Slot car addiction

Slot Shop chat

Sometimes it takes a fresh mind succeed in the retail market. One such fresh mind is Eddie Palminha, owner of Slot Shop at Arncliffe in Sydney. Australian Muscle Car sat down with Eddie to talk about what it’s like to make a living from your hobby.

AMC: How did slot cars come into your life?

Eddie Palminha: When I was seven I was already into cars, I always had a fascination, I used to draw them all the time. Even though I’d grown up in a Portuguese family and everything was about soccer, my Dad could see my passion for cars and he bought me my first Scalextric set. Eventually I got more interested in real cars and I still am – I own a classic Falcon coupe now days.

AMC: So how did you get back into slot cars?

EP: In my mid-twenties I dusted off the old set and then in the mid-2000s, I noticed Slot Shop in Sydenham and dropped in. I started racing competitively and enjoyed it once again. At the time Roland Rohler owned it, then it changed hands with Ken Walker buying it. Ken went on to set up Penrith Slot Cars and put Slot Shop on the market and I took the plunge and took over in 2014. AMC: Did you have any particular goals? EP: Definitely! I wanted to take it to another level. We run club racing and special event enduros to cater for the enthusiasts, but those guys aren’t getting any younger. I wanted to pitch it to kids, to try and get them into the hobby and increase the customer base. I wanted to create more product awareness. AMC: How did you set about it?

EP: Everybody says it, but social media is such a strong part of our lives now, but I didn’t think it was reaching its full potential. The old mindset of a slot car shop was to look after the old guys and not much else. There was some attempt to get kids involved through hosting birthday parties, but it wasn’t very attention grabbing for kids. I explored as many social media platforms as I could, jazzed up the website. I made the parties as bright and colourful as I could, made them family oriented. We added party lights, arcade machines and made it more like the kind of places parents expect to see to host their parties, and memorable for the kids.

At the same time, those parties were like a form of marketing where other parents could see what we could do, and get them think of Slot Shop as an alternative party venue for them. If we can get two or three more kids asking about having their parties with us, then its successful. We started handing out discount vouchers for subsequent party bookings, and vouchers for free track time to come back into the shop at a later date with their Mum or Dad.

We also have a portable track that we can take to people’s homes and to other venues. The longer term goal, of course, is that those kids will be like I was! They will want a home set and get drawn into slot racing like I did. Our secret weapon though, is the biggest kids of all – the Dads!

AMC: How do you capitalise on those return visits? EP: We never tell a customer what to buy - we are always looking to see what interest them. A lot of our shop is display cabinets with lovely cars. Some kids are attracted to the Carrera Go or Scalextric Micro cars, some like colourful hotrods and some like race or rally cars. I never push them in a particular direction, but try and find out what would be best for their situation. AMC: How do you see the future of the hobby?

EP: I think it’s quite strong and stable. Some people point to the disappearance of some traditional brands such as SCX, Ninco, Avant and Monogram, but they have been replaced by BRM, Thunderslot, SRC, NSR and Revoslot, all with quality products. Scalextric and Carrera are improving their quality and detail, while maintaining similar retail prices. I think if you pay attention to the market and developments, there is no reason you can’t make a successful product out of this hobby we all love.

A good indicator is the number of Australian release cars from Scalextric. If you go back to the Nineties, for crying out loud we had Rovers painted up as Dick Johnson’s Greens Tuf and Peter Brock’s Mobil cars. Now days, the Aussie cars are awesome – Southern Models do their research quite well, but I would like to see some Monaros and XU-1 Toranas.

3D printing is a good example of the state of the market. One of my customers brought in a 3D printed body by Area71. I had a closer look and it was fantastic – very resilient and light, with high levels of detail. There was a lot of interest from the other racers, so I spoke to Area71 and came to an agreement where I became the Australian importer. I’m working on things with them at the moment to make Australian release cars, so hopefully we will soon have XD and XE Falcons and VC and VK Commodores from Group C.

AMC: I understand you get involved in other events?

EP: Yes, I’m trying to broaden our outreach, so we are running a car hobby Swap Meet to cater for slot cars, diecast and kit models. It’s on 6 September at Kingsgrove Community Hall, Covid permitting of course! It’ll be very similar to what we do with our portable track when we go to The ASRCC events or to corporate events, so we’ll have our portable track there so newbies can have a go, as well as a sausage sizzle. There will be a good mix of all three product groups set up on the day.

Can I also say we do a bit of charity work – we’ve been doing track builds for the Starlight Foundation, so we can involve kids of all ages and abilities. Track building is something we also offer as a commercial service designing and building various tracks for customers all over Sydney, everything from basic two lane analogue tracks through to multilane digital tracks, including the Eastern Creek Short Course track.