Puffing Billy, yup I heard of them, you. neat.
Yep, its official. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)
text;
Caboose Hobbies to closeDuane Miller, owner of The World’s Largest Model Train Store, decides to retire
Published: Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Caboose Hobbies, the well-known model train hobby store in Denver, Colo., will close its doors on September 25, 2016. The store’s owners, Duane and Joanna Miller have decided to retire. Duane’s father bought Hobby House in 1951 and converted it from a mostly model plane store to an all model train store in 1963. At that time Duane’s father renamed the store Caboose Hobbies. Duane worked in the store during high school, and then started working there full-time in 1969 after serving in the Air Force.
Duane and Joanna moved the store to its present location at 500 South Broadway in 1981. In 2014, the Guiness Book of World Records certified Caboose Hobbies as “The World’s Largest Model Train Store.”
According to the owners all pre-order reservations will stand and be transferred and fulfilled by another hobby company. Details are still pending. They also ask that those with gift cards use up the balances as soon as possible. Those with consignments should call to arrange shipment or prior to picking them up.
For further updates and more information, see the Caboose Hobbies website at www.caboosehobbies.com.
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Whilst I agree that it is highly likely that little or no income is an important factor, I would dare to suggest that it is the rise of internet shopping that has killed many shops that used to cater for hobbies. Not just trains.
That unrelenting drive to get “stuff” cheaper and cheaper leaves no room for margins to cover the recurring costs of a regular hobby shop.
The next thing to go will be wholesalers that supply the LHS and consumers will be dealing with the manufacturers themselves.
I agree with Tony.
I’ve seen people go to stores, check out the product, ask a lot of questions, take it out of box, etc.
Then they go home, and spend hours on the Internet finding it at a discount, and even $5 in cost can make the difference.
The poor brick and mortar is the free support system, but does not get the sale.
I’ve seen this in a number of hobbies, Ham Radio is another similar situation.
Greg
Tony Walsham said:
Whilst I agree that it is highly likely that little or no income is an important factor, I would dare to suggest that it is the rise of internet shopping that has killed many shops that used to cater for hobbies. Not just trains.
That unrelenting drive to get “stuff” cheaper and cheaper leaves no room for margins to cover the recurring costs of a regular hobby shop.
The next thing to go will be wholesalers that supply the LHS and consumers will be dealing with the manufacturers themselves.
Oh, like we did with Aristo? I mean. Um…oh. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)
Yes a distributor that also went retail cutting out their dealers.
Of course when Bachmann goes direct, that will be the manufacturer direct to the customer, you can be sure Kader won’t charge itself passing merchandise through Bachmann.
Greg
You can already buy stuff from Bachmann…at full MSRP, no discount… not until they need to clear the warehouse.
Yes, they are not torpedoing their dealers. Another failed attempt at having your cake and eat it too is when MTH does a factory sale on locos that many dealers complained about, where the selling price on the MTH web site was lower than the dealers could purchase the product for.
Greg
Many years ago, when Marc Horovitz ran GR on his own, there was no such thing as advertised discounting. By anyone. It was MSRP or no price at all.
Trainworld ads listed the items on sale but had no prices listed. You had to call or visit. That policy supported the small LHS which is probably where Marc sold, most of his magazines.
Then Klambake took GR over and it was open slather on advertising. I would be willing to bet that was when LS hobby shops started their decline. The decline was slow at first, but is now happening at an ever growing rate.
Same thing happening here in the UK… people shop via the internet…wanting cheaper and cheaper “buys” and some people boast on some forums of their “bargain” and then moan when the local hobby shop closes.
You can’t have it both ways.
Tony Walsham said:
Many years ago, when Marc Horovitz ran GR on his own, there was no such thing as advertised discounting. By anyone. It was MSRP or no price at all.
Trainworld ads listed the items on sale but had no prices listed. You had to call or visit. That policy supported the small LHS which is probably where Marc sold, most of his magazines.
Then Klambake took GR over and it was open slather on advertising. I would be willing to bet that was when LS hobby shops started their decline. The decline was slow at first, but is now happening at an ever growing rate.
Not really, I have issues of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman from the early 1970s and it’s chuck full of discount ads, Trainworld being prominent. While Marks policy may have helped the very few large scale shops, it did nothing to help the vast majority of shops in the smaller scales. But they got on fine, I suspect that was because buying via mail order in the 70s was far from the seamless easiness of today. For the benefit of our younger pre-computer generation,
You had two options, you could call, tell them what you wanted and if you were houytie touytie you paid with your Bank Americans or send them a payment, or you could cut out the order slip from the magazine, no home copying machines, maybe you could get Nadine from the Clerical Pool to make a copy at work on the office Xerox and hope she didn’t give you the stink eye (toy trains?) , Then call or mail order you had to mail the list or slip with a cashier’s check or money order from your bank, local bank checks were often not accepted in other states or took several days to clear, and then wait maybe four to six weeks for your package to arrive. If they got the order wrong or it was damaged things could get interesting.
Either way it was very cumbersome for most people, so quite the opposite of today it was far more convenient to just go to the local hobby shop, where if they didn’t have it and had to order it, you simply left a check or money deposit and let them deal with all the details. I suspect it was the advent of PayPal that made the purchase process almost seamless that triggered the fall of the LHS
PS I despise auto-correct
I understand, painfully at times, what is being said here, but many of us in small business have found ways to hold our own against the internet. Not easy, but it’s possible.
What put Caboose and a lot of other small businesses out of commission is skyrocketing leases (and in the case of Caboose simple retirement age).
If you want to be successful in small business, owning your building long-term in a good real estate market is a start…otherwise, it’s “just a matter or time” before you move (if you can) or you’re gone.
Vic, if only. I tried ordering an HOn3 shay from my local hobby shop, Hobby City. They refused to order it for me because “Its something we will not be able to sell.”
“Ah, yes you will, I am buying it. I will even pay for it up front if you want me to.”
“No. I am not going to order something we will not be able to sell.”
Needless to say, Hobby City went the way of so many other LHS.
NOTE Hobby City was a local hobby shop not affiliated in any way with Hobbytown.
If I heard correctly, the TV news clip noted that Caboose had 50 employees? That in and of itself is sad that a long time employer is going away so there are 40-some odd employees who are out of a job. I must add that, having managed a brick and mortar business that was not too different from a train/model/hobby shop, it requires a lot more than a 10% profit margin to cover the costs of the average urban storefront retail business. When I read comments that one has witnessed customers paying twice what something was worth reflects only the commenter’s opinion of worth at that time. The customer likely paid what they felt it was worth which probably included the convenience of seeing and touching the product and discussing the product with the store owner, manager or employee. Putting my money where my mouth is, I purchased at least 80% of my large scale collection from three LHS’s over the past 15 years. Of those, one closed because the owner retired to follow a different passion, and the other two are still in business.
One final thought - the LHS problems have also been exacerbated by the efficiency of the package delivery companies (UPS, FedEX, even the USPS) that has significantly improved over the last 15 years to speed the delivery of products purchased online.
John Passaro said:
I understand, painfully at times, what is being said here, but many of us in small business have found ways to hold our own against the internet. Not easy, but it’s possible.
What put Caboose and a lot of other small businesses out of commission is skyrocketing leases (and in the case of Caboose simple retirement age).
If you want to be successful in small business, owning your building long-term in a good real estate market is a start…otherwise, it’s “just a matter or time” before you move (if you can) or you’re gone.
I can think of a couple LHS that own their own building. It does seem to act as a buffer to such threats. But these shops are also in older places , not scary but not prime real estate.
As a small business owner ( Portrait Studio ) Having a paid for building in central downtown has made a huge difference in my profitability and the ability to customize what I “Have to do, and What I want to do” My LHS ( Hobby Town, was across the street ) when belly up 10+ years ago. Rent cost was a huge factor.
Now City and County property taxes are on the rise, as local governments budgets are squeezed, My commercial building taxes have seen a 25% increase in taxes in 8 years. Every body knows that if you own a business you can afford the rate increases, just because you have a business. Small business owners are really feeling the pinch, system wide, not just the LHS’s but all mom & pop, brick and mortar stores.
Every body knows that if you own a business you can afford the rate increases, just because you have a business.
Yea, right up until you can no longer afford it. Then all of a sudden there is a lot of empty downtown, and the powers that be, sit and scratch their heads wondering why.
Around here we had a property reassessment a few years back. Some of the reassessments were “off”, so now a whole floor of the County Office building has been converted into hearing rooms, to hear all of the appeals.
And, this is just one more reason (headache) that I don’t want to own my own business. I will be a worker bee the rest of my working life. Thanks anyway.
David Maynard said:
…And, this is just one more reason (headache) that I don’t want to own my own business. I will be a worker bee the rest of my working life. Thanks anyway.
Maynard, I know you get it, but what most people don’t understand is that in addition to being a big-shot Owner (which means you get to pay the landlord, the utilities, the insurance, the telephone and internet companies, etc etc), you get the supreme privilege of being your own Worker Bee. Because after the economy collapsed on the first weekend of September of 2008, we big-shots are doing most of the work we were hiring other people to do. I am down to one guy (a former gallery owner doomed by said collapse) who comes in every other Saturday.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s the facts, ma’am. I am not complaining, I’m really really not complaining. I have a great set-up where I get to do what I love doing and get paid for it (and, no, god damn it, it isn’t model railroading!) so I’ll keep plugging along in my location until that fateful call from the landlord. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Speaking of the bell tolling, I went down to Caboose Hobbies today and bought two 90-degree track crossing, a right-hand switch, a left-hand switch, and a crossover that’s just beautiful, and a bunch of sheets of architectural features. (This owner/worker bee isn’t broke…yet.)
I half-expected to see Kevin there on his hands and knees digging through more g-scale stuff in the back rooms, but, nope, he was nowhere in sight!
Dave Taylor said:
…
Now City and County property taxes are on the rise, as local governments budgets are squeezed, My commercial building taxes have seen a 25% increase in taxes in 8 years. Every body knows that if you own a business you can afford the rate increases, just because you have a business. Small business owners are really feeling the pinch, system wide, not just the LHS’s but all mom & pop, brick and mortar stores.
It’s painful to watch or be a part of. Short-term city and county money needs, short-term money/tax solution, all around shortsightedness, and what do you get? Recession and depression little by little, and more down the road. (You notice the taxes are never rolled back once the needs are met…there’s always more uses for that, and more, money.) And people adapt and get used to it because they don’t know what else to do.