What you like/dislike at hobby shops
True,
Fact is, though, an actual store-front retail establishment cannot continue to sell at mail-roder prices and stay in business long. Usually, the mail order prices are 5% above what small shops pay for the item, so there's no way they can turn a profit.
I was talking about when there's ONE big mail order outfit. Right now, there are several, but it won't stay like that at this current rate. It's just a matter of time before there's only one. Then, they'l set the price for maximum profit, including establishing minimum overhead (fewer employees) parameters. That's the way of big business, and the small businesses that used to compose the backbone of American economy are SOL.
I used to manage a LHS, and lemme tell you, it's tough. Guy comes in, asks to 'see' a kit, opens the box, rifles through it for an hour, asks 1,128 questions about it, then goes and buys it from Tower because they sold it for $5 less (and threw in some cheap glue). Then, he usually has the nerve to come in and get your valuable help in installing his Tower Hobbies 4-ch. radio into his 5-ch. plane, because he can't figure it out. This same guy will come in and present a Tower catalog and ask if I can match prices on Futaba servos (because he really wants to do business with me). I check the prices, just to find that Futaba servos are sold to hobby shops at 9.99, and the same people sell the same servo in Tower for 10.99 (and no tax!). If I agreed to go for the $1 profit, I'd be using the dollar to pay the phone bill for the order, the guys who open the box and tag the merchandise, and the little percentage on the credit card sale. As you can see, it's not so simple for the LHS. For those who complain about brain-dead employees, you're right often enough. We had a shop, though, where half of the employees were sponsored pilots, some of them even famous experts. It doesn't make a difference to the guy who wants to get his smudges all over some fresh balsa and then go buy the kit from Tower.