Another one bites the dust

[C.Ellis]

The war between internet shopping and retail outlets has claimed another victim. My local hobby shop, one of two ( the nearest and best) within a 200km radius of me is closing down! This has made me rather upset, as it has been around for 65 years and my family (starting with my great grandfather) have been loyal customers throughout this time. The staff were helpful and friendly, they had a great range of paints, glue, plastic, brass and tools and although their stock of models was fairly meagre they were always happy to order something in if it wasn't in stock. I'll miss having helpful humans to interact with. Apparently the Internet is the way of the future...

[43rdRecceReg]

High street shops, family businesses are indeed becoming extinct, sadly. They're being replaced, at an alarming rate, by the global elite with gargantuan online-linked warehouses. Not so long ago, Amazon, for example, was only selling books. Now, you can even buy Tamiya tanks from them. The days of the Ronnie Barker-like shopkeeper were already numbered in this country, but Multinationals, who often owe no particular affiliation to a country or community or communities (including the modelling community) run the global marketplace. When CEOs can afford their own spaceships, you can almost see the multinationals actually running the world, and not elected governments.
All of that said, I'm probably as guilty as anyone else for consigning corner shops, and small mini-marts, to history by using Amazon and other online e-retailers.
But, my excuse is that I live 76 miles from the nearest town. What's more, I buy all my other provisions from the village shop.

[rochesb]

It's a vicious circle; as stores close, you have less choice so you are obliged to go further afield or shop online, which leads to more local shops closing & on it goes. All there will be left soon will be charity shops, coffee shops & cheap shoe shops.....

Even living near big cities in the UK, there is limited choice when buying 'white goods' & other electrical items. There are fewer stores & they don't carry the range of goods in stock( or even on display) any more. I miss the good old fashioned hardware stores too, where you could buy almost anything, including 'four candles'. The remaining DIY 'sheds' are a poor substitute.

[wibblywobbly]

Interestingly I moved from a large city, to small town in Wales. It has shops, not a huge number, but they all seem to be doing ok (no model shops in this neck of the woods though). The one thing that this town has done is create car parks, lots of them, and a small multi storey one, there are almost more car parks than there are cars? lol. Nothing special you might say, but the difference is that 'all' parking is free, and there are no time limits. Anyone can just drive to the shops, park (often outside of the shop) and go and buy what they want. The hospital car parks are all free as well, and they are huge, enough for several thousand cars.

It is no wonder that the retail trade suffers, part of the equation when building big shopping malls is the profit they will make from car parking fees. My town has plenty of small privately owned shops, rather than big name stores, and they provide an excellent service.

Perhaps town councils all over the UK might learn something from this approach...or would they rather take the cash whilst slowly erasing what creates it?

Another side of the coin is taxing things like alcohol, tobacco, and fuel. Every time they do that it leaves the shopper with less money to spend. They will carry on buying those three items, or at least one of them, and not buy other things, with the end result that shops go out of business.

[Son of a gun-ner]

I'm lucky in that I live close to the best hardware shop I've ever seen. Also they are always very busy.

But recently my local RC store has finally closed down, and they said it was because they can't compete with the internet. Sadly they weren't prepared to compete online like some of the last few remaining RC stores do.

[General Jumbo01]

I confess that my first choice is to shop on line. Its so easy and so much cheaper. I still tend to use my local shops for paints and build materials (plastics, brass etc) but they rarely hold stock of the other things l need, they can't afford to hold the range.

The most significant impact of a hobby shop closing though is that the club that they started and supported then slowly goes too. If there were model RC tank shops in every town then just think how many clubs would start up!

You have to blame the internet, Game Boys and porn sites for all this

[RobW]

As we move to the internet it's going to happen. Look at eModels: they have a shop but also a massive online presence. It'd be nice to keep all the local shops, but if we don't/can't use them they'll be lost. If the bus is £4 or parking £5, but postage only £2.40 & lower overheads it's not surprising they can't compete.

[rochesb]

My local town centre shopping mall used to have plenty of free parking spaces, until the 'owners' of the mall got greedy & built a couple of fast food restaurants on what was car parking space; net result is parking has become an issue & although free it is now time limited (4 hours) with threats of fines if you overstay.

An increasing number of retail units are empty within the mall, amid reports that the leases store owners are being asked to pay are making them uneconomic.

The shopping mall no longer has any stores of interest to me, I get dragged along once a week to go food shopping, I also venture inside infrequently for things like Birthday cards but that's about it for me.

[General Jumbo01]

These model shops are where we all used to meet up on a Saturday before meeting again at the club on Sunday!

[STHV]

There is an RC plane shop near me that could be suffering the same fate soon