The key thing is that they would double their SALES. WalMart isn't going to give Estes any margin on those sales... they'd be better off not hassling with it and concentrating on their core hobby/educational business, which undoubtedly generates a higher margin, and is probably a lot more fun too. That's what got the former owners into trouble... they went for a mass retail model, and it didn't work. I seem to recall that Montgomery Ward sold Estes kits too, back in the Damon Industries days... I got one of the Coldpower rockets cheap on a post-holiday sale once.
Estes direct sales to consumers is no more than 5%-10% of their sales.
Sure the margin is better but the company won't survive on that level of sales.
With the change in the past hobby sales model (Hobby manufacturers sell to hobby distributors, hobby distributors sell to retail stores, retail stores sell to general public) a large company like Estes needs to find new outlets for it's products.
Estes designs it's product to make a profit even if it is a small amount.
I have worked in retail on-and-off for nearly 40 years.
The comment about getting a Coldpower rocket cheap at a post-holiday sale is a perfect example.
The pandemic brought a whole bunch of new products into the market.
My company started carrying many types of hand sanitizer.
We were given a memo indicating that if the company only sold 30% of the inventory of one type of this item then we would break even.
The company sold 43%.
At that point every store could have thrown away the remaining inventory as the company already made it's money back and then some.
We just marketed it down to a little above cost and put it in the Clearance section. Eventually, what doesn't sell WILL be thrown out.
Your Coldpower sale purchase was probably the same situation.
Each store received X number of the item.
Once Y number of the item had been sold (i.e. purchase cost had been made back plus a certain amount of profit) the rest were market down to clear out the inventory and make room for new products.
