Guillows Discontinued at Tower Hobbies?

[scigs30]

I noticed on Towerhobbies website that most of the Guillows kits have been discontinued. Is this not a good sign for our hobby?

[dbcisco]

I think it has more to do with Tower pushing their own brands (Hobbico, Great planes, etc.). I hope these conglomerates in this industry get the message that times are hard and increasing their prices and dropping products isn't the answer. I have only broken my year long boycott of TH (long story) for a single item that I got with a coupon that it brought it down to half price.

[John G. Jedinak]

Out of curiousity dbcisco,......why did you decide to boycott Tower Hobbies??? Thanx, JGJ

[SteveM]

I never buy them from Tower anyways on account of their high prices, but it is a little disconcerting.

[dbcisco]

When they put the G4.5 beta full of bugs on the shelves as a finished product just before Xmas. I commented on how I thought it was pretty sleazy of them to put out a beta just to make the Xmas sales, they banned me (and my entire school district's IP Adressess) from their forums (Knifeedge and RCGroups). J. Bourke (owner) slandered me with "copyright infringement" and I couldn't even respond. I wish I had the money to sue the creep. Anyway, If you buy Realflight and have problems or doesn't run (which it still does even after about a dozen "patches" they put out for it) you will never get your $200 back. Pretty sleazy IMHO.

[dbcisco]

J. Bourke also threatened to call my school officials to get me fired. He is a real piece of work. The only thing I figure is that anyone that threatened by a single complainer has something big to hide!

[John G. Jedinak]

Interesting situation...boycott is excellent and now spreading the word is appropriate. I had problems with Bananna Hobby and Herr/Sig and have chosen to boycott them as well. JGJ

[dbcisco]

Inteeresting. My boycott breaker was a discontinued SIG Fokker D.VII, $40 delivered. I think they lost money on that one

[Arlo DiPasquale]

I was just on hobbylinc, and I noticed they have stopped carrying all but two Guillow kits. I wonder why??

[scigs30]

My LHS no longer carries Guillows, they said they are unable to order them. Is there something Guillows is not telling us????????? If so I better start buying some kits.

[Bill Gaylord]

My LHS is as excited as ever about carrying the Guillows line. Hobby shops have to decide what items have a high inventory cost, and may go obsolete, when deciding what to carry. Guillows kits do not go obsolete, as they are not electronic technology, or something of that nature. They are not terribly expensive for an LHS to stock, and have been around since the beginning of time, making them a legacy of the hobby. That said, there's really no excuse for not carrying them.

[dbcisco]

That is good for the LHSes. As more big on-line houses drop good products, the LHSes can pick them up. Might save many of them from going under. Yet, I can still buy almost everything my 4 LHSes have on-line for 10% to 40% less. Sorry but the LHS is not on my charity list. I wasn't given breaks when my computer store went under for similar reasons.