Vanishing local shop outlets.

Hello people, This is not a question as such, more an observation of the continuing trend of small outlets to disappear into the ether. This after replying to another thread on this site where a supplier was upset with returns.

My father was the first person to introduce me to hobbies. Every Saturday the whole family would troop off to the city which at the time was Adelaide in South Australia. We would split into two groups my mother taking my sisters with her and my dad had to put up with me.

His main port of call was the model shop where there used to be a forum of sorts with modellers of various branches swapped news, ideas and experiences. This place used to be packed at times with people moving outside to carry on their conversations. True it was very boring for a little boy except that I could look a various models on display and marvel at the complexity of those models.

When we arrived back here in England there was a similar situation and that was people used to go to shops and stores to buy their wants, wishes and necessities.

Move on to the present day and we have a dwindling source of out lets which we can physically visit to buy over the counter as it's called.

I for one am of the type who likes to explore with my eyes and fingers and even to ask questions of an human assistant or other person in a shop who might proffer advice on a product.

So what's my point? I guess I prefer the old way of shopping. I think that if people get upset we customers returning goods which were bought over the internet then open a shop or change your delivery service.

The internet in my view is not the answer to every ones needs and as for returns who is more put-out? I think you will find it's the customer as he/she has parted with cash straight from his/her bank account and now they have to return the goods at their expense. Their expectations have perhaps been dashed more waiting more risk. If the item is heavy or is bulky they will have to pay more. All the time their money is at risk as scams abound as pointed out on other threads have stated.

My advice is if a vendor please provide as much information pertaining to the article which is for sale. Size, footprint, height, power, throat depth, travel, swing, weight, what it's made of, everything including colour and pack it well. Time spent creating an accurate description will allay many fears of customers and ultimately save money lost by both parties faffing about returning goods.

Good packaging and protection can perhaps point the finger of blame in the right direction. Perhaps bad handling during delivery was the cause. This would perhaps enable claims to be directed at the right organisation by the vendor.

I had a delivery recently where the protruding ends of a tool were damaged and I am sure it wasn't down to the sender. However deft use of a leather mallet saved me from all the tedium of sending the article back.

If anyone has further advice then jump in. I don't pretend to have covered every aspect of this subject.

Jesse.

Agree on the see and touch before buying attitude.
With the growing cost of postage perhaps people will start to appreciate local outlets more but those businesses must get themselves a good online presence too that then clearly shows their location and the advantage of collecting in person. That means advertise postage included prices if you like but don't rip off the customer when they turn up at the shop.

A big problem I have with online possible shopping (especially but not exclusively non modelling needs) is the lack of information that is provided. There may be a dozen suppliers but they all show the same photos and manufacturers basic spec. A big opportunity is lost to use the low cost of using the internet to provide lots of details.

I to would like to see a return to real shopping.yes there is a place for the Internet but I dont always know what I want and like to see and think about a tool or material I may need.in fact I have just returned from The Tool Shop in Colyford, after buying a jacobs chuck and then a few maybe handy items.and then into a local shop in yeovil for 4 M4 screws. But I just dont think the small shops will return, overheads are just too high.michael

The days of the local tool merchant are pretty much behind us. I think a good relationship can be made with online suppliers, both from item quality and the service given i.e. speed of delivery and a reasonable returns policy. I think some of the disappointment with online purchases comes from hunting down the cheapest price rather than the best combination of quality and price. I have my preferred online suppliers and am rarely disappointed. For some items I stick to reliable brands but pay a premium for this choice, an illustration of this is I buy Dormer drills which I doubt anyone would be disappointed with the performance of but the price is a bit steep.this maybe be an example where looking and feeling may not be helpful as a drill can look the part but not perform. I feel that some online dealers do their best to supply items that are fit for purpose and not just cheap and offer their backing to what they sell. I suspect that with so much of what we buy being imported with no brand or recognisable name to rely on we are in the hands of the dealer and his good name. Already some of the suppliers are building positive reputations and being confident to put their names on their products. I think some of the old established brands are playing a dangerous game by putting their name on items made abroad which as long as the quality they built their reputations with is still there it's OK but I feel that sometimes it is not.

Mike

Michael, you raise some very valid points however it is my opinion that British industry in general failed along with the old Myford because they were asking too much for their basic tooling and more and more as people added to their kit. I have a limited supply of the folding stuff and so much as I might like a better product it is still way out of my league.

I had better not start writing a book here but once again I remember very well the demise of the British motor cycle industry. I was a staunch supporter back in the day until I was left for dead on my BSA A10 a tuned bike by the way. When I caught up with the bike in question I found it was a Japanese import. Compared to a British bike they were roughly finished but they did the job and that's the key. There's no point turning out Brough Superiors costing an arm and a leg when people were asking for a reliable machine to go to work with a bit of zip for the young.

In my opinion it's the same with Chinese imports yes the equipment is cheap and some what rough but it's affordable. It's this which I believe gives most people on here a chance to support this hobby.

Perhaps if some British manufacturer cares to take up the challenge? But I fear this won't happen in the near future, at least not until the Chinese raise their living standards and wages to similar level as here. Six Billion people can supply cheap labour for many, many years yet.

Jesse.

Jesse. I too had an old A10 and a nice bike but slow. I also remember when the Japanese bikes started to take over and I sold the BSA for a Yamaha. then I got a BMW flat twin. a great bike that BMW. However I am not a lover of the products of the far east. Its mainly rubbish they turn out, looks ok for a time and then just starts to fall apart. I don't think its so much a cost issue here in the UK. Its mainly very poor management, lack of R&D and unfair taxes that is killing industry in the UK. Some years back I helped to build MRI scanners. the company had around 100 small local engineering companies who supplied on demand. to try to make more margin the powers that be ordered from the far east. there was a 3 month lead time. In that 3 months the local mainly one man bands started to close down. when the parts turned up from china, well to say that they were bad and not fit for purpose was an understatement. production closed as the supplied chain had gone. 1000 people lost their jobs. I have know time for far eastern rubbish and never will have. The fact that I am using tooling from the 1960,s shows that it was made to last and I am sure it will out last me. I don't think anyone can say that about imported tools from the far east. michael

Jesse,

Whilst I to like to see and feel items I wish to purchase since the beginning of October I have found myself basically restricted to my bed and my chair in front of my television with my right foot strapped in an Aircast and under strict orders from the Hospital Podiatrist and SWMBO not to move unless I have no choice i.e. the little boys room, admittedly I managed a day pass to Alexandra Palace last Saturday which took weeks of negotiation from SWMBO as to whether I could go or even take her scooter, so I'm reliant on the internet for all my purchases regarding tools, metal and other items I require for future manufacture of gate hinges etc and I'm finding this way of purchasing a god send and a saving of my well earned as well, I buy what I can afford and certainly dont buy cheap. I recently bought three metres of 6mm thick x 30mm wide flat mild steel to make the hinges, in B&Q one metre of 4 x 30 was the same as my three metre, the delivery was a bit steep but allowing for my mates fuel and running around there wasn't much difference and it was delivered to my door.

Sadly it seems the way to go but that's how it is. To keep my brain ticking over I've recently taken up basic electronics and messing about with an Arduino UNO R3 and loving it, this has caused me to purchase items from china, components, pcb mounted devices etc the price of which including delivery could not even be considered here at home.

Martin P

20 years ago I could not do what I do now, the internet has changed everything. We are a 15 mile round trip to any sort of shop, 60 mile round for any sort of tooling or fasteners. We don't all live in big cities.

These days I tend to resort to the internet though when I do visit a model engineering show i tend to have a larger shopping list, another unfortunate thing is shops that have pushed the high street shops out like my local B&Q did at one time stock a decent but small range of steel and ali in rod, flat and angle now I find these stocks have dwindled and not getting replaced .

H

I turned to Honda and to say they fell apart is a bit unfair I think. However I did my best to demolish them usually from the inside out they didn't call me the rev king for nothing. 12,000 RPM, out of my Honda 9,000 on a Yamaha if memory serves. The Honda's I had were almost unburstable. The engineering was built to a budget sure but you can't say that British bikes were more reliable. Over time I had Royal Enfield, Matchless, AJS, Velocette, Ariel, BSA, all of which had their Achillies heals and all were more fragile than the JAP stuff. I recommend an Enfield if you like wearing waterproof oil saturated boots.

But you are right about our industry back then. I made a trip to one of our famous car makers during one job I had.

I pushed my way through the line ankle deep in rubbish it was appalling and wasteful to see how badly things were run. Well we paid the price for our complacency ten times over. It's just so sad.

forgot to mention that I have a round trip to anywhere of twelve miles if stuff is local as well as others.

Martin P

Harry, You took the words right out of my mouth, that is so true. I'm glad it's not just me going mad around here. I will add that back when if a hardware shop was out of stock or didn't carry the item they would do there best to get some for you. Try that at you local B&Q. Please sir I want more. Get out of here we're trying to run a business don't you know?

Jesse

PS I have noticed that B&Q have shut down some of their stores... Mmmm I wonder why that is?

Sorry to hear you're restrained at the moment mate, hope things get better soon Martin.

Sure it works for some Gordon I'll not deny.

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 23/01/2015 16:57:16

It;s a change of culture: we want it yesterday and we want it cheap and we'll throw it away as soon as used (not saying that applies to this hobby). Cheap means imported cr@p and immediately means a large inventory which a small business can't finance and the big stores will focus on cost-effective stock. Bluntly it;s simply business.

Where i am it's 24miles+ round trip to any decent hardware shop unless you want standard jobber drills or building supplies. And it's a 60 mile round trip to B&Q. So almost eerythig is mail-order.

Where i lived before in Surrey we had a local hardware shop that did care. The guys working there knew all their stock, could give sane advice and their inventory was quite extensive or they'd get it in 1-3 days. I think the reason they stayed so solvent was just because that sort of service was worth travelling for in a major suburb so their customer base was also huge.

I suppose another argument (from and complete newbie) is that the essenceof this hobbyis making stuff.. which could apply to a lot of tooling apart from, say, drill bits and endmills or the very very acurately ground.

To take that furthergo look at the qualty of medaeival german fashion armour. I doubt the guy making it could pop down to B&Q for a new angle grinder disc....or even buy emery cloth.

It's silly to say that all Far Eastern stuff is crap. That includes China but of course most electronics, computers, phones, cameras etc these days are made there and many such products are better than anything we ever made here. There's some real crap of course - and everything in between. And of course, the Japanese and Koreans churn out some really rather fine products. That includes surely the best machine tools you can buy.

Manufacturing in the UK is still alive and kicking, despite the best efforts of generations of abysmal managers, financiers and rabid politicians.Mercifully a lot of the worst companies have stopped tormenting us now by going bust finally (Rover etc) but there is work to do. The last thing we'd want is to return to the bad old days. Although the machine tools have lasted, thankfully a lot of other stuff has gone by the wayside.

Murray

I must be lucky. Near where I live is the small city of Albury.

There is a lovely tool supplier there, who stocks quality kit. Off the shelf Sutton, Dormer and Frost cutters, P&N taps and dies. I found a bottle of layout fluid on the shelves and a tube of engineers blue. Nothing like that in the giant hardware chain up the road.

Maybe not as cheap as some of cheaper imports, but I would rather buy once and pay a little more.

One other bonus is that the people there know their stuff and so the advice on how to use the kit is priceless.

* Danny M *

Well I can say that about twenty miles away in Nailsea there's a nice little out let for live steam model train enthusiasts but once again trains aren't really my cup of tea, they are after all restricted to rails and they have boilers which have to be tested. Safety first and all that but I have a heavy tan from officialdom already and that's through normal average living.

Jesse.

In the UK the problem disappearing shops does not only apply to Tools stores, but right across the spectrum, hence our disappearing High Street shops. It simply comes down to fact that independant traders cannot compete with the big boys any longer because the majority of the buying public go for the cheapest irrespective of quality.

It is often stated on these forums that Far East machinery is rubbish and British is best, however British manufacturers have gone bust because we did not want to pay the prices they were asking.

I bought my Myford Speed 10 new in the early 1980s and with all the various bits and pieces it cost me something like £1200. Taking inflation in account today that would be £3-4000 if not more. There is no way that today I would pay £3000+ for a Speed 10. Nowadays we want more and we want to pay less to what we were prepared pay years ago.

Regards Luigi

Far more people wearing rose tinted spectacles these days as well.

cheers

Bill

Having earned a good living from the Cowley car plant for the last 43 years I shall leap to the defence of the british car industry. In 1972 Cowley employed 28,000 people to produce around 300,000 cars a year we now have about 4,500 people and 1,100 robots to produce about the same number of cars. Many brands have been built at Cowley which was originally a Morris plant. Since I have worked there we have built Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Hillman, MG and even Rolls Royce body shells. Much innovative design and engineering came from the companies that formed the ill fated British Leyland conglomerate. Huge strides were made in bringing the company up to date with the best manufacturing methods but as fast as we moved the goalposts also moved. Investors were reluctant to put their money into factories with the appalling industrial relations record of the 60/70s by the 80s the bad old days were behind us but the memories were still strong. The MINI that we started building in 2001 with the backing of BMW shows that with proper investment and a well designed and engineered product brings success. Lord Nuffield is widley revered as a philanthropist but maybe if more of the money had been reinvested in the products Cowley could have kept up with the Japanese invasion. BMW just didn't have deep enough pockets to save the english patient and chose to keep Cowley and make it a success. Jaguar Landrover are building some very desirable cars with the most up to date manufacturing methods and some very heavy investment from their new owners. John Bloor has shown that with the right vision and investment a successful Uk built motorcycle can be built, wisely the only bit of the old brand he kept was the name, TRIUMPH Is a great brand name on some great motorcycles.

Mike

Edited By Michael Poole on 23/01/2015 23:11:20