Subject:
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Re: What's up with the Wal*mart Lego selection?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Fri, 8 Apr 2005 16:09:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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3306 times
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In lugnet.general, Thomas Main wrote:
> I live in a small town in western North Carolina and I often travel to nearby
> towns and cities to look for deals on Lego in places like Wal*mart.
>
> Lately, I've noticed a disturbing trend. The stores in the following cities
> have *very little* Lego on the shelves:
>
> Boone, NC
> Marion, NC
> Lenoir, NC
> Hickory, NC
> Wilkesboro, NC
> West Jefferson, NC
> Lincolnton, NC
>
> When I say very little, I mean about one section of an aisle. I realize that
> Lego stock is typically reduced this time of year in most stores, but I have
> never seen it so low in the past. Also of interest, is that the stock that is
> being carried is not made up of traditional "sets." There are Duplo and
> sometimes Quatro tubs and buckets, Bionicle cans, and basic brick tubs and
> buckets. I had to go to three stores to find any x-pods, as a matter of fact.
>
> Has anyone else noticed this extreme inventory reduction at Wal*Mart? Is this
> what TLG means when they talk about reducing inventores at retailers in their
> recently released report?
>
> Based on the stores within a 50-mile radius of me, I am finding it really hard
> to buy Lego. Can this be good for the company?
>
> --
> Thomas Main
> thomasmain@myrealbox.com
To a certain extent, toys are a seasonal product. True there will be toys sales
all year long, but the volume of toys sold is concentrated between November and
February. I definately see this in my BL store (becuase I sell primarily sets).
Toy sales at other times of the year do happen, but at a more modest level.
LEGO products are a premium priced product (or at least thats what most folks
seem to believe). In any given store, MB buckets usually appear to be a better
value than the LEGO buckets (again, regardless of the truth or the quality
here). I typically watch a given WM's shelf space shrink to 4-ft during the
summer. A few years back, I watched one small WM store shrink the LEGO selection
to a single bucket SKU.
I think that buying habits have changed over the years. People are becoming more
attune to buying via the internet or from direct catalogs (S@H in both cases).
WM cannot stock every LEGO product in every store with sufficient inventory to
meet every possible demand. So centralized warehousing (S@H, walmart.com,
amazon.com, et al) is becoming a real market force. It allows for one central
inventory point, less clearanced product (because it was overstocked in the
wrong store) and better response. The primary downside is the lack of immediate
'eye candy' purchase (e.g. KBOB runs over and says "mommy mommy can I have this
?")
WM's data system allows any management person to do radial lookups for a product
(out to 150 miles it appears). But to do that, you need to have a UPC number (or
the patience to find it in the system). Many toy managers I have dealt with do
not know how to do the radial lookup. They also do not realize that because a
particular UPC was not stocked (or sold out at their store) it might still be in
the system at another store. If WM cleaned up this single feature, they would
sell much more at retail (or near retail) and less at clearance.
Ray
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | What's up with the Wal*mart Lego selection?
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| I live in a small town in western North Carolina and I often travel to nearby towns and cities to look for deals on Lego in places like Wal*mart. Lately, I've noticed a disturbing trend. The stores in the following cities have *very little* Lego on (...) (20 years ago, 7-Apr-05, to lugnet.general)
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