Jim R. posted:bluelinec4 posted:Moonson posted:Would the decision to open such a new store, at that specific location, be indicative of a significant market of model railroaders in that area? If so, to what factors might we attribute such a population? Such information, it would seem to me, might be valuable for smaller vendors and merchants of "cottage-industry" handmade products to be made aware, IMO.
FrankM
Layout Refinements
Its more like North Carolina is a retirees paradise Believe thats the targeted audience
No, that’s not the target. Lionel reportedly is testing to see if this store format is viable enough to do nationally.
So this store won’t be for dedicated hobbyists or old guys. It will be for families and kids. My guess is that it will be filled with lots of train sets, Polar Express products, LionChief Plus locomotives and maybe a sampling of Lionel freight and passenger cars.
At $50 a square foot, mall retail space requires frequent turnover of merchandise for a store to be considered successful. So the stock has to have broad appeal — certainly not the hobbyists who complain about a model’s prototypical accuracy for a particular railroad or what couplers are used in freight cars.
My reply was facetious. It was a joke
