The local tackle shop.

[paul80]

Hi

I do try to support my local tackle shops rather than buying on line but sometimes the price difference is so big I just cannot justify paying shop prices.

I will buy most bits of terminal tackle and obviously bait from a shop but when it comes to the bigger items, its a no brainer, most of the larger items, Rods, Reels, Beds, Bivvies etc are often half the price they are in my local shops and some times far less than half.

I know the shop has its over heads but so do I.

One thing that dose miff me off is when a shop has an item listed at one price but also sell on the internet at half their shop price. now that does get me going.

Paul

 

[mark brailsford 2]

I try and support local tackle shops in every way I can.
I use the nearest one in my own town of chesterfield for bait and billy clarkes in Sheffield for all my tackle simply because his range is fantastic (the best stocked tackle shop I have ever been in) and Billy and his staff have always been approachable, polite and very free with advice, nothing is to much trouble and they even let you play with the rods, reels etc!!!
I do buy my lures on line as you tend to get a bigger selection from specialist mail order companies (although Sue Harris had the best range ever...miss her so much!) and I have bought the odd reel online when the price was right (A shimano technium with £80 off, bargain!!) but I will always use my local tackle shops because when they have gone where are you going to go for your fresh bait? enough said!

mark

 

[chav professor]

Always buy either from local tackle shop (or vintage second hand from a mate who is also a dealer - or ebay if something is worth a punt).....

You can always find something cheaper online - but I prefer to handle/try before I buy. if I mention that something is cheaper else where - we come to an agreement. I have two tackle shops - one is a main stockist for Daiwa - and is garanteed cheapest, the other a Shimano stockist.

Tackle shops value return trade and will always look after you, if you support them.............

---------- Post added at 03:02 ---------- Previous post was at 03:01 ----------

I agree with Mark above re:Sue harris... best range of lure anywhere and a real loss./

 

[chrisfromthevalley]

i have 2 near me, one sells everything RRP no discounts, no deals, no freebies, i don't go there that often, i would like to but, the other is better, they have deals on reels and rods, so on.
but when you can get £50, 60 quid off a reel buying online, why should i support them.

 

[itsfishingnotcatching]

I use a local shop but generally only for bait and terminal tackle, larger items have come from Go Outdoors or the internet. The items I wanted have not been available in the shop and I was told he had nothing from Maver as the rep had not been in to see him for years!

 

[stu_the_blank]

why should i support them

Depends on your shopping habits but for me, I need to look, handle talk about it etc. When all of the tackle shops have gone (and they will in due course) how are you going to know what to buy? Come to that, who are the internet companies going to use as their unpaid marketing depts?

At the moment they are freeloading off the shops. Go to the shop, chose what you want. Go home and buy at a discount on the net. Take the first step out and then what?

I'm lucky, I have a number of very good shops locally still and I try to buy from them when I can. 10 years down the line? What then.

Stu

 

[itsfishingnotcatching]

Stu,

Not my quote mate

Ian

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Depends on your shopping habits but for me, I need to look, handle talk about it etc. When all of the tackle shops have gone (and they will in due course) how are you going to know what to buy? Come to that, who are the internet companies going to use as their unpaid marketing depts?

At the moment they are freeloading off the shops. Go to the shop, chose what you want. Go home and buy at a discount on the net. Take the first step out and then what?

I'm lucky, I have a number of very good shops locally still and I try to buy from them when I can. 10 years down the line? What then.

Stu

This tents to be my view

if the local shop goes - where will you buy a pint of maggots, a spool of line

are you goign to pay p&p for a spool of line costing £5?

If the price is similar then I'll pay a few £ more to support a local business and as I've said before - once they know you will spend with them they often throw in a few bits

one big shop is selling reels for £114 - my local shop will get me the same reel in and chuck in a spool of line - I may spnd a few £ more but it saves on P&P

 

[mark brailsford 2]

I don't think the tackle shops are going to vanish from the planet alltogether, It will just be the better ones that pull through.
Billy clarkes in sheffield has been open since 1918 but now he is in a really good position sales wise as he is about the only one left in the city (bennets went bust and callcotts shutdown after the floods) but he just goes from strength to strength, expanding a little everytime new gear is added to the market. Oh, and yes he as an online shop to, and one of the best sites on the web for spares, so best of both worlds!
sorry if I sound like a marketing man but I believe in giving credit where its due!

mark

 

[chrisfromthevalley]

pity about callcotts, i only went in there once, and the guys were much more friendly than the grumpy types with have here in the south.

 

[Mart Smith]

I will drive to a shop some miles away, rather than use my local tackle shops. I am thoroughly unimpressed by the owners and staff that stand aound all day, F'n and blindin' without any thought for customers with children. The shop I now use have great staff, both helpful and happy to say wheres fishng good etc.

That said, the last rod I bought I had to get online, because no-one locally stocked it!

 

[stu_the_blank]

Stu,

Not my quote mate

Ian

Sorry Ian, I just highlighted and used the 'quote selected text, I didn't notice that it had put in the wrong author. Anybody on FM know what i'm doing wrong?

Stu

---------- Post added at 06:31 ---------- Previous post was at 06:22 ----------

I don't think the tackle shops are going to vanish from the planet alltogether

Mark, I think that shops in general will disapear, not just tackle shops. There has been talk of Bluewater becoming a showroom for internet companies in the future. It's years down the line but the logic is inescapable. If you pay rent, showroom costs, staff costs etc to be in a good position, you'll never compete with an operation in a warehouse either out of town or even offshore. The economies of scale and location will mean prices that a traditional small shop can't live with. Next step from supermarkets. Not a future I relish but not unlikely.

Stu

 

[terry m]

Ringwood Tackle is my local hostelry and apart from tackle and bait, they give one thing that you will be unlikely to get over the internet, up to date local catches, how a river stretch or a stillwater is performing for both the experienced angler and the novice alike.

I understand that paying significantly more for high cost itmes is tough, but don't automatically assume that a shop will not deal, in my experience they often will !

Check out the high streets for proper butchers and bakers and fishmongers, they are a rare breed in most towns and cities. Not killed off by the supermarkets, but killed off by the customers who switch their patronage to supermarkets. We are the customers, we drive the markets.

 

[mark brailsford 2]

Ringwood Tackle is my local hostelry and apart from tackle and bait, they give one thing that you will be unlikely to get over the internet, up to date local catches, how a river stretch or a stillwater is performing for both the experienced angler and the novice alike.

I understand that paying significantly more for high cost itmes is tough, but don't automatically assume that a shop will not deal, in my experience they often will !

Check out the high streets for proper butchers and bakers and fishmongers, they are a rare breed in most towns and cities. Not killed off by the supermarkets, but killed off by the customers who switch their patronage to supermarkets. We are the customers, we drive the markets.

I have tried for years to get friends/workmates to buy from local farmshops, butchers, bakers etc instead from the ''BIG FOUR'' but they just laugh and say I must be loaded to shop in such places! I just say to them that when everyone else has gone the supermarkets will charge what they want...yes, it will come, mark my words!

mark

 

[Paul Boote]

I believe that it is coming back, Mark, and will come back more - doing your shopping at smaller, more local outlets rather than opting for a "Leisure Experience / Retail Therapy" trek to some glitzy, out-of-town, golfcart required to cope with the sheer acreage, Consumer World.

As for local tackleshops, I sadly had to drop mine, once a very fine shop run by one of England's greatest coarse, float and barbel fishers, in 2007 after well over forty years of visiting it often, spending regular (and sometimes some big-ticket) money and generally offering and giving it and its staff a lot of my affection and word-of-mouth-to-other-Anglers support - serially cheeked, then finally so grossly insulted by a shopboy (whom some local Spessie Denizens and Angling Travel Monsters had clearly nobbled) that many another man would not only only have summarily leapt the counter and pulped him on the spot but also smashed the place up on his way out. Not me, however, not being into such chestbeating stuff.

I walk past the place now and again, thinking of the old days and its Great Angler owner, when it really was somewhere to visit, chat and shop. Pity.

 

[thx1138]

I support my local shop, Cheshire Angling, which is run by England Ladies international, Helen Dagnall. They have top quality bait, and people travel from miles around to get their maggots, casters, worms, etc. They also do a lot to support the local clubs and particularly the junior sections.

The shop is geared up mostly for 'bait and bits', with not a lot in the way of rods or big tackle items. I guess they realise that they cant compete with the online firms, or tackle-warehouse places.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Paul

instead of walking away would you have been better to ask to speak to the owner/manager and tell him/her just what the shopboy had said to you and ask what action would be taken

If I was the manager/owner I'd want to know if my staff were putting buyers off

 

[mark brailsford 2]

We had a tackle shop in chesterfield for years that, before leegem, was the only tackle shop in chesterfield but for some strange reason they just gave up on customer service! you would walk in the shop and be greeted with a smarmy gang of lads (inc the shop keeper) and when you asked for something they would just point! any young anglers that were just starting up would have no chance. as you can imagine the shop closed down.
Now just down the road you have Phillip at leegem (named after his son and daughter) this guy set up shop after he lost his job with the NCB and he is doing very well simply because he looks after his customers and gives them time.

mark

 

[Paul Boote]

Exactly, Mark - being a proper people-person and not a mere, I might as well be selling clapped-out horses or secondhand cars, take the money and run bottom-liner, as so often is the case in business these days.

 

[jimmy crackedcorn]

We had a tackle shop in chesterfield for years that, before leegem, was the only tackle shop in chesterfield but for some strange reason they just gave up on customer service! you would walk in the shop and be greeted with a smarmy gang of lads (inc the shop keeper) and when you asked for something they would just point! any young anglers that were just starting up would have no chance. as you can imagine the shop closed down.
Now just down the road you have Phillip at leegem (named after his son and daughter) this guy set up shop after he lost his job with the NCB and he is doing very well simply because he looks after his customers and gives them time.

mark

Aye, I used to hate going to the Chester street as a kid. Quite like leegem - I sometimes stop there after seeing my folks, but bankside might see a bit more of my money as it's closer to me.