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Mikus, looks like you and John Thro may be right; I just came from the Wal - Mart at Fry/W. Little York (needed to get a color toner for my printer, but I also intended to "stock up" on some model rocket engines) and, lo and behold, there's NO model rocket engines to be found anywhere! Only a couple of RTF starter sets (Patriot and the two rocket set). No Astrobeams (but saw one marked $19 in a clearance display). Just last week this same location had a very good supply of motors, and now they're GONE!! Maybe the curtain IS coming down for Estes & the Wal - Mart partnership......
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Dave, NAR # 21853 SR. |
#32
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-Fred Shecter NAR 20117 (L2) Southern California Rocket Association, NAR Section 430 |
#33
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Wal-Mart raised engine prices to $6.97 a pack a few months back; Hobby Lobby raised prices at the same time, staying a buck or two higher as they had been before. Apparently the price stayed $4.97 in some stores, probably where they had a pile of them in inventory.
Now there is every indication that they may pull out of rocket engines entirely. I'm not concerned that Estes will stop selling to Wal-Mart... I'm concerned Wal-Mart will stop buying from Estes. With so much of their marketing focused on the high-volume low-end stores, I'm afraid they may suffer significant financial harm... and it doesn't look as if they have much of a plan B. My plan B? Get the Shrox designs in hobby shops, and soon. Start catering to the hobbyists who may not buy as much, but who buy more frequently and with greater loyalty. But their knee-jerk reaction, if in fact Wal-Mart is cutting them out (or even just cutting them back), may be to cut costs by reducing customer service, and save money by not releasing the Shrox kits, or anything else new that WE might like. Grasping at the fading hope that Wal-Mart will once again smile on them. It worries me. The only thing I can do is take advantage of the discounts. Stock up on engines. They keep a long time, after all. If they do go down hard, I want to have enough to fly a while before I have to worry about my options.
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NAR # 115523 Once upon a better day... SAM #0076 My site: http://rocketry.gonnerman.org |
#34
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My local hobby store said they should have the Solar flare in stock in the next couple of days. When they do I will pick one up and take pictures.
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#35
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Wal-Mart's poor merchandising
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And, given Fred's earlier comment about how the checkers ring things up, Wal-Mart's product managers may not have known which motors were actually selling and thus which ones needed re-ordering. So if retailing Estes rockets at Wal-Mart has been a bust, I blame Wal-Mart as much as I blame anything else. Doug |
#36
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It could simply be that the economy is currently in the tank and with energy and food prices taking more or a typical persons budget and therefore disposable income, that people are buying necessities and not buying optional things like toys....
If Wal-Mart decided to stop selling Estes products, Estes woul stil be avilable in hundreds of Michaels, Hobby Lobbies, Hobby shop chains like Hobby Town, and literally scores upon scors of internet copanies. Perhaps Estes has seen the light like Quest and decided to just sell through online vendors instead of big box brick and mortar stores. This of course is pure speculation on my part as is 99% of the post in this thread. I personally have never seen any Eestes products in any Target stores in my neck of the woods..... And I've also been in several Wal_marts lately and a Meijers( a regional wal-mart chain) and they both have estes product on the shelves . So I'm not completely sure why some parts of the country doesn't have product on the shelves and other does. Again I would guess its the current economic situation..... toys go by the waysidem when you have to eat, drive to work or school and the kidz are alos going back to school now,and all the news I have seen says that manu families are barely able to afford school stuff. Fortuntaely for me, I've been around lonmh enough to remember recessions, inflation and stagnation: evidently alot of you younger people have only know the good times. terry dean
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"Old Rocketeer's don't die; they just go OOP".....unless you 3D print them. |
#37
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Doug . |
#38
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Walmart isn't getting out of the rocketry biz - they're just changing out their inventory from summer to Christmas. I went to the WM in the city where I work and looked for the rocket stuff - They had their shelf planning sheets taped to the shelves, and the rockets will be going on the bottom shelf of the hobby section. The planning sheet listed shelf space for motors, shelf space for launchables and shelf space for RTF rockets. So, in their infinite corporate wisdom, WM is clearancing out the summer stock of rockets and motors to make room for the Christmas stock of rockets and motors. Makes perfect sense! Greg |
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Carl McLawhorn NAR#4717 L2 semroc.com |
#40
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Confirmed. I'm standing in a WM now looking at such a shelf. Though it appears they won't be selling individual kits this go round, but just sets. And the motor pack price is still $4.97.
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Roy nar12605 |
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