ORIGINAL: LANNYBOB
are hobby shop owners aware of the changing demands of today's aircraft. all i see in the three hobby shops around me are props for 40 size engines and bins of balsa wood. it's always "no i dont but i can order it" its not the end of the world but you can see it from here
Where I used to live the one hobby shop was pretty much like that. It was stuck in the early 80's time wise. Props were all of a pattern nature like 14x12 - when I asked for a 12.25 x 3.75 he said they don't even make anything "that stupid". I said maybe you need to stock lower pitch props - and he said "what for - big pitch = big speed"...ummm no one races around here at all - considering his #1 plane that he sold at the time and stocked to no end was the U-Can-Do , and I've personally seen him tell people to get one and get an OS.91 and then sell them a pattern prop for it.....
Thankfully they sell a lot of R/C cars/truck stuff now or they would go under - not that it really would matter last time I went in there they didn't have medium CA...and this is a store that is probably larger than 90% of "hobby stores".
He always said "I can order it for you" as well, which I totally understand on stuff he could never sell, but our club made a list of "common" stuff that are pretty much consumables and he pretty much threw it in their face when they gave it to him - in an effort to help him know what to stock. "We can order it" was appropriate 10+ years ago. Now I can order it just as quick (if not quicker) and get it cheaper as well because he charges extra for ordering and I don't have to pay tax (and the base price is usually cheaper).
He lost his total advantage of being a local store - having items on hand to actually look at, and having someone who knows something about it - which he had neither. Of course I lost my respect for the place about 3 months into the hobby when a guy came in while I was there and wanted "to get into R/C" so the owner sold him a Top Flite Mustang KIT,motor, radio, glue etc...and then when the guy asked where he could fly it he said "oh you can fly it anywhere like a park".