Do you have the hobby of flying RC aeroplanes? If so, then you must have heard the name of ParkZone.
ParkZone has had its dominance in the market for a long time. Why did a company that has been in the market for decades, has a cult following, is celebrated by fans, and is the winner of the Best Hobby Brand Award vanish in a puff?
Parkzone is an RC Hobby brand famous for its versatile plane models. F27 Stryker and Slow-V are two of their bests. Fans of their RTF plane swerve everywhere. Over time they became trustworthy, and people adored their products.
So what went wrong? Why did they shut down without any prior notice?
It all started with the stopping of their call service. People couldn’t reach them. The removal of their support centre followed it. Finally, people got suspicious, and the ParkZone lovers started to reach out.
The UK office of ParkZone was closed, and then in France too. There was still no notice announced of what was going on. Regular consumers remained clueless.
What followed next was that a lot of new brands entered the market. They also provided quality products. As a result, the demand for ParkZone started declining. And soon, they started facing losses.
People started assuming things like - the offices in the US will also be closed like that in the UK, ParkZone went bankrupt, and so on. The situation worsened with the emergence of E-flight, which soon replaced ParkZone.
The products E-flight brought were of similar quality to ParkZone. Even the price range was the same too. On the one hand, for the first time in decades, ParkZone was facing survival problems. On the other hand, E-flight entered the market and drew the customers towards itself.
E-flight timing of entering the market was so perfect that it brought an end to the once famous RC plane producers.
But ParkZone did not go out of business entirely. They still produce transmitters for RC planes. The company is split into small ventures. However, their fame originated from RC planes, and they will be remembered for that as a childhood nostalgia for many.
