Holiday Marketing for RC Hobby Shops: A Week-by-Week Playbook for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Beyond
The short version: an RC shop’s holiday season is won in October, not on Black Friday. This year Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, so Black Friday is November 27 and Small Business Saturday is November 28. If your Google Business Profile, your website and your counter are ready before November starts, the gift shoppers find […]
Why Isn’t My Hobby Shop Showing Up When People Ask AI for a Shop Near Me?
Type “RC hobby shop near me” into ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, or Perplexity instead of a plain search box, and something strange happens: no map, no ten blue links, no list of pins to scroll through. Just a paragraph, usually naming two or three shops, with a short reason for each one. If your shop […]
Why Isn’t My Hobby Shop Showing Up When Someone Asks ChatGPT for the Best RC Shop Near Them?
A hobbyist thirty minutes from your shop just typed something into ChatGPT: “best RC shop near me for a first nitro buggy.” Or they asked Google’s AI Overview, or told Gemini to find them a hobby store that actually stocks Traxxas parts instead of just selling them online. Somewhere, an AI assistant answered that question […]
Is Inventory Really the Problem? Why Struggling Hobby Shops Usually Have a Marketing Problem
If I had a dollar for every hobby shop owner who told me their problem was inventory, I could probably retire and just bash trucks full time. It’s almost never the actual problem, though. It’s the explanation that feels true because it’s the thing sitting right in front of them every day: shelves that aren’t […]
What Separates the Hobby Shops That Thrive From the Ones That Fold?
I’ve spent a good chunk of my career doing marketing for small businesses, and a good chunk of my free time being an obsessive RC customer, so I’ve ended up in a strange, useful spot: I’ve been on both sides of the hobby shop counter for longer than most people who actually own one. I’ve […]