[NSRCA-discussion] Hobby Shops & South Africa

[seefo at san.rr.com]

The problem of course is the major players don't want to give up their increased profits when they eliminate the brick and mortar store. 

Sent from my android device.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Atwood, Mark" <atwoodm at paragon-inc.com>
To: NSRCA General <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
Sent: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 9:01 AM
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Hobby Shops & South Africa

I wanted to jump into the conversation about dying Hobby shops and comment a little about what we saw in South Africa.  We’ve all experienced the decline of the local hobby shop.  I’m in the Cleveland area and I have to drive a good 45min to hit ANY hobby store.  We do have one really good store down in north Canton (about an hour from Cleveland) and what makes it “good” is clearly their willingness to stock inventory.

Contrasting that, when we were in South Africa, there were a multitude of hobby shops for a far less dense population, and the stores where MASSIVE, and well stocked, and dedicated almost exclusively to RC, no crafts.   The top of that scale was Aerial Concepts, a 5000 sq/ft store that sold, well, everything.  Name a product or manufacturer and they carried not only the product line, but every variant of the product line, and had multiples of each in inventory.  Everything from the smallest hacker motor to the largest Turbine.  I can’t begin to convey (help me here Jason? Brett? Andrew?) just how much inventory they had. In addition to the store they had two full warehouses of inventory.   Want a 2m Wind S Pro?  Which color?   How about a Comp Arf 42% Extra?  Want 2? They’re on the shelf.     In getting to know Dean, the owner of the shop (he helped our team out tremendously while we were there) he made it clear why it works over there, and not over here.  It’s absolutely about mail order.   The postal system in SA is apparently both slow and unreliable.  Package delivery is even worse.  So, as a result, no one uses the internet to order anything.  Follow that down the obvious path and that leads to local stores carrying all the products and people shopping and buying those products.   It snowballs in a very positive way.  Having a great customer base allows for bigger and better stocked stores which leads to an even larger more loyal customer base.  Dean’s store is as much a social hub as it is a store.  He has an in-store cafe, and employs specialists in every discipline.

I brought my micro heli’s with me to have something to play with while I was there and needed some parts and suggestions for getting rid of some vibration.  I wasn’t referred to Dean’s Heli guy… no, I was introduced to his MICRO Heli guy, who was very well versed in what does and doesn’t work well.  It was a very positive experience.  Something that I don’t think we’ll ever be able to recover here in the states.  We’ve done ourselves in with our own efficiencies.  I can order Heli part’s on Monday and have them in hand often times the next day, two at the most.  Even ordering from the west coast is now only a 3-4 day wait cross country.  Unfortunately, there’s no help in ordering the correct parts.  As a result, I have more than a few items that didn’t turn out to be what I really wanted.     Truth be told, I still consult with Chris (Heli guy from SA) via email from time to time.

I didn’t realize how much we’d lost in the form of a good community hobby shop until this trip.  It’s a big loss indeed.

-M
Mark Atwood
Paragon Consulting, Inc.  |  President
5885 Landerbrook Drive Suite 130, Cleveland Ohio, 44124
Direct: 440.229.2502 |  Fax: 440.684.3102
www.paragon-inc.com<http://www.paragon-inc.com/>


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