[US] Target Summer Clearance - Chicago Area - SW Lego Sets

[meeotch]

The clearance on those sould have been with the same batch as the others that may still be around, they just flew off the shelves. I had one guy come to my store looking for the Gunship because our inventory said we had 2, even though we had none. He said that it was the 4th Target he went to that morning. I think it was the Friday (or 2nd day) after they hit clearance, so I know that the word travelled fast.

[GIR3691]

I went to both local targets after days of diversions and conflicting scheduling, and I seem to have missed all LEGO clearance in the tri-city area.

[popnfresh]

The Targets that I checked in socal didn' t even bother to restock the bigger items, Gunship/AT-TE, I just saw empty space on the shelves for a month before the clearancing started to hit.

[meeotch]

Of course they didn't restock them. It would be shooting themselves in the foot to try and restock an item they know they are about to clearance. The whole point of clearance is to "clear out" the old stuff to make room for the new.

[Puddleglum]

Of course they didn't restock them. It would be shooting themselves in the foot to try and restock an item they know they are about to clearance. The whole point of clearance is to "clear out" the old stuff to make room for the new.

OTOH a couple months of empty shelves is probably a couple months of missed sales. Remember, they're not likely losing money on clearance items until they go below 50% off. But I have a feeling they have probably figured out that often when parents come looking for a certain LEGO set for their kids, they are more likely to just get a different set, than leave empty-handed. I went to a few Targets in the Houston area the week before Christmas, and a couple of them literally had less than 10 LEGO sets TOTAL left on their shelves.

[ufjason]

Did some searching in their computer and finally found a store with stock. It was only at 50% but found a few halffire droids. Left the magnaguards and city construction sets. The 60 dollar crane for 30 was kinda cool but I'll take the risk to nab it at 75%.

[meeotch]

OTOH a couple months of empty shelves is probably a couple months of missed sales. Remember, they're not likely losing money on clearance items until they go below 50% off. But I have a feeling they have probably figured out that often when parents come looking for a certain LEGO set for their kids, they are more likely to just get a different set, than leave empty-handed. I went to a few Targets in the Houston area the week before Christmas, and a couple of them literally had less than 10 LEGO sets TOTAL left on their shelves.

Oh, I definitely understand, but he said they were only out of those for a month. If you ask me, it sounds like they just barely underestimated their possible sales, then, but when it's that close to clearance time, they definitely won't be getting more. Part of the reason they wouldn't possibly be losing money until 50% clearance or more is because they order in huge bulk quantities to get that price break. They can't just order 5 here, 10 there from the Lego Company. It's on the order of thousands, and there's no way they can push units like that. Truth be told, they actually plan on some (not necessarily any in particular, just some) items in a soon-to-clearance row to run out, because then (if they're following "best practices") they fill up that empty shelf space with other soon-to-be-clearanced merchandise in an effort to push that out the doors before it gets marked down.