I took about 8 months off from the hobby, don't know if it's spring or what, but the R/C bug has bitten me again!

Went on Tower's web site to see if anything caught my eye![8D]

WOW! [X(] What's happend to their inventory, they have dropped or discontinued so many products![:@]

They did pick up Aeroworks, with a catch 22, it's a "drop ship item", you can't use a coupon code which means you pay full price, and you have to pay regular shipping to boot![:'(]

The DLE engine line up looks to be about the only positive thing I could see!

I hate to pose the thought, but TH looks pretty sick, like they might be on their way out of business![&o]

Nah, Tower isn't going out of business. The reason they sell the products they do is because that is what their customers are buying. Like any business, their inventory changes as their customer's needs/ wants change.

I think there healthy , boreing but healthy , I happen to like warbirds , and it seems like all the cool new 70" span excitement is from ESM , or KMP , all the epowered jets are from Hobby Lobby , then all the new cool prop ww2 planes (giant foam ) are being sold on Nitro Planes ect
so for what ever reason outside of the Top Flight P47 , the warbirds intros have been slow

I am glad they raised the price of the scratch and dent way up..I was spending tons of money back then..now I haven't ordered in close to a year...

Yes, some things have gone away but new stuff is always taking its place. No good business is going to waste expensive shelf space ad advertising on items that don't turn over.

Okay but why did they get rid of Sig? I like their ARF's and I'm pretty sure those were selling.

Maybe Sig could not deliver products on time (or at all) and that would hurt Towers Rep. or Sig decided to go it alone? I to miss Sig products at Tower[]

Grassroots,
Did you ever consider that maybe SIG got rid of Tower?
KW_Counter

I don't think either got rid of the other, SIG is having alot of problems right now, tower probaly isn't showing any sig products because you can't get them, even from sig especialy ARF'S

This is interesting, the local hobby shop owner bent my ear about six months ago about Sig... he was POed that Sig was discounting to Tower, which took him out of the competition to sell Sig products so he had quit selling any Sig stuff. Could it be that there was a turf war and that local hobby shops pressured Sig into rescinding its discounting program to Tower and that ended the relationship?

If you search the forums you will find a lot of discussion on this, most of which is likely just hearsay, rumors, speculation and even a few outright fabrications. The "official" reason from Hobbico I believe was that Sig was having difficulty delivering products to them so they unfortunately had to part ways. As long as Sig stays around I wouldn't be surprised to see them back in inventory at Tower Hobbies sometime in the future. Even if they don't come back, there are other places to get Sig products including direct from Sig.

Dropping vendors or distributors is just a reality of doing business. It happens in every industry where products are de and sold. Unfortunately it isn't always popular with customers depending on the particular product line.

I agree with chuck. one of the mods, don't remember which one, but they talked directly to sig and posted the response. SIG is having what I consider "serious" problems with their factory, but once they get that taken care of, they'll be back on tower and everybody else

Sig isn't alone. There is apparently a world wide allocation problem with balsa wood. If you google "balsa wood shortage" you'll pull up a myriad of different descriptions and explanations ranging from increases for industrial demand, labor shortages, harvesting problems, etc.

Sig is unique in that they don't offer much in the way of non-balsa models. Giant scale stuff is normally all light plywood and electric aircraft are often made of foam.

One of the reasons for the recent push of EDF models might simply be due to the manufacturers' ability to supply them. Notice that Nitro Planes is sold out of most of their balsa ARFs, but they seem to have an endless supply RTF and ATF EDF and other foamy electric planes.

Thunder Tiger went to far as to start purchasing other product lines, buying a giant scale manufacturer last year and then recently acquiring the ModelFly line of plastic ARFs like their new Cessna Cardinal and Ready Mk3 trainer ARFs.

Great Planes and Hangar 9 have been thinning their product lines. Global Hobby is heavily emphasizing VQ ARFs and many new Horizon ARFs are from Seagull rather than Hangar 9. My guess is that Vietnamese manufacturers get preferential access to balsa supplies, and they're the only ones able to ship new product.

If Sig can't get the wood they need to make their product, they'll need to get creative to stay in the game.

We have a botanical garden dome in Des Moines.. I keep trying to figure a way to get them to plant some balsa trees! Of course they will outgrow the place every couple years..So I would need to harvest them OUT OF THE GOODNESS OFF MY HEART ! hahah

The balsa shortage is no joke, they use tons of it in the wind turbine blades..I see those gigantic blades CONSTANTLY going down the road on trailers. There must be about 500 kits worth of wood in each one.

Remember Tower is now 'owned' by its employees

I'm sure the economy over the last 18 months had something to do with a thinner product line too. Inventory is money not in their account and cash is king for business.

Well I used to really like Tower for the variety of vendors, and large selection of products. With Sig gone, Golberg/Lanier being bought out and 99% of those products being discontinued, along with GP thinning down their product line etc. the 2011 Tower catalog is probably going to be the thinest one in many years!

I didn't know about the balsa shortage, that could explain a lot, but then again I think the current state of the economy is pretty note worthy as well.

Just thinking about it the Local WM changed their layout recently and droped a lot of the things they used to carry.

Oh well I drove 2 hrs to my LHS and bought a PZ T-28 trojan to fly here in the park next my house!

I think there are so many directions that this thread could go , as far as how it started , it seems to be about vendors carried by Tower and the variuos assumptions that followed .
I will still place Tower , Horison , Hobby LObby and Hobby People as the gold standard for how mail order houses should operate .
As far as quick servace , email confirmation and typically best prices , Tower is probably #1 .

My only comment as stated is that as a warbird advid hobbiest , I find there offerings boreing .
I wish they were offering some of the new e -warbirds comeing from the unreliable companys like Banana and Nitro ect . Some really nice planes from bad suppliers .
Love the new stuff from Hobby Lobby , and Hoby People and there Black Horse line .

It seems like in the last 7 years , horison kick Towers butt on warbirds intro in fuel , in eletric and helis , then you look at Hobby Lobby for jets and small warbirds , again the clear winner , and recently Hobby People with there new ARF intros from Black horse , these guys are the thread catchers on RCU and RC groups .
Now some new players like VQ/ESM and Troy Built are capturing excietement in the warbird forum

So even with the economy , seems people are selling when you have the right stuff to sell

towerhobbies aint going no where..