I’m sure many of you have seen that a number of Walmarts are carrying scale model cars again. They appear to have a good selection, and they are all from Round2. It is no small accomplishment for a company like R2 to convince the penultimate chain story to carry model cars again. It appears that a lot of car modelers are going to town, and my hope is that lots of models are sold as Christmas gifts. If this proves to be an ongoing or annual thing, it is very good for our hobby in two ways; first, it has the potential to bring in a whole new group of young modelers; second, it has the potential to strengthen and increase the amount of competitors bringing us stuff to build. Perhaps Atlantis and Moebius could be next in the Walmart line. In any event, I find this extremely encouraging. Congrats and thanks to R2 for their smarts and moxie for making this happen.
Good to hear (read)!
Very happy to read this. I hope it is immensely lucrative for them, and any who follow. A long-time Monogram employee - draftsman, mold maker, kit designer, thence decision-maker - recently told me that K-Mart and Toys-R-Us (and a third unnamed merchant) accounted for 55% of tens of millions of dollars in sales volume in 1990.
I have yet to see them in any of the WMs in my area.
We don’t have Walmart on this side of the pond, although until earlier this year they owned the ASDA chain of supermarkets (and still have a seat on the board and “an ongoing commercial relationship”). I never saw kits in any of our local branches, although Home Bargains often have had odd Revell surplus items at considerable reductions, just not recently.
Regards,
M
I have two local Walmarts and neither carries any models in their craft depts for the few times I shopped them. Hobby Lobby, Micheals, and Target are also listed on their website as retailers who carries their product lines. I do shop Hobby Lobby from time to time and they do have a nice model section with paints, and tools besides mostly AMT and MPC cars, and some Revell aircraft and even a ship or two.
Joel
In the UK, the supermarket Aldi is currently stocking Airfix kits. I spotted them in a new branch that opened near me a few weeks ago, and wondered if it was a one off (they often sell oddities in their central aisle), but from what I’ve heard it is in other branches as well. They are from the lower end of the range, mostly planes, cars, and a few olde wolde ships.
We also have Aldi in my home town here on LI New York and I love the store, but haven’t seen any plastic models as yet. Of course I wasn’t looking for any either, but will next time in.
joel
The only problem is they always have the same kits. Once you buy what you want, there’s never anything new to choose from. At least the prices are lower than just about anyplace else.