Estes Pro Series Motors at Hobby Lobby

This may be very old news because it has been quite awhile since I was in Hobby Lobby, but I noticed they are selling the Pro Series motors E, F, and G. I haven't checked the prices on these from various sources on-line, but I thought that with a 40% off coupon the prices might be reasonable. Just curious if I am correct on this? Thanks.

Darian Rachal said:

This may be very old news because it has been quite awhile since I was in Hobby Lobby, but I noticed they are selling the Pro Series motors E, F, and G. I haven't checked the prices on these from various sources on-line, but I thought that with a 40% off coupon the prices might be reasonable. Just curious if I am correct on this? Thanks.

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The answer to everything you said is "yes".

Thanks Fred. I wonder if HL plans to get some of the new Estes black powder, high power motors?

Darian Rachal said:

This may be very old news because it has been quite awhile since I was in Hobby Lobby, but I noticed they are selling the Pro Series motors E, F, and G. I haven't checked the prices on these from various sources on-line, but I thought that with a 40% off coupon the prices might be reasonable. Just curious if I am correct on this? Thanks.

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Interesting, I've never seen the Pro Series E30T at HL, just the F26FJ, F50T, G40W and the G80T.

I'd buy a few if they decide to stock it.

Donaldsrockets said:

Interesting, I've never seen the Pro Series E30T at HL, just the F26FJ, F50T, G40W and the G80T.

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those are the only pro motors my hl carries too.

I may be mistaken about HL carrying the E30; I just took a quick look to check to see what the 40% discount price would be. The next time I'm in the area I'll check again.

Darian Rachal said:

Thanks Fred. I wonder if HL plans to get some of the new Estes black powder, high power motors?

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Personally, I doubt it. They haven't offered the E12 motors (they also don't offer the A8-0, A8-5 or A10-0 despite the fact that they would be perfect for many of the models they sell). Except for the four Pro motors mentioned in another post, HL does not seem to be inclined to add any new motors to their inventory.

I wonder if the Estes folks here could comment on how they work with HL to decide what to stock there, from a kit, motor, and accessory standpoint. How does HL make decisions and is there a way that we the enthusiastic customers can provide input that would be used?

They will never sell any High Power Rocket Motors, but they will sell Model Rocket Motors. Now, the question of what variety of Model Rocket Motors is interesting. They do not scan items, so the normal retail practice of a computers and software determining what sells and what should be re-ordered is not followed.
They currently do not sell the E12 motors. It would probably be best if they had limited shelf space that they drop the E9 and sell the E12. If they can expand the section 6 inches wodn the aisle they can add the E12 to the existing E9 and also the black powder E16 and F15 Model Rocket Motors. Add a foot and add the new mid power kits coming soon and more of the existing Pro Series II kits. Shelf space is valuable and I have no idea how HL allocates their shelf space.

I could have sworn that I've seen the E30 at HL in the past, but I know that my last visit I did not see any on the peg (and no empty pegs).

Darian Rachal said:

Thanks Fred. I wonder if HL plans to get some of the new Estes black powder, high power motors?

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shreadvector said:

They do not scan items, so the normal retail practice of a computers and software determining what sells and what should be re-ordered is not followed.

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off topic, but this practice baffles me. I cannot fathom why they wouldn't want to have detailed reports of what sells and what doesn't. entering a price by hand has to be more time consuming and error prone. I just don't get it. :confused2:

I would have to guess it has something to do with the owner's interpretation of some scripture and/or fear of computers or the bar codes. The owners are very religious and close all stores on Sundays. You can Google them and their involvement with the Federal Government and Obamacare (which we WILL NOT DISCUSS HERE - go to a non rocketry forum for political discussion).

Derek said:

off topic, but this practice baffles me. I cannot fathom why they wouldn't want to have detailed reports of what sells and what doesn't. entering a price by hand has to be more time consuming and error prone. I just don't get it. :confused2:

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Good thing (for us) that most of the stuff that HL carries is very high margin, otherwise they'd go broke in no time. I guess a few dollars here and there doesn't matter if you're getting 75% off most of your sales... they probably still make 25% or so off most stuff after the 40% coupon.

shreadvector said:

I would have to guess it has something to do with the owner's interpretation of some scripture and/or fear of computers or the bar codes. The owners are very religious and close all stores on Sundays. You can Google them and their involvement with the Federal Government and Obamacare (which we WILL NOT DISCUSS HERE - go to a non rocketry forum for political discussion).

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shreadvector said:

I would have to guess it has something to do with the owner's interpretation of some scripture and/or fear of computers or the bar codes.

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ha!

Darian Rachal said:

I may be mistaken about HL carrying the E30; I just took a quick look to check to see what the 40% discount price would be. The next time I'm in the area I'll check again.

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I ran by HL this morning and I was mistaken; they only carry the Estes Pro F and G composites.

shreadvector said:

I would have to guess it has something to do with the owner's interpretation of some scripture and/or fear of computers or the bar codes. The owners are very religious and close all stores on Sundays. You can Google them and their involvement with the Federal Government and Obamacare (which we WILL NOT DISCUSS HERE - go to a non rocketry forum for political discussion).

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It has nothing to do with their religous beliefs and everything to do with the nature of the products they sell the most. The majority of the "stuff" they sell is cheap crap that come in large bulk containers without any sort of labeling or tracking numbers. They would have to create there own numbers to track inventory for this stuff and the next shipment might be a bunch of different crap from a different supplier. The work involved in trying to track these types of products in inventory would end up costing them more than it's worth. True they do sell other products that could be scanned into inventory and tracked through sale but over all it is a small percentage of their inventory and their sales. Right now their buisness model is dependent on keeping operating costs to a bare minimum, sooner or later increasing costs will catch up to them and the model will change or HL will go away and so will the 40% deals.

Doing inventory also tells them what has been selling. It doesn't always have to be done at the POS. Nonetheless, I too have always been baffled by their insistence to manually check everything out.

Remember when Radio Shack was this way too? It was pretty funny back in the early 80's, here they were selling computers (TRS-80's, remember them?) while they took your name, address and order information down on a little notepad. No wonder they were always out of stuff...

Pat_B said:

Doing inventory also tells them what has been selling. It doesn't always have to be done at the POS. Nonetheless, I too have always been baffled by their insistence to manually check everything out.

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I wonder how anyone got along doing inventory control before computers.

It isn't about the technology. It's about how you do the job.

cerving said:

Remember when Radio Shack was this way too? It was pretty funny back in the early 80's, here they were selling computers (TRS-80's, remember them?) while they took your name, address and order information down on a little notepad. No wonder they were always out of stuff...

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Kimball tags!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimball_tag

Peter Olivola said:

I wonder how anyone got along doing inventory control before computers.

It isn't about the technology. It's about how you do the job.

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I had something older in mind, Fred. Like how retail presentation is organized and how often an inventory is done. Like knowing enough about sales to recognize the need to inventory specific areas between regular inventories. Department stores were just that, departments, with someone responsible for each who was trained to track inventory and sales specific to that department's products and market.

The real problem today is vendor managed inventory. Instead of market determination of inventory we now have manufacturing determined inventory. Shelves are stocked with what the vendor wants to sell, not what the customer wants to buy.

shreadvector said:

Kimball tags!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimball_tag

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Peter Olivola said:

I wonder how anyone got along doing inventory control before computers.

It isn't about the technology. It's about how you do the job.

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Oh, Lord - I worked for RS in 80. Inventory was the worst - we closed the store at regular closing time and everyone (including the manager's wife and anyone else we could rope in) just started going from peg to peg counting the merchandise. And this was back when RS sold a LOT of small electronics components, so there were a LOT of pegs! We'd start at midnight and finish around one or two AM. I don't remember how often we did it, but I think it was quarterly. I even dreaded inventory more than Black Friday (actually the SECOND busiest day - Dec. 26 was the busiest).

Oh, and we had to tally up all those tickets written each night and balance that total against the drawer. As someone said, we were selling computers at the time, but it was only the TRS-80 Model II. With only 16K of RAM and a cassette recorder for program and data storage, it was definitely not up to the task of keeping a running inventory.

Peter Olivola said:

I wonder how anyone got along doing inventory control before computers.

It isn't about the technology. It's about how you do the job.

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When I was in the retail world in the '70s (small chain drug store), we counted everything on the shelf, by hand, once a year. Our weekly ordering was also done by hand, walking the isles and making notes. Not the quickest, but I have to think that we were a lot more in touch with our customer base than folks are now.

Pat_B said:

Doing inventory also tells them what has been selling. It doesn't always have to be done at the POS. Nonetheless, I too have always been baffled by their insistence to manually check everything out.

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I have a relative who works for Hobby Lobby.

The owner/president is either a cheap bastard or thinks managers can't make ordering decisions. The owner thinks that if employees are always running around changing price tags they will know the store and products better. Strangely, the ordering system is electronic. But, when a store orders 3 times the number of brass zippers they are "allowed" because they usually sellout their stock way before re-order (but can't prove it since there's no sales data) and they aren't supposed to have an empty spot on the shelf; the computer kicks back the order and sends too few. Then when there's an inspection the store manager has employees running around the store rearranging items just to cover up empty spots. They also can't tell if discrepancies in sales are due to items incorrectly rung up or theft.

Keep using those 40% off coupons; Hobby Lobby's profit margin must be through the roof.

Actually, the owner is a really successfully businessman so his ordering decisions must be working for him. Sounds like it's time for your relative to start his own business. The 40% off coupons are a great bargain and make the pricing lower than most of their competitors for a lot of items.

You were.

T-Rex said:

When I was in the retail world in the '70s (small chain drug store), we counted everything on the shelf, by hand, once a year. Our weekly ordering was also done by hand, walking the isles and making notes. Not the quickest, but I have to think that we were a lot more in touch with our customer base than folks are now.

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I was a hardware dept. manager for Montgomery Ward for a few years too... same thing, except it was such a PITA that they only did it once a year. Counting all those little packages of nuts and bolts, loose tools, etc. was horrible. All of the inventory count sheets had our SKU's pre-printed, but we always ended up adding a bunch because we would always have some non-SKU stuff left over from "dollar sales". We knew damn well that you should count every little loose thing you could find, even if it wasn't really saleable, because your bonus was tied to your inventory shrinkage percentage.

I don't miss the retail business! IT is SO much better...

gpoehlein said:

Oh, Lord - I worked for RS in 80. Inventory was the worst - we closed the store at regular closing time and everyone (including the manager's wife and anyone else we could rope in) just started going from peg to peg counting the merchandise. And this was back when RS sold a LOT of small electronics components, so there were a LOT of pegs! We'd start at midnight and finish around one or two AM. I don't remember how often we did it, but I think it was quarterly. I even dreaded inventory more than Black Friday (actually the SECOND busiest day - Dec. 26 was the busiest).

Oh, and we had to tally up all those tickets written each night and balance that total against the drawer. As someone said, we were selling computers at the time, but it was only the TRS-80 Model II. With only 16K of RAM and a cassette recorder for program and data storage, it was definitely not up to the task of keeping a running inventory.

Click to expand...

gpoehlein said:

Oh, Lord - I worked for RS in 80. Inventory was the worst - we closed the store at regular closing time and everyone (including the manager's wife and anyone else we could rope in) just started going from peg to peg counting the merchandise. And this was back when RS sold a LOT of small electronics components, so there were a LOT of pegs! We'd start at midnight and finish around one or two AM. I don't remember how often we did it, but I think it was quarterly. I even dreaded inventory more than Black Friday (actually the SECOND busiest day - Dec. 26 was the busiest).

Click to expand...

I never worked in retail, but I have an after-hours story that might make inventory seem a little less hateful. I worked in a pizza place in college, and whenever we got in a new batch of pans, they'd have to be blackened. This involved spreading lard on each side of the pan with a large paintbrush, then sending them through the conveyor oven. We'd have the exhaust fan going full blast and all three doors open and still the smoke was so thick that you could only work a few minutes at a time before running out to the parking lot, gagging and choking, eyes streaming and lungs on fire. We closed at 10pm, and the process generally took a couple of hours, and at first drew the attention of the local police, who came to check on the cloud that was covering much of the K-Mart parking lot and the smoke pouring out of the Godfather's. This worked to my advantage one night as I got pulled over for weaving one night on the way home after "Pan-Fest". I was trying to drive home so I could get in the shower and clear my sinuses of the lard smoke. I left as soon as we finished, well before my eyes and nose stopped running, and as a result couldn't see the lines on the road all that well. I got pulled over within a few blocks. The cop asked why my eyes were so red, then saw the logo on my cap. "Oh, it must be pan night," he said with a laugh, and sent me on my way.