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Whitchurch models closing on 29th may.


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Found out that another model shop, Whitchurch Models is closing. Martin mentioned he wants to close and move on.

 

Shame, I've only started using him the last 3 or so years, but the shop is very well laid out and organized. 

Another shop gone...

 

This hobby is dead...

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15 minutes ago, Paul Marsh said:

Another shop gone...

 

This hobby is dead...

Best give up and move on as well then.....or start using more UK  online stores.

Things have changed, you said your man "wanted" to close and move on, that's different from 'having' to close. I wish him the best of luck but it doesn't mean the hobby is dead.... it's just changing.

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The hobby as it was in 1987 is dead, but it has simply moved on. Better or worse I leave to you to decide, but there is a brutal truth here. 

No model shops would close if people used them in preference to online. In the last 3 years that you used the shop, realistically, how much did you spend? 

Do you need that part sent to your door within 12 hours of ordering or would you rather go to your model shop, find it or ask them to order it, wait for them to get around to it, call you, and you pay a bit on the top for profit? I'm not saying either is better, but people vote with their wallets. There are some cracking UK based online shops, suppliers and manufacturers around, you can still support the UK industry if that is important to you. 

 

Edited by Matt Carlton
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Matt, I think you are missing the point.  The whole world is changing and moving to conducting business on-line.  Debenhams has just closed all its shops.  The on line retailer who bought it didn't buy its shops.  The pandemic has accelerated this process.  The Model Trade is in exactly the same position.  If you don't have an on-line presence then you are supping in the last chance saloon.  There are a number of shops that have both a physical and on-line presence e.g Steve Webb, SMC, Inwoods etc.  If you have a model shop that is close to you and it stocks all you need then you are very fortunate.  Even back in the early 60s, it was a 5 mile bike ride for me to get to my nearest model shop and that was in Croydon.  I also had shops that I could reach but which were further away in London.  The idea that everyone had a local model shop is just not true.  There has never been the business from aeromodelling to expect that.

What we do have now is much cheaper and far more reliable radio gear that you can buy either on-line or from your nearest model shop if you want to see and try before you buy.  What has changed completely is the ARTF as a result of cheap labour in China (well, it used to be cheap but is increasingly expensive) and the foamie.  That has changed the hobby.  However, if you are going on to fly in competition, yes, there are fewer people than in the 60s and 70s, for which there are a variety of reasons, but there are no classes that are not supported in the UK.  In my own area, F3A aerobatics, we continue to attract newcomers despite all the doom mongers.  Electric power is now both reliable and gives decent duration but we're looking to the advances in the automotive industry for the new technology battery to come along and provide the big jump that LiPos gave over NiMH cells.  Unless you are going to build your own model from balsa, there are no manufacturers in the UK, or the US for that matter, that will provide the F3A ARTF kits.  Any that do pop up don't last long simply because the market size is too small.

The BMFA continues to have around 30,000 members, down by around 6,000 from around 5 years ago but seemingly steady after the Drone furore.

This is the second poster in as many days who thinks the hobby is dead.  It most certainly isn't and I can only imagine this view is formed by people who are either not members of clubs or else whose clubs are close to folding for various reasons.

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That's a shame. It was a nice shop - I used to pop in there on the way down to Wales. Best of luck to Martin in his future plans, whatever those are.

 

Model shops were closing long before the pandemic and rationalisation of the high street outlets has been going on for many years -only the very best bricks and mortar shops will survive and they will only survive if they also have a well run online sales presence.

 

None of that indicates that the hobby is dying -the hobby is in a very healthy state. We've certainly seen more new members in the past few years at least at one of my clubs -either folks coming back to the hobby in retirement, or brand new, freshly minted members. That is without a model shop within a hundred miles - we are served almost entirely by mail order and online sales.

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Peter - You made the same point that I made, so I'm not sure what I was missing. I completely agree that the hobby is not dead, my point was that to those who expect it to be the same as it used to be, it might look that way. 

 

Where I think we miss physical shops the most is inspiration. As wonderful as the Internet is, you have to know what you are looking for to be exposed to it. I became inspired by Aeromodelling by pressing my grubby little nose against the window of every hobby shop I walked past as a child. 

 

 

 

 

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My nearest model shop is 45 mins away, a better one is about 90 mins so I rarely visit but do regularly buy from model shops as opposed to online only traders (HK etc)

Matt above says he misses inspiration but I call it temptation as in any form of shopping. When I was starting out in RC my local shop would put things aside for you and you paid what you could till it was yours, no finance as such just trust. As well as help, news, a cuppa and just - well - the enjoyment of browsing.

 

Oh and the smell of a model shop, totally unique! especially ones that ran up diesels out the back.

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2 hours ago, Matt Carlton said:

I became inspired by Aeromodelling by pressing my grubby little nose against the window of every hobby shop I walked past as a child. 

 

 

 

 

Is that what's known as "window snotting" ??

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Buying stuff on-line is all very well if you know exactly what you want/need but it's all too easy to make purchase mistakes if you don't.  I'm sure we'll miss being unable to examine the goods before we buy once all the physical shops are gone.  That doesn't just apply to modelling goods.  Just a few years ago there was a useful computer component retailer in a very small industrial estate just a few miles away from us. It's now gone and I miss it.

 

Of course there's nothing new about this.  Back in the 1960s my father noticed that he was doing just as many HiFi demonstrations of the high end stuff he sold in the shop (mostly Quad) but getting fewer sales.  People were seeing the goods demonstrated in our living room behind the shop and taking a lot of his time and then buying by mail order.  Dad knew it was happening because they were cheeky enough to turn up at the shop to ask for connecting leads etc to be made up.  That option is rapidly disappearing.

 

Perhaps once people find out what they're missing shops will reappear?

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hello Geoff, I'm afraid buying on-line is the only option we now have in my part of the north east...we went from 4 shops to none over a couple of years.....myself and flying friends did use them....i would love to buy stuff local as we did and see it before i paid for it...... but its now impossible......shows was another option but they are few and by the time you travel to one and pay your dosh to get in plus fuel,you may as well order on-line......ok for us established modellers...but a bit of a negative for some one starting out..

 

ken anderson...ne..1..we want a shop dept.

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2 hours ago, ken anderson. said:

hello Geoff, I'm afraid buying on-line is the only option we now have in my part of the north east...we went from 4 shops to none over a couple of years.....myself and flying friends did use them....i would love to buy stuff local as we did and see it before i paid for it...... but its now impossible......shows was another option but they are few and by the time you travel to one and pay your dosh to get in plus fuel,you may as well order on-line......ok for us established modellers...but a bit of a negative for some one starting out..

 

ken anderson...ne..1..we want a shop dept.

 

Exactly so, Ken.  There were several shops I used to use locally and they've all gone.  A couple were a bike ride away (10 miles or so) and it made a nice ride if all I wanted was stuff small enough to go in my saddle bag, which was often.   I think the nearest supplier to me is The Vintage Model Co in Flag, a small village near Buxton and 25 miles away.  I've never actually visited but it's an enjoyable ride away through attractive lanes and I'll try to visit once COVID-19 restrictions disappear - age dependent ?

 

So, like you, it's the internet.  It's annoying really because there are times when you want to see what you're buying - like the colour of covering film or perhaps some balsa to complete a job

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Maybe it's my relatively young age, but I just don't see the problem - the internet is awash with reviews of hardware, dimensions, specs, performance, longevity, even this forum can be considered a model shop replacement in its own right - possibly even a considerably more impartial one, not having any products/stock to sell.

The likes of hobbyking etc won't have much of a market if they don't educate people, but even that's achieved via YouTube, club members, fora, technical websites.

Would be interesting to know what business Ripmax and J Perkins might have in the future with their website instruction of "buy from a model shop in our network" - eventually they might all be online, but that doesn't mean there won't be technical bodies employed by those shops to talk to people on the phone.

Plenty of the model shops I've used are simply dreadful online - the place I bought my trainer from a year ago had a barely active Facebook page and no online presence. They were struggling anyway but closed over Christmas. Perfectly knowledgeable and nice people who simply weren't competing with the convenience and reduced costs of online sales. There's not really any excuse for it anymore with the wide availability of e-commerce platforms - I think it might simply be a case of being anti-change.

Edited by Mitchell Howard
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Done to death already, but retail has changed, shops can either go with the changes, or die.

 

If we all still used those local shops enough to make them viable they would still be there, but we don't.

Edited by Nigel R
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Running a model shop as both a walk-in and mail order establishment needs multiple staff, as you can't take your eyes off the customers for fear of pilfering, you need to man the till, and you can't concentrate on doing the mail order properly whilst doing either of those.  That means you need two to three staff on duty, which means you need sufficient turnover to support those salaries.  If someone is going to be updating the website, that may take another person.

It wouldn't surprise me if some shops that also do mail order actually worked better during lockdown, if they were able to focus on handling orders, plus if able, to cater for pre-paid collections at the door.

What we need are a return to the Sandown Park type shows, that offered an indoor selling area plus a flying display.  From speaking to one of the larger exhibitors that does walk-in and mail order, they made a significant part of their year's income there.   Customers went in 'buy' mode, as they knew they would be saving on postage, they would see sellers from parts of the country they wouldn't drive to, and in many cases prices were discounted too.  It was very hard work for the sellers, what with loading and unloading vans, setting up the stalls, plus, in some cases having customers three deep, all around the stall.

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