I was ordering some parts from R & J yesterday and needed some “tracz” parts produced by vls and found this out. Interesting. The new vls catalog is due out the end of this month too. Wonder how this will all shake out.
G.L.
The news has been hashed around for a while:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47211/thread/1167940571/OK%2Cso…
So will Squadron be carring ALL of VLSs inventory now?
The Wal-Marting of the hobby.
Hunh? If you read the discussion on ML, some hobbyshop owners are looking fwd to it. Some members of the old VLS buyers club are waiting to see what happens.
When you say the “Wal-Marting” of the hobby, I don’t see how the acquisition of one distributorship by another will do that. There are others in existence. And most of them have to be aware of the overseas online competitors. If the buyer is a good businessman, he’ll make the joint company better and serve customers better. He may not be able to or circumstances may prevent him from doing so. Regardless, I think it’s too early to pass judgment. It’s not as if I know the owner of MMD before the current one. And the Lettermans wanted to retire. Who can blame them for that? I hope they got a good price for VLS.
Sorry I don’t share your enthusiasm T26. I have discussed this on other forums that have not had such a rosy view of it and many also feel a bit of trepidation. Many, including myself have taken a less than optimisitc wait and see attitude. Hopefully I will be proven wrong. I hope those hobby shop owners are rewarded for their desires and not bemoaning their inability to get orders filled, lack of selection or price hikes later.
I just have a cynical and wary eye for putting all your eggs (or alot of them in this case) into one basket. In addition to the possibility of price control which is not my main concern, there is an issue of the loss of selection and competition. This now makes for less players in the game and one group (or individual) deciding what is marketable and what isn’t. Sort of like a DIY center moving into a town and through worse than competative pricing (meaning undercutting) they impact the smaller hardware stores and lumber yards. Some to the point of going out of business. Not so bad you might think, till you go to look for that specialty item and the DIY center doesn’t carry it because its not a broad enough marketable item. Case in point. (bear with me here) I make period reproduction furniture. A local hardware store had the specialty hinges I needed for livery cupbaords and period cabinets. Not expensive but not cheap either. The DIY center came in and ultimately forced this smaller guy out of business. Now I have to mail order the hinges from a specialty company at double the price (because there are less places for the mfr. to have to supply causing his prices to go up) and with shipping the price has severly impacted my pricing for this furniture. I can’t absorb the cost. When I went to the DIY to ask for a special order they wouldn’t even consider it much less try.
So the point is that as companies merge and grow, there are several pluses that can be an advantage for us all. Logistics, pricing etc. But there are also drawbacks. Now the other downside in my opinion is that I have seen other companies make aquisitions, merge, grow to the point that they dominate the field. Something radical happens (chaos theory or tipping point) and the house of cards tumbles leaving us with nothing.
To see this on a grand scale, watch the current merger and what happens as a result of the ATT/Bell South mergers. 70 billion dollars worth of merger, and now the telecom business (including the newer aspect of DSL and the internet portions that go along) has left simply 2 major players in the teleco industry. I remember the original break up of Ma Bell and how it benefitted us all with the new creation of several smaller companies. The proliferation of the internet was one of the progenies of this. Wonderful longdistance deals and companies generally kissing your petooty to switch tot heir service. The customer was in control again.
Many of the products available to our hobby are produced by very small manufacturers or “cottage industries”. We are not dealing with the market forces, economies and scale similar to the DIY stores in my stated example, but with a smaller manufacturing and distribution environment.Other than a few big kit producers (Dragon, Tamiya, etc.) most manufacturers run fairly small companies in this business. Hopefully the customer will still be in the driver’s seat and have significant influence on the products that are available. This includes selection and price. Rather than have one set of buyers determining what they will market I have an amazing selection (for now) in what is available and the price and quality are there in order for them to survive.
I also am not a big fan of the internet hobbyshop or warehouse outlet. Call me old fashion or even a dinosaur, but there is something that adds to this hobby that appeals to me through the local retailer. I gladly pay the extra money for the ability to go to my LHS, open a box and look inside. To cruise the shelves, talk to the patrons and owners and experience the hobby. On the rare occasion that I do order, its from small companies that I can call and talk to the owner, have him know me and remain a valued customer, not just a paycheck. Case in point, my wife ordered some stuff for me for christmas. 2 of the 3 items arrived damaged and had to be returned. To date, I still haven’t gotten satisfaction.
Mergers are good on one side and bad on the other. I reserve my judgement and acceptance with time and will continue to view this with a wary, skeptical and cynical eye. Now. On the flip side, I wish all involved a successful new era of prosperity and a sincere hope that we all reape the benefits and reward of someones business acumen regarding this deal. Its the American dream. Who am I to deprive anyone of that?
I have an idea that far from being “wal marted” we will be “chan ki shecked”. We have already seen the east europeans sending huge amounts of quality items into our market places since the opening of their markets to the international hobbiests. Ironically many, many of the products supplied are manufactured already in asia but sold through national brand names.
I envisage many chinese and other asian companies making massive ground in the market place with quality AND price, perhaps overtaking japanese and european comapanies wholesale.
Rather than a smaller number of companies I see a growth of newer companies from asia perhaps to the detriment of home grown local ones!