should I head east into Arkansas, yet TWO more places- one in the NW part of the state, and one down on the Arkansas River. Prices are good, clerks friendly, get a chance to handle the merchandise & see it test-run, plus get some railfanning in- all in all, makes for a good day. ANd of course, if they don't have what I'm looking for, oh well..........still a good chance to look around, maybe pick up something else that catches my eye, and order what I need online when I get home.
My LHS has a bit of test track. I can test any locomotive before I buy it. I haven't had to play the ship-it-back game on dud locos.
Same here. If they did not, I'd think hard before buying. It's pretty simple to cobble up a test track, if they won't, I don't. Boxcab E50
That's the best part of a good LHS, being able to eyeball everything. Our LHS gives train club members a 10% discount on purchases. His prices are fairly reasonable on average - but I rarely buy anything other than couplers/hardware/paint/sheet styrene...stuff like that. Even "reasonable" prices are expensive to me. I did get a new locomotive early on in my recent return to the hobby - an Athearn UP Turbine. Yeah I payed plenty, but at the time those things were pretyy expensive on ebay too. But...I'm at the point where my locomotive purchases are restricted to ebay and train shows. I have to say though, the Turbine purchase was a cool experience, something like walking into a new car showroom and picking out the most expensive sports car on the floor. :tb-cool:
I wish I had a hobby shop that still cared about model trains. I miss it when the dealers did what they could and the best that they could. Cudos.
Are you talking about The shop near Northeast 39th Avenue? I ordered my Sunset SP&S 700 from them online. They are the only shop that has EVER called me to talk about an order. They also helped me trouble shoot my factory defect. I've wanted to go there in person for some time now, but thats becoming more and more unlikely. I also miss the MAX. Salt Lake's TRAX isn't the same. If someone made a HO scale MAX (I like the siemens SD660), I'd probably buy it. I got lucky in Salt Lake. My LHS is a train store. Their prices aren't to bad and they have a layout in every scale (HO is the biggest :tb-biggrin: ). They also will test your equipment on the layouts if you ask, and do DCC conversions among other services.
yes i like the hobbyshop i go too ,it about 1 hr a way ,he has good prices and got 20%off on some things,he helping me whit geting my layout pu and running,all the DCC things i need and in DCC in stall good priceslot of kown how thats a hobbyshop.:tb-biggrin:
So I went to my LTS today to pickup my Kadee European converters for my Talgo (see Cascades push pull thread) and wound up getting a new engine. Its an old Proto 2000 FA2 locomotive in SP&S colors. Aside from a missing pocket cover for the front coupler, its been completely rebuilt and ran well when I had them test it. Since its been rebuilt I think I got it for a steal.
