Quote - > Quote - ^merchants are not 'manufacturers'.

I disagree-a few model railroad suppliers are large, but most are quite small, many operating out of garages and basements, who do it out of love for the hobby.  There is a saying "to make a small fortune in the Model Railroad business, start with a large one".

If you want to get into the business, one of the larger decal manufacturing operations is for sale-their entire assets are shown here. it looks like it would fit into a two-car garage...

www.minot.com/champ/sale.html..

Um, no. This site is basically a consignment shop, not a retailer as such. There IS a difference. A retailer will buy the product outright then resell the item at a price they deem worthy. That doesn't happen here. The vendors are "supposed" to have control over their products. And in the early days of the store, the percentages were much lower than what they are now. So certain things have happened since then. Either the owners saw a cash cow and decided to grab all they could from it, or they have delusions that they are like Daz and have the same vendor pool. While I'm on the side of the vendors, I might venture to say that this place is somewhat like some trying to sell quality handmade items at a flea market. One, you have to root thru all the inferior stuff to find the good stuff and two, since it's a flea market people expect cheap, even if the quality is superior. I'm not pointing to any one vendor or vendors in particular ;o).

Laurie