Motors at WalMart

[Rocket Doctor]

On a recent visit to my local walMart in York SC, I checked out the Estes section, they had plenty of the Sustainables and plenty of motors.

But, they raised the price from $4.97 per pack to $6.97 per pack, at one time, they had discounted them to $3.00 per pack.

What have you found at your local WM?

[Shreadvector]

All of the reports on this forum and on TRF report the same thing over the last 2 months or so. motors are arriving and prices are stable at the new higher price.


The kits are also sitting and not selling at many of the reported locations.

One location in CA has the Moon Mutt and Customizer sets on 'deleted' status with the appropriate discounts.

Christmas is here in the Wal-Mart universe, so they will begin to re-set the modulars one or more times as back-to-school/Summer season ends.

On a recent visit to my local walMart in York SC, I checked out the Estes section, they had plenty of the Sustainables and plenty of motors.

But, they raised the price from $4.97 per pack to $6.97 per pack, at one time, they had discounted them to $3.00 per pack.

What have you found at your local WM?

[BEC]

I am uniformly seeing motor packages at $5.97 here in the south Puget Sound area. It seems there are more of the C6-3/5/7 boxes than the A8-3/A10-3T/B4-4/B6-4 boxes lately. The same can generally be said for the regional variety store chain Fred Meyer (motor packs marked $5.99).

The "sustainables" are all over the map - some WM stores seem to still have most of their original 4 of each, some are nearly out, one had literally dozens. I've also seen them in the one HobbyTown USA I visit occasionally (at higher prices, of course).

Some WMs have the Rascal/Hi-Jinks RTFs as well, some don't.

All of this is from looking in three WMs that I get into fairly frequently and three others that are less often on my way wherever I'm going, and all of them between Seattle and Tacoma.

[Jeff Walther]

Yeah, around here the motors are $5.97 also.

[MKP]

There haven't been any motors available around here for quite some time, but the last time I got them they were at $6.97 a pack.

[Mark II]

I am seeing the same things up here that you are seeing, doc.

I have seen the Sustainables everywhere, but I have only seen the Moon Mutt at one location. FWIW, the Moon Mutt Launch Kit isn't too shabby a deal. With it, you get a small mini-motor E2X kit that doesn't look hideous (it's rather nice, actually), a small, short-rod launch pad that works for mini-brutes (and, dare I say it?, would be fine for 1/8A micro rockets, too, with a change of rod), with wood, not plastic, legs no less, and an Electron Beam launch controller, all for $9.99. A pretty decent value in my book. I grabbed one.

MarkII

[Shreadvector]

This just in: Motors are now moved to the clearance aisle and marked $2 on the box/shelf tags. If they ring up higher, you let the cashier know and they will adjust.

Wal-Mart is seasonal, and just because an item is being dumped this week, does not mean it is discontinued for eternity. It simply means they are done with that item at this single point in time and it could show up again at a future point in time as the mix of items being retailed is constantly changing.

I don't know if I can store another thousand motors.....:eek:

We need to get more huge youth group programs going to eat them all up.

[Shreadvector]

Follow up.


The Wal-mart next to work has nothing moved to a special clearance aisle and only the Customizer sets are red tagged. Motors have no special tags and all scan at $4.50, so they are on the slowly progressing discount path at that store.

Every store is different and "spends" their discount allotment differently.

THe other Wal-Mart had the C motors at normal price (5.97) and located in the toy dept. The boxes full of A, and B motors were all in the special Clearance section on the other end of the store and they were all sticered and scanned $2. Our NAR section bought all 91 remaining packs.

Now to check out the other 40 or so Wal-Marts within a 100 mile radius.....

[BEC]

I was in the area store with the most Estes stock this afternoon. All of it is in the toy dept. Many engines - all scanning at $5.97. These were predominantly Cs but a couple of boxes with A/B assortments as well. One dozen Moon Mutt sets, two dozen Ricochet kits and a small number of the other three released "sustainables". No other rockets - either RTFs or kits or starter sets

I went across to Fred Meyer in the same area. Four Patriot/NSA Starship starter sets - each with a warning sticker on the front that they contain lead and should be kept away from children (!!). Also B and C engines in WM-type packs at $5.99, and two boxes of Hi-Jinks/Rascal RTFs with one rocket Rascal missing from each. I bought another Hi-Jinks for my stock - it has the yellow/black 'chute, not the lead free all white or the more recent all orange (that I've not yet actually seen).

If/when motors go on clearance (and there are LOTS of C's in WMs around here) I'll be stocking up some. I don't think I've ever seen 91 packs of motors in any one place. Even this Covington WM had no more than about 60.

[Royatl]

On a recent visit to my local walMart in York SC, I checked out the Estes section, they had plenty of the Sustainables and plenty of motors.

But, they raised the price from $4.97 per pack to $6.97 per pack, at one time, they had discounted them to $3.00 per pack.

What have you found at your local WM?

I just stopped by the WalMart in Cumming, GA where I first found the sustainables. They had those, along with the Moon Mutt (in a different section entirely), but NO motors anywhere.

[Mark II]

This just in: Motors are now moved to the clearance aisle and marked $2 on the box/shelf tags. If they ring up higher, you let the cashier know and they will adjust.
I'm not holding my breath on that. They never went down in price around here during the last so-called "clearance."

MarkII

[barone]

Local WM well stocked with motors, all $5.97 (I don't need any yet :D ) Customizer was marked down to $13 and the snap rocket (forget the name) was marked down to $11. I'll probably pick up one of each when the price gets cut in half.......can you really have too many launch pads and launch controllers?