Great Hobbies Ottawa - a few pics of the rocketry department

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Great Hobbies

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Hello all!

I just wanted to show you an example of our rocketry department at one of our retail stores.

This is the location I manage, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Cheers,
Tyler P
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We do have a large variety of all the other stuff, like RC cars, trucks, planes, helis, boats, plastic models, etc, but over the last couple years we've worked really hard to get back at the rocketry end.

Really appreciate the kind words!

These are from the day we opened the new location after moving from our previous one of 10 years. It's funny to see how much more product we have now compared to last October. We're jammed to the rafters, now!
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When I was a kid many many years ago we had a neighborhood hobby shop that was like that. We went there at least a couple times a week because it was on our route we took to school each day. I still remember the smells of the shop to this day, the smell of the glues, dopes, balsa dust. All the great things that made up such great hobbies. But today it's a whole different story I live near a metro area of over 5 million people and the very few places we call hobby shops are mostly filled with junk. Boy if we had a place like that here I would go out of my way at least a couple times a week to stop buy and buy something to support the place. You guys are very lucky up there :) Great pictures bringing back great memories....Thanks
 
Thanks so much for all the kind comments! We truly do love our hobbies here, and I have to say that I'm pretty blessed to be working in an industry I really enjoy! Makes all the difference in the world!
 
I don't go to Ottawa that often, but order regularly from you guys great service. Last time I ordered some rockets over the phone, because the rockets were discontinued and only available from the Oshawa store. Again very nice and great service...any plans of opening a store in Montreal...south shore would be the best...lol
 
I don't go to Ottawa that often, but order regularly from you guys great service. Last time I ordered some rockets over the phone, because the rockets were discontinued and only available from the Oshawa store. Again very nice and great service...any plans of opening a store in Montreal...south shore would be the best...lol

We always love hearing good news like that! Very much appreciated to hear from a happy customer!

Sadly, we don't have any immediate plans of opening in Quebec. The language laws make it very difficult for hobby retailers to be compliant with all the different warning labels and packaging. We definitely wish it was easier to make it work!

If you ever need anything, feel free to message us here via PM and we'll give you a hand!
 
Hello all!

I just wanted to show you an example of our rocketry department at one of our retail stores.

This is the location I manage, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Cheers,
Tyler PView attachment 458522View attachment 458523View attachment 458524
I am in NJ, so here is a question I assumed most of us, here in the USA, have concerning your great inventory. Is Rocketry that big in Ottawa for you to stock such a large and vary supply of Rocketry items. Will you turn over that stockage in kits and/or motors in a certain timeframe.
 
Yes, the interest in rocketry is alive and well in Ottawa!

The local club, Ottawa Rocketry Group, is under Tripoli. They have been around for a good number of years. They don't currently have a launch site but they have been active in doing demo launches at our local flying events at the MAAC flying fields.

We turn over stock pretty regularly! We sell a pile of Estes stuff and only started stocking LOC Precision over the last 9 months or so, and Jolly Logic quite recently. LOC has been very popular. Aerotech is our latest addition, although we carried them awhile ago, before I started with the company 10 years ago. I very much expect we'll be selling a lot of their motors and kits.

Being an avid rocketeer myself, it definitely helps in selling rocketry as a hobby!

The key for us is that we're also a very busy hobby shop for all the other hobbies. Some people pick up rocketry as a casual interest as a diversion from some of their other hobbies, and some end up taking it more seriously over time. Locally, I find there's a pretty heavy crossover between RC flyers and rocketeers.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, haha! In short, yes, we turn over a fair bit of rocketry inventory, so it's pretty helpful to have a good variety, and also the ability to help newer rocketeers see the larger mid-power rockets that might give them something to shoot for! That's what happened to me when I got back into it more seriously four years ago.
 
Very cool store. You have a nice stock of "gateway drug" motors and kits. I was going to be happy forever building just low power, until I picked up a LOC Aura and an E20...just one hit, and down the rabbit hole I went.
 
Very cool store. You have a nice stock of "gateway drug" motors and kits. I was going to be happy forever building just low power, until I picked up a LOC Aura and an E20...just one hit, and down the rabbit hole I went.

Thanks! And, yes, that's exactly it! The Estes launch sets are what get people hooked on it! With LOC introducing their 1-series and Park Flyer line-ups, they've built their own gateway models, as well! It's the kind of addiction we just love to encourage!:D
 
Tyler, you also should mention that GH is likely THE hobby shop for Canadian mail order. (There are only 2 other retailers [rocketry related] that do mail order for the Canadian market) GH is well known in the R/C field, and is getting bigger in the rocketry field.. (haha, no pun intended! )

Now, let's talk about HPR AT motors.. :D
 
The large hobby shop in SoCal that was only a few miles from me used to be like this. They used to carry a lot of AT HL stuff as well as pretty much the entire Estes line... they recently moved, and their rocketry section looks more like a Hobby Lobby now. Probably another Covid casualty... nobody was buying the stuff because they couldn't launch, so they dropped it.
 
Yes, the interest in rocketry is alive and well in Ottawa!

The local club, Ottawa Rocketry Group, is under Tripoli. They have been around for a good number of years. They don't currently have a launch site but they have been active in doing demo launches at our local flying events at the MAAC flying fields.

We turn over stock pretty regularly! We sell a pile of Estes stuff and only started stocking LOC Precision over the last 9 months or so, and Jolly Logic quite recently. LOC has been very popular. Aerotech is our latest addition, although we carried them awhile ago, before I started with the company 10 years ago. I very much expect we'll be selling a lot of their motors and kits.

Being an avid rocketeer myself, it definitely helps in selling rocketry as a hobby!

The key for us is that we're also a very busy hobby shop for all the other hobbies. Some people pick up rocketry as a casual interest as a diversion from some of their other hobbies, and some end up taking it more seriously over time. Locally, I find there's a pretty heavy crossover between RC flyers and rocketeers.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, haha! In short, yes, we turn over a fair bit of rocketry inventory, so it's pretty helpful to have a good variety, and also the ability to help newer rocketeers see the larger mid-power rockets that might give them something to shoot for! That's what happened to me when I got back into it more seriously four years ago.
Thanks for the complete and comprehensive answer.
 
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