Model Railroading > Kalmbach mini-rant

As of today, I can get a copy of Great Model Railroads 2015 by direct mail and through a local general newsstand. But neither model train specialty shop within 20 miles of my house has GMR '15 on the sales rack. They pay their bills. Where are the magazines.

Do the hobby shops choose to not have a standing order for these titles? They are relatively expensive and perhaps Kalmbach
does not offer a return option for unsold copies. (That's GMRR and Layout Planning.) I didn't know you could find any of Kalmbach's
magazines at newsstands. The last time I bought MR at a hobby shop, they were 35c cover price. A whole year's subscription was
less than we pay for a single issue now.

Frank30

Without getting into another man's business too far, I suspect that the hobby shops get their publications through a different distribution channel than the mass merchandisers. So it may be normal for the hobby shop's delivery to trail the big guys by three to five days, and in the case of specialty publications, they are probably ordered rather than bundled in the case of the mass distribution outlets.

Just a guess...

Both of the train shops have standing orders with Kalmbach. These are well-established storefronts. The annual has been available for about two weeks and the lag time in delivery is no help to businesses that rely on magazines to pull customers into the store.

Maybe they knew in advance that GMR 2015 would leave a lot to be desired this year.

Good point. I still refer to my back issues from time to time...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

I work in a brick and mortar store and we regularly get our MR's about a week after the folks at home get theirs. This all stemmed from the subscribers getting real vocal because they were getting about 2 weeks behind the dealers. It seems to swing back and forth between getting them before the subscribers to getting them afterwards with no way to predict what is going to happen. The other problem is that they come via a UPS like company,let me repeat NOT UPS or FEDEX that seems to have a hard time getting to our store with anything like normal service! We stay open till 8:00pm and some times they would show up sometime between 7:30 and 8:00pm, finally my boss refused a shipment when it got there at 8:05, he told the driver that we expected our delivery's between 10:00am and 2:00pm when we had people on hand to take care of the incoming orders. So it may not be your HS fault because they also know that it is magazines and that only gets third rate service.

Andre

I was in a Train shop on Wednesday and they GMRR on the rack.

RichM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Without getting into another man's business too
> far, I suspect that the hobby shops get their
> publications through a different distribution
> channel than the mass merchandisers. So it may be
> normal for the hobby shop's delivery to trail the
> big guys by three to five days, and in the case of
> specialty publications, they are probably ordered
> rather than bundled in the case of the mass
> distribution outlets.
>
> Just a guess...

Typically, it's the other way around. Newstand copies are often later, soemtimes much later. Just from my observations.

Rob

I'm sure it's something out of Kalmbach's control.