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TamiyaMan

What is going on at Tower Hobbies? They have no inventory.

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Next to Nothing in stock for Tamiya.  95% of Tamiya kits listed as on order.

No straight answers from customer service.  Are they going out of business?

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Their  parent company hobbico is  in bad shape financially, so nothing surprises me. Most stuff has said on order for months. I did just receive their 2018 catalog though

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Just had a new Super Champ / Fighting Buggy from them with no problems but now out of stock, could simply be supply problems.

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They are also in the middle of being sued by Traxxas for patent infringement. You will see now all Traxxas inventory gone. Hobbico is the the parent company that has a history of buying up manufactures like Durango, Duratrax, ect and running that brand into the ground. That has nothing to do with Tamiya products, but as far as I'm concerned, Tower has never carried a good supply of Tamiya parts, hop-ups, and really weak in the kit areas too. Its hit or miss with them sometimes.

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A friend mentioned that he thought something was up with Tower because they were out of stock on a lot of items.  

HobbiCo has apparently been having financial issues for years.  They owe employees stock dividends.  See these two articles:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2017-01-05/hobbicos-deferral-payout-upsets-confounds-ex-workers.html

http://www.modelretailer.com/en/The Industry/Industry News/2017/01/Hobbico defers stock ownership payments.aspx

HPI announcing new distributors, with no mention of Great Planes / HobbiCo / Tower also have rumors swirling.  But Great Planes is still listed under the distributors for HPI.  I think this is simply an unfounded rumor, but here is the link to the article:

http://www.hpiracing.com/en/article/view/2017110702

 

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MIP is no longer distributing through Hobbico either.

Not good.  Tower was always my go-to place for Tamiya re-releases and most other RC stuff like Futaba radios/receivers/crystals.

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I'm noticing this at other sellers as well. RCPlanet, Omnimodels, Horizon, etc.. all show backorder or "Mid january" or "Mid march". Tamiyausa.com also shows "Store Temporarily Closed" when you try to make an order for anything. It's been like this for a week at TamiyaUSA. This isn't just kits. This is paints, accessories, and hoppups. Any idea what's going on?

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Maybe Tamiya is focusing their entire rc division on the Porsche 959 re-release?  Wishful thinking maybe? :)

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19 hours ago, Kingfisher said:

Tamiyausa.com also shows "Store Temporarily Closed" when you try to make an order for anything. It's been like this for a week at TamiyaUSA. This isn't just kits. This is paints, accessories, and hoppups. Any idea what's going on?

Tamiyausa does this every year around this time for inventory purposes. No need to worry there. Tamiya stock in general is down around the web which I found odd considering it being the Christmas season. As for Tower, I hope they pull through. They've been good for me for 15 years now so I can't complain. I do imagine some former owners of smaller local hobby shops are probably gleeful to see them hurting...

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My wife gave me a gift certificate to Tower for Christmas; I plan to use it as quickly as possible before they go out of business (seems like the direction they're heading).

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8 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

My wife gave me a gift certificate to Tower for Christmas; I plan to use it as quickly as possible before they go out of business (seems like the direction they're heading).

Good luck. I had some eCash that was about to expire and couldn't find anything I wanted in stock. I settled on a spare body from Protoform just to keep it from going to waste.

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Yeah, I'm more worried that someone like Traxxas will swoop up Axial and Arrma.

Tower was my go to shop for Tamiya and Kyosho kits.  Hopefully they can keep Tower running.

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at least its chapter 11 and not a full bankruptcy, thats means they might be able to either restructure or sell the business as a going concern.

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9 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

Ugh.  Just read the news as well.  I really need to get rid of this gift certificate.

Do it quick <_< 

Very common for businesses here to closedown after Xmas rush & before ppl get to spend their voucher presents :angry: 

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Spent it last night.  So much of everything was out of stock!

I did a Google News search on Hobbico and this article was posted late last night; it indicates Hobbico has $100M in debt.

http://www.illinoishomepage.net/news/local-news/hobbico-bankruptcy-statement-reveals-massive-debt/911249194

This makes me reflect on other things I witnessed last year.  For example, Parma disappeared from Tower and at first I thought they had gone out of business.  But, you can still buy Parma from other sources.

Traxxas disappeared from Tower and many people talked about a patent dispute, but I wonder if Hobbico owed them as well.  Of course you can buy Traxxas elsewhere.

Durango disappeared as Hobbico focused more on the basher brand Arma (sp).

All those Tamiya kits on order?  Probably not showing up until TamiyaUSA gets paid, I'm guessing.

It's going to be rough on those 332 employees of Hobbico - they'd be smart to start looking for other work soon.  Champaign, Illinois, isn't that big of a place.

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thought those 332 staff were already on some wage reduction past 12-18mths

Axial also suffered some stock supply issues last year. Intriguing as you'd think Axial was popular and sold well... sounds like they couldn't keep up with supplier payments whilst cash was hemorraging elsewhere.

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This is so heartbreaking. I avoided Tower back in the 80's because of the stranglehold they had, but by 2000 (after all the local hobby shops were either gone or slinging Traxxas crap with no respect for Tamiya) I started using them and have ever since. I collect the boxes and in 17 years, every Tamiya box from them has arrived quickly and flawless. Their customer service is the absolute best. I sadly think they're done unfortunately. The RC industry isn't exactly booming. While they were in trouble before, I think this Traxxas ordeal was the final nail in the coffin. This really makes me re-think my views on Traxxas and having any of their products in my home (even if I will only buy them second hand).

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4 hours ago, WillyChang said:

thought those 332 staff were already on some wage reduction past 12-18mths

Axial also suffered some stock supply issues last year. Intriguing as you'd think Axial was popular and sold well... sounds like they couldn't keep up with supplier payments whilst cash was hemorraging elsewhere.

Axial supply issues were due to the factory shutting down, and them scrambling to find a new factory.  Couldn't have been a big help to have nothing to sell for most of 2017 due to no supply.

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2 hours ago, khyzersoze said:

Axial supply issues were due to the factory shutting down, and them scrambling to find a new factory.  Couldn't have been a big help to have nothing to sell for most of 2017 due to no supply.

Supposedly it was an outsource factory... so assume it's independently managed & unless some calamity physically hit the factory, any disruption like that usually due to somebody not paying the bills? :unsure:

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while on u-tube i came across rc sparks anounceing the company bankrup and reading out a press statement.

how will this aftect the hobby.

 

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