Supporting your Local Hobby Shop......
 

What a load of bulls%$& when they can't be bothered to open on Saturdays!

A pocket full of cash and a shopping list that includes a new Speedpassion ESC, Motor, Servo, wheels/tyres, shock oils, diff oils, a new hauler bag and probably a few more things when I get there.....but guess what??..... my local hobby store (DMS Racing) 7 miles from my house does not open on a Saturday. No problem I thought, I'll take a drive to MK Racing (45 miles from my house) - Oh dear - they now don't open on Saturdays either. Both of these shops have received my support and CASH for many years!!

So I am sure that like most guys on here, you work from 9-5 Monday to Friday and have an hour for lunch. So no time to get to your hobby shop during the week, even if they are open late 1 night a week until 7pm. So Saturdays are the only time to get the stuff you need.

So when the weekend comes and you've broken something from Friday nights 1//10 2wd indoor racing or you want something for 1/8th nitro racing on Sunday your local shop is closed on a Saturday and the nearest shop that has decent stock is 1.5 hours drive away or you have to pray that someone at the track has what you need or that there is someone selling trackside.

I am surprised that in the current economic climate that a retailer can make a decision to close on a Saturday. We have all seen the many model shops gone to the wall over the last few years. It seems to me that the good ones with helpful staff who give advice and help are going bust (eg. Models in Motion) and the ones who rely on us ordering from their websites keep on going and can treat their loyal local customer how they like.

I for one am sick of having to order online, not be home for the postman/courier and have to go to the sorting office/courier depot to collect my parcel. Why can't I go to a shop and buy what I want when I want it? We do for everything else we buy from electrical goods to food!

So I sit here with debit card in hand having placed orders on Modelsport (184 miles from my house, JE Spares (178 miles from my house) & BMM racing (189 miles from my house), all of these good shops that I have visited and have bought from several times before.

So come Tuesday I'll be off to the sorting office to pick up my stuff!

Rant over!

I'm open, with free postage, friendly advise, and stock ready to send out! Even if I am closed I receive emails on my iPhone so I usually respond straight away.

I know I'm a webshop but if your in the MK area and I have the item in stock you can pick it up.

Sadly ironic that you ordered stuff from JE Spares, who don't open on Saturdays either!

However its important to remember that most LHS's are small affairs with a limited number of staff. That means if they don't close for a day, they get no break - you work Monday to Friday but that means you get two days off so why shouldn't your LHS owner?
Some shops do it a little differently - Roundabout is open on Saturday but not on Monday, NW Model Supplies is open Sat but no Wed etc but ultimately they are open 5 days a week and there are days you can't shop there.
BMM are actually open 7 days a week, but the upshot is that staff service can be a little variable as they aren't all full time staff with lots of experience.

I like you find it impossible to get to a model shop mid-week, but I understand that that just means I need to use the internet. And for further irony my first port of call is normally DMS!

Jordagar.... Nice first post on oOple, dont know who you are since your "real name" is not your "oople name" so have no idea who I am replying to..

Interesting that I have "just get back from the shop", after spending 2 1/2 hours loading our van up (with my wife and young 5 year old helping out too) for the regional at Stotfold tommorow, ironically I am not even racing in the morning I am purely going there to support the meeting with the shop only.

I was at the shop on Monday from 10am until approx 9pm that night, Tuesday was a "normal" day and a was there from 10am until 6pm, Wednesday, went out to visit a few stores in the morning that we deal with, got back at 2pm then stayed late once more and got home (eat dinner etc at 8:30pm), Thursday, we opened at 10am , closed at 7pm, off straight to our local club which again WE run (which must also be just 7 miles from your house) and got in at 11:30pm, then sat and updated all of that weeks race results and went to bed at gone 1am. Friday, normal day, started at 10am (ish, I was a bit late in myself TBH) and left at a reasonably early 8:30pm (as Matt Owen will vouch since I was still talking to him on the phone from the shop at that time).

Now today is my ONE day off in the week (and when there are Nationals etc to attend, I dont even get the saturday) I spent the morning doing chores around the house, popped into town to get some things, then went to the shop at 4:30pm to load the van as mentioned above, just got in (and now on Oople replying to "work related" threads whilst dinner gets cold)...... Off to Stotfold at 6:30am in the morning, will get home at approx 5/6pm tommorow night, then the week starts all over again, please forgive me for not working on a Saturday any longer, we opened for 17 years on a saturday and watched the days takings steadily decline to the point it was the quietest day of the week, so we changed the hours around in the week (we actually are open for 2 hours MORE now weekly, but just over 5 days and not 6) and as of the end of Jan 2009 we stopped opening on saturdays. We have signs up, on the front door, inside the shop, on our website, on our answerphone message and at the time we changed they were posted all over the forums too, if you have supported us as you say for "many years" how have you never seen these signs or messages before???

My next point is that EVERYTHING on your list we have in stock and on OUR website too, so why did you not just mail order from us instead of having to surf the THREE different sites that you did to get all your requirements.

Next up, you mention, even with our late night you still cannot get to us, then why not pick your stuff up form our club on a Thursday, or even from any of the regions clubs we visit on sundays, where many other people do, we are there until 11pm every week on a thursday.....

You mention the "good ones are closed down" just think for one minute that there may well be a reason why they have closed rather than knock the ones who are still here.....

As also mentioned, you didnt buy from either our site or Marc's site (MK) yet then go home and buy from JE, who also dont open on a saturday!! (which I find odd). It is no coincedence that when you look through thread after thread on here, three of the most popular shops who are reccomended more than almost all others by the users of this site are us (DMS, MK and JE) but all of us do not open on a saturday. I cannot speak for Marc and Josh's "exact" reasons but I know for us we "needed" a day off somewhere in the week, we are not robots and do have to rest see our families at some time, for us the best day for that was a saturday, mail order is a HUGE part of our buisness and a saturday is the ONLY day where the sorting office is shut as are the couriers, no orders left us to go anywhere and hence it was our quietest day. I spoke with Marc (MK) just a few weeks ago about this when he asked me about it and mentioned he was thinking about it himself (I now see he has) and we agreed on the reasons as above.....

Just like Matty (Telstar) many customers who are in the local area to us (Watford) know to juts call if they are running late any day and since we are often there WAY past closing, we are there still for them out of hours.

Si Coe, thanks for your answer and for your custom and supoort too.....

Don't worry Darren, for every one dissatisfied customer, you've probably got 20 very happy customers (myself included). Its just a shame that those who don't think before posting, are usually the ones who shout the loudest.

Darren, please do not take my post as a personal attack.

I am merely venting frustration in that I had a list of stuff I wanted to buy today and I have two really good model shops near me that I know I could have got everything on my list but both are now closed on the only day that I am able to get to them.

I don’t question your dedication and the amount of time you spend supporting the sport by attending national, regional & local meetings and I was unaware that you had a presence at these meetings as I’m an average club racer and those meetings are far from my ability. I’m also not saying that you guys aren’t entitled to a day off, this is not the case.

I have supported DMS since I moved to Watford in 1995. I have bought 4 nitro cars, 1 electric buggy, 2 RB engines, pipes, loads of fuel, many tools and lots of spares in that time. I also used to go to the back field at Parmiters on a Sunday to run my Hyper 7 and subsequently my Losi 8 (Both bought from DMS and setup/tuned by you). My name is Jordan, you will recognise me if you saw me.

Like you, a young family and other commitments take up much of my time and as a result Saturday is the only day I am able to go to a shop to get the stuff I need. As an average racer with limited talent but loads of enthusiasm for RC, I rely on guys at the track but most importantly the model shop owner / shop guys to give advice or support for the products I have bought or want to buy.

Sitting in front of a computer reading manufacturers descriptions of a product (written by a marketing person) and clicking “add to cart” isn’t the same as going into a shop and talking about the product, buying it and taking it home.

I mentioned that I am surprised that in the current economic climate that a specialist retailer is closed on traditionally the busiest shopping day of the week. You have made the decision based on your declining takings but I am sure that if you asked around that you would be surprised at the feedback about closing on a Saturday and how much business potentially has been lost as a result. Surely I am not the only one who feels this way?!

The reason for my decision to purchase from the 3 sites I mentioned was
purely made on the cheapest price and stock availability alone. My thought process here is that if I have to order online and have stuff delivered I might as well shop around and get the best price. This would not have been a factor if I had the opportunity to purchase from DMS or MK today. Even if you did not have the item I wanted in stock, you could have ordered it and I could have picked it up next Saturday (Thats the way it used to work..didn’t it?)

Regarding the remarks re: JE Spares. I have never had the urge to drive 178 miles on a Saturday to JE Spares to buy some parts so was unaware that they were closed on a Saturday. I live in Bushey, they are in Manchester!?

Please accept my apologies if you feel that my rant was targeted at you, this was never my intention, I was merely venting frustration as instead of building my car with its new ESC, motor, building/filling the shock and diffs with oil, I sit watching TV and responding to your reply instead.

I know what I’d rather be doing.

Darren, I don't often find myself agreeing with you whole heartedly, but on this subject, I do... Can't be open 7 days a week...

Garry, you have got this all wrong. I am not a disgruntled customer, I have supported both DMS and MK for many years. My frustration is not with the people but with the decision to close on a Saturday. I did think before I posted, maybe you should have before you did to slate me for voicing my opinion and frustration.

TITLE?
 

SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL HOBBY SHOP.

I dont see how seeing your arse because you didnt check the opening hours, then ordering the items elsewhere (having to use three other shops, when all the items were available, for mail order, or next opening day, or to collect at meetings), is supporting your local shop.
I think the reasons for the opening hours have been fully explained to you by the owner, ( whom ive never met by the way). I would not have been so polite. Before I travel vast distances ,such as the seven miles you had to endure, I check the place i am visiting is open beforehand.

Please read my post. I did not say that I went to DMS and they were closed. I've known for the past 2 years DMS was not open on a Saturday. I am saying that they and now MK are closed on a Saturday. I didn't drive there and found out that they there were closed, I knew already! What I didn't know was that MK are now closed on a Saturday until this morning when I looked at their website for their opening hours and found out that they were now closed on a Saturday.

If making it to the sorting office is a bit to much for you, why not get stuff delivered to your place of work? i know plenty of people who do it
As for DMS i would say they have the most helpful & knowledgeable staff i have ever met, find it hard not to see it as a personal attack on them as you mentioned them by name in the second line of your post
Poor effort for your first post on here :thumbdown:

Ok my mistake.
So what you are saying is you dont want to support your local hobby shop because it doesnt open saturdays, and you dont want to support your next nearest local hobby shop because they dont open saturdays either.
So because if they are not open saturdays fu*k them and their services the bas*ards, ill order from further away, whether they open saturdays or not, at least they are not local, so they can open when they want. Thats sort of supporting your local hobby shop isnt it?
Perhaps you could put a radial mileage limit as to who you would be prepared to order from, if they opened saturday.
Maybe you might choose not to order from somewhere in say Scotland, if they opened all weekend.
You have confused me now, how many miles in distance to saturday opening are you prepared to put up with? And what if its a half day wednesday? That could be a can of worms.
you are a dick

Good shops 'up north' are open Saturday's :)

I would have tought if you had an obscene ammount of cash to spend you could have come over all Richard Gere, and asked them to gather all your requirements together and arranged to pick it up one evening after 6pm, or even saturday morning. Im sure they would have obliged.

Jordon,

It was hard to take your first post (both on this thread and the entire forum) as anything but an attack on us tbh.......

You go on to say that you really wanted to buy/have your bits today, so why not just order them yesterday and arrange for our saturday delivery option, you would have got them this morning, been building and tinkering all day and everyone would be happy. I know you will add you would like to have advice on them before hand, talk about and discuss the options available to you, we do have three phone lines at our place, you only have to pick up the phone and we can gladly discuss your requirement before you order, even if not right away we could call you back when it suits you....

You did mention that we should be there on a saturday in your first post then in your reply you state you dont begrudge us a day off? Which is it, we cannot do both.

I have to say by first name alone, I dont recall you, but then we have seen thousands of customers in the 20 odd years we have now been trading, so please forgive me, I would probably recognise the face more then the name.

Like I mentioend in my first reply, there are tons of other options for you to be able to get the stuff you need, in particular by picking them up at our club as many do every thursday. You mention you race 1/10th buggies on Friday, why not race at your most local club on a Thursday which would kill two birds with one stone, satisfy your racing craving and allow to pick up your goods in person.... although I cannot recall ever seeing you at our indoor club.

As for Saturdays, they "used" to be the busiest day by a long way (15 years ago) but the interent has re-shaped things dramatically and in fact just before we closed on the saturdays it was the quietest day by more than half of any other and we took on average about a quarter of what we took on a normal Monday!!! Some saturdays at the end we would barely take enough to pay the staff for the day and cover the running costs, the final straw for me though was seeing my then 3 (coming up 4) year old boy growing up fast and I would barely see him week after week and that HAD to change, we now spend far more time as a "family" at weekends, in particular the saturdays....

As for "ordering on a Saturday, if not in stock, get it the next saturday", same thing works from a "thursday to a thursday" does it not?

And lastly as for the getting the best prices, then mentioning MS, BMM etc, last time I looked (and we check every day ;)) most of our prices (on all the items you listed - SP ESC, motor, servo, shock oils etc etc) we are still cheaper (if not the cheapest) by some fair way on most of these, so why did you then not "mail order" them from us still for Tuesday........

Lucky for me TV tonight was awful, so I dont mind too much typing two long replies (and trust me my typing is slow), but since I am up in just over 6 hours to go to Stotfold, I will reply to some of the other posts quickly and call an end to my contributon for tonight on this thread.......

Garry, thanks for your support....

DCM, thanks for that, you are always entitled to an opinion and if we differ then thats just human nature, nothing wrong with that mate.....

Gainsy, thanks for the kind words...

DavidMog, I "probably" shouldnt say, but your replies made me chuckle and I have to admit it was how I tokk the posts from Jordan too....

AndyS, not all the good ones are as we have discussed (unless Manchester is not North) ;-)

Bodgit, we have often met customers out of hours if we can accomodate it and not always for HUGE orders either (ironically) just last night a young local racer needed some front C hubs for his buggy and since we were there working away he came in at around 8pm to pick them up....

I think more intresting is this goes to show how things have changed, not that long ago model shops would have been mad to close saturday! the best day of the week over the counter, with all racers calling it to get bits, now most local shops are dead, and it seems from this that the well known names these days do so much mail order that it's not worth opening saturday as everyone has ordered stuff for the weekend during the week, and saturday all is quiet.

I try to support my local shop, but it's hard as they somtimes strugle to get the parts I want, as some bigger shops grab all the importers stock as it arrives, giving us no choice but to buy from them....good buissness I suppose:yawn:

Dave, a very true post throughout.....

(now I really am going to bed)

Not trying to add fuel to the fire here but as many of you may know i am a salesman for Kawasaki, over the years we have seen many shifts in shop activity. Years ago you would 100% open saturdays, mondays would also be very busy with people ringing up to order parts and book in bikes for punctures etc after weekend rideouts. These days however, its during the week when a lot of our trade is done. Today for example i hardly spoke to anyone yet during the week sold 3 bikes! Certainly saturdays are a dead duck for us these days.

As for DMS......100% spot on shop every time!. Only 2 weeks ago i put an order through via the internet, at 7pm i recieved a phone call to say my order had been dispatched (i certainly know that my shop was closed by 5.30!) the parts arrived quickety quick as they always do.

Many thanks for your service chaps and chapess! :thumbsup:

its greedy business men that run most of these shops ...non of them are doing anyone a favour unless they are tripling there money ,most dont know what they are selling and just want to take the money and send you out the shop knowing if it breaks you will have to come back to them....almost non want to forward the hobby or actually sort someone out ...the profits say it all ....thats why id rather go to hobbyking than my LHS how can they try and charge me 100x what the battery costs from HK ...if i can get stuff cheap my LHS can get it cheaper than me and still make a profit without ripping everyone off ....no one minds jespares making £3 on a bodyshell thats fair but if they were trying to make £15 that would be robbery ....and as for saturdays ,if the people wanted it id be open everyday ,or have a day in the week off ,everyones out breaking stuff on the weekends ....

You obviously know nothing about retail and have no clue about business.

If said LHS made £3 gross on a bodyshell they would soon go skint.

Retail margins need to be kept strong to fund stock holding and all other huge costs that go along with running a shop.

It makes me chuckle when people think that the shops make fortunes in profit. For example the new Durango retails at £194, by the time I've paid the paypal fees and posted it out for free, I couldn't by a Pair of tyres with the profit (at the trade price!).

I've got a 3 model shops I could go to... But none of them stock any spares only the car itself 1 of these shops opens when he likes on satudays- no good if you have to travel 20+ miles to his shop,1 of the other shops throws you out at 12.00 so he can have dinner?.. and ain't that customer friendly and the other shop just does planes.... So I don't give a monkeys if I order from elsewhere Dms racing and je spares always get my business and I have my stuff sent to work... No messing around with royal mail collection cards for me!...

Plus I've ran a model shop and I know what Saturday opening is like... Bloody hard.. If your working 6 days a week like we were, you soon start getting tired- you've got to have a break some time and if you've got kids then you need to be with them..
We closed our shop because of all the idiots buying hsp/acme and other horrible crap off eBay- they break it then bring it in for repair when you had a shop full of decent hobby grade cars in stock!...

I can just see all the fat cat bankers getting into the RC world to cash in on all this profit :thumbsup:

And how dare you close on a saturday...;)

hi there hope this helps fwm opens on saturdays heres there link
http://www.futureworldmodels.com/

Thank you, I needed a laugh and that's cheered me up no end, it's a shame that you didn't post it on Saturday tho!

Tell me this is a wind up - surely no one could be this ignorant to post this for real! :wtf:

If you are for real, and you run a model shop, can I suggest you write a book on how you have made yourself a millionaire from selling us RC stuff? Pillock... :thumbdown:

Its a little known fact that a certain Mr Abramovich, Chelsea owner, started working in his parents small model shop in Stalingrad. In the 80s they specialised in illegally imported Hornby trains, bootleg tamiya plastic model kits, and had carefully concealed scale plans for european designed aircraft under the counter. When Gorbachev relaxed rules for trade and encouraged other communists to embrace "Glasnost" (openness), the shops sales of balsa wood increased by 400% overnight. Roman immediately decided to kill his parents and take over.
Roman invested the roubles he made from their life insurance in radio control model kits, which were no longer illegal.
Roman enjoyed a moderately successful carrer in r/c car racing, until the untimely death of his closest rival, ivan klunkter, who fell to his death from the rostrum at abramovich raceway, which adjoined the shop.
During the mid 1990s, after the break up of the soviet union, many russians discovered radio control modelling as a hobby, as an alternative to the vodka based recreation enforced by the communist government.
Roman quickly stocked up on the newest models, and found they required fuel or "nitro". He ordered four gallons. When the fuel arrived, he was astounded by the price. Quickly examining the profit/loss account for his model shop, he realised the producer of the fuel earned almost half as much profit as him on his most popular lines. A quick call to his accountants, then the bank, and the crafty bastard had merged the two companies in a hostile takeover! SIBNEFT Models was born!

LOL...

I was just watching the "Dragons Den" on TV (after getting back at 6pm from being at Stotfold al day, having dinner and watching a repeat of Top Gear ;-) ) and thought I might go on that programme and offer them 5 poor sods called Dragons some money from the millions made out of my model shop selling bodies with a £3 profit at a time, the only trouble is they want me to go on there on a Saturday and I "aint doin that" since thats my day off :p (and before anyone posts, this post was a light hearted joke....)

Sssshhhh Darren! You don't want the OP to realise all those of us who came on here defending DMS only did so cos you paid us £100 to do it......

:lol::lol::lol::lol::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Won't the dragons require Saturday trading ?

I kinda like ringing up, ordering and then getting all excited the next day when the posty knocks, It's like Santa claus coming every day for me.

Loving the thread, and best of all D.M.S,

Having managed a few differant shops over the years there is some good stuff in this thread.

Saturdays, in specialist hobby retail really aren't that great a trading day these days. Most of my business comes during the week.

Weekday late opening can be more profitable although everyday is a waste of energy.

The big moan i have and where my sympathy vanishes is this, i work monday to friday 9-5 and have no time? What a load of rubbish and really count yourself lucky, do you not think that those that work in shops also would like to have weekends off and not to work long hours? 9-5 really? i have to get in to work at 830 and certainly don't finish when the door closes and all that for sub average national wage.

Quit moaning get your orders sent to your work address and stop thinking that the majority of the working population have the luxury of a weekend off.

There are a lot of interesting points in this thread, and a few bits of nonsense as well.

Firstly though, let me say that I placed my first order with DMS last week. It was a modest order, just for two chassis protectors but I requested delivery by Tuesday and it arrived bang on time so thanks a million, it was much appreciated and certainly won't be the last order I place with you. :thumbsup:

What I find astounding is Mattybucks post. If you really are working to such low margins mate, why do you do it? I get that you love the game, but don't we all work to make a living? A profit of about a fiver on a near £200 sale doesn't sound like a sustainable business model to me? I work for an international distribution company and if we make less than 35% margin on a sale then we have sleepless nights! I applaud you though for doing what you do. Where would we be if everyone wanted to make 100% markup on a sale!?

Another point I found really interesting is how quiet you all say the shops are on a Saturday. There is a shop near me who don't really cater for 1/10 electric so I don't go there often but on the half a dozen times I have been in on a Saturday they are literally queuing out the door. They sell mainly 1/8 nitro, and also a large selection of helicopters and airplanes, so maybe this is where a lot of their Saturday trade comes from? I'm not sure the relevance of this point, other than to say it is very different from the norm seemingly, and to possibly consider why that might be...? :eh?:

Keep up the good work guys, with out the DMS, Telstars, MK and JE's of this world where would we all be? You do a grand job!! :thumbsup:

You see a lot of people in there, but are they spending money? Lots of Saturday 'trade' is starting someones nitro, a few body clips and a servo horn - not big money stuff.

I used to work in a model shop, they lasted 2 years because their mark up was between 24 and 33%, this was about 8 years ago, I don't know if it's different now but as Skye says, unless you're making 35% plus, ideally 50% it's difficult doing it.

I watched dragon's den when it first started, their was a girl on their who had her business plan set out to make jewellery. She was working with a 1000% percent mark up, that's the sort of mark up that lets you drive around in a fancy car. People that own model shops don't have that luxury, and if they did it's probably because they bought the car before they started the business.

One of the points that is perhaps being missed here is people moan about pricing in the LHS, which has to be higher than people who only sell on the net because the LHS has rent, rates and probably more staff than fred sat in shed. If we only bought from our LHS and they were selling more volume I think we'd all see them being able to reduce their prices but as quincey has said above, idiots buy acme products off the net then expect spares back up from a shop they bi-passed in their initial purchase. People often aren't interested in being educated about what they can buy, they just see the cheap one on the net and get it, no second thought until it stops working or they need a part.

As for the opening Saturday thing, I used to be self employed and you do burn yourself out trying to do too many hours, and if you've got kids you need time with them and also time for yourself away from work, so if they're closed there is probably good reason for it.

I would think that even a 24% markup is going to be cutting things fine. a 24% markup is about 19.35% margin. And that is based purely on a cost price / sell price calculation. It isnt based on a 'cost of sale' calculation, so by the time you have added on your shipping fees and things like operating costs (wages, bills etc) then you are barely breaking even I should think.

The company I work for try, where possible to make 50% margin which is obviously a 100% markup! And we also sell an own brand in many products where they make more like 70% margin!! :o It seems to work though, over £1bill turnover last FY and £112mill profit. These numbers, whilst being huge numbers show the extent of the hidden costs as well. On a cost price / sell price calculation we make margins of 50% plus, yet the actual company profit on the bottom line is still 'only' approximately 10%.

Considering all of the above, if like Mattybucks says, the RC trade makes less than 5% on the sale of a new car kit then I am amazed there is still anyone trading at all!

On another point raised above, I am generally happy to pay more to support my local store but when ordering online then I am a lot more price conscious. When I bought both my cars from Moto Arena recently I know that I must have paid at least £100 more (could have been even more) for both cars by the time I had kitted them out. I was happy with this though as to be honest, without Matts help I wouldnt have got the cars running so it was worth paying the extra for the help I got along the way. When I order online then I tend to just take delivery and muddle through myself, in which case the price then becomes the most important factor.

I had often thought that I would like to run my own RC business, I would love to be selling a product that I am passionate about. Having seen some of the eye opening numbers quoted above though then I think I may have to pass up on the idea..... :thumbdown:

My local hobby shop turns out to be Daniels of Windsor, the department store with the royal seal (actually i think it is a concession in the store). I really want to send my business their way at they are selling Losi 22 kits with parts support and Tamiya 201's in one of the most mainstream shops there is!

It came as a bit of a shock to me that this store existed, and only found out through sponsorship of the Taplow club. I think it is great to be able to buy a model in a high street shop that is raceable, and I think it is important for drawing in future racers. Their prices are at the low end, so I hope they survive.

I want to add another note of support for DMS Racing. 15 years agoI used to go to the shop all the time, on Saturdays with my mum! I got one of the first XX4's in the country from DMS, still race it and every spare part has come from DMS. They have always been great, and I buy from DMS when I can. It makes me a little sad that they don't open on Saturdays as through the week pretty late, but I don't begrudge a day where the shop is closed, and know that for a small business the day when the shop is closed is often the busiest with paperwork and things!

To be honest I'd rather that a shop was mailing out parts that I'd broken on a Sunday in time to race on Friday, than be open on a Saturday.

Ben

MK Racing
 

Sorry you found that we are now closed on Saturdays, we changed our opening hours at the start of July, an email was sent out to all customers on our database.
We have done this as 90% of our business is now Mail Order & we only have collections on Monday to Friday.
We also support two local clubs with track side support, SHRCCC on Tuesdays & Sunday, RC-Arena on Fridays, so our local customers can collect/buy from us at these events.


Marc