LHS visit

[eightyeightfan1]

Will,
You can also order Athearn, it just takes a little ingenuity. The last time I was in Las Vegas I visited a train store that had just opened. As we were talking the subject of Horizon came up and he said that he couldn't buy from Horizon. The Horizon rep came by and when he tried to set something up the guy insisted that a train store was not economically viable and if he didn't carry the full range of Horizon products he would not make a go of the business. The upshot was that the Horizon rep was so obnoxious that he kicked him out of the store. He then made a connection with another hobby shop back East somewhere that has a Horizon account. He orders Athearn through that store and that store ships his order on to him when it comes in. He gets the same discount he would have gotten from dealing with Horizon directly, maybe a little better discount because the 2 stores effectively double the size of the order either one would make on there own. The delivery is just delayed by a week or so for the other store to ship to him. I would bet that there is a hobby shop somewhere out of your area who would love to add your Athearn order to theirs in order to pick up a better discount.

The LHS I go to had the sort of the same problem. He was still stocking Athearn(Runs his store out of his basement...until May anyway) even after Horizon bought Athearn.Until someone else opened up an hobby store in the same town. The new one was mostly RC, models and paintball(better-half did buy jigsaw puzzels there). My LHS owner, and the new stores owner had a verbal agreement. He didn't sell trains, my LHS owner wasn't gonna sell RC. Well that was going on for a few years everyone was happy. Then the new one moved into a bigger store and started use Horizon for a distributor. Well, the new owner, staying true to the agreement, told them he wasn't going to sell tarins cause of my LHS owner. Horizon told him "Sell trains, or find someone else". Then Horizon called my LHS owner and told him they wern't going to sell him anymore Athearn becasue of the "New"ownery. My LHS was sellling $5000.00/month(out of his basement mind you)of Athearn. Anyway, up until last year, he didn't have any Athearn, couldn't get any. Then one day the Horizon rep called and said my LHS guy had gotten Athearn back. Turns out, the new guy, even though he had a store front, made lots of RC, Paintball, models ect..ect sales, in the year and half, hadn't made one Athearn sale. Not one!
It was great going to my LHS and seeing Athearn back on the shelves.