Share of the Model Market - One Shop's Perspective

[Justin Porter]

So, I was playing around with data from my point of sale system and I thought this would be an interesting talking point. Currently, these thirteen brands represent all of the model kit companies that I have made sales with over the counter or at shows in 2024. This does represent all scales so the 1/20th and big scale releases count towards this along with the typical bi-scale 1/24th and 1/25th releases. To me, it represents a great glimpse of where the trends are shifting. Naturally, Revell's combination of product and price-point is a dominant one. Round 2's brands also represent a healthy chunk. However, at least from what my data tells me, any shop that's not committing to stocking a healthy amount of imported kits is leaving a lot of money on the table. Side note. Those two tiniest slivers are Atlantis and Meng.

Edited August 14 by Justin Porter

[peteski]

Does this represent the dollar amount collected from the sales of the company's kits or number of kits sold?

[Justin Porter]

Just now, peteski said:

Does this represent the dollar amount collected from the sales of the company's kits or number of kits sold?

This is purely on volume and not on gross revenue.

[peteski]

Sorry I'm not familiar with all the business accounting and marketing jargon. So in layman's terms volume means number of kits sold? 

[Justin Porter]

1 minute ago, peteski said:

Sorry I'm not familiar with all the business accounting and marketing jargon. So in layman's terms volume means number of kits sold? 

Yes. This is based solely on number of kits sold. 

[peteski]

Thanks for clarifying.

Meng mainly produces non-automotive kits, and Atlantis is also a bit of an oddball.  Assuming your hobby shop mostly deals with automotive subjects.

What is the pie slice between Hasegawa and MPC?

[StevenGuthmiller]

7 minutes ago, peteski said:

Thanks for clarifying.

Meng mainly produces non-automotive kits, and Atlantis is also a bit of an oddball.  Assuming your hobby shop mostly deals with automotive subjects.

What is the pie slice between Hasegawa and MPC?

Maybe it’s Johan. ?

 

 

Steve

[Justin Porter]

4 minutes ago, peteski said:

Thanks for clarifying.

Meng mainly produces non-automotive kits, and Atlantis is also a bit of an oddball.  Assuming your hobby shop mostly deals with automotive subjects.

What is the pie slice between Hasegawa and MPC?

That slice is NuNu. The pains of using an online pie chart generator. lol

Atlantis is one I wish I could explain but they just don't seem to be generating much traction. Case in point, as much as I personally love the old Miss Deal kit, the "Skorpion" reissue of it is a dust collector. I also figured the Swamp Rat XXX release would create some buzz given how long its been since a reasonably modern top fueler of any stripe was readily available. Again, no such luck. 

This is based purely on automotive kits but my shop handles all genres pretty extensively including air, armor, Gundam (by far our biggest chunk of model kit sales), plus wargaming and model railroading.

[peteski]

Hmm, it would be interesting to see another chart showing volumes of automotive, Gundam, aircraft, armor, wargaming, and model RR items.  Not sure if that is something you can break down easily.

[Justin Porter]

15 hours ago, peteski said:

Hmm, it would be interesting to see another chart showing volumes of automotive, Gundam, aircraft, armor, wargaming, and model RR items.  Not sure if that is something you can break down easily.

Fortunately my Point of Sale does a solid breakdown on this. The best comparison actually to give is to use the gross revenue of my top ten categories. Wargaming isn't in here because it's a very new addition to my shop (literally got our first Games Workshop rack last month) but this shows basically what pays 90% of the freight at Haven Hobby. This time the unnamed slice is "Scenic Materials" which is primarily Woodland Scenics brand merchandise. I categorize it separately from railroading because effectively all of my customers make use of it.

Edited August 15 by Justin Porter

[Bainford]

This is a very interesting break-down. There are some surprises in both charts.

[bbowser]

Agreed, interesting breakdown.  Looks like Gundam is driving the hobby.  As far as kit building goes I wonder where Legos slot in?

[Justin Porter]

36 minutes ago, bbowser said:

Agreed, interesting breakdown.  Looks like Gundam is driving the hobby.  As far as kit building goes I wonder where Legos slot in?

Strangely enough, the NRHSA's monthly magazine - Hobby Merchandiser - did a very interesting article discussing Lego as a sales avenue for hobby shops. The article focused heavily on the benefits not only of sustained sales, but also the SEO benefits because customers who quite likely won't be searching for products you currently carry will definitely be searching for a brand name as big as Lego. For me personally, it's an intriguing opportunity but I'd have to learn more about distribution and deals and at the moment I already have taken on the challenge of promoting the new wargaming lines. Gotta grow one thing at a time to the point of sustainability before jumping into another project.

[Brudda]

Cool chart! I’m impressed with Salvinos. They seemed to gain traction quick. I bought a nascar charger from Art Latski (Salvinos) and it’s a nice kit. 

[Mark]

21 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Maybe it’s Johan. ?

 

 

Steve

Which one?

[peteski]

Thanks for the latest chart Justin. Very interesting and thought provoking info, especially the revenue from paints.  It also clearly shows that model railroading hobby is far from dying (which, as an active model railroader I already know, but many out there think otherwise).

Of course Gundam is a large revenue generator, which the first chart already showed.  I suspect that good percentage of Gundam modelers are under 40 years old, and it is good to know that they aren't all just playing on their smart phones.

[peter31a]

I'm really surprised that Armour and Airplanes are less in sales than automotive. In many hobby shops Automotive is the poor third cousin where planes and armour reign supreme (at least until Gundam took over).

[stavanzer]

4 hours ago, peter31a said:

I'm really surprised that Armour and Airplanes are less in sales than automotive. In many hobby shops Automotive is the poor third cousin where planes and armour reign supreme (at least until Gundam took over).

That fits all the Hobbies Shops I've seen in California these last few Years. Except Pegasus Hobbies in SoCal. But, they have Everything, and in Huge Numbers.

[Ulf]

On 8/15/2024 at 10:06 PM, peter31a said:

I'm really surprised that Armour and Airplanes are less in sales than automotive. In many hobby shops Automotive is the poor third cousin where planes and armour reign supreme (at least until Gundam took over).

Really, a nice local deviation ?
Armour has driven the development of colors etc and attracted many younger people world wide who missed the plastic model boom of the 1970s.
Interesting 2, glue 1,8%
= the kits are being built.
It's probably hard to get around that building is the foundation of the whole hobby.

[Kit Karson]

On 8/19/2024 at 3:22 PM, Ulf said:

Really, a nice local deviation?
Armour has driven the development of colors etc. and attracted many younger people worldwide who missed the plastic model boom of the 1970s.
Interesting 2, glue 1,8%
= the kits are being built.
It's probably hard to get around that building is the foundation of the whole hobby.

Let's applaud the people that have made "building" the foundation of the hobby! The fact that having a hobby still exists is somewhat amazing. 

Edited October 4 by Kit Karson
add a picture

[oldcarfan]

For the last twenty years I've been more a collector than a builder. While I really want to support Round 2, I have so many of their kits I don't need any more. My tastes have changed more to 80s-90s Japanese and German imports and Round 2 doesn't have much of anything new in that area. The last Round 2 kit I bought were the 80 Bronco and Celica Supra kits. When I buy kits now I tend to go for Aoshima or one of the other Japanese companies.

 

[Ulf]

21 hours ago, Kit Karson said:

Let's applaud the people that have made "building" the foundation of the hobby! The fact that having a hobby still exists is somewhat amazing. 

Next week, when I sew the patch on the jacket, it goes from hobby to lifestyle.?

I was thanked the other week and my boss(female) had bought me a plastic model kit in addition to the usual Michelin restaurant gift card(guess what I was most excited about).

Edited October 5 by Ulf
spelling

[tim boyd]

On 8/14/2024 at 4:08 PM, Justin Porter said:

So, I was playing around with data from my point of sale system and I thought this would be an interesting talking point. Currently, these thirteen brands represent all of the model kit companies that I have made sales with over the counter or at shows in 2024. This does represent all scales so the 1/20th and big scale releases count towards this along with the typical bi-scale 1/24th and 1/25th releases. To me, it represents a great glimpse of where the trends are shifting. Naturally, Revell's combination of product and price-point is a dominant one. Round 2's brands also represent a healthy chunk. However, at least from what my data tells me, any shop that's not committing to stocking a healthy amount of imported kits is leaving a lot of money on the table. Side note. Those two tiniest slivers are Atlantis and Meng.

Justin...thanks for sharing that info with us.  I guess the two surprises for me is how big Aoshima is, and how small Atlantis is (as you commented also, I believe).  I would tend to combine AMT and MPC which would total 19.7% for Round 2, making them #2 and much closer to Revell, but on the other hand having them listed individually as you did shows the relative power of the AMT brand vs. MPC.  

Also appreciate the overall chart showing the leadership of Gundam kits, which certainly reflects what I hear around here.   I presume the "paint" category is spread across all the model kits; without looking up the data (if it even exists in that form), from your top of mind does the majority of paint sales go to Gundam, to automotive, or is it pretty much spread across all kit topics?  

As a career marketer as well as unofficial consultant at times to the model kit industry since the mid 1970s, I find this info fascinating.  Great job!   TIM 

   

 

[Justin Porter]

14 minutes ago, tim boyd said:

Justin...thanks for sharing that info with us.  I guess the two surprises for me is how big Aoshima is, and how small Atlantis is (as you commented also, I believe).  I would tend to combine AMT and MPC which would total 19.7% for Round 2, making them #2 and much closer to Revell, but on the other hand having them listed individually as you did shows the relative power of the AMT brand vs. MPC.  

Also appreciate the overall chart showing the leadership of Gundam kits, which certainly reflects what I hear around here.   I presume the "paint" category is spread across all the model kits; without looking up the data (if it even exists in that form), from your top of mind does the majority of paint sales go to Gundam, to automotive, or is it pretty much spread across all kit topics?  

As a career marketer as well as unofficial consultant at times to the model kit industry since the mid 1970s, I find this info fascinating.  Great job!   TIM 

   

 

I'd really have to conduct a bit of a census on builders to determine who was using what paints for what purpose given that the brands of paint I carry are GENERALLY pretty universal. I stock Tamiya, Gunze Mr Color & Mr Metallic, Army Painter Air, Citadel, Vallejo Model Air & Model Color, AK Interactive 3rd Gen, Xtreme Metal, & Real Color, and Alclad. The closest to a dedicated automotive paint brand I carry is that I'm ramping up to bring in the new Cobra Motors line of automotive paints from AMMO by Mig and have sold some jars of that individually before the rack has arrived. 

That being said, I'd say that my top paint consumers are probably first aircraft builders, then auto builders, and then Gundam. Casual aircraft guys buy the widest variety of paint, tend to hone in on a brand or two that they prefer, and generally need at least three or four new colors with each new project as they jump from air force to air force and from era to era. By comparison, casual auto builders consume a lot of paint but generally in a handful of colors (flat black, aluminum, silver, gloss red, etc) that they just have to restock every now and then. They do offset that a bit as auto builders buy rattle cans in the widest volume of any variety of builders. Generally, my military and Gundam builders only buy spray cans of primers and clear coats.

That's at least from informal counter observations. I can't say I have as "hard" data on end users.

[StevenGuthmiller]

It seems a little weird to me that apparently the interest in Gundam has grown so exponentially in recent years, yet when I attend an IPMS show, which allows for all genres, I see very few of them, at least in my locality.

In all honesty, the last show that I attended boasted over 500 models, and I don’t think that there could have been any more than a half dozen Gundam subjects displayed.

Then again, I’m not 100% certain of the number as that was the only table that I petty much passed by.

Although I build exclusively model cars, I can really appreciate the other genres for the most part.

Some of the Military and ship models are absolutely fascinating!

Aviation models to a lesser extent for me, but the fantasy and Gundam subjects just leave me absolutely cold.

I guess it has to do with my disposition that a “scale model” has to be a scaled down representation of something that has actually existed at one point or another.

Just me.

 

 

 

Steve

Edited October 10 by StevenGuthmiller