R.I.P. Team Losi Products Closeout Sale
General informational notes from owner: Kevin Altepeter
Hello and thank you for checking out my Team Losi Products Closeout Sale. The Team Losi Company sold out to Horizon Distributing. This then resulted in all Team Losi products becoming an exclusive of Horizon Distributing, cutting off all hobby dealers that are not customers of Horizon from having any distributors of Team Losi products. In my case, this was done without any regards for my past loyalty to Team Losi and continued personal efforts to support the R/C Hobby activities in this area; not to mention my personal investment in Team Losi products. After this, "Slap in the face" reward for my support to Team Losi, being their products were my main line, there wasn't even a buy-back policy available to reimburse me for my remaining new inventory.
Why do big-distributors like Horizon refuse to distribute to my growing R/C Hobby Business? I am told that it is because I don't have a separate commercial building from my home, set up, to contain my hobby shop that has business signage on it. What I do have is a nice Full-Service 10th Scale Off-Road Racing facility with a 24' x24' garage next to it set up as an indoor pit area and shop. My store front is Internet based with the R/C product inventory on site in the basement of my home, in a portable race trailer and in the garage. To show my products in the pit area would require spending thousands of dollars setting up locking glass displays. Instead, I have the track computer station networked to the house including the shop, upstairs office and main floor computer systems. This does not count the laptop that can be plugged in anywhere. To show a customer what I sell, whether it is in stock and what it costs can be done from my pit/race management station or anywhere in the home. By doing all this, I have provided my area a local quality R/C product dealer, a full-service racing facility as well as allowing world-wide sales to increase my volume. This is the best I can do being there is not enough local support to fund a full-time commercial R/C hobby shop business in this area. All these things I have done and more to support R/C activities in this area aside from working full-time to support my family and I do not qualify by Horizon as a legitimate dealer?!! While any store owner with a sign up on a commercially located building with shelves set up to display $5000 in hobby inventory are welcome to become a dealer whether they know anything about R/C products or can supply a single R/C related service or not? How ridiculous!!!
Anyway, the whole point here is that circumstances dictate the need to now sell out my Team Losi products, cut my losses and continue to supports R/C with quality sales and services as before. I will continue by supplying my customers with the high quality R/C products and services they need, just as before, with the exclusion of unavailable products like those of Team Losi. For those that I have sold Team Losi products to in the past, unfortunately, after my present inventory has depleted, I can no longer be a dealer of Team Losi products to you. For this you can thank Horizon Hobby Distributing and the new Team Losi. Apparently, there are much more important things to Horizon and Team Losi these days than that you have local products and services available to you.
My viewpoint is that the once privately-owned family business of Team Losi has died only to be replaced by a subsidiary of a much larger company that it seems is only concerned with larger-volume business marketing and smaller community people like myself and others no longer count. What they need to realize is that the R/C hobby industry customers do not need Team Losi to exist to find the high-quality products they need. There is still plenty of other companies to fill that bill! I can't understand how the people at Horizon can see it in their best interest to treat me, a long-time Team Losi patron, R/C hobby supporter, track owner and dealer in this way. Maybe one day they will come to their senses. Until then, Horizon can expect that my local support and availability of products will ensure a lot more people will be choosing to purchase something other than a Team Losi Model in my area. As to the great Team Losi company that I once knew, may you rest in peace.
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Altepeter
Kevin's Remote Control Products & Services