In April this year I started to comment that Loom Bands had run their course in Australia this time around. In the months following I wrote about magazines late to the party that did not sell. A couple of months ago I commented about discount stores promoting Loom Bands at low prices.
The moment we had five or six suppliers with Loom bands products early this year the writing was on the wall, it was time to quit the product line.
The only way to sell Loom Brand products now is at a deep discount.
This is why I was surprised to hear from a newsagent in South Australia that Ancol has Loom Brands as a feature product in their Christmas catalogue. I checked online and found 600 piece box sets for $3.50 – not much more than the wholesale price newsagents are paint for these.
Creating Christmas catalogues can be challenging because of the long lead time, competition with others sourcing products from common suppliers and varying degrees of interest from newsagents early in the year when you are building the contents of the catalogue. The challenge for those creating the catalogue is the cost of a dud product on them and the retailers they serve.
With Loom Bands, the signs were there early this year. Of course, my concerns could be misplaced and the bands in the Ancol catalogue could see out in participating newsagencies.
Loom bands as we know were one of those “fad” products which we see
occasionally.
Timing is critical for these products, distributing catalogues with “fad” products which are well past their relevance for the customer, is dangerous.
Unfortunately for Newspower members in SA ,placing out of fashion products in their catalogues sends the wrong message to customers
Planning for and purchasing for these catalogues is made a long way in advance. This may be the case. What would Ancol be expected to so with the stock and could they still change the printing of the catalogue?