Estes going to MAP = MSRP for all online sellers 4/1?

[KenECoyote]

Wow.

I will let you in a on a little secret.

We're not Estes main customer base. We're lucky to be maybe one or two percent of their yearly sales.

Estes current customer base is a youngster who receives an Estes Starter/Launch set from an adult as a gift or impulse purchase.
The youngster and adult spend time assembling the set and fly the rocket the following weekend.
That could be it and the youngster moves on to another hobby/interest.
Some youngsters will want to do more with the hobby and receive additional kits and motors.
Research has determined that the amount of time these youngsters stay involved in model rocketry lasts from two to six weeks.
That's it.
Estes has to get as much money as it can during this two to six week involvement.
Hobby shops or other retailers (Hobby Lobby for example) are the primary sellers of Estes products to this customer base.
If hobby shops and other retailers are loosing sales to mail-order/e-commerce sites retailers will carry less Estes products
and therefore place less orders with hobby distributors who will place less orders with Estes.

Remember this: Those of you who have cancelled orders with AC Supply, eRockets, etc. due to this situation have no effect on Estes.
Estes has already been paid by these companies for product. You only impact these vendors who have been caught in the middle of this.

We couldn't buy enough Estes product to support the company.

Also us buying Estes at a significant discount isn't helping Estes much other than move product in bulk.

 

[Scott_650]

Also us buying Estes at a significant discount isn't helping Estes much other than move product in bulk.

Probably a wash for Estes. Unless volume discounters like AC Supply are “renting” their stock then paying Estes on the back end, sales to distributors at wholesale prices are going to be the bulk of Estes sales - they most likely don’t see their own direct sales from their site as a big factor. Or at least they didn’t until now - one thing MAP could do is boost Estes direct sales even if/when retailers use different discounting techniques outside of just advertising cut-rate prices. The relatively low included shipping break and frequent sales/deals plus buying direct from the source will be seen as definite advantages by casual buyers.

No big shock that there’s been a fair amount of doomsday scenario talk on the internet - sort of the nature of the medium - but the real question is will the move to MAP really do what it’s (supposedly) meant to do? And will it have any real effect on Estes profitability? Without some insider info that’s something we’ll have a hard time knowing.

As Initiator pointed out (as I’ve done more than once during “bring-back” and OOP conversations) we’re simply not Estes primary customers. I think we’re an important segment of the market - we’re both the collective memory that keeps the hobby going and the driver for new, interesting and innovative designs - but certainly not the folks who provide the bulk of their income stream. Cheesing off the enthusiast customers is never a great idea - look at genre entertainment for example - but if MAP was seen as an alternative to raising wholesale prices then we probably got the best of several less than great options.

 

[mh9162013]

Research has determined that the amount of time these youngsters stay involved in model rocketry lasts from two to six weeks.

Source? I believe you, but I'm curious as to whether there's other data to review.

Estes has to get as much money as it can during this two to six week involvement.

Of course they do, but there are at least a few people who continue the model rocketry hobby for several months or even years (or come back after a hiatus). And many of them will start looking for cheaper or more convenient sources to buy model rocketry supplies. So while people like us may constitute 1% of Estes' customer base (I'm guessing at that number), we might constitute 5% of their overall sales (another guess; just trying to make a point here).

People like us are also salespeople for Estes. How many people here encourage others to get into the hobby? How many people here volunteer their time to introduce this hobby to others?

TL;DR: We matter to Estes

 

[lakeroadster]

Research has determined that the amount of time these youngsters stay involved in model rocketry lasts from two to six weeks.

Source?

I'm betting you don't have any children. They are like crows, they love their new shiny object until they drop it as soon as they see a new shiny object.

Sure, it's not always the case, but it is however a recurring theme with the little buggers. Today more so than back in the day.

"Entertain me" used to be "Entertain yourself".

 

[mh9162013]

Estes has to get as much money as it can during this two to six week involvement.

I'm betting you don't have any children. They are like crows, they love their new shiny object until they drop it as soon as they see a new shiny object.

I do have kids and understand their short attention span at times. But 2-6 week is a very specific amount of time which I'm curious about.

 

[BigMacDaddy]

Probably a wash for Estes. Unless volume discounters like AC Supply are “renting” their stock then paying Estes on the back end, sales to distributors at wholesale prices are going to be the bulk of Estes sales - they most likely don’t see their own direct sales from their site as a big factor. Or at least they didn’t until now - one thing MAP could do is boost Estes direct sales even if/when retailers use different discounting techniques outside of just advertising cut-rate prices. The relatively low included shipping break and frequent sales/deals plus buying direct from the source will be seen as definite advantages by casual buyers.

No big shock that there’s been a fair amount of doomsday scenario talk on the internet - sort of the nature of the medium - but the real question is will the move to MAP really do what it’s (supposedly) meant to do? And will it have any real effect on Estes profitability? Without some insider info that’s something we’ll have a hard time knowing.

As Initiator pointed out (as I’ve done more than once during “bring-back” and OOP conversations) we’re simply not Estes primary customers. I think we’re an important segment of the market - we’re both the collective memory that keeps the hobby going and the driver for new, interesting and innovative designs - but certainly not the folks who provide the bulk of their income stream. Cheesing off the enthusiast customers is never a great idea - look at genre entertainment for example - but if MAP was seen as an alternative to raising wholesale prices then we probably got the best of several less than great options.

I bet someone at Estes has a compensation package or KPI focused on increasing direct sales from the Estes website.

 

[Oldschool77]

I remember Estes going "MAP" under previous ownership and same hullabaloo happening then as it did here. There are so many ways to advertise w/o breaking this policy. Nothing really changed. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[Bravo52]

Remember this: Those of you who have cancelled orders with AC Supply, eRockets, etc. due to this situation have no effect on Estes.
Estes has already been paid by these companies for product. You only impact these vendors who have been caught in the middle of this.

There is an old thread out there that talks about this very situation...probably 6-7 years ago....

That said, Estes can not dictate what price an item is sold for (sans any weird contract issues non-standard in today's market). Once, as you say, "Estes has already been paid" it is up to the retailer to establish the price. MAP is basically a price it can be advertised for. If a vendor wants to give them away, that is up to them. They only recourse Estes has is to not sell to the vendor wholesale after that point.

I do agree that TRF may be a small fraction of sales, however, TRF, along with a few other forums are a rather large (and possibly loud) voice in the hobby. The enthusiasts can make a difference regardless of what their market share may be. There are countless examples of that. Will it happen, not likely. Can it? Sure.

 

[Scott_650]

I remember Estes going "MAP" under previous ownership and same hullabaloo happening then as it did here. There are so many ways to advertise w/o breaking this policy. Nothing really changed. Nothing to see here, move along.

I think that’s going to be where we end up eventually though I am a bit surprised that the initial reaction from some of the big online retailers was to just set their prices at the Estes MSRP.

Unless they were’t given much notice. I’d have expected something other than that. But I have zero experience with online retail sales software - setting up “in cart” pricing may take way more resources than just clicking a selection on a menu.

 

[SolarYellow]

I bet someone at Estes has a compensation package or KPI focused on increasing direct sales from the Estes website.

No, the overhead of packing and shipping small orders like individuals place slows the process down so much they make way less money per day than sending pallets and massive boxes to distributors. Been there, done that.

 

[SmurfTacoSupreme]

I can't imagine the RTF Blue Origin (2198) will be a great seller at the new price of $69.99. Amazon still has them for $18.50. Best grab one now while possible.

 

[KenECoyote]

I can't imagine the RTF Blue Origin (2198) will be a great seller at the new price of $69.99. Amazon still has them for $18.50. Best grab one now while possible.

Link? I didn't see it. TIA

Edit: nvm... found it by "2198"

 

[Marc_G]

I can't imagine the RTF Blue Origin (2198) will be a great seller at the new price of $69.99. Amazon still has them for $18.50. Best grab one now while possible.

An RTF rocket has no value to me. Pass.

 

[SolarYellow]

That sure does look like some kind of "marital aid."

 

[SmurfTacoSupreme]

That sure does look like some kind of "marital aid."

My wife said the same thing...about Blue Origin...I swear.

 

[bjphoenix]

Research has determined that the amount of time these youngsters stay involved in model rocketry lasts from two to six weeks.

I've noticed this but I don't know why it is. I started rocketry when I was at most 10 years old and I enjoyed building the kits and I even scratch built a good number of rockets. I was also building plastic model cars, airplanes and ships. I wonder why kids shifted to wanting to take it out of the box, launch it, and put it in the closet. Not having the desire to engage with something and stay with it is a problem for a lot of areas of our society. In my profession I learned to do things a certain way, these days younger employees at my company don't want to learn that much. Our lives and our society gets more complicated every day so it is a bad sign when younger people don't want to learn how to make it or how to maintain it.

 

[mh9162013]

I've noticed this but I don't know why it is. I started rocketry when I was at most 10 years old and I enjoyed building the kits and I even scratch built a good number of rockets. I was also building plastic model cars, airplanes and ships. I wonder why kids shifted to wanting to take it out of the box, launch it, and put it in the closet. Not having the desire to engage with something and stay with it is a problem for a lot of areas of our society. In my profession I learned to do things a certain way, these days younger employees at my company don't want to learn that much. Our lives and our society gets more complicated every day so it is a bad sign when younger people don't want to learn how to make it or how to maintain it.

I can't speak for most kids, but for me, it was trouble getting the Estes motors to ignite. About 30 years later I realized what I was doing wrong. Turns out I was making a mistake with the insertion of the motor plug and the Estes instructions make no mention of how to avoid this.

Granted, I'm not a very smart person, so my mistake is probably not that common (as most of the people smarter than me can avoid my mistake). But even if my mistake accounts for 0.5% of all scenarios where someone decides to quit the hobby due to difficulty getting the rockets to work right, that's quite a bit of lost business. And it compounds, as it creates poor word-of-mouth advertising and makes it less likely kids who get frustrated with the hobby will introduce it to their children.

 

[gdjsky01]

Well I guess this is not april fools... I just read through the thread. Then I went to AC Supply and even when placed in a cart, the prices are insane.
Okay. Thankfully I have all the kits, Estes and many others, I'll ever need. I am done with Estes. Yes, I know, they could care less. What the fools at Estes don't understand is while kids starter set maybe their bread and butter, its the long time rocketeers that are helping them, or finding legal LAUNCH SITES for them.

No matter. Langford get lost. I am done with companies price fixing. There is enough of that in the energy, entertainment, and financial industries. I don't need it in my hobby as well.

PS: Televue, a company in my other hobby, Astronomy has been doing this for years. And I stopped buying from them as well. I do put my money (what little I have left over) where my mouth is. Problem is, most of you will buy their junk anyways. So my post here is worthless (which I expect and accept!)

 

[4regt4]

My childhood exit from the hobby is because I never got more than one flight from a rocket.

Seems sub-ounce BT-20 rockets and C6 motors don't agree well.

Hans.

 

[bad_idea]

One of my missions in life is not to become "old man yells at cloud."

Every generation has complained about the generation after it, and we have this from the Romans, Greeks, and others perhaps older, yet as a global civilization, we seem to have been figuring things out all right when averaged over time.

While I find the shorter attention spans of younger generations annoying at times, I don't worry about it. Theirs is a natural adaptation to a world with simultaneously increasing complexity and increasing automation. Somehow they will figure things out as every generation before them did.

In the meantime, I'll be telling them to buy Quest motors at AC Supply and buy tubes from BMS to scratch build instead of telling them to buy Estes motors at AC Supply and buy tubes from BMS to scratch build like I would have a few days ago. Life goes on.

 

[Ulexis]

Wait......what? Did Estes motors just go up 30% and Quest go down 30%?

 

[bobby_hamill]

OK sometimes I hate when they abbreviate words and this is one of the times.
I understand the Manufactures Suggested Retail Price ( MSRP ) But what is MAP ?
I am guessing Manufacture's Actual Price ?

 

[jmasterj]

OK sometimes I hate when they abbreviate words and this is one of the times.
I understand the Manufactures Suggested Retail Price ( MSRP ) But what is MAP ?
I am guessing Manufacture's Actual Price ?

Minimum advertised price

 

[SolarYellow]

One of my missions in life is not to become "old man yells at cloud."

Too late for me. I just own it. I even use Grampa Simpson shaking his fist as my avatar sometimes.

 

[Cape Byron]

I even use Grampa Simpson shaking his fist as my avatar sometimes.

Which was the fashion of the time...

 

[Zman1961]

Source? I believe you, but I'm curious as to whether there's other data to review.




Of course they do, but there are at least a few people who continue the model rocketry hobby for several months or even years (or come back after a hiatus). And many of them will start looking for cheaper or more convenient sources to buy model rocketry supplies. So while people like us may constitute 1% of Estes' customer base (I'm guessing at that number), we might constitute 5% of their overall sales (another guess; just trying to make a point here).

People like us are also salespeople for Estes. How many people here encourage others to get into the hobby? How many people here volunteer their time to introduce this hobby to others?

TL;DR: We matter to Estes

Even at L2, I still do build and launch LPR too, but probably not a great boon for Estes, though my storage boxes full of unbuilt kits acquired at sale prices might say otherwise. But I do a lot of Scout group builds, with the launches at club events and/or the local park. I even teach this to other Scout leaders at training events, so I know there is interest beyond the individual level (the one-off purchase of a launch set that will be used once). So the difficulty in finding cheap bulk kits (won't do the Amazon rat race to the bottom, my time is too valuable) has caused me to search, and I found the school kit from Balsa Machining Service at $6.49 - what a bargain for what you get! Order placed. Fortunately, I was still able to find motors online pretty cheap this time, but that may not last too long. I find that when introducing kids (and their parents) to rocketry, affordability is a big deal to get initial participation. If I can offer the initial build and two motors for $10, I get a lot of participation, and we do get repeat visitors at our club launches. When it was $25-30, there was not so much interest. As others have noted, time will tell how this all shakes out.

 

[KenECoyote]

Things like this help to validate and encourage my hoarding.

 

[MikeT]

MAP agreements are common. You can still sell at any price you like but you can't advertise a price lower than MAP. It's no big deal.

 

[Scott_650]

MAP agreements are common. You can still sell at any price you like but you can't advertise a price lower than MAP. It's no big deal.

In general you are correct - unfortunately the immediate reaction, hopefully short term, from the big online retailers has been to simply set their prices at the Estes MSRP. That’s an overnight 20-30% increase in two staples of LPR - Estes kits and Estes BP motors. That’s not an inconsequential jump in what is for nearly all of us non-essential stuff - in my case we’re relatively comfortable in retirement but hobby spending comes last so maximizing effectiveness of my rocketry dollars matters.

Frankly I don’t need a single LPR kit, Estes or otherwise. I have an embarrassingly large stash of kits. But going from paying at least a 20% discounted price for Estes motors to paying full price, plus hazmat on the larger motors, makes it tough to justify the expense. My reaction over the weekend was an order of Estes motors from Hobbylinc since they haven’t changed there pricing (yet) and an order of Q Jets from ASP using the April sale coupon code. I’m probably good for LPR motors for the summer/fall flying season - I’ll make a HPR buy from an on-site vendor at a launch or wait until our club does another group buy.

The bottom line to all this brouhaha with MAP is that, regardless of whether their reasons are valid and necessary, Estes just made it more complicated and expensive to buy and fly their rockets and motors. Hopefully this all works out well in the end.

 

[Tobor]

Damn, I just discovered this thread today, so I am out of luck on any new/future kits like the BOSS.