As small shop myself I feel I have to stand up for some shops out there, I started my shop with a friend as we felt in our area there was a lack of decent support for all the local racers and decided to go ahead with it, now 4 years later I now run the shop on my own while still trying to work and earn money to pay my private bills, the margins in this trade are not always as they great as they may seem to the general public and dont always allow me to draw a wage from the small profits I make, I find myself working 12 hours+ days just to satisfy my customers and try to be as honest as I can be, nothing worse than try to bull sh-t customers as it will inevitbly back fire on me and customers wont come back, when orders come in I try to let people know if its out of stock with the distributors or not and wont take money off people till the part arrives, somehow cant seem the point of it, the deal hasnt been done till the part arrives and can cause major hassles with paperwork and trying to keep track of it all, so best to not take payment till it arrives, simple and easy for me and the customer, now the bit that gets me worked up when distributors dont fullfill back orders and leave me and the customers waiting for weeks on end, prime example is I ordered a couple of micro cars for someone for a birthday and nothing has happened for nearly two months now and still waiting, the birthday has come and gone and left my customer feeling let down not by me but the trade in general, we really try to do our best to get the parts to you all on time but sometimes it all fails by either the suppliers or manufacter and there is nothing we can do about, this one of the reason I have held back on running a online ordering system and if I do it will only show the parts in stock with me so you can see whats in and only whats in stock, to try and keep everything updated with the thousands of parts available from all the suppliers is just madness and takes up so much time that it just isnt worth my time to do that, my customers know that I will try and order every week and keep the supply chain moving and keep you all racing including myself and that is what its all about, sorry for going on so long but I felt its worth while putting my point across regarding shops in general, I know its a bit of a rant or whinge whatever you want to call it but I feel so passionate about that I cant abide hearing people putting another shop down good or bad, Podium RC have been going for quite awhile and do an excellent service out there and the current climate it isnt easy for anyone in this trade and when you consider a lot of you out there are quite happy to use suppliers from abroad and then moan when a UK shop struggles to get you the parts you need, all I can say is support you local model shop, talk to them properly and we will all be happy, so lets keep smiling, keep racing or bashing, support each other in the problems we have trackside and have some fun, THIS IS THE BEST HOBBY IN THE WORLD!!!
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