Holy Crap ! Two hobby shops in my area of Arizona called it quits this week

[tryinotocrash]

Well I lost one of the "on my way home" Hobby shops and one of the Guys in My airplane club closed his shop today as well. Now I am guilty of shopping online for the best deal I still manage to hit hobby shops quite often. I always gave the club guy a chance to meet online deals and he always came through for me. Now some shops you walk into and the people just give you stupid answers and or just ignore you, I have tried to support the local guys so when I need something quick I go there. I have tried to get them to keep the HK or other batts and motors but they refuse to sell these "junk" items. Why would I pay $200.00 for a 6s battery when I can get one for half of that?

[Fluid]

I have tried to get them to keep the HK or other batts and motors but they refuse to sell these "junk" items. Why would I pay $200.00 for a 6s battery when I can get one for half of that?

A storefront hobby store is a very tough business. While an on-line shopper will tolerate an occasional bad pack and write it off - plenty of posters here say they will do that - these same folks will demand that a storefront business "make it right". Because customers walk in the front door, the owner will be faced with returns when selling items with a high failure rate....like the HK stuff. That means that the item the store sells with a 30% profit now becomes a break-even proposition. Plenty of owners can't tolerate that from a business standpoint, others won't from the principle. OTOH you can't stay in business if all you sell are clevises and switch harnesses...

I gladly pay $200 for a premium pack because the $100 pack doesn't meet my performance needs. As you gain experience in life you may find that when you buy cheap you often end up without the performance you really want, and without the money you spent on the cheap item. A poor bargain IME.....



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[Steven Vaccaro]

i know a shop thats just about done. his income is about half of what it was 10 years ago. its almost at the point of not being worth it. he can compete with most US based websites, but hobbyking is killing him.