The two show rooms at East R/C and Scootworks were closed to walk-ins last summer for one simple reason -- the economy. Now online sales are growing.

"Essentially, our walk-in retail sales never represented more than 3 percent of our gross sales even in good years," co-owner Dave Hockaday said. "Before the economy fell, we were doing enough retail sales even at 3 percent to have someone out there working the register. But when the economy fell we began to see more people hanging out in the store, but not spending any money. (Closing the showroom) allowed us to focus our manpower on shipping, receiving and manufacturing."

Hockaday added he's had to lay off about 60 percent of his staff - 11 people - over the last two years.

Despite being closed to the public, the showroom at Scootworks, a motorcycle service and parts manufacturing company, remains intact. The big change has been the closure of the retail end of East R/C, a remote control hobby shop that sold all its standing merchandise and has now turned its focus toward manufacturing close to 50 different kinds of remote-control products.

The additional production wasn't the biggest pill to swallow for the manufacturing company, which produces around 700 motorcycle parts on the Scoot Works side.

"Since we have a CNC (computer numerical control) manufacturing facility we can manufacture all the products for both companies," Hockaday explained. "It's also allowed us to use the same accounting, shipping and accounts payable, so we didn't have to have all those things to run a separate business. It was like adding on an extra part."

Aside from doing away with the hobby shop and closing the motorcycle showroom, the only thing that's changed with the business is that the business's online market continues to grow and service hours have been extended. The Scootworks service department doors remain open, even to customers in need of a part.

The service department's hours have been extended.

Hockaday said online business has been good. Scootworks and East R/C are dealing with around 45,000 unique customers per year, with Scootworks yielding about 95 percent of the incoming business.

But Hockaday knows having to close the storefronts was disappointing to his customers, and he intends to re-open Scootworks to walk-ins when the economy recovers.

"Quite naturally we've had customers say they really hate we've closed," he said. "While we appreciate that, we have to say it's really based on the economy. Once the economy returns we'll have that back. It's something we want to have, but unfortunately this day in time you really have to watch your pennies closely."

Hockaday said in the meantime the store will open its doors for special events and occasions.