Hobby Lobby

[Zippi]

I thought when they hung their little red & white 40% off tag at the end of the rack it meant everything on that side was% off.  I found out that's not so.  I'm not sure how to tell what's on sale and what's not.  Can't really go by the ads as they do not pertain to your local store.  I believe it's HL in general.  I'm been there when their ad says they have it and it's not there and when their ad has said "Sold out" and they have it.  It's a guessing game everytime I go.       

Edited December 9, 2021 by Zippi

[TonyK]

I needed a can of paint so went there yesterday and the cashier was nice enough to check to see if it might be on sale. I knew it wasn't but good for her. Oh, and the usual selection of the same old models.

[Tom99]

On 12/7/2021 at 6:35 AM, MrMiles said:

i went to HL on Saturday and not a single kit that i wanted. just the same stuff.  there are a lot of kits i want, just hobby lobby doesnt seem to sell them

The Hobby Lobby stores here in the Houston area are the same. I can't remember the last time I bought a new to me, model kit from them. 

They never seem to get anything new, just the same things over again.

[Mark]

I'd suspect that with the pricing and payment terms HL gets from the manufacturers, they buy in very large quantities, and don't always get the newest items first.  So the last of the "same old" has to be sold before the "new" stuff gets put on the shelves.

[SfanGoch]

Please explain to this bum from Brooklyn what's the seemingly irresistible need to look for model kits in this joint. Hobby Lobby is a "hobby shop" in the most general definition of the term. It's an arts & crafts store, just like Michaels. They sell some model kits and supplies, similar to how stationery stores and local drug stores from years ago might have had a back shelf with a couple of kits, glue and some paints. Their main business is DIY craft  items and notions. If the main factor for shopping there is the 40% off coupons/sales, that really isn't much of an incentive because, according to everyone's griping, the selection sucks and buying something just to get that discount is being penny-wise but pound-foolish since it seems some buy the same kits ad nauseam. Sure, there are almost no real local hobby shops left to waste an afternoon in anymore; however, online shops offer a much larger variety of modeling products than you could ever find in Hobby Lobby.

[Tom Geiger]

Why Hobby Lobby?  I guess because it’s there! Just the idea of being able to go somewhere.. anywhere physically in place of a real hobby shop.  Online is just not the same thing.

I do remember back before HL had stores near me and I’d see guys crowing about it on sites.. I thought it must be a big hobby shop!  When I finally got to one it was like, “Hunh? This is IT?” ?

I was there this week… I was 20 minutes early for my haircut appointment and needed to kill some time.. no kits I needed even at 40% off, then I checked the clearance area and bought a rubber stamp of a turtle ?! Yea I’m easily amused!

[4mula1fan]

 

[SfanGoch]

Need to go somewhere? You're a NY'er by default being from Joisey. Killing time is in your DNA, man. Take a walk around the neighborhood park, talk to the crazy guy playing a tune on the curbstone with his drumsticks, hit a gin mill for a couple of suds or a coffee shop and have a greaseburger deluxe, hang out with the giant cannibal pig outside the Italian pork store,

anything but Hobby Lobby ferchrissakes! Look, I'm as much a model nut as the next guy here; but, I'm not going to keep going back to the same lameass store to stare at the same lameass kits I saw six months before. As my good friend Al Einstein would say as he was buying his weekly fix of lottery tickets, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

[TarheelRick]

3 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

online shops offer a much larger variety of modeling products than you could ever find in Hobby Lobby.

Yeah, but there is that thing with shipping almost doubling the costs. Besides I like to look at the sides of the box for build options and especially the bottom of AMT boxes to see what the box contains.

[Mark]

They DO carry other items...several brands of paint (shipping on that can get stupid), Molotow pens, an admittedly small selection of Evergreen styrene and K&S metal strips and tubes (more K&S stuff than the LHS presently has), and even casting supplies.  And, every so often, there's a new kit or two.  LHS seems to be pricing kits at "whatever the market will bear" lately, often $4-7 over retail.  I'll pay retail once in a blue moon, but never over.  When I can get something dropped on my front porch cheaper than buying local (sales tax included in both)...sorry, local... 

[TransAmMike]

When ya got no choice ya gotta go with what cha got?   I'm south of Nashville and even it being a pretty big city there are no Hobby shops so it's either HL or online. Now while, you can get some pretty decent deals on Ebay and Amazon, many other items not on those venues may be priced decently but oh man, the shipping cost is outrageous. But I guess, if you have to have it, oh well.

[thatz4u]

was at the Richmond IN store, they just got the AMT Jimbo GMC & Willys pickup with Coke decals...

[Tom Geiger]

Kinda amazing we can have a vape store in every shopping center but no hobby shops!

[TonyK]

I do my model and supply shopping online because there are no real hobby shops near me. I wait until there are a few models I really want and add any paints I need to my order and I'm good for awhile.

When a Hobby Lobby opened a few years ago just a mile away I was able to take advantage of their 40% off coupon for paint whenever I needed it and rarely bought a model. Now that they did away with that convenient coupon I rarely go there except for the other day when I realized I was out of a certain color paint.

[Smoke Wagon]

Here in southern Oregon, online shopping is usually your best bet for getting kits. However, there are Hobby Lobbys in Medford and Springfield, and a great LHS, Eugene Toy and Hobby in downtown Eugene. When traveling north on I-5 I usually try and stop in there. 

[Mr. Metallic]

Went to HL last week and was surprised to find three "new" models on their shelves. I say "new" because they're just new to HL, not everywhere else. but still, it appears maybe the dam is breaking? Didn't buy any of them (not on my list), but at least it give me hope that new things are coming. I did finally pull the trigger on the 83 Olds concept car, first thing I've bought at HL since they changed the coupon policy

 

[OldNYJim]

Just now, Mr. Metallic said:

Went to HL last week and was surprised to find three "new" models on their shelves. I say "new" because they're just new to HL, not everywhere else. but still, it appears maybe the dam is breaking? Didn't buy any of them (not on my list), but at least it give me hope that new things are coming. I did finally pull the trigger on the 83 Olds concept car, first thing I've bought at HL since they changed the coupon policy

 

What were the new ones? 

[Mr. Metallic]

1 minute ago, CabDriver said:

What were the new ones? 

I knew if I didn't say someone would ask, haha

64 Olds convertible, Revell 62 Impala, Revell 80's firebird (I think that's what it is)

[OldNYJim]

Haha, thanks for the info!

[Tabbysdaddy]

I saw the larger scale '57 Chevy convertible which hasn't been there. Also the Atlantis stake bed truck. Would have got them but the wife said wait to see what Santa brings. 

[Mike999]

6 hours ago, Mr. Metallic said:

I knew if I didn't say someone would ask, haha

64 Olds convertible, Revell 62 Impala, Revell 80's firebird (I think that's what it is)

Interesting.  Still no Olds at my closest Hobby Lobby stores, convertible or hardtop. I've been to 2 different HL's this week.  The newest kits they had were the Popper Pinto and the Bulldozer.

The closest Wal-Mart has a few Round 2 kits left.  The "Coke" 41 Plymouth, '32 Ford Sedan Delivery and a couple of the old MPC Trikes.  This store did not restock after October, when the Round 2 aisle display suddenly showed up.  After a couple of weeks the display was gone, and the kits were shoved onto the regular toy shelves.

[Modelbuilder Mark]

I also agree that their inventory has been more stagnant over the last 18 months in than in the past, but I think there are multiple things at play there, such as supply chain issues. I, like MANY other builders on this forum, could build the rest of my life on what kits I already have, but I still pick up kits from HL because the deal usually makes it worth the parts for me, extra tires/motors whatever I think I may be able to kit-bash later.  I think builders on this forum forget that the majority of models kits are not bought by "serious" model hobbyists. While we may buy a lot of them, we are not Hobby Lobby's primary target audience. Maybe the non-hobbyist dad who gets pulled into the store with his wife to look at plastic floral arrangements, wonders over to the kits, or that unhappy about being with their parent on a fabric run child gets pacified with a "toy" model kit.  These things help Round2 and others move kits. If the model companies only relied on the "serious" builders, they would struggle to move enough kits, or need to focus their marketing like Salvinos. 

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by Modelbuilder Mark

[Tom Geiger]

3 hours ago, Modelbuilder Mark said:

 I think builders on this forum forget that the majority of models kits are not bought by "serious" model hobbyists. While we may buy a lot of them, we are not Hobby Lobby's primary target audience. Maybe the non-hobbyist dad who gets pulled into the store with his wife to look at plastic floral arrangements, wonders over to the kits, or that unhappy about being with their parent on a fabric run child gets pacified with a "toy" model kit.  These things help Round2 and others move kits. If the model companies only relied on the "serious" builders, they would struggle to move enough kits, or need to focus their marketing like Salvinos. 

Bingo!  Every time I see a rant by one of our herd that how dare they reissue a kit you can  buy at a swap meet for $10...  but the target audience doesn't know about swap meets!  ?

[Tom99]

On 12/9/2021 at 12:56 PM, Tom Geiger said:

Kinda amazing we can have a vape store in every shopping center but no hobby shops!

It's the same way here in Houston.

[mikemodeler]

I live in a hobby shop desert- closest thing we have to a LHS is a Hobby Town USA about 40 miles north of me in Mooresville. At one time they had a huge aisle of plastic, cars, trucks, military plus all kinds of paints and tools. Then a few years ago a Hobby Lobby opened a mile away and it changed their business. Any serious builder/buyer of kits would shop at HL when kits were 40% off compared to HTU's usual MSRP. In Charlotte where I live there are only Michael's and HL to shop locally for kits and supplies so I am an online shopper for the most part. If I need a donor kit and HL carries it, I am there when they are 40% off.

Our hobby has changed and so has our buying habits. I have probably spent as much, if not more, on resin stuff this year as I have on kits, and that has come from online shopping. Being able to click on website and find whatever I could possibly imagine because someone has either cast it or created it with 3D printing has changed my hobby world.

While it is easy for those that have a LHS to struggle to understand why those of us left with only HL shop there, many of us do remember when there were more hobby shops to shop at and spent time and money supporting those businesses. But as owners aged or passed and no one wanted to take over the business, it was inevitable that they would be gone.