05-19-2017, 02:22 PM
Brakie Wrote:MM, A lot of those on line shops and e-Bay stores are B&M hobby shops that decided whining about the Internet stealing their business wasn't the best answer if they wished to survive in the age of on line shopping..
The savvy B&M shop owner will have a on line presences or a e-Bay store in order to tap a larger customer base. Those new shops that doesn't is doom to fail.
This is true. The Caboose ships worldwide, but the smaller outfits often cannot compete, and the Caboose only stocks what really sells. It makes no effort to find out what customers would like to buy - just sells what moves most . I had an interesting conversation with the N-scale zombie one time after he told me that no one bought any of the item I sought so they didn't stock it. I asked him if they had ever stocked it, and he said "No", and then stalled out and short-circuited when I asked him if he understood that not having it meant no one could buy it to begin with, and if they stocked it, they obviously had at least one customer - who knows how many others as well - who wanted it?
I'm not a big fan because admitting I'm N-scale in The Caboose is like entering a Hollywood restaurant dressed like a street person to get a glass of water. A lot of down-the-nose looks and disdain, and the guy in charge of the N-scale section is some sort of ambulatory sleep walker without a shred of enthusiasm for the hobby at all.
I suppose I'll become another internet parasite trying to find what I really want without being able to assess it beforehand, but I can't say that I will like it. The round trip to Denver/The Caboose is on the only available route - the I-25 and in average traffic that 200 miles plus getting to the shop after reaching town, parking, shopping and fighting my back becomes an all day trip, about 6 hours minimum plus the joys of nerve wracking kamikaze traffic all the way back and forth. By the time I get there, I'm too tired and wrung out to enjoy myself.
Meanwhile, back to my OP, I'm saddened and alarmed at the loss of both of the MR stores simultaneously with no hope apparently of replacing either one. A catastrophic loss to all of us in a very large area of Colorado and adjacent regions.