Why Aloft Hobbies

[Wayne]

If you have a decent local hobby shop, please support them.
This is a hard business to make a living with. If they can't meet all of your needs, then please buy from shops that offer more than just products.

Please use your hobby money with businesses that support the hobby community more than just reselling stuff. Any decent company will be hosting events, training new pilots, donating items to events and generally promoting the hobby when and where they can. I can not stress this enough! If you are buying from an overseas company that does nothing in your area, and does nothing to advance the hobby, then you are actually harming the hobby. Buying cheap from overseas will do little or no good for your local hobby scene. You may actually harm the hobby.

So why Aloft Hobbies?

At Aloft we have always taken our roll in the community seriously. From the start we have hosted or sponsored events. We are always looking to add more fun events to the calendar. Nothing better than getting out and flying with our customers! We are proud that the events we have started have become some of the largest in the country. We keep things simple and keep them fun!

Aloft is VERY active with new designs and bringing new products to market. As I write this we have 16 major airframe projects in the works, some in house, some outsourced, and a major product line in development, this new product line should push the hobby in a new direction.

We offer products from simple free flight for kids all the way up to the fastest models in the world.

After sales support is very important and standing behind your sales should issues arise is critical. Heck, boxing up that fancy new plane well is not an option, it is mandatory! Everything we sell gets shipped in a well packed and padded box. No envelopes here. Why the heck would we want to risk your new products being damaged? And when we ship we use only main line shipping companies with good shipping results. We work closely with these companies to make sure your products arrive quick and without issues.

Does this make Aloft more expensive? Often times we are the best price for quality materials and products. Being based in the USA does cost more than overseas, just a reality of living here.

Simply put we are not a normal hobby shop. We invest heavily into the future of the hobby, and hope you will too.

Thank you for your time. I hope this gives you some insights that maybe you had not considered.

-Wayne

 

[Wayne]

I copied and pasted this from my blog on RC Groups where I was told I was not allowed to post such content, so I moved it here.

 

[Tmcfarland]

If you have a decent local hobby shop, please support them.
This is a hard business to make a living with. If they can't meet all of your needs, then please buy from shops that offer more than just products.

Please use your hobby money with businesses that support the hobby community more than just reselling stuff. Any decent company will be hosting events, training new pilots, donating items to events and generally promoting the hobby when and where they can. I can not stress this enough! If you are buying from an overseas company that does nothing in your area, and does nothing to advance the hobby, then you are actually harming the hobby. Buying cheap from overseas will do little or no good for your local hobby scene. You may actually harm the hobby.

So why Aloft Hobbies?

At Aloft we have always taken our roll in the community seriously. From the start we have hosted or sponsored events. We are always looking to add more fun events to the calendar. Nothing better than getting out and flying with our customers! We are proud that the events we have started have become some of the largest in the country. We keep things simple and keep them fun!

Aloft is VERY active with new designs and bringing new products to market. As I write this we have 16 major airframe projects in the works, some in house, some outsourced, and a major product line in development, this new product line should push the hobby in a new direction.

We offer products from simple free flight for kids all the way up to the fastest models in the world.

After sales support is very important and standing behind your sales should issues arise is critical. Heck, boxing up that fancy new plane well is not an option, it is mandatory! Everything we sell gets shipped in a well packed and padded box. No envelopes here. Why the heck would we want to risk your new products being damaged? And when we ship we use only main line shipping companies with good shipping results. We work closely with these companies to make sure your products arrive quick and without issues.

Does this make Aloft more expensive? Often times we are the best price for quality materials and products. Being based in the USA does cost more than overseas, just a reality of living here.

Simply put we are not a normal hobby shop. We invest heavily into the future of the hobby, and hope you will too.

Thank you for your time. I hope this gives you some insights that maybe you had not considered.

-Wayne

Buying online is a fact of life nowdays and Aloft is great. But…not only are you price competitive but sometimes I think you are too cheap. Your customers want to see you succeed and know how hard small business is. I constantly see items on your site and think you need to raise prices. For example, look at the pic of a servo extension cable. Ninety cents!! Image Homedepot sold that item. What would you expect to pay… probably $4.99 or more.
It might sound crazy a customer is recommending selective price increases but those increases would be pure profit that can fairly compensate owners and pay employees a competitive wage. We need you to grow and prosper. And keep development on the AH-100 moving along.

 

[G-man]

Long live Aloft Hobbies.
I love the fact that you are developing new designs and making new products available.
// Dave

 

[Wayne]

Funny thing is we don't sell many servo extensions at all. We used to go to the hobby expos and sell. One year we had a guy near us selling nothing but servo extensions. His show price was higher than our normal price and he had a steady flow of customers. So the next show I brought a bunch of extensions to sell, same guy was now next to our booth, and still selling for a higher price and he had a line most of the day. Think we sold a few extensions. Go figure. I never bothered to bring extensions again.

Hmm, just noticed our bulk discount is not working on the servo extensions. OK - Fixed. Now even cheaper. LOL

 

[thenated0g]

What issue did rcgroups have?

 

[Wayne]

What issue did rcgroups have?

I asked Jim that very question. No response yet. I assume because he takes a ton of advertising from overseas companies. I don't think he needs to worry, not one of those would bother to read any posts on RCG that was not directly related to something they are selling or considering ripping off.

I think it comes down to the fact that I am not currently advertising over there. Lets face it, it was a giant advertising post for Aloft.

 

[Chris]

I hope you don't get forced to take it off this forum....

 

[Wayne]

I just picked up a violation point at RC Groups for having our logo on my avatar there. I have had it for years. I guess you don't dare to ask Jim a question. I have contributed so much over there it is insane. Yes, I don't contribute much there anymore. Ran into too much friction there. I do try to monitor discussions on our airframes and events, but not much else.

 

[rcsoar4fun]

Sad to hear about RCG. I think they try to walk a fine line sometimes between people that works for vendors, people that are also vendors, and vendors there for profit. They have some weird rules, don't even get me started about the sales feedback issues. However, I think everyone that has dealt with Aloft or Wayne would agree y'all are the good guys.

I will add a couple of things.

Become an evangelist for the good guys.

When people post something along the lines of "Where should I buy XYZ?" I like to suggest places like Aloft. Your prices are more than fair and customer service is awesome. I wish I could buy more, unfortunately the past 18 months have been nuts around here.

When I was a kid there was a hobby shop in Plantation Florida, R/C Hobbies. Dude named Chuck owned it and always gave us a great discount (10%-20% or better). I was a fairly low income family, but I worked a lot in the summer. Most of my money went to that shop. Going was an event, there was always something cool to see. Fair to say it was before the internet. It breaks my heart a bit my kids will never get to see it.

On the flip side, we have a local hobby shop which is locally operated but a national franchise. They are, frankly, terrible. They had a weird mix of old inventory from ARFs from 20 years ago and Horizon UMX. I understand that part. Twice I have been in there when they were giving people BAD advice. They are worse than nothing. Last time I was in there I asked if they had a roll of covering. They offered to order it from Horizon for list price, but I would have to also pay the shipping. I am not sure why in the world anyone would do that!?!?!?! I recommend people go to the other shop in town or just order online. If I only had Home Depot in my town, then yeah, I would support them. Luckily I have options here.

 

[Wayne]

On the flip side, we have a local hobby shop which is locally operated but a national franchise. They are, frankly, terrible. They had a weird mix of old inventory from ARFs from 20 years ago and Horizon UMX. I understand that part. Twice I have been in there when they were giving people BAD advice. They are worse than nothing. Last time I was in there I asked if they had a roll of covering. They offered to order it from Horizon for list price, but I would have to also pay the shipping. I am not sure why in the world anyone would do that!?!?!?! I recommend people go to the other shop in town or just order online.

Yeah, sadly there are still shops like that. But still not a horrible idea to support them when you can if they have anything of value for you. They are hopefully just one good employee away from being better.

With that said, when I worked at a small chain of hobby shops in the late 80s, I could not talk reason to the folks above that we needed more inventory for something as cheap as a 9" prop. Nope, the computer said we only needed 5, so that was all we could get. I'd have guys come in on the day of our inventory shipment wanting to buy all 5 of them. We could not special order for them, we could not request more, it was stupid. But the same company had the mailorder side.. Go figure. Sometimes the employees hands are tied by corporate.

I could start bitching about how poor my local grocery store has become, yet the prices keep going up. Would it kill them to have a couple of employees to take our money? I do hate the corporate approach to many retail businesses.

In my area we have Home Depot, Lowes and a place called Friedman's Home Improvement. Home Depot pretty much sucks. They don't even stock all sizes of bolts, but every other size, and good luck getting any level of an informative answer from the staff if you can find any. Lowes is better with a few more employees and a cleaner store and they do offer a wider selection of bolts. Friedman's has a lot of employees that are all very good in their areas. If they don't know, they will find someone that does. The staff are some of the best I have seen in recent retail. It is not a fluke as I have been to multiple locations for them. Their stores are very clean, and they have a full hardware selection that is kept pretty well organized. Price differences? Home Depot is the lowest price, Lowes typically a bit more and Friedman's usually comes in a bit higher, but far better than the little ACE stores. Occasionally Friedman's has the best price and quality in town. Their wood is very nice. I don't think you have to ask where I go when I have a need.

 

[rcsoar4fun]

I get what you are saying and I would give them a second chance, except I have heard multiple dumb things from multiple employees, including the owner. Same guy had a hobby shop which went under. A few years later he restarted it in a different location. I think some inventory is left over.

There is another shop in town, small place with virtually no airplane stuff except normal UMX stuff. However, fantastic dude and always out at events or supporting. I make a habit of sending people his way, even if I don't shop there much.

To be fair, I could start a really legit hobby shop just out of my shop. I might have too many airplanes.

Odd thing about HD vs Lowes. It seems to be regional to some extent? When I lived in Texas I would pretty much only shop at Lowes. Here the HD is much more helpful. My wife still prefers Lowes as they have more homewares sort of stuff.

 

[Red]

Yeah, sadly there are still shops like that. But still not a horrible idea to support them when you can if they have anything of value for you. They are hopefully just one good employee away from being better.

With that said, when I worked at a small chain of hobby shops in the late 80s, I could not talk reason to the folks above that we needed more inventory for something as cheap as a 9" prop. Nope, the computer said we only needed 5, so that was all we could get. I'd have guys come in on the day of our inventory shipment wanting to buy all 5 of them. We could not special order for them, we could not request more, it was stupid. But the same company had the mailorder side.. Go figure. Sometimes the employees hands are tied by corporate.

I could start bitching about how poor my local grocery store has become, yet the prices keep going up. Would it kill them to have a couple of employees to take our money? I do hate the corporate approach to many retail businesses.

In my area we have Home Depot, Lowes and a place called Friedman's Home Improvement. Home Depot pretty much sucks. They don't even stock all sizes of bolts, but every other size, and good luck getting any level of an informative answer from the staff if you can find any. Lowes is better with a few more employees and a cleaner store and they do offer a wider selection of bolts. Friedman's has a lot of employees that are all very good in their areas. If they don't know, they will find someone that does. The staff are some of the best I have seen in recent retail. It is not a fluke as I have been to multiple locations for them. Their stores are very clean, and they have a full hardware selection that is kept pretty well organized. Price differences? Home Depot is the lowest price, Lowes typically a bit more and Friedman's usually comes in a bit higher, but far better than the little ACE stores. Occasionally Friedman's has the best price and quality in town. Their wood is very nice. I don't think you have to ask where I go when I have a need.

I miss Friedman's.....

 

[Wayne]

When I'm replacing old stuff in my house, many times the old part will have a 35 year old Friedman's sticker on it. I want to see if I can return one. LOL

Yeah, I bought this a little while ago, can I trade it for a fresh one?