Stock, what stock??

[Grumpy]

If the hobby is in such a lull then perhaps many of these shops are in survival mode?

Not having stuff to sell would seem like a strange survival stratergy for any retailer. Unless it's so bad that they dont have the cashflow to actually purchase stock?

[DaveG]

I echoed this on my Facebook post last week on which a lot of you commented. The whole R/C Heli market has taken a fairly substantial downturn of late. For how long who knows.

FWIW Raj at Align-trex as been my go-to guy for everything for the last 4 years but the 'out of stock' caption is now al lot more prevalent than it was previously.

Keith Wallinger at 360 technologies I do know is in the process of opening up an internet shop for all ALIGN parts, so lets see what that does for us but im going to struggle ethically to pull my allegiance away from align-trex as Raj and crew has been very supportive over the years.

Rich

This is either a show of how bad it is if Keith is going into the retail side of things with the added profit of selling to us rather than low margin or selling to the shops, or another nail in the coffin for the shops as it will put their noses out of joint if he is selling Align stuff aswell as distributing it and no doubt giving his own shop the priority over all other shops. Not good in my opinion.

[DaveG]

If the hobby is in such a lull then perhaps many of these shops are in survival mode? Whilst an inconvienence and frustration for us its a livelihood for the shop owners...

I have no idea what the supply and demand is for this hobby at the moment but the fact its repeated across practicularly all the retailers suggest something really isnt right.

Most sensible reply yet! I agree with you 100% Matt.

[GIR8]

I know what people mean about stock levels. I'm looking at buying Lipo's a motor and mainblades from Europe and even then its going to be from 2 shops.

[DaveG]

None of the shops are doing much from what i can see, skyline has gone quiet along with climbout which was part of it (correct me if i'm wrong) so along with that goes scorpion distribution which is why no motors or tribunus esc's available.

I was searching around for opti lipo's a month or so ago and was told by some that even opti did'nt have stock.

[GIR8]

Just had a thought this could also be something to do with brexit. My fiancee bought an ornament the other day and were told it went up by £5 just a week earlier.

[waveydavey]

Exchange rate and downturn in the hobby, plain and simple. Brexit, in a way responsible for the exchange rate so I suppose yes. But if a shop/retailer wants to stay in business then they need to have turnover, enough to pay for the business to be run, that doesn't necessarily mean any money for wages (if it's your business) and along with that any profit. Cashflow is obviously low, low turnover counts for that so the shops are in a bit of a shit place really. I hope they make it out the other side but I'm not sure they all will.

Someone mentioned selling FPV/quad bits, most of them are but they can't keep pace with the smaller shop in a bedroom boys which seem to have taken over the racer/drone/fpv side. Take a look at what FL have in stock quad wise and you'll see what I mean, same with Midlands.

[bigpops]

Brexit would really only affect prices due to currency fluctuation. It's almost a year now that the pound has been in the toilet. It hasn't changed so much in that time. It tanked, then it tanked some more, then recovered to a level in between around April. Obviously, the shops don't want to place a big order in Euros / US dollars, and then the pound get stronger by a significant amount, but after almost a year, it should be obvious things won't change overnight.

As for the distributor also being a retailer, that already happens, both here and abroad. Fast Lad Performance / FLP distribution do a bunch of brands. Mikado USA sell to both customers and retailers like Amain. I'm sure there are others.

EDIT:

The heli shops selling FPV stuff. They will struggle to compete due to years of growth and the increased overheads that brings. There are people in my club that used to phone Jamie (from Fast Lads) ask if he'd got say a Futaba 401 in stock, then meet him a few hours later in a lay by to buy it from the back of his van/car. Fast Lad have changed premises twice since 2009 when I started and have I don't know how many staff.

The FPV sellers don't have it easy either. Their problem is keeping up with the relentless "hype train" (it's literally called that by the pilots). They have to get new products ASAP, then sell them quickly before whatever it is becomes obsolete. Just last week I had an email from one of them to say they were shutting up shop for because they couldn't keep up.

[mahbouni]

Brexit, in a way responsible for the exchange rate so I suppose yes.

Not so much Brexit itself but what the Bank of England did afterwards. Quantitative Easing, i.e. printing £billions and lending it out as government bonds at 0.25% interest. Most of it went into FTSE 100 stocks to prop up the pension funds. It was decided that a collapse in the £ was preferable to a collapse in the pension funds.

[cjm180]

well, went back to Raj at align-trex.co.uk. Again he has the bits in and got them to me asap. Great service so far from them.

[Angelos]

Keith Wallinger at 360 technologies I do know is in the process of opening up an internet shop for all ALIGN parts

Under the current retail climate can't blame Keith for doing it; he is securing his livelihood. If people can't find the spares they need they may buy a different heli brand in the future. Even if he sells nothing via his own online store the mere fact that the store exists and shows that spares are in stock is reassuring for the customers.

It also shows that it's not your fault when model shops are out of stock. This is the exact reason we opened the Spartan Online Store back in the day we distributed Outrage helis. We had frustrated customers calling to find out when we will get stock of a certain part they've been waiting for for weeks which we had sitting on the shelve all that time.

This is either a show of how bad it is if Keith is going into the retail side of things with the added profit of selling to us rather than low margin or selling to the shops, or another nail in the coffin for the shops as it will put their noses out of joint if he is selling Align stuff aswell as distributing it and no doubt giving his own shop the priority over all other shops. Not good in my opinion.

The extra profit is always welcome but don't assume that distributors will betray their relationship with model shops to get it. We put the stock up on our online store and everyone is welcome to get what they need. Model shops also tend to get first dibs as we usually send a courtesy email letting them know "xxxx item has been out of stock for a few weeks. We have restocked today and it is now available to purchase".

-A

[thumb_rocker]

It's a shame that this is happening but this industry has its ups & downs! I once tried but bailed out years ago, but intending to a business again in the future so hence why I take a interest in this to learn from.

What interests me is the Debt to Capital some of our shops have which in business terms is a sign of a Heath state of a business. The higher the percentage the more the business suffers in the long run & espically in the down turn which can cause businesses to close up or take cost cutting measures including levels of holding stock which we all say is the essence of our needs. For example:

Horizon Hobby UK had 129% Debt to Capital which is maybe the reason behind the decision it took as it would be pretty hard to recover from that in a short time.
Fastlads 89.7%
Align-Trex 79.6%
Midlands Helicopters 75.3%
Ripmax 52.2%

Businesses can still run with those percentages (well if it's under 100% normally ) but it's gonna be hard for them for a while until the market trend picks up.

[Grumpy]

If you are after Align parts it's worth bearing in mind that Midlands Helis is literally 200yds away from the Align importer (360 RC technologies) in Hinckley. I needed a part a couple of weeks ago which none of the UK dealers had in stock so Midlands picked it up from 360 and shipped it 'same day'

[mahbouni]

Fastlads 89.7%
Align-Trex 79.6%
Midlands Helicopters 75.3%
Ripmax 52.2%

Where are you getting these numbers from?

[Guest]

This information is freely available from companies house, as they are limited companies. However it's worth remembering that these figures are at least a year out of date, as companies only file figures at the end of the financial year, although they don't have to file figures for up to 9 months after year end, so they can be nearly two years out of date. Unless you have a mole in all the model shops the I formation is worthless.