internet-hobby shops
Hi Folks,
The ease of your powerfully opinionated responses drives my point home. Although, initially I didn't express myself as well as I would have liked to. I mentioned I live in Manhattan to clue you guys in, that I'm not talking about a "Mom & Pop", country-bumpkin hobby shop. I'm speaking of a hobby store which has multiple locations in two different states. It serves literally tens of thousands of customers. I was surprised of the fact that their showroom, which contains walls littered with R/C planes, lacked something as common as finishing resin (an essential item in building many airplanes). I drew my own conclusion, that this particular hobby store generates the brunt of its sales via the internet. I was given the impression, that I was better off staying home to place my order electronically, than making a physical appearance. My overall point is, that there seems to be fewer and fewer reasons in making a physical appearance anymore. If they are going to run a store, where you literally have the customer in hand, you'd think the last thing they'd want to do is chase the person off to the nearest computer. I'd be interested in hearing how much revenue a hobby shop makes electronically. From this experience it seems that the 'net is the more important avenue for a large-volume hobby store like mine. BTW: I received my ZPoxy resin (from Tower & FedEx) just as I was setting up my work table today...talk about service!
Steve