Funny thing is, the only hobby shops that I see going out of business are the ones run by people that have no clue about how to run a business. They start a hobby shop with little or no money and think that they can work M-F 9 to 5 charging high prices and special ordering everything. What really kills me is the hobby shops that expect R/C Clubs to support them but in turn, don't support the club in any way - other than to donate a hobby knife or other stupid 1 dollar items to the yearly club fun fly. Our hobby shop owner sits around and complains about club members not buying from him, but won't even give anyone in the club a discount off list price. Any special order (which is almost everything because he carries very little inventory) takes a week to get - If I order from Tower, I will save money, even after paying shipping and receive the item in 2 days. Our hobby shop would rather lose a sale than sell at less than list price.

Mail order companies like Tower are not killing the hobby shops. The hobby shops are killing themselves by taking advantage of people and not listening to their customers.