Model Railroading > Tim's Trains and Hobbies in Covington (Latonia) KY Closing Down

Tim's Trains and Hobbies, the best hobby shop in the Cincinnati area, which not unlike our airport is on the Kentucky side is closing down at the end of the month. Tim took over the model railway and plastic model stock from Johnny's Toys ten years ago and really made a thriving hobby shop out of it. Now Tim simply wants to retire. The business is for sale though if someone is interested.

Tim;s Trains and Hobbies Site

I will miss this as it was a throwback hobby shop of days gone by where people hung out and talked about trains or life in general. We will be left with a HobbyTown and a few not so great hobby shops in this area. Happy retirement Tim!

Picture is from January 05 2019

Jim

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Retirement seems to be the #1 reason for the brick and mortar shops closing down.  Online is the only option for many of us now, but it works.

Best wishes in retirement...

There are a lot of factors leading to the closing of such shops...  Real estate competition, lower overhead (online) competition, reduced margin (lower manufacturer discounts) and shrinking market all among them.

The local hobby shop once seen as a good tenant by the store owner (who was satisfied they paid a reasonable rent and brought people with disposable income by the other neighboring rented storefronts), and led by the shop operator who could pay that rent with the 40-70% margin he was making on items sold (and easy to get restocks of the best selling items), was a hobby staple for many decades...   

Now you have the store owner expecting top tier rents like those gained from coffee shops (selling $4 cups of coffee) and cell phone stores (raking in cash on $500+ annual service plans) to those addicted to caffeine and phones (many wondering how they got so far in debt) which doesn't mesh well in a changed world where model train shops have to work on reduced margins and can't get restocks on best selling items.   And for those who actually owned their shops, in many cases there are now better paying opportunities (born of, and made more attractive by the supply and margin issues) in selling it (or renting to some other use) than continuing to operate the hobby shop.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/19 07:43 by CSX602.