Plastic Model Mojo
Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby
Plastic Model Mojo
Scaling Up: Squadron's Growth and Exclusive Convention Kits
From logistics nightmares to groundbreaking special editions, Brandon Lowe takes us behind the scenes of Squadron's evolution into a new era for model enthusiasts. After logging countless miles between trade shows and completing their tenth move in twenty years, Squadron has finally settled into their Chattanooga headquarters, transforming their operation and expanding their customer offerings.
The relocation story reveals why shipping logistics became the primary driver behind Squadron's move. "If we had to pick one reason to move, that was it," Brandon explains, detailing how the small-town postal facilities in Ellijay simply couldn't handle their volume. Now with dedicated large-vehicle pickups daily, Squadron can focus on growth rather than delivery headaches.
After a year of transition, Squadron's 2,500 square foot retail space is now welcoming visitors Monday through Friday. For many customers, seeing the warehouse's 20,000 square feet of inventory has become an experience in itself: "It was kind of funny. He had been there for a good little while, so I just said, 'hey, would you like to see the warehouse?'... and I took him to the other 20,000 square feet beyond the 2,000 he was looking at."
The conversation shifts to Squadron's innovative community-building initiatives. Their Eagle Club provides enhanced benefits including reduced shipping thresholds, while a private Facebook group connects customers sharing projects and techniques. Brandon's philosophy shines through: "Hopefully it becomes a community of modeling friendship."
The most exciting revelation concerns Squadron's groundbreaking partnership with the IPMS Nationals host chapter. For the first time ever, they're creating official convention exclusive model kits featuring the show logo. The first announced exclusive, a MiniArt P-47D Razorback, represents something completely new for the hobby. "I hope that it helps the show in general, in the sense that there's something here that I can only get here," Brandon explains, drawing parallels to comic convention exclusives.
Through shipping challenges, tariff uncertainties, and continuous innovation, Brandon's passion for the modeling community remains unwavering: "The customers in the hobby industry are some of the nicest, most understanding people I have ever met." Visit Squadron's retail space, tune into their Wednesday night livestreams, or meet them at the IPMS Nationals to experience firsthand how they're reshaping the hobby landscape.
Adding to the stash since 1968
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
they've been playing email tag with our guests tonight. Yeah, we're gonna welcome back I don't know probably the hardest working man in the hobby industry, brandon lowe from squadron. How you doing, brandon?
Brandon Lowe:I'm doing pretty good, mike, I don't know about hardest working, but in the hobby industry, brandon Lowe from Squadron how you doing, brandon? I'm doing pretty good. Mike, I don't know about hardest working, but I do the best I can.
Mike:You've logged some miles the last month and a half or so.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, it's been pretty consistent the last several weeks, for us for sure.
Kentucky Dave:I got to see you at Wonderfest and, man, you were busier than a one-armed paper hanger.
Brandon Lowe:You were doing a good business when I passed by, Well you know Wonderfest specifically, is that show kind of lends itself to that? Yeah, just because it's a relatively small vendor room and it has, on average, more people walking through that than most of the other shows that we go through outside of the. You know the big national show, of course. So yeah, it's. It's once those doors open, it's just crazy crammed in there it's a good thing but yeah it was.
Kentucky Dave:It was a nice time though I got to briefly say hello, but not, but not about much more, because, man, you all were just, you were selling them like hot cake of view, or at least from my point of view, that's the only bad thing, because I hear that same thing you just said.
Brandon Lowe:I talk to you guys more after the show than I get to talk to you at the show.
Kentucky Dave:Right.
Brandon Lowe:Just because you know you're going through, you buy your stuff, you move on. The next guy in line needs to get up to the counter, but it is what it is. It's still a fun time. It's an interesting show. It's different than the rest of the shows.
Kentucky Dave:It is indeed.
Mike:Well, you're quite a ways into it now, Brandon, with the move up toward Chattanooga. Is that complete now? Are you still limping through that?
Brandon Lowe:Or are you in pretty good shape by now, I imagine? I think to some extent we will always be working on it, but you know, I think that's kind of like when you own your house it's never finished.
Kentucky Dave:There's always something to do, that's right. Well, there's always that one box over in the corner that when you moved four years ago, you put in the corner of the basement and you haven't bothered to unpack it yet. Yep.
Brandon Lowe:And that same concept carries over into our warehouse. We have moved so many times since we started in this business almost 20 years ago. 2026 will be our 20th year in business. Wow, the lows, if you will started out as free time hobbies, sure, and I think we counted this up the other day. Actually, I think we have moved 10 times in 20 years. Oh man, wow.
Brandon Lowe:And thankfully, this move and it's been a year, mike yeah, it has. Yeah, last June, when I moved here, I think we moved the store sometime in July, I think is when we started moving the warehouse over here. You know we had the nationals and that whole thing, but it's been a year now and we are, for the most part, settled in as far as being able to do day-to-day stuff. It's been a roller coaster of staffing. You know guys and gals coming and going over the last year, but we've finally got, I guess, what you can call a stable team.
Brandon Lowe:Good, yeah, that's always a plus. Yeah, yeah, I mean we got guys coming and going still, but I think that's kind of the case with any business, but we've got a good, solid team that we can count on. So that's a good thing. The space there coming from where we were at in Ellijay with the horrible logistics over there, shipping and whatnot and just everything over there. It's a super nice place. Ellijay is to live and from what I'm told to retire, but not so much to run a distribution company, so it's great.
Mike:That brings up an interesting point. I know when we talked last time you mentioned the logistics and you had a comment or two about overwhelming the LAJ Postal Service down there, yep, and you moved up toward Chattanooga to where on the list of reasons to move it was.
Brandon Lowe:That was up there. I mean, that may have been. If we had to pick one reason to move, that was it.
Mike:Well, it's probably not funny for you, but over the holidays I know that you'd put thought into moving up there to get a better service and I don't know how it works for you guys. I know a little bit because I saw some of the back and forth with some folks and you, I think, but the post office kind of imploded around Christmas in our part of the country.
Brandon Lowe:Well, they did here too, and that's the thing, lj. Our issue was physically getting our packages that we pack up every day, getting them from our warehouse into the post office's system, and they literally did not have vehicles in that town large enough to accommodate. I imagine not. Yeah, so we've got a big trailer and we literally had to deliver our own packages to the post office every day, and that kind of got old. So when we moved here, the biggest change in this took a few weeks to get set up. But now we've got a. It's not a tractor trailer, it's the next size down, it's one size down from a full rig. I don't know what it's called, but we we've got one of those that comes every day and picks up all of our stuff. I think it can hold like 12 pallets of packages and it's ours. We can put one pallet in it. We can put 12 pallets in it. It's not a shared thing. So that's great. That is, hands down, the best thing for us.
Brandon Lowe:Now, after it leaves our facility, unfortunately, the post office is the post office, regardless of where it's located, and you know you were talking about them imploding at Christmas. Oh yeah, that's not just your area, that's everywhere. Because go back however many years ago, before the Internet took over. What did the post office deliver? They delivered envelopes, letters and postcards and these types of things. So the infrastructure of how the post office was set up many, many years ago. It was not set up to deliver packages. That's what UPS and FedEx were set up for. Well, fast forward to today, that's pretty much what they are now a package handling company, and a lot of these old facilities were not built to handle that. And they're doing all these things trying to improve it, but the amount of volume that they're getting is way faster growing than they're able to facilitate this stuff.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, louisville, around Christmas we have a regional center here in Louisville and it just completely melted down to the point where there were numerous news stories on the local TV and including at least one story on national news about the troubles they were having.
Brandon Lowe:Oh yeah, oh yeah, and I am sure that there are actual factual numbers out there to look at, so I'm just spitting fictional numbers out. But let's just say that we ship a thousand packages in a day. Yeah, just average, normal. Well, christmas time, all of a sudden we might need to send five or ten thousand packages in a day. Yeah, multiply that out by however many other thousands of businesses that are like us out there. They can't staff that many people 12 months a year to handle that. And then all of the sudden I mean you know how hard it is to find good helpers and good employees All of the sudden come around October, november, all of a sudden they need like 10 or 20 times as many employees as they have for one month. How do you find that many people to come to work for one month knowing you're going to get canned right after Christmas?
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, well, how did your customers handle it? Were they relatively good sports?
Brandon Lowe:You know that's a good question, dave, and I got to tell you and this is one of the things that I love the most about this industry the customers in the hobby industry, at least, the customers that we have are some of the nicest, most understanding people that I have ever met.
Kentucky Dave:If you go back far enough and listen to our old episodes, that is a recurring theme that I have commented on as a group. I mean, you know there's bad apples in every group.
Brandon Lowe:Oh gosh, yeah, but as a group.
Kentucky Dave:you can't find a nicer bunch of people willing to, you know, reach out to help. Understanding is all get out. I mean it really does reinforce the fact that it's a heck of a nice community to belong to it really is and customers usually become friends.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, and, like I said, as long as we do our part, you know you order it, we get it out of our warehouse into the postal system or whatever. I mean we've done our part and most people understand that. Now that doesn't mean they don't call and you know they're disappointed. That man, it took two weeks, the post office lost it and that kind of stuff happens. But if you consider what we do in our hobby and what I probably don't build model kits so you know that we're not selling remote control cars or medical supplies or anything like that. So, like I said, the customers for the most part are some of the nicest people I've ever met and they are definitely understanding. Doesn't mean they don't want their stuff fast, but they sure understand when the post office does something dumb, which unfortunately is more often than not.
Mike:Well, another couple of things. The last time we talked to you that were sort of related to the move and getting grounded again in the new location was Squadron Club Yep and then the retail shop space.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, so we've got several different things that we're doing. The retail space it is open now.
Kentucky Dave:We got to go down, Mike.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, road trip. There you go. Now for you guys we'll make a date and figure it out. But in general the retail stores open Monday through Friday and some people ask well, why aren't you open on the weekends? Well, we're there Monday through Friday. I mean, we want to have the retail space, we want to offer that and have it open, but at the end of the day this location is still our warehouse for our internet business and our phone mail order business. But when we're there, the shop is open. We advertise it being open from 10 to 3. That just gives us a little time in the morning to get things going and gives us an hour in the afternoon to close up shop. But that's there. It's neat when you come by. I think we've got about what is it? 2,500 square feet in the front for the retail space, and then you know, usually, if you ask nice and we aren't unloading containers or something in the back, I might just let you stroll through the warehouse as well.
Kentucky Dave:That's always an adventure. Now, have you had a fair number of people stopping by?
Brandon Lowe:Yes, so there's a pretty good modeling community here in Chattanooga.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, there is.
Brandon Lowe:We've got the Chattanooga Scale Modelers here and they had their model show last weekend.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, which Mike and I were really trying to get to.
Brandon Lowe:Oh, wish you had made it, but their show is usually not in June, it's usually in January. We get it snowed out Anyway. Friday because their show was Friday and Saturday. Our shop is open on Friday anyway, so we extended an invitation and made it a publicly announced thing that we would have an open house that day. So we had several people stop by on their way to the Chattanooga show and then we stayed open. The show ended at six o'clock. We stayed open. I think we were there till nine or nine thirty. We advertised it being open till eight, but we didn't want to kick anybody out.
Brandon Lowe:So we stayed till the last person was done shopping. So that was nice, and more and more people have started finding out that we're open. Everybody knew that we were going to do this, but we were just so busy. I realized last week that I had never really even made an announcement that it was open.
Brandon Lowe:Well that's what we're doing here. That is what we're doing. But yeah, as people find out that we're open officially now and in a retail walk-in capacity, more and more people are starting to come in. Had a guy in today. It was kind of funny. He was looking around and just kind of amazed at all the model kits that were there, and he had been there for a good little while. So I just said, hey, would you like to see in the warehouse and see the rest of the models we have? And he's like you mean you have more than this. And I took him to the other 20,000 square feet beyond the 2,000 he was looking at. It's really nice. I love doing that. I love being able to have customers come in and look at this stuff. Put your hands on it.
Kentucky Dave:Watching their eyes bug out.
Brandon Lowe:Exactly, it's just fun. You guys have seen how I do at the shows at Nationals. I like putting on a big display because I like to give people the opportunity to shop and see things in person. The website, you know. Shopping online that's great, you know it gets stuff. You get it shipped to you, that's wonderful, but seeing it in person is really cool.
Kentucky Dave:There's a whole different experience putting your hands on it. Yep.
Brandon Lowe:So that's good. Then you know, mike, you mentioned the squadron clubs. We actually have two different things now that have the word club in them. The first thing that we launched was, I guess, last year around fall. We launched what we call the Eagle Club, and this is kind of the you got to buy this. You buy a membership to the Eagle Club I don't know, think Costco or Sam's Club, that sort of thing. You get a little bit of an extra discount. Your free shipping threshold drops from 200 to 100. Discount, your free shipping threshold drops from 200 to 100. You get a few other perks which we'll talk about here in a little while when we shift gears to yet another subject but that was that actually was received better than I thought it was going to be.
Brandon Lowe:I figured we'd have a few people. We got a lot of people that were in on that and some people were like why would I pay for that? Well, some of these guys, you know you order. You know you order five or six, seven times throughout the year and that free shipping at a hundred bucks covers itself. Because, going back to shipping, not only are the shipping services pretty horrible these days, they're also way more expensive than they used to be. And you know I would say the average shipping fee these days is anywhere from 10 to 15 bucks. And you know model kits. You buy two model kits now and you'll be doing good to be under a hundred bucks Some of these new kits that come out. So a lot of people found value in that. You know if you're only going to order once or twice a year it's not worth it. Don't buy it. But there was a lot more people that found value in that than I was expecting. So that's kind of cool and we've got some couple little surprises for them at nationals this year.
Brandon Lowe:And then the other thing we've got is actually called the Squadron Modelers Club and that is our private Facebook group and it's kind of small right now but it's growing. And this Facebook group is a private group and the intention is for it to only be for customers of Squadron. So if you're a regular customer you buy stuff. You know us join that club on Facebook and we have a good time. We post pictures back and forth of what I was posting, pictures of my Doro rail gun that I'm working on last night, and everybody posts pictures of what they're working on. We give tips back and forth. Sometimes I'll make special announcements in there that I don't do publicly elsewhere. So it's kind of fun, we enjoy it and have a good time over there.
Mike:All right. Well, I'm glad that's going well. I know we talked about the Eagle Club. I didn't know if you just changed the name or if you actually had two things.
Brandon Lowe:now, no, it's two things. We were trying to come up with some way to have. Everybody kept asking they want to post pictures to hey, I built this model, can you put it on your website? I'm like, asking they want to post pictures to hey, I built this model, can you put it on your website? I'm like I can, but that requires me to do it and if you send it to me I'll forget. And then I feel bad. And so we just decided if we start a Facebook group, a private group, everybody can post their own stuff and we can talk back and forth and it kind of becomes, you know, hopefully becomes a community of modeling friendship, if you will.
Mike:Well, you mentioned some special things for the Nationals. Oh yeah, for these folks and you know I snuck in, I didn't sneak in. I came in and watched your Wednesday night Squadron TV this week and you had a big announcement and we're going to hopefully reach a few more people with this podcast. Oh sure, won't you let folks know what's going on for the National Convention? I know, like I said, you made a very big announcement. It was really, really interesting.
Brandon Lowe:The Nationals, for me and for us, has always been a lot of fun. My first nationals IPMS nationals that I ever attended was 2008, I believe, which, funny enough, was hosted by Tidewater and it was up in the same area. It wasn't at the same venue, I don't think it was in Virginia Beach.
Kentucky Dave:The one at the convention center down by the beach, rather than Hampton, which is the current one, I would say.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, same club, same guys hosting it, just they moved to a different venue. So and since then I've made just about every one of them. A couple of the ones out on the West Coast I did not make, but for the most part I've made every one since 2008. And when we started vending as free time hobbies, every year we would get a little bit bigger, We'd take a little bit more stuff, go to a little bit more trouble, and it was always great. We always enjoyed it, Made a lot of friends there through the years. And then when we bought Squadron, we started the year. We bought Squadron in 2021, I think I bought it in fall and I officially announced it in January of 22. So 22 was the first nationals that I went to as Squadron and that was in where was it? Omaha.
Mike:Omaha yes.
Brandon Lowe:Thank you. Omaha was 22. Omaha that year and I was just getting back into the business after selling free time hobbies a year before and it was great. As soon as we got there I walked in. I'm like yeah, I don't know why I ever tried to leave this business, and so after that we didn't get a big space, I didn't have a lot of stuff. You know, we were just getting back going. We had not bought Free Time Hobbies back yet, which we ended up buying Free Time Hobbies back a few months after that. But the next year, in 23, out in San Marcos, texas, we decided you know, we need to figure out how to go bigger than we've ever gone to nationals before, and that was amazing.
Kentucky Dave:Oh, it was a blast, it was unbelievable. A room unto yourself, yep.
Brandon Lowe:And a big room.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, oh, yeah.
Brandon Lowe:The funny thing you know I talked about, we moved 10 times so that room was bigger than all of our stores had ever been, except for the one we're in now and our big store in Blue Ridge with the giant standing out front. I mean we took that much stuff to a store that was bigger than any of the stores we had ever been in when we were starting out. But that was awesome, loved it. That was awesome, loved it. And it was that year that we decided we want to try to do something special for nationals every year Definitely bring a huge display. I mean everybody loves seeing that stuff. I mean a lot of people unfortunately don't have local hobby shops. Russ at MMD here he sells to a lot of the local hobby shops and we support the local hobby shops and that's unfortunately a dying thing, but I hope that everybody will hang on as long as possible. But the guys that don't have local hobby shops, they don't get to see this stuff in person. So we're like we want to bring as much as we can. So the next year, last year 24, we were caught up right in the middle of moving to Chattanooga and we still took a ton of stuff. We still had a huge space, but it was so unorganized because we had literally just moved it all to our new warehouse and we had not organized anything. We had not organized anything. So when the semi truck got there to go to the show, we just started rolling stuff in, had no clue what we were taking. And it worked out, we got it organized, we had a good show. But this year we wanted to plan it out and make it more organized, make it more streamlined and do a few special things.
Brandon Lowe:And for me, years ago, back before I was doing all this stuff and I was able to go to some other conventions, I liked going to comic conventions, comic-con, that sort of thing, gaming conventions, you know, gen Con, those kind of things and those kind of places would always have convention exclusives, whether it was a. I'm a big Spider-Man fan, so a lot of times the artists and the authors and whatnot of the Spider-Man series the 50 million different ones there are they would have special artwork version variants, as they called them, of their comic books and the only way you could get that was if you got it at the show. I'm like you know they're really neat, because I didn't get most of them because I wasn't able to go to whichever show, whichever variant was being offered at, but the few that I was able to get, they were some of the, you know, most special items in my collection and it meant something. I went there, I got it.
Brandon Lowe:I was like, you know, it would be cool if we had something like that at our show, because the nationals the IPMS nationals is really like the biggest thing that this hobby has, going as far as an event. And we thought about it and we said what if we did a convention exclusive model kit and I know it's probably been done in the past I know that, heck, in 2019, edouard did their special Chattanooga Choo Choo decaled edition of one of their kits. So there have been show exclusives before, but never one that worked that I'm aware of, never one that worked specifically with the host chapter to utilize the logo and actually brand the item as a convention exclusive specific to that club and that show in that location. You're right, and that's what we wanted to do.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that's never been done before.
Brandon Lowe:And I didn't think it had. I mean, like I said, there could be something I'm forgetting, but I'm like you, I don't think it had ever been done. So, thankfully, we are really good friends with the guys at Tidewater. We have known those guys for a long time and I presented this idea to them and they thought it was great. They thought it was a great idea. So we worked out all the details of what needs to happen and all that kind of stuff and then it was just a matter of getting it done with the manufacturers and we worked really close with MiniArt, which is the first.
Brandon Lowe:I got to be careful not to spill the beans on what we're announcing this coming Wednesday, but this past Wednesday we announced our MiniArt kit is a P47D Razorback and it's 48 scale. Now MiniArt has this kit coming out in their own line. It's a new tool Razorback, but it's not available yet. It'll be available in August. But our special edition this got different decals than theirs is going to be available at Nationals this year and on the box we've got Tidewater's show logo. It says Limited Edition, 2025, convention Exclusive and it's branded and marketed as a convention exclusive. That can only be purchased at the convention and that's what we've got and so far. We announced this Friday. We announced it two days ago and the buzz around it has been just crazy. That's really cool.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, they're going to be like locusts around your all's tables when the convention opens.
Brandon Lowe:And I hope so, and not just for us. Yes, I want to sell them all. Yes, obviously that is the goal to sell them all but I hope that it helps the show in general, in the sense that there's something here that I can only get here. So I need to make sure I mean, this is not going to get somebody from the other side of the world to decide to make a trip to nationals. I understand that, but the people that are going, this gives them something else In addition to all the other great reasons to go to nationals. This gives them something else to to pick up and carry home with them.
Brandon Lowe:Everybody loves getting the nationals t-shirts Everybody. I think everybody's really going to love the goodie bags that they get at registration this year. I might know a little something about those, but you know, there's always something everybody loves getting the little pins, you know, and if you do the judging, you know you get the judge's pin. So there's all these little things that you get to carry home. And you remember nationals. Yeah, that was a great event.
Brandon Lowe:Now you can carry home a model kit and I've got a feeling that even if you're not an aircraft modeler, there's still going to be some guys picking this up just because it says show exclusive model kit. Oh yeah, absolutely. So I really hope that it's well received and we've got a lot of really good customers that are not going to be able to go to the show this year and, of course, they've expressed interest in being able to get one of these. And going back to what we were talking about earlier with the Eagle Club, our Squadron Eagle Club, that's a pretty exclusive thing. All of the Eagle Club members are going to have the ability to buy one of these, whether you're at the show or not.
Kentucky Dave:Oh good.
Brandon Lowe:So that'll be a nice touch. And then the only other. Well, that's one way to get it if you're not at the show. There's two other ways to get it if you're not at the show. The second way is Wednesday night our live show. That we do every Wednesday night at nine o'clock.
Brandon Lowe:August 6th, the first day of the show, happens to be a Wednesday, so that night we will broadcast our live show at nine o'clock and anybody that's watching live you know I keep telling people, if you're not going to the show, why don't you get a friend to pick one up for you?
Brandon Lowe:Last time I checked, I'm friends with most of the guys that are watching our show.
Brandon Lowe:So at nine o'clock that night we will open up a very, very, very small window of probably about 10 minutes or so where, if you're watching live, I'm going to give a code that will allow you to go into our website and purchase an item that can otherwise not be seen without that code. So that'll give our guys that watch us on Wednesday nights that aren't able to be at the show, that'll give them a chance to buy it at the show, because I'm going to be there and I think that'll be a really nice thing but, like I said, that's just going to be for the guys watching live. It'll be a very short window and if you're not watching live, you're never even going to have known that it happened, and then the only other way to get one is if we happen to not sell them all at the show. Obviously, we got to do something with them, so when we get back we've got a waiting list that we've started on our website and if I've got one of them left, the first guy on the waiting list gets it.
Kentucky Dave:If I've got 10 left, the first 10 guys get it, and so on. And I would be shocked if you have many, if any, when you come back from the convention. Yeah and I don't know.
Brandon Lowe:We're going to hold back from telling people how many we actually have. Sure, but based on how Wednesday goes, we'll determine whether or not we put a per person limit on them Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So we'll see. It'll be neat. And this is just one of the kits.
Brandon Lowe:We've got another kit that we're going to announce this coming Wednesday that I'm just as excited about. It's from a different manufacturer, it's not MiniArt, but it'll be like I said, I'm every bit as excited about it. And's from a different manufacturer. It's not mini art, but it'll be like I said, I'm every bit as excited about it and looking forward to telling everybody about those. And those are the only two things we're going to officially announce before the show, but we've got a couple of other surprises up our sleeves that we're hoping get finished off. They won't be exclusives, with the show logo printed on there, but there's a few things that people may or may not know have even been announced to be released. But we've worked it out with a couple of the manufacturers that will actually have these items there, but we're sworn to secrecy until 1 o'clock on Wednesday, so you'll have to show up to see what it is.
Mike:I'll be there. Well, thinking of Wednesday and this coming Wednesday, you're going to divulge the second exclusive Right. Why don't you let our listeners know exactly where Squadron TV is and the times and all that.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, absolutely so. If you actually go to our website at squadroncom up on the top where it says all products and home and all that, the last link says friends and shows Got the plastic model mojo on there, I know, right in the middle at the top.
Brandon Lowe:We appreciate that. But this page kind of gives a link to all of the different things that we do and you can go there. That's got a link to Squadron TV, is what we call it and that is our YouTube channel and our YouTube channel. It's called Squadron TV. You can search for it on YouTube. You can also watch the show on Facebook live. We just started streaming it to Instagram and X, but I'm not quite sure how that works yet, so still working on that. But YouTube is the main place at Squadron TV every Wednesday night at nine o'clock. That's nine o'clock Eastern, right, eastern, yeah, nine o'clock New York time, gotcha.
Mike:All right. Well, can't wait to see that one too. So I'll be planning on jumping on in on that one and chatting a little bit too. So looking forward to. Wednesday on that one and chatting a little bit too, so looking forward to.
Brandon Lowe:Wednesday yeah, always love seeing the Plastic Model Mojo logo pop up in the chat.
Mike:We'll try to be a little more regular. Yeah, how about that? There you go.
Brandon Lowe:Now let me ask you a couple things. You guys are going to be at Nationals, right? Yes, we are Okay. Are you going to have your booth set up to do some talking? We've got a table, all right. Well, I'll have to stop by and say hello then you will. You're usually too busy yeah, I usually am, but we we've got a couple extra hands going with us this year, so hopefully I might have at least a few extra minutes to walk around and enjoy the show a bit that'd be great.
Kentucky Dave:And mike and and I have something special we're going to probably debut at the show and we'll see how it turns out Maybe get a little more content than we've otherwise been able to get.
Brandon Lowe:See, this show is going to be all sorts of full of surprises.
Mike:One last topic, brandon, and talk about surprises. Okay, the buzz in the modeling community has there's been a lot of chatter about all these tariffs, because a lot of the stuff you sell and any hobby retailer sells right now is most of it's not made in the united states. It just isn't. We just like to get, uh, houserons navigating that and you know, and upfront and honest and transparent. We want to keep this as apolitical as possible because it is what it is and you got to deal with it and that's kind of the level we'd like to talk about it. So what's squadron's angle been on that lately?
Brandon Lowe:Well, I mean, the fact of the matter is it is real, probably the biggest thing that we see from customer feedback. Nobody really and to some extent even us really understand exactly how these tariffs are being implemented directly into our hobby. So for the past, however many months it's been now, so for the past, however many months it's been now, we've been paying tariffs and actually before the big tariff push that has eaten up the news for the last several weeks and months now, there was actually specifically talking about China there was actually tariffs already in place before all this, and even before those tariffs were in place, on just general items, there was already, if I remember correctly, a 10%, maybe 20, 10% tariff on printed materials. So some of our books, catalogs, in some of our inaction books, we've been printing them in China and that's no secret. It says it in the book. We have to put that in there when we don't print them here. About half of our books we print here in the States and some of them we print there, but we've been paying tariffs on those for well over a year now.
Brandon Lowe:My point in saying that is, as these tariffs increase, a lot of the tariffs you hear about may or may not actually be in effect yet. We have not really had to raise our prices any yet. Now some of the new items perhaps that have come in are a little bit higher than they would have been had it not been for the tariffs, but we're trying to do our best at not raising existing prices. Now I'm not saying it's not going to happen. I mean we got to make payroll but we're doing the best we can in a lot of cases, because right now it literally changes every day. And the bad part for us is when we've got a container, especially when it first started. We have a container on the water that we ordered based on this is what our landed price is going to be takes 30 to 45 days to sail here. While it was on the ocean, a new tariff would go into place and then by the time it got here we got to pay more for it than we thought when we ordered it, right, so that the worst part for us as everything is, you know, threatened and put into place and taken out of place and changed it's the uncertainty and it's the inability to plan. I mean, if a model kit is going to cost me this and I got to pay this much tariff on it. That's fine, I can plan for that. I price it accordingly. It is what it is, but for us the most aggravating thing was all the uncertainty. Now it's kind of started to level out a little bit, if you will. We kind of see how it works and what to expect. And that's actually just this week.
Brandon Lowe:You might notice on our website we're finally starting to put pre-orders back up. We've not been doing pre-orders for several weeks now just because we weren't quite sure how this was going to imagine. Not sure, yeah, but we we kind of understand it a little bit not perfectly, but we understand it enough. And at the end of the day we make a little bit less money. But I'd rather make a less, you know a few less dollars than turn off the modelers to. You know, if I need to sell a kit for $107, I might just put it at $99, because that that sounds a little bit better. And you know I I got to buy one cheeseburger instead of two, that you know that kind of stuff. So we're dealing with it the best way we can, while the you know can, while the powers that be, work everything out and hopefully deals get made and, whatever the case may be, however it ends up. I just hope it ends up soon so we can all plan accordingly, and that's what I'm hearing across multiple industries.
Kentucky Dave:It's not necessarily. I mean you can argue tariffs good, tariffs bad, whatever. The businessmen just want certainty. Exactly Tell me what my number is and tell me that it's not going to change for six months Exactly.
Brandon Lowe:And that's where we're at too. I mean, if I've got to, that's fine. If we need to do this, then we need to do it, okay, but tell me what it's going to be and don't change it when my container's halfway here Halfway across the water and if you do change it when it's halfway here, can I please pay what it was when I loaded and my container left Right.
Brandon Lowe:You know that kind of stuff. But, like I said, it's all sorting out, it's working out and I think we've got four containers on the water right now finally. So we've got a big warehouse, we've got a lot of inventory, so we have been fine. But it's going to be a much welcomed thing here in the next few weeks when all of a sudden, we have a lot of new stuff to look at.
Kentucky Dave:Well, I'm glad to hear that we have a lot of new stuff to look at. Well, I'm glad to hear that, although it's had its effect like it's had its effect on everybody I'm glad to hear that it hasn't shocked your system to destruction or anything like that. It's just been something that you can deal with.
Brandon Lowe:Yeah, it has. I don't have any, we're fine, we don't fuss about it or anything. I mean, it's just when, when you're in business. One thing that I've learned is if you have time to kick back in the easy chair and just watch the money roll in and I want to be in that business, you know, because that's a business don't exist, because that business don't exist Exactly.
Brandon Lowe:I mean, it is always something here, whether it's dealing with the post office or, you know, dealing with the toilets backing up. You know, right now it's dealing with tariffs and in the next couple of months I'm sure it'll be something else, who knows? So there's always something, and that's just part of being in business.
Mike:Well, Brandon, it's been a pleasure again. We need to not do this so infrequently.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, really.
Brandon Lowe:Oh yeah, no, I always tell people I'd rather be too busy than not busy enough. Yeah, but I don't know, maybe I'd like some of those not busy enough days every once in a while.
Kentucky Dave:Every once in a while Exactly.
Mike:Got to rest and recuperate.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Brandon Lowe:But it's good. I mean, I love our business, I love our customers. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Kentucky Dave:I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Nationals. Man.
Mike:Absolutely. We love it too. We're glad to be aligned with you the way we are, and it's just a cool thing. The brand has just been in my life since we were kids. Yeah Right, it's so fantastic that you've resuscitated this thing to the degree you have, and it just seems to keep getting better and better.
Brandon Lowe:Well, I appreciate you saying that we certainly love it. I'm like y'all I didn't want to see the brand die. So happy to be here.
Mike:All right. Well, let's get back to squatting, Brandon, and we'll see you soon enough.
Brandon Lowe:All right, mike, dave, thank you, thank you.
Kentucky Dave:Take care, let's do this again. You got it, yeah, bye.
