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

[TurnipJF]

Poor HPI users - they really aren't having any luck with spares supply...

[iluvmud]

Pretty majorly as they are tower hobbies, wonder if this also had to do with the Traxxas lawsuit over copyright infringement *eye roll*

[TWINSET]

1 hour ago, TurnipJF said:

Poor HPI users - they really aren't having any luck with spares supply...

Is HPI anything to do with Hobbico?
I know Axial's a subsidiary...

[iluvmud]

54 minutes ago, TWINSET said:

Is HPI anything to do with Hobbico?
I know Axial's a subsidiary...

Nope

a lot of them are through hobbico as US distributors. 

Hpi is not a part of them..... at least from what I read

[speedy_w_beans]

HPI was bought by Ripmax from what I remember.

[yogi-bear]

1 hour ago, speedy_w_beans said:

HPI was bought by Ripmax from what I remember.

on Hobbico's website they are listed as the exclusive distributor for HPI Racing in North and South America. I was suprised to see they own may other leading brands and not necessarily RC either, brands like Revell, and Monogram. They say they sell over 400 different brands, so its surprising with such a rich product line that they are in trouble.

 

[Rb4276]

Someone from tower named justin actually called me around christmas time asking if i was happy with my kyosho optima purchase. He asked if i needed any spares or hop ups from kyosho that they could work a deal out. I thought it was odd but nice then but now i can see why they called. 

[Kingfisher]

Hobbico is for sale. Here is RadioShacks chance to make a come back. 

[speedy_w_beans]

3 hours ago, yogi-bear said:

on Hobbico's website they are listed as the exclusive distributor for HPI Racing in North and South America. I was suprised to see they own may other leading brands and not necessarily RC either, brands like Revell, and Monogram. They say they sell over 400 different brands, so its surprising with such a rich product line that they are in trouble.

 

That's right, Hobbico is the exclusive NA/SA distributor for HPI.  In this case Hobbico is just the distributor, not the owner of the brand -- Ripmax owns the HPI brand.  Here's HPI's announcement regarding who purchased them:  http://www.hpiracing.com/en/article/view/2016053101

After Ripmax bought HPI, some contract manufacturers like Soar demanded payment to cover past debts.  Soar also indicated if payment wasn't made in a certain timeframe they would remove logos from the molds and start making products under their own name:  http://www.neobuggy.net/2016/07/29/soar-vs-hpi-case-statements-from-both/

Soar has a 1/8 buggy of their own, but I haven't found any clear copies of HPI products yet.

Anyhow, when you think about the flow of a product like a HPI model from KRP to SOAR to Ripmax/HPI to Hobbico to Tower or a LHS then to the final customer it's amazing the model doesn't cost $1000 or more.  Or, another way to think about it is just how inexpensive parts and labor really are at the real manufacturing site, and how the shipping costs and margins stack up at each stage of the value chain.

 

[WillyChang]

1 hour ago, Kingfisher said:

Hobbico is for sale. Here is RadioShacks chance to make a come back. 

Why? U.S. RadioShack went bankrupt in 2015, got bought then the buyer also went bankrupt in 2017. So how would they have cash to buy anything? Name ownership went to a creditor.

RadioShack was in oz when I grew up... run by InterTan we could buy a Realistic & Tandy stuff just like US  but then InterTan got bought by Woolworths... & got shutdown  then Woolies also bought Dick Smith Electronics (local competitor with Tandy type stores) and eventually shut that down too.

Market has moved on, much like RC LHS fewer ppl buy electronic components retail anymore. No way to compete against online for product choice & pricing, no way to provide extensive range at every store either. I mean I know I'm a relic for shopping in person for components & willing to pay premium price for getting it now, but if they haven't got what I need then I can't buy either. 

 

[speedy_w_beans]

I think Kingfisher was just joking...

[WillyChang]

8 minutes ago, speedy_w_beans said:

I think Kingfisher was just joking...

heh, don't joke - I miss Tandy  & DSE  all we're left with is Jaycar. Used to pop in least once if not twice a week, their thick catalogues were like bibles to me. 

PITA when everything needs to be mail ordered & takes 3-6wks to arrive, every "simple fix" job takes a month lying about the workbench. 

I also miss Metro JetHoppers 

[ncpantherfan71]

Hobico is no longer the only distributors for HPI,  Associated,  or Axial. 

Associated can be purchased from Horizon Hobby,  HPI is now through HRP out of Utah,  Axial can be picked up through several channels.  

If Hobico can not successfuly restructure it really will not have too big impact on the rc car scene.  Mainly Axial and Arrma brands will be impacted.  However it will have a huge impact on the rc aircraft side. 

 

[speedy_w_beans]

On 1/12/2018 at 9:57 AM, speedy_w_beans said:

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

Well, my order arrived on Monday and I unboxed it.  Even though the item I ordered was new, it was clearly somebody else's return with wear/tear/damage/broken parts on it.  There are no more in stock; just "order pending" with no due date.  Just shipped it back today and unfortunately Tower will only give me store credit.  Back to square one.  I'm afraid to spend the certificate/credit on anything else because who knows what else is listed as new and really a return from someone else?

[MadInventor]

On ‎18‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 11:09 PM, speedy_w_beans said:

Well, my order arrived on Monday and I unboxed it.  Even though the item I ordered was new, it was clearly somebody else's return with wear/tear/damage/broken parts on it.  There are no more in stock; just "order pending" with no due date.  Just shipped it back today and unfortunately Tower will only give me store credit.  Back to square one.  I'm afraid to spend the certificate/credit on anything else because who knows what else is listed as new and really a return from someone else?

Might be a good idea to cash in the store credit for something, in case the store credit becomes worthless. Better to have a second hand model than no model.................

[Saito2]

Ugh, they aren't pulling out of this one. Has anybody seen just how much they owe to some suppliers? The numbers are absolutely mind blowing.

[tamiya_1971]

7 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Ugh, they aren't pulling out of this one. Has anybody seen just how much they owe to some suppliers? The numbers are absolutely mind blowing.

I tried to read the paperwork online but I couldn't get it to zoom in.

[Saito2]

Well some of the numbers I've read go like this: around $400K to UPS for shipping services, $354K to Associated, something like $2,200,000 to Futaba. Oh, and buckle your seatbelts, the total might be something over $100,000,000!

Wow.

[WillyChang]

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

Well some of the numbers I've read go like this: around $400K to UPS for shipping services, $354K to Associated, something like $2,200,000 to Futaba. Oh, and buckle your seatbelts, the total might be something over $100,000,000!

Wow.

meh it's a large company with high dollar items & high turnover, those might just be 2-3mths worth if your trade terms are 60-90d... trade terms means suppliers afford you credit (so essentially everything is "owed" on account), good business never prepay to buy goods & services if they can help it.

The real Q is, have they got the $$$ to pay what's due end of that month?  

[Saito2]

It seems they were given a lot of rope to hang themselves. Not that I'm blaming the companies, I mean Hobbico is a big distributor. It's going to be a pain to get product out through a bunch of smaller channels. I'm curious what's going to happen to the Hobbico brands like Axial and Duratrax. My assumption is some are bankable enough another company will scoop them up while others will be dust in wind.

 

[WillyChang]

36 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

I'm curious what's going to happen to the Hobbico brands like Axial and Duratrax. My assumption is some are bankable enough another company will scoop them up while others will be dust in wind.

Yeah, same curiousity 

Always wondered how discrete each little brandname was... are they separate enough to hive off as little independent companies? especially Axial & Great Planes... wonder if there's any chance of a Mgmt BuyOut.

Or are they all centralised all into the one office space  then they're all on the one sinking ship.

Axial has good name but are they only a one trick pony? The crawler horse is getting old & afaik don't like they've made any inroads to other RC genre - probably hampered by other Hobbico brands already doing those.

Is there much behind Duratrax? All their stuff (consumables, generic hopups) looks like repackaged of imported bits, nothing that they can call their own.

Then again Axial probably don't own factory anyway, everything outsourced.

 

More curious is... why Tower ain't doing well? Too fierce competition from Amain & other online hobby stores, or Amazon, or overseas... or today ppl buy direct? 

Ironic as they got blamed for killing off LHS etc etc last 25yrs. 

 

[Saito2]

I imagine that irony is quite delicious for some. I agree, the real question is, what happened? I'm not going to say the hobby industry is booming but Hobbico is big...

[WillyChang]

3 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

I imagine that irony is quite delicious for some. I agree, the real question is, what happened? I'm not going to say the hobby industry is booming but Hobbico is big...

"Too Big To Fail"??  or not big enough for govt handouts 

Yeah sounds like usual case of growing too fat on past glories, then when the need arises to be agile enough to survive new incoming competition in a climate of falling sales/demand, the crusty behemoth of too big to turnaround & remain viable in the long run.

Or there's too many leakages in the honeypot. Some depts might be doing ok, but not enough income to sustain the other depts bleeding cashflow dry. Won't die a sudden death but few years there's no $$ for R&D for even the good earners to update their range, everything spirals down.

Or worse, run out of cash to pay your contract manufacturer of your good earning line... spiralling turns to nosedive.

Sorry, I'm an econs geek 

[gixxer]

So where to preorder the newest Tamiya now?  So sad had been a customer since the Kyosho Burn/Inferno days.

[tamiya_1971]

1 hour ago, gixxer said:

So where to preorder the newest Tamiya now?  So sad had been a customer since the Kyosho Burn/Inferno days.

It seems like a lot of places are low on Tamiya rc. I'm thinking it was just holiday sales. I'm still not counting Tower as dead yet. I've been shopping with them since the 80's. I'll see what happens this month with their "backorder" statuses.