An Awful Hobby Store Experience

[BirdsFan55]

So I flew home to my parents for the holiday weekend and visited one of the local hobby shops I’ve frequented a few times before. I’ve never been a huge fan of his demeanor but he has generally had the best prices in town and well money talks I guess. But yesterday will be the last time I ever go in there. Started out talking about all the fanatics stuff going on and what that might mean for hobby shops moving forward. His thoughts on the matter were “I’ve made plenty running this shop the past 5 years that I really couldn’t care less what happens to hobby stores when fanatics takes over. If I have to close, so be it”. My buddy and I were a little taken aback but soon after I asked about his topps chrome prices. He had jumbos for $400 and I asked if he were willing to move on price. Brought up blowout has them for $380 and his response was “well I have the cheapest price in town.” And having done my research I said no you’re not, ‘other hobby store’ has them for $375. His response was “that doesn’t sound very ‘other hobby store’ of them. And then I asked “still not willing to move on price?” Reply was “nope” and we walked out. A**hole would rather not make a sale on a product he paid $240 for and would’ve still profited over $100 on a single box with a discount than give someone a ‘deal’. Proceeded to go to the other store and talk them down to $350 and got my five rookie pitcher autos haha. For the good store owners that are out there for the collectors, I wish you all the best but I’m not gonna be sad at all if fanatics runs turds like this out of business.


Tl:dr Hobby store owner greedy, fine with going out of business due to fanatics cause he’s well off from recent years, didn’t budge on a $400 box of topps chrome jumbo.

[marl1220]

I've never been a fan of bringing up the price at other locations.

[oldgoldy97]

Is he set up at a Turkish bazaar?

[bustsomewax]

Why people feel the need to get upset when an LCS doesnt want to price match Blowout is beyond me.

You are upset over a $20 differnce? Do you not value being able to purchase and rip the box today instead of waiting a week for Blowout to ship?

[hxcmilkshake]

Originally Posted by oldgoldy97

Is he set up at a Turkish bazaar?

You're on fire today

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[daviswr7]

Give me a break man. If you don't like the price, just move along. No one has to discount anything for you, and a LCS is not Walmart. No Price matching.

[signed79]

Originally Posted by BirdsFan55

So I flew home to my parents for the holiday weekend and visited one of the local hobby shops I’ve frequented a few times before. I’ve never been a huge fan of his demeanor but he has generally had the best prices in town and well money talks I guess. But yesterday will be the last time I ever go in there. Started out talking about all the fanatics stuff going on and what that might mean for hobby shops moving forward. His thoughts on the matter were “I’ve made plenty running this shop the past 5 years that I really couldn’t care less what happens to hobby stores when fanatics takes over. If I have to close, so be it”. My buddy and I were a little taken aback but soon after I asked about his topps chrome prices. He had jumbos for $400 and I asked if he were willing to move on price. Brought up blowout has them for $380 and his response was “well I have the cheapest price in town.” And having done my research I said no you’re not, ‘other hobby store’ has them for $375. His response was “that doesn’t sound very ‘other hobby store’ of them. And then I asked “still not willing to move on price?” Reply was “nope” and we walked out. A**hole would rather not make a sale on a product he paid $240 for and would’ve still profited over $100 on a single box with a discount than give someone a ‘deal’. Proceeded to go to the other store and talk them down to $350 and got my five rookie pitcher autos haha. For the good store owners that are out there for the collectors, I wish you all the best but I’m not gonna be sad at all if fanatics runs turds like this out of business.


Tl:dr Hobby store owner greedy, fine with going out of business due to fanatics cause he’s well off from recent years, didn’t budge on a $400 box of topps chrome jumbo.

You're pathetic.

[Gidtheson]

Would love to see this sign in a shop

"If you want to haggle, the price can always go up."

[actionbryan]

My lcs doesn’t really budge and owners personality is off putting (but his employees are nice)

Their prices are competitive though so I go there if I need some lcs in my life

Whatcha gonna do

[BirdsFan55]

Originally Posted by signed79

You're pathetic.

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[marl1220]

Originally Posted by signed79

You're pathetic.

That's a bit strong.

[BirdsFan55]

The replies have been interesting to say the least but I’ll wear this one. Just want to clear up that my frustration was mostly in regards to the total disregard for others with the fanatics discussion, not the pricing. The pricing was just the tip of the iceberg. And I never used to ask about a lower price until things got crazy last year with the 10x MSRP prices. Never hurts to ask. Most of the time they do budge and when they don’t I walk out, no biggie


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[Gthompson1978]

Last time I went to my LCS, asked the price on a box, couldn’t see the small label all that well, he said, those went down $10 bucks, you can it for that, I don’t ask unless I can’t see the price or it has no price. I know the LCS is going to be a little higher than online, that’s understandable because the product is right there, you don’t have to wait for a week, you don’t take a chance on it getting lost, boom, done, you have it the instant you want it.

Also from my experiences I’ve hit way better from the LCS than I have ordering online, with just a few exceptions here and there. I say get the money while you can if you’re an LCS, that’s what we all do anyways. $20 bucks isn’t going to break someone, if it does, then those people shouldn’t be buying to begin with.

[cardsin47]

OP - so the owner took time to talk to you, told you his price on a box was firm, and you found it for less elsewhere…..not really seeing how that’s an “awful experience”. Happens every day to all of us

[moosetequila]

Generation "I'm offended"

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[BirdsFan55]

Originally Posted by cardsin47

OP - so the owner took time to talk to you, told you his price on a box was firm, and you found it for less elsewhere…..not really seeing how that’s an “awful experience”. Happens every day to all of us

Like I said, it was more about the fanatics topic, of which I brought up, and outside of that is was mostly one word answers. This is also a shop where you can’t even move cause there are cards and crap everywhere. One time I also witnessed a young kid come in with his grandma all excited cause he had some cards he was hoping to get some money for and he said they were all so worthless they weren’t even worth buying. Didn’t then try to turn him to his product and say something like “but these packs over here can have some good cards in them if you interested” kid left with borderline tears in his eyes. I really regret not buying the cards off the kid for $5 even if they were worthless.


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[monkeymcgee]

I mean this sincerely--you should be glad you didn't go to hobby shops back in the day.

[txrngr34]

Being an a-hole is one thing.

Not budging on price is a whole separate issue.

It feels like you're conflating the two.

A shop owner has every right to set his own price - regardless of what competitors do. If he ends going out of business because of his business decisions, he's a bad business man.

As a buyer, I think it's unreasonable for me to go into someone else's shop and expect to pay less - regardless of market conditions. I'll ask, and if I don't like the price I simply move on.

Price inflexibility doesn't equate to an a-hole or a business I would never go back to.

That said, there are obviously a lot of other things that could go into him being an a-hole but the pricing issue is not one of them.

[CardboardCombat]

OK, so am I understanding this right?

You don't go into this store a lot. You aren't a regular and a high volume guy.

You start talking to the owner about Fanatics taking over and essentially leading to the shutdown of a bunch of LCS and ruining his current method of making a living. This is like the equivalent of somebody you've never met coming up to you and asking about your mother with cancer and if you think she'll live another 5 years.

How would you like it if a stranger came up to you and said oh I heard your company is going through a round of layoffs and outsourcings right now? How do you feel about that?

You're pretty much new to him. You've already offended him.

Then your next move is to ask for a deal on a box of cards. Naturally he says no, but you're pissed about it even though it's $20.

And you're trying to convince me that HE'S the #@#@#@#@#@#@#@?

Your head is so far up your ass that you're brushing your hair with your ribs.

[no10pin]

Originally Posted by BirdsFan55

The replies have been interesting to say the least but I’ll wear this one. Just want to clear up that my frustration was mostly in regards to the total disregard for others with the fanatics discussion, not the pricing. The pricing was just the tip of the iceberg. And I never used to ask about a lower price until things got crazy last year with the 10x MSRP prices. Never hurts to ask. Most of the time they do budge and when they don’t I walk out, no biggie


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He might not be warm and cuddly, but honestly, what does his opinion on the Fanatics thing even matter? Nothing he says or thinks is going to change what is coming. On the flip side of that, he's probably pretty tired of hearing about how much people can get stuff for online, so he probably didn't appreciate that.

Sounds like you've already done the only thing you can do, which is not go back there.

[KD35Russ0]

Feels like some harsh responses here. I agree, not coming down on price, being sour about the Fanatics talk, totally within the owners right. I certainly wouldn't call the owner an a-hole over that. But, sometimes it's hard to translate in words the feeling you get in a bad shop. My guess is that's what happened here.

OP - good luck on your collecting. Thanks for contributing to the boards.

[lambeauleap87]

I can't imagine pitching a fit about a brick & mortar store being 5% over Blowout on a brand new release.

[hermanotarjeta]

You should buy a sealed case of topps chrome jumbos at the other shop, walk back to this shop and tell the owner “big mistake.”

[oplum29]

1- the shop owner isn't wrong
2- if you don't like the prices, don't buy

that simple

[andrewyoung]

I read the post and was thinking the shop owner wasn’t that bad.