Bargain at Hobby Lobby

Not long after AMT had released their 1/72 Ju-88S, I came across one in a Hobby Lobby.  It's price was listed as $8.00 which I knew couldn't be right (I think the MSRP was something like 23 bucks).  I took it to the cashier and explained I was interested in it but I thought it had been mismarked.  She called the manager and I explained what my problem was and the manager took the kit back to her office for about 10 minutes, came back and handed me the kit and said that according to her data, the kit price was accurate.  So I figured that I had tried, bought the kit and left.  A couple of months later I was back in that particular store and they had three or four of the same kit on the shelves and they were marked $18.

Yup, I find Hobby Lobby to be very erratic on their pricing at times.  Here is my latest find.  I picked up an Academy USMC M1A1 Iraq 2003 kit w/the 40% off coupon as well. Before you laugh about the inaccurate Academy M1A1 2003 kit, here's the kicker.... someone had swapped out the inaccurately short turret for one from the new(ish) Tamiya M1A1/A2 kit. What a find. It was even marked down because the box was not cello wrapped or something. I paid less than $20 for it, all the other ones with it were priced at $36.99.

Great finds...it usually works the other way for me!  One of these days I'll get one of these lucky finds!

Your awesome.

I usually end up paying full price for everything.

Not honest, just like to waste my money I guess.

 

I got my Academy F-18C from there for $26.99.  I asked if they would double check that price as I didn't think it was correct.  The supervisor looked and said to give it to me at that price.  I didn't argue.

LOL, I'm the same way, Mike! I like to think of it as greasing the skids of the economy! Matter of fact, if you want a deal, buy something the day after I do, they normally drop the prices right after they ring up my sale!

Jon, you tried to mend their way, more than once. Enjoy the kit, or if your conscience bothers you too much, PM me for my addy and you can send it to me!

Bgrigg wrote:

Jon, you tried to mend their way, more than once. Enjoy the kit, or if your conscience bothers you too much, PM me for my addy and you can send it to me!

LOL- I think I've gotten over it.  

I've often seen the same kit in the clearance bin at my local Hobby Lobby that they still have on the shelf at full price.

Must be nice to have a Hobby Lobby close by. 

The closest one to me would have me drive halfway across NJ, then all the way across Pennsylvania and into Ohio.  Sadly, the cost of gas would cancel out any savings.  Whyu oh why does New Jersey always get the short end of the stick?

This is one of the reasons I appreciate Hobby Lobby so much.   They aren't so tied up in bleeding there customers for every stinking penny.  They have the good sense to realize that a big chain store isn't going shrivel up and die because they occasionally mislabel a product.  It's much more customer friendly to say "Ooops, we goofed, oh well, enjoy the accidental discount."  For the average modeler, we probably wouldn't be that offended if the clerk looked at a kit and said "Oh hey, I don't think this is priced right, let me check on this"  But think of some 8 yr old kid with his birthday money carefully counted out with just enough to get some great hobby item he's been jonesing for or some 75 yr old woman on a fixed income picking up some crafting supplies.  And then the clerk pulls that sort of thing.  It's simpler and better for customer relations to just suck up a buck or two of loss and make the customer happy.  And don't forget HL's 'regular' price includes a lot of markup anyway.

 

 

My best buys at Hobby Lobby:

1/48 B-1B for 26.00                                                                                                     

1/48 Hasegawa P-40E for 11.99(times 2)

1/32 Hasegawa Fw-190A8 for 16.00

1/48 Tamiya F-117A for 15.00

I always check the discontinued items in the corner of the stores for kits.

Henry

hwells wrote:

I always check the discontinued items in the corner of the stores for kits. Henry

Oh heck yeah,  I've landed a couple of nice kits that way too.

overkillphil wrote:

hwells wrote: I always check the discontinued items in the corner of the stores for kits. Henry Oh heck yeah,  I've landed a couple of nice kits that way too.

Same here. At my local Hobby Lobby, I often find kits marked down 50-75% off of the shelf price in the discount aisle. Although I will admit sometimes a kit is marked down just a couple of dollars (like a $25 kit marked down to $23).