Estes is at it again/ what's going on?

So Estes is having the rocket kits sale again and I could not resist the temptation so I ordered three regular kits and a PSII kit, and so it begs the question what's with all the sales and why are they doing it? I'm all for a good rocketry sale just wondering. If anyone has any insite please share.:grin:

Boy, this one is a lot smaller than previous offerings... only 17 items up for grabs.

... so the sales must be depleting the stocks as they want them to.....

Perfect timing for a sale. Spring is Springing!

I'm not sure why they have these sales, but it seems like most are at the end of a quarter if I remember right. Might just be the old, looking to make end of quarter numbers look better. The prices are great and a very good deal. I have about 35 or so kits from past sales, but it is hard to resist. Kind of handy to have some on hand to give to the kids in the neighborhood or hand a couple out at launches. For the 5 bucks or so that they cost me, it's worth it to see the kids light up when they get a free rocket.

Mike

They probably got stuck with too much inventory from last Christmas and are unloading as soon as possible.

catman001 said:

I'm not sure why they have these sales, but it seems like most are at the end of a quarter if I remember right. Might just be the old, looking to make end of quarter numbers look better. The prices are great and a very good deal. I have about 35 or so kits from past sales, but it is hard to resist. Kind of handy to have some on hand to give to the kids in the neighborhood or hand a couple out at launches. For the 5 bucks or so that they cost me, it's worth it to see the kids light up when they get a free rocket.

Mike

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These sales are every Holiday the last sale was Valentines this sale is St Patricks Day and the next sale will be Easter

I hoped that was the reason for all the sales, I thought it was other reasons, I think they should include all of their inventory for one massive sale, I would like to see that and free shipping :wink:

My guess for this particular sale is that they had inventory held under with the longshoreman strike on the west coast and now that it is settled they have a large influx all at once.

Kehoes23 said:

I hoped that was the reason for all the sales, I thought it was other reasons, I think they should include all of their inventory for one massive sale, I would like to see that and free shipping :wink:

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Totally agree. And not only do I think they should mark down everything and offer free shipping, I also think the sale price should become their new everyday low low pricing, and they should throw in free motors too.

One of the ways to make sure small businesses stay that way is for Uncle Sam to tax your year ending inventory. It's a beautiful system....especially if you are a big business.

Kehoes23 said:

So Estes is having the rocket kits sale again and I could not resist the temptation so I ordered three regular kits and a PSII kit, and so it begs the question what's with all the sales and why are they doing it? I'm all for a good rocketry sale just wondering. If anyone has any insite please share.:grin:

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First of all, I am not an Estes employee, so I don't have any real inside info. But I do talk to industry people, and I know a little bit about the manufacturing/retail model from similar industries, so what I say here is an educated guess.

The basics are that they created a lot more of these particular kits than they were able to end up selling, so they need to move them out of the warehouse, while getting at least some return for them. Sometimes this is done by selling the whole lot of kits to a liquidator, and sometimes by destroying the whole lot and taking a loss on the books. Instead, Estes is offering these at occasional deep discounts through their website. So buy and enjoy.

I could explain how it happened (at least my speculation of it), but it would take a few paragraphs of background material that I really don't care to write right now, and the small bit of trained journalist left in me would want to check out a couple of sources before I wrote it.

RoyAtl said:

The basics are that they created a lot more of these particular kits than they were able to end up selling, so they need to move them out of the warehouse, while getting at least some return for them. Sometimes this is done by selling the whole lot of kits to a liquidator, and sometimes by destroying the whole lot and taking a loss on the books. Instead, Estes is offering these at occasional deep discounts through their website. So buy and enjoy.

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I'm not so sure about this as they've been selling the same kits in their specials for the past year or so. So either they have a huge amount of stock, or it's something else.

I'm a big fan of the photon probe, so even though I have one (with several replaced fins), part of me wants to buy 4-5 of them when they have this sale

Well, you have to ask yourself, how do I get rid of an overstock? You do one of the three things I listed above. Is there any reason I would do *any* of these three things if I *didn't* have an overstock? As you note, the sale is for the same kits over and over. If it is not an overstock, what would that "something else" be?

I'm sure that these occasional deep sales gives them a chance to see who their most dedicated end customers are and connect with them, since they otherwise only do retail through distributors. It has probably been 25-30 years since they've done this much business with the end customer.

djs said:

I'm not so sure about this as they've been selling the same kits in their specials for the past year or so. So either they have a huge amount of stock, or it's something else.

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Some of these kits have not sold as well as expected so there is quite a bit of stock in the warehouse.

In today's language, "sale price" = "regular price". "Regular price" = "jacked up, and you're a sucker if you pay it price". Never buy anything that is not on sale.