Support your LHS

[digger]

I'm always talking crap about being from WV.
Don't live in a big city, but the town could support a decent hobby shop!
Got 8 or 10 little malls with everything but a hobby store.


This is what I get:

One sells a little bit of cars. Mostly skateboards in the summer, skis in the winter. The owner acts like he is doing you a favor to help you.
"We can order it." Man get with the program... I can order it. Be here same time or sooner. Last I checked he was charging $10 more on a gallon of fuel than what I had been paying.

Next, is the one I just found.
He is supposed to be open 3 days a week?
"Call me. I just live right there. Be more than happy to come down and get something."
Never answers the phone.
His wife runs a little party place for the kids in it too. Only time I have caught it open was a birthday party or something.

Got another little small one, but it is just open in the evening.
I work night's.

Was a big thing about Hobby Lobby putting a place here. Man that is a waste...


Sorry for the rant. Been trying to get rotor blades for 2 weeks. Ordered them. (yes I can do that.)








If you have a good hobby store close, spend your money there.
You guys don't know how lucky you are.

 

[grgbulldog]

I've got a hobbytown 10 minutes north of me, but I avoid it the best I can. The owner guy is nice but keeps his distance a little, the rc car guy is always in a bad mood and is very rude most of the time. He acts like he doesn't want to help, and another rc guy i swear is always stoned..It all gets so annoying.

 

[Lessen]

at $4/gal. It's cheaper to order stuff online. All 3 hobby shops are 35-40 minutes (90% highway to all of them) from me.

I have 2 HobbytownUSA's and one other shop. I would love to support a non-chain LHS but I'd be lucky if the people that work there even greet me when I walk in....

clerk - "Looking for anything"
me - "Got any brushless systems"
clerk - "nope."

That was the last time I was there. That was also the last time I'll be there. The two HTUSA's aren't bad. The one is actually quite nice. The folks are very pleasant, and the r/c guys are relatively knowledgable. The last time I was there the newer guy never heard of Lunsford but then again he was newer I think (I hope:shrug: ) Then it's like I said.. 80 minutes at an average of 50 mph... unless I have a couple coupons I might as well order it online. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way of the world these days.

 

[Cupooterluvr]

I've got one good, solid hobby shop about 15 minutes up the road, and if we take one of the auto tranny cars I can drive (not quite good enough to drive the manual tranny on a state highway lol). They generally help me out if I need something, but I might have to throw something at them to get them off the phone or away from their friends. They recently remodeled so now I don't know where ANYTHING is.

The Hobby Shop with the offroad track is about the same distance away but in the opposite direction. It's got a teeny little shop attached to it (more of a parts shed with a cash register, IMO) and the help isn't any good, but the track is reasonably big.

 

[HeartBreak]

I have roughly three hobby shops here in the area that I could visit. One specialises in traxxas, and looks at you like a deer in the headlights if you mention HPI...

One specialises in high-end racing only. I call them race-snobs. They're also the furthest away.

The closest one is actually fairly decent, and it's where I buy my fuel at. It also has a track, but it's in severe disrepair. Needs some serious smoothing out and jump leveling.

Of the three, I support the last one when I can, but I mostly order online, since gas is an arm and a leg to get there and back. I do go there for fuel, fuel line and glow plugs.

 

[Brushlessboy]

My lhs is about 12-15 min away. They stock heaps of Tamiya, most of the Traxxas range, HPI, Thunder Tiger and lots of Ofna/Hong Nor. They are a good bunch and employ a full time mechanic. One even takes the time to read up on everything electric.
The discounts for me are great and they will order stuff for me from A Main at cost to fill their order.
They are open till 7.00pm thursday, about 9pm saturday, depending on how many people are racing, and 5.30pm every other night bar sunday.
I even sat down to a roast dinner with them in the cafe one thursday cause their parents bought dinner down, but there is a problem.
I can stand there for 3 hours or more for a $20 part because they now consider me part of th family
There are 4 of us who dont really get service because we just hang around so long regardless, so they are in no hurry to deal with us.
I have to say the plusses outweigh the problems........

 

[Greyryder]

Hobby Lobby is a craft store.

I don't have a local hobby shop. I have to order most things on line. I've found a good place for my model train stuff, but RC and slot cars is harder. I've used eHobbies a couple of times, and it looks like I can get my model paints there. Not the best selection, but anything beats fighting with Tower Hobbies' ineptitude.

When I get into Columbus (OH) I go to a place called Hobbyland. They carry a pretty wide array of stuff. They've got three stroes, and each one is tailored to their local market. One carries more model train and war gaming stuff, one carries more RC and Warhammer stuff. Never been to the third store. They have friendly people, who are more than happy to help.

Went to a Hobbytown USA, once. Never had a place try so hard to get me to spend my money somewhere else. I won't go back.

 

[Rolex]

I have a Hobbytown USA 10 miles up I-40. I know they always have what I need. If I need something special they order it and call me as soon as it shows up. Everyone says hello to me, and I try to get it there rather than the internet. They will match any price on Tower. The airplane guy is a good friend, and a genius with electric or nitro, helis or planes. The main car guy is the same. Really knows his stuff.
It just doesn't get any better than that. Sorry about your local shops, digger. That's really the pits.

 

[CharliesTheMan]

I have a small hobby shop here. They're improving their inventory weekly, just built a small track as big as they had room for, and even had a few RTR crawlers in stock. But 99% of the stuff I order is online. I live about 30 minutes from the hobby shop. I spend a lot of time on the computer, and most of the stuff that I order is here withing 3 days or so. I have ordered a few things from Tower, but I've found that there are some really good hobby shops with huge inventories on ebay, and the prices are usually better than tower. With ebay, I can buy a lot of stuff and save with combined shipping, and I can use paypal to checkout. It's easy, convenient, and with a few clicks I have my order placed, don't have to keep entering my information.

However, recently I've found a wonderful guy with a machine shop and online store, and he's got the best customer service that I've found anywhere. I'm talking about Joe from East End Machining. He's constantly inporving on his inventory, but I ask about parts all the time that aren't on his page, and he orders them and usually has them for me in about a week. His prices are always competitive with the big guys. I usually place a few orders a week from him, but if we don't talk, Joe will send me an email asking me how things are going at work and we complain about the pitfalls of owning a business. On my birthday a package came in the mail and it was a birthday card and some one off prototype aluminum parts for my crawler, courtesy of Joe. You just don't get that kind of service from the big guys. When I wanted one of the new Novak HV Pro systems, everywhere I could find on the net was out of stock. Some people had been waiting for weeks. I asked Joe about them because I wanted to get one for my birthday. He said they were out of stock everywhere and it could be several weeks. About a week later, a package arrived and I was shocked that it was my Novak system, because everyone was showing out of stock. Joe had made call after call to the distributors until he found someone that got one early. THAT, my friends, is what customer service is all about. That's the difference in someone that cares and some of these huge companies from overseas where you can't even call and talk to a person if you have a problem.

 

[digger]

I can drive an hour to a town about half the size of Beckley.
There are 2 hobby stores within a mile of each other. Both are great places.
Had it with these idiots here. I'll either make the drive or order it.

I usually order from Tower. Just needed the rotor blades for my Blade heli. Tower doesn't sell them so it was Horizon. Need the radio and esc for the Moth, but they are a little high on that. So I still need to make another order.

I have thought about opening a store on my own. But I lack the money. Probably more important, lack of balls.

 

[CharliesTheMan]

After coming from a long line of business owners, and owning part of the company that I work for now, I would strongly advise you to consider the fact that you will have absolutely no life other than the business and you will forget what it's like to have stress free days. You probably know what I'm talking about because of you and your dads heavy equipment work, but there's a lot of days where I think about how nice it must be to work for someone else and be able to leave the office a 5 and not think about work. I leave at 7 or 8 sometimes and when I get home I'm still stressing about stuff, because it's our name on the dotted line, not the employees. It sure seems like it would be fun to own a hobby shop, but I already spend too much on my personal stuff having to order it, no telling how many rigs I would have if I was already there every day lol

 

[digger]

Really think a person could do good with one here.
Part of the "no balls" is that I wouldn't have any time. Would be a 24/7 deal.

Right now I have more than I can handle.

I leave work now and I leave it there. Everything else is kicking my butt.


Think I made some progress today though.
Got everything sold at the shop, maybe. Been bothering me since she sold it.
Have to move a track loader off the property and I think that is going to be it. Gonna keep it. Few other pcs., but they are on the place that she is living on. I told her we would work out some kind of a deal.

 

[SMaxxin]

The closest hobby shops are about an hour away either north or south. The one north of me is near Charlie, I haven't seen it in years. At one point they sold mostly planes and trains but I hear it's better now. There are two south of me, one has assholes and the other one usually doesn't have what I need.

Digger I get a lot of "I can order it for you" from these guys also.....I quick wasting my time with them and order 99.9% of everything online. If I happen to be in the area I'll stop at one of them.

Hey Charlie, does Lower Lawn & Cycle still have a hobby shop in it? Haven't been there in years either.

 

[griemar]

I got a nice little mom and pop LHS about 20 minutes from the house. The owener has gotten to nkow me after being there 2 sometimes 3 times a week but he's a decent guy. There are a few quarks I could do without, the "I'm a pro racer attitude", being somewhat ignored while his racing buddies are there, ect. In all though I'm happy with it. His wife is very kind to everyone and I've been there enough times that he's even started the "here, you may need this" or the "Oh, i didnt ring that part up?" discounts. Guess I can't complain really.