June 22, 2025 • 42 mins
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:15):
they've been playing email tag with our guests tonight.
Yeah, we're gonna welcome backI don't know probably the
hardest working man in the hobbyindustry, brandon lowe from
squadron.
How you doing, brandon?
Brandon Lowe (00:24):
I'm doing pretty good, mike, I don't know about
hardest working, but in thehobby industry, brandon Lowe
from Squadron how you doing,brandon?
I'm doing pretty good.
Mike, I don't know abouthardest working, but I do the
best I can.
Mike (00:29):
You've logged some miles the last month and a half or so.
Brandon Lowe (00:34):
Yeah, it's been pretty consistent the last
several weeks, for us for sure.
Kentucky Dave (00:40):
I got to see you at Wonderfest and, man, you were
busier than a one-armed paperhanger.
Brandon Lowe (00:46):
You were doing a good business when I passed by,
Well you know Wonderfestspecifically, is that show kind
of lends itself to that?
Yeah, just because it's arelatively small vendor room and
it has, on average, more peoplewalking through that than most
(01:07):
of the other shows that we gothrough 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 itwas.
Kentucky Dave (01:21):
It was a nice time though I got to briefly say
hello, but not, but not aboutmuch more, because, man, you all
were just, you were sellingthem like hot cake of view, or
at least from my point of view,that's the only bad thing,
because I hear that same thingyou just said.
Brandon Lowe (01:48):
I talk to you guys more after the show than I get
to talk to you at the show.
Kentucky Dave (01:53):
Right.
Brandon Lowe (01:53):
Just because you know you're going through, you
buy your stuff, you move on.
The next guy in line needs toget 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 ofthe shows.
Kentucky Dave (02:06):
It is indeed.
Mike (02:07):
Well, you're quite a ways into it now, Brandon, with the
move up toward Chattanooga.
Is that complete now?
Are you still limping throughthat?
Brandon Lowe (02:17):
Or are you in pretty good shape by now, I
imagine?
I think to some extent we willalways be working on it, but you
know, I think that's kind oflike when you own your house
it's never finished.
Kentucky Dave (02:27):
There's always something to do, that's right.
Well, there's always that onebox over in the corner that when
you moved four years ago, youput in the corner of the
basement and you haven'tbothered to unpack it yet.
Yep.
Brandon Lowe (02:39):
And that same concept carries over into our
warehouse.
We have moved so many timessince we started in this
business almost 20 years ago.
2026 will be our 20th year inbusiness.
Wow, the lows, if you willstarted out as free time hobbies
, sure, and I think we countedthis up the other day.
(03:01):
Actually, I think we have moved10 times in 20 years.
Oh man, wow.
And thankfully, this move andit's been a year, mike yeah, it
has.
Yeah, last June, when I movedhere, I think we moved the store
sometime in July, I think iswhen we started moving the
warehouse over here.
(03:22):
You know we had the nationalsand that whole thing, but it's
been a year now and we are, forthe most part, settled in as far
as being able to do day-to-daystuff.
It's been a roller coaster ofstaffing.
You know guys and gals comingand going over the last year,
(03:42):
but we've finally got, I guess,what you can call a stable team.
Good, yeah, that's always a plus.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we got guyscoming and going still, but I
think that's kind of the casewith any business, but we've got
a good, solid team that we cancount on.
So that's a good thing.
(04:02):
The space there coming fromwhere we were at in Ellijay with
the horrible logistics overthere, shipping and whatnot and
just everything over there.
It's a super nice place.
Ellijay is to live and fromwhat I'm told to retire, but not
(04:25):
so much to run a distributioncompany, so it's great.
Mike (04:30):
That brings up an interesting point.
I know when we talked last timeyou mentioned the logistics and
you had a comment or two aboutoverwhelming the LAJ Postal
Service down there, yep, and youmoved up toward Chattanooga to
where on the list of reasons tomove it was.
Brandon Lowe (04:47):
That was up there.
I mean, that may have been.
If we had to pick one reason tomove, that was it.
Mike (04:55):
Well, it's probably not funny for you, but over the
holidays I know that you'd putthought into moving up there to
get a better service and I don'tknow how it works for you guys.
I know a little bit because Isaw some of the back and forth
with some folks and you, I think, but the post office kind of
imploded around Christmas in ourpart of the country.
Brandon Lowe (05:16):
Well, they did here too, and that's the thing,
lj.
Our issue was physicallygetting our packages that we
pack up every day, getting themfrom our warehouse into the post
office's system, and theyliterally did not have vehicles
in that town large enough toaccommodate.
(05:38):
I imagine not.
Yeah, so we've got a bigtrailer and we literally had to
deliver our own packages to thepost office every day, and that
kind of got old.
So when we moved here, thebiggest 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.
(05:59):
I don't know what it's called,but we we've got one of those
that comes every day and picksup all of our stuff.
I think it can hold like 12pallets 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 bestthing for us.
(06:21):
Now, after it leaves ourfacility, unfortunately, the
post office is the post office,regardless of where it's located
, and you know you were talkingabout them imploding at
Christmas.
Oh yeah, that's not just yourarea, that's everywhere.
Because go back however manyyears ago, before the Internet
took over.
(06:42):
What did the post officedeliver?
They delivered envelopes,letters and postcards and these
types of things.
So the infrastructure of howthe post office was set up many,
many years ago.
It was not set up to deliverpackages.
That's what UPS and FedEx wereset up for.
Well, fast forward to today,that's pretty much what they are
(07:05):
now a package handling company,and a lot of these old
facilities were not built tohandle that.
And they're doing all thesethings trying to improve it, but
the amount of volume thatthey're getting is way faster
growing than they're able tofacilitate this stuff.
Kentucky Dave (07:25):
Yeah, well, louisville, around Christmas we
have a regional center here inLouisville and it just
completely melted down to thepoint where there were numerous
news stories on the local TV andincluding at least one story on
national news about thetroubles they were having.
Brandon Lowe (07:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, and I am sure that there are
actual factual numbers out thereto look at, so I'm just
spitting fictional numbers out.
But let's just say that we shipa thousand packages in a day.
Yeah, just average, normal.
Well, christmas time, all of asudden we might need to send
(08:09):
five or ten thousand packages ina day.
Yeah, multiply that out byhowever many other thousands of
businesses that are like us outthere.
They can't staff that manypeople 12 months a year to
handle that.
And then all of the sudden Imean you know how hard it is to
find good helpers and goodemployees All of the sudden come
(08:32):
around October, november, allof a sudden they need like 10 or
20 times as many employees asthey have for one month.
How do you find that manypeople to come to work for one
month knowing you're going toget canned right after Christmas
?
Kentucky Dave (08:47):
Yeah, well, how did your customers handle it?
Were they relatively goodsports?
Brandon Lowe (08:53):
You know that's a good question, dave, and I got
to tell you and this is one ofthe things that I love the most
about this industry thecustomers in the hobby industry,
at least, the customers that wehave are some of the nicest,
most understanding people that Ihave ever met.
Kentucky Dave (09:12):
If you go back far enough and listen to our old
episodes, that is a recurringtheme that I have commented on
as a group.
I mean, you know there's badapples in every group.
Brandon Lowe (09:24):
Oh gosh, yeah, but as a group.
Kentucky Dave (09:28):
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 reinforcethe fact that it's a heck of a
nice community to belong to itreally is and customers usually
(09:49):
become friends.
Brandon Lowe (09:50):
Yeah, and, like I said, as long as we do our part,
you know you order it, we getit out of our warehouse into the
postal system or whatever.
I mean we've done our part andmost people understand that.
Now that doesn't mean theydon'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.
(10:10):
But if you consider what we doin our hobby and what I probably
don't build model kits so youknow that we're not selling
remote control cars or medicalsupplies or anything like that.
(10:32):
So, like I said, the customersfor the most part are some of
the nicest people I've ever metand they are definitely
understanding.
Doesn't mean they don't wanttheir stuff fast, but they sure
understand when the post officedoes something dumb, which
unfortunately is more often thannot.
Mike (10:51):
Well, another couple of things.
The last time we talked to youthat were sort of related to the
move and getting grounded againin the new location was
Squadron Club Yep and then theretail shop space.
Brandon Lowe (11:03):
Yeah, so we've got several different things that
we're doing.
The retail space it is open now.
Kentucky Dave (11:11):
We got to go down , Mike.
Brandon Lowe (11:13):
Yeah, road trip.
There you go.
Now for you guys we'll make adate and figure it out.
But in general the retailstores open Monday through
Friday and some people ask well,why aren't you open on the
weekends?
Well, we're there Mondaythrough Friday.
I mean, we want to have theretail space, we want to offer
(11:35):
that and have it open, but atthe end of the day this location
is still our warehouse for ourinternet business and our phone
mail order business.
But when we're there, the shopis open.
We advertise it being open from10 to 3.
That just gives us a littletime in the morning to get
things going and gives us anhour in the afternoon to close
(11:56):
up shop.
But that's there.
It's neat when you come by.
I think we've got about what isit?
2,500 square feet in the frontfor the retail space, and then
you know, usually, if you asknice and we aren't unloading
containers or something in theback, I might just let you
stroll through the warehouse aswell.
Kentucky Dave (12:18):
That's always an adventure.
Now, have you had a fair numberof people stopping by?
Brandon Lowe (12:24):
Yes, so there's a pretty good modeling community
here in Chattanooga.
Kentucky Dave (12:30):
Yes, there is.
Brandon Lowe (12:31):
We've got the Chattanooga Scale Modelers here
and they had their model showlast weekend.
Kentucky Dave (12:39):
Yes, which Mike and I were really trying to get
to.
Brandon Lowe (12:43):
Oh, wish you had made it, but their show is
usually not in June, it'susually in January.
We get it snowed out Anyway.
Friday because their show wasFriday and Saturday.
Our shop is open on Fridayanyway, so we extended an
invitation and made it apublicly announced thing that we
would have an open house thatday.
(13:03):
So we had several people stopby on their way to the
Chattanooga show and then westayed open.
The show ended at six o'clock.
We stayed open.
I think we were there till nineor nine thirty.
We advertised it being opentill eight, but we didn't want
to kick anybody out.
So we stayed till the lastperson was done shopping.
So that was nice, and more andmore people have started finding
(13:25):
out that we're open.
Everybody knew that we weregoing to do this, but we were
just so busy.
I realized last week that I hadnever really even made an
announcement that it was open.
Well that's what we're doinghere.
That is what we're doing.
But yeah, as people find outthat we're open officially now
and in a retail walk-in capacity, more and more people are
(13:46):
starting to come in.
Had a guy in today.
It was kind of funny.
He was looking around and justkind of amazed at all the model
kits that were there, and he hadbeen there for a good little
while.
So I just said, hey, would youlike to see in the warehouse and
see the rest of the models wehave?
And he's like you mean you havemore than this.
And I took him to the other20,000 square feet beyond the
(14:10):
2,000 he was looking at.
It's really nice.
I love doing that.
I love being able to havecustomers come in and look at
this stuff.
Put your hands on it.
Kentucky Dave (14:22):
Watching their eyes bug out.
Brandon Lowe (14:23):
Exactly, it's just fun.
You guys have seen how I do atthe shows at Nationals.
I like putting on a big displaybecause I like to give people
the opportunity to shop and seethings 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
(14:45):
in person is really cool.
Kentucky Dave (14:48):
There's a whole different experience putting
your hands on it.
Yep.
Brandon Lowe (14:52):
So that's good.
Then you know, mike, youmentioned the squadron clubs.
We actually have two differentthings now that have the word
club in them.
The first thing that welaunched was, I guess, last year
around fall.
We launched what we call theEagle Club, and this is kind of
the you got to buy this.
You buy a membership to theEagle Club I don't know, think
(15:15):
Costco or Sam's Club, that sortof thing.
You get a little bit of anextra discount.
Your free shipping thresholddrops from 200 to 100.
Discount, your free shippingthreshold drops from 200 to 100.
You get a few other perks whichwe'll talk about here in a
little while when we shift gearsto yet another subject but that
was that actually was receivedbetter than I thought it was
(15:37):
going to be.
I figured we'd have a few people.
We got a lot of people thatwere in on that and some people
were like why would I pay forthat?
Well, some of these guys, youknow you order.
You know you order five or six,seven times throughout the year
and that free shipping at ahundred bucks covers itself.
Because, going back to shipping, not only are the shipping
(15:58):
services pretty horrible thesedays, they're also way more
expensive than they used to be.
And you know I would say theaverage shipping fee these days
is anywhere from 10 to 15 bucks.
And you know model kits.
You buy two model kits now andyou'll be doing good to be under
a hundred bucks Some of thesenew kits that come out.
(16:19):
So a lot of people found valuein that.
You know if you're only goingto order once or twice a year
it's not worth it.
Don't buy it.
But there was a lot more peoplethat found value in that than I
was expecting.
So that's kind of cool andwe've got some couple little
surprises for them at nationalsthis year.
And then the other thing we'vegot is actually called the
Squadron Modelers Club and thatis our private Facebook group
(16:42):
and it's kind of small right nowbut it's growing.
And this Facebook group is aprivate group and the intention
is for it to only be forcustomers of Squadron.
So if you're a regular customeryou buy stuff.
You know us join that club onFacebook and we have a good time
.
We post pictures back and forthof what I was posting, pictures
(17:05):
of my Doro rail gun that I'mworking on last night, and
everybody posts pictures of whatthey're working on.
We give tips back and forth.
Sometimes I'll make specialannouncements in there that I
don't do publicly elsewhere.
So it's kind of fun, we enjoyit and have a good time over
there.
Mike (17:21):
All right.
Well, I'm glad that's goingwell.
I know we talked about theEagle Club.
I didn't know if you justchanged the name or if you
actually had two things.
Brandon Lowe (17:28):
now, no, it's two things.
We were trying to come up withsome way to have.
Everybody kept asking they wantto post pictures to hey, I
built this model, can you put iton your website?
I'm like, asking they want topost pictures to hey, I built
this model, can you put it onyour website?
I'm like I can, but thatrequires me to do it and if you
send it to me I'll forget.
(17:48):
And then I feel bad.
And so we just decided if westart a Facebook group, a
private group, everybody canpost their own stuff and we can
talk back and forth and it kindof becomes, you know, hopefully
becomes a community of modelingfriendship, if you will.
Mike (18:06):
Well, you mentioned some special things for the Nationals
.
Oh yeah, for these folks andyou know I snuck in, I didn't
sneak in.
I came in and watched yourWednesday night Squadron TV this
week and you had a bigannouncement and we're going to
hopefully reach a few morepeople with this podcast.
(18:27):
Oh sure, won't you let folksknow what's going on for the
National Convention?
I know, like I said, you made avery big announcement.
It was really, reallyinteresting.
Brandon Lowe (18:37):
The Nationals, for me and for us, has always been
a lot of fun.
My first nationals IPMSnationals that I ever attended
was 2008, I believe, which,funny enough, was hosted by
Tidewater and it was up in thesame area.
It wasn't at the same venue, Idon't think it was in Virginia
(18:57):
Beach.
Kentucky Dave (18:58):
The one at the convention center down by the
beach, rather than Hampton,which is the current one, I
would say.
Brandon Lowe (19:05):
Yeah, same club, same guys hosting it, just they
moved to a different venue.
So and since then I've madejust about every one of them.
A couple of the ones out on theWest Coast I did not make, but
for the most part I've madeevery one since 2008.
And when we started vending asfree time hobbies, every year we
(19:26):
would get a little bit bigger,We'd take a little bit more
stuff, go to a little bit moretrouble, and it was always great
.
We always enjoyed it, Made alot of friends there through the
years.
And then when we boughtSquadron, we started the year.
We bought Squadron in 2021, Ithink I bought it in fall and I
officially announced it inJanuary of 22.
(19:49):
So 22 was the first nationalsthat I went to as Squadron and
that was in where was it?
Omaha.
Mike (19:56):
Omaha yes.
Brandon Lowe (19:57):
Thank you.
Omaha was 22.
Omaha that year and I was justgetting back into the business
after selling free time hobbiesa year before and it was great.
As soon as we got there Iwalked in.
I'm like yeah, I don't know whyI ever tried to leave this
business, and so after that wedidn't get a big space, I didn't
(20:20):
have a lot of stuff.
You know, we were just gettingback going.
We had not bought Free TimeHobbies back yet, which we ended
up buying Free Time Hobbiesback a few months after that.
But the next year, in 23, outin San Marcos, texas, we decided
you know, we need to figure outhow to go bigger than we've
ever gone to nationals before,and that was amazing.
Kentucky Dave (20:42):
Oh, it was a blast, it was unbelievable.
A room unto yourself, yep.
Brandon Lowe (20:49):
And a big room.
Kentucky Dave (20:49):
Yes, oh, yeah.
Brandon Lowe (20:52):
The funny thing you know I talked about, we
moved 10 times so that room wasbigger than all of our stores
had ever been, except for theone we're in now and our big
store in Blue Ridge with thegiant standing out front.
I mean we took that much stuffto a store that was bigger than
any of the stores we had everbeen in when we were starting
(21:13):
out.
But that was awesome, loved it.
That was awesome, loved it.
(21:35):
And it was that year that wedecided we want to try to do
something special for nationalsevery year Definitely bring a
huge display.
I mean everybody loves seeingthat stuff.
I mean a lot of peopleunfortunately don't have local
hobby shops.
Russ at MMD here he sells to alot of the local hobby shops and
we support the local hobbyshops and that's unfortunately a
dying thing, but I hope thateverybody will hang on as long
as possible.
But the guys that don't havelocal hobby shops, they don't
get to see this stuff in person.
So we're like we want to bringas much as we can.
(21:57):
So the next year, last year 24,we were caught up right in the
middle of moving to Chattanoogaand we still took a ton of stuff
.
We still had a huge space, butit was so unorganized because we
had literally just moved it allto our new warehouse and we had
not organized anything.
We had not organized anything.
So when the semi truck gotthere to go to the show, we just
(22:19):
started rolling stuff in, hadno clue what we were taking.
And it worked out, we got itorganized, we had a good show.
But this year we wanted to planit out and make it more
organized, make it morestreamlined and do a few special
things.
(22:42):
And for me, years ago, backbefore I was doing all this
stuff and I was able to go tosome 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 wouldalways have convention
exclusives, whether it was a.
I'm a big Spider-Man fan, so alot of times the artists and the
(23:03):
authors and whatnot of theSpider-Man series the 50 million
different ones there are theywould have special artwork
version variants, as they calledthem, of their comic books and
the only way you could get thatwas if you got it at the show.
I'm like you know they'rereally neat, because I didn't
(23:23):
get most of them because Iwasn't able to go to whichever
show, whichever variant wasbeing offered at, but the few
that I was able to get, theywere some of the, you know, most
special items in my collectionand it meant something.
I went there, I got it.
I was like, you know, it wouldbe cool if we had something like
(23:43):
that at our show, because thenationals the IPMS nationals is
really like the biggest thingthat this hobby has, going as
far as an event.
And we thought about it and wesaid what if we did a convention
exclusive model kit and I knowit's probably been done in the
(24:05):
past I know that, heck, in 2019,edouard did their special
Chattanooga Choo Choo decalededition of one of their kits.
So there have been showexclusives before, but never one
that worked that I'm aware of,never one that worked
(24:26):
specifically with the hostchapter to utilize the logo and
actually brand the item as aconvention exclusive specific to
that club and that show in thatlocation.
You're right, and that's whatwe wanted to do.
Kentucky Dave (24:43):
Yeah, that's never been done before.
Brandon Lowe (24:46):
And I didn't think it had.
I mean, like I said, therecould be something I'm
forgetting, but I'm like you, Idon't think it had ever been
done.
So, thankfully, we are reallygood friends with the guys at
Tidewater.
We have known those guys for along time and I presented this
idea to them and they thought itwas great.
They thought it was a greatidea.
(25:07):
So we worked out all thedetails of what needs to happen
and all that kind of stuff andthen it was just a matter of
getting it done with themanufacturers and we worked
really close with MiniArt, whichis the first.
I got to be careful not to spillthe beans on what we're
announcing this coming Wednesday, but this past Wednesday we
(25:29):
announced our MiniArt kit is aP47D Razorback and it's 48 scale
.
Now MiniArt has this kit comingout in their own line.
It's a new tool Razorback, butit's not available yet.
It'll be available in August.
But our special edition thisgot different decals than theirs
(25:51):
is going to be available atNationals this year and on the
box we've got Tidewater's showlogo.
It says Limited Edition, 2025,convention Exclusive and it's
branded and marketed as aconvention exclusive.
That can only be purchased atthe convention and that's what
(26:13):
we've got and so far.
We announced this Friday.
We announced it two days agoand the buzz around it has been
just crazy.
That's really cool.
Kentucky Dave (26:26):
Yeah, they're going to be like locusts around
your all's tables when theconvention opens.
Brandon Lowe (26:34):
And I hope so, and not just for us.
Yes, I want to sell them all.
Yes, obviously that is the goalto sell them all but I hope
that it helps the show ingeneral, in the sense that
there's something here that Ican only get here.
(26:55):
So I need to make sure I mean,this is not going to get
somebody from the other side ofthe world to decide to make a
trip to nationals.
I understand that, but thepeople that are going, this
gives them something else Inaddition to all the other great
reasons to go to nationals.
This gives them something elseto to pick up and carry home
(27:15):
with them.
Everybody loves getting thenationals t-shirts Everybody.
I think everybody's reallygoing to love the goodie bags
that they get at registrationthis year.
I might know a little somethingabout those, but you know,
there's always somethingeverybody loves getting the
little pins, you know, and ifyou do the judging, you know you
get the judge's pin.
(27:35):
So there's all these littlethings that you get to carry
home.
And you remember nationals.
Yeah, that was a great event.
Now you can carry home a modelkit and I've got a feeling that
even if you're not an aircraftmodeler, there's still going to
be some guys picking this upjust because it says show
exclusive model kit.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So I really hope that it's wellreceived and we've got a lot of
(28:02):
really good customers that arenot going to be able to go to
the show this year and, ofcourse, they've expressed
interest in being able to getone of these.
And going back to what we weretalking about earlier with the
Eagle Club, our Squadron EagleClub, that's a pretty exclusive
thing.
All of the Eagle Club membersare going to have the ability to
(28:22):
buy one of these, whetheryou're at the show or not.
Kentucky Dave (28:24):
Oh good.
Brandon Lowe (28:26):
So that'll be a nice touch.
And then the only other.
Well, that's one way to get itif you're not at the show.
There's two other ways to getit if you're not at the show.
The second way is Wednesdaynight our live show.
That we do every Wednesdaynight at nine o'clock.
August 6th, the first day of theshow, happens to be a Wednesday
, so that night we willbroadcast our live show at nine
(28:49):
o'clock and anybody that'swatching live you know I keep
telling people, if you're notgoing to the show, why don't you
get a friend to pick one up foryou?
Last time I checked, I'm friendswith most of the guys that are
watching our show.
So at nine o'clock that night wewill open up a very, very, very
small window of probably about10 minutes or so where, if
(29:12):
you're watching live, I'm goingto give a code that will allow
you to go into our website andpurchase an item that can
otherwise not be seen withoutthat code.
So that'll give our guys thatwatch us on Wednesday nights
that aren't able to be at theshow, that'll give them a chance
to buy it at the show, becauseI'm going to be there and I
think that'll be a really nicething but, like I said, that's
(29:33):
just going to be for the guyswatching live.
It'll be a very short windowand if you're not watching live,
you're never even going to haveknown that it happened, and
then the only other way to getone is if we happen to not sell
them all at the show.
Obviously, we got to dosomething with them, so when we
get back we've got a waitinglist that we've started on our
website and if I've got one ofthem left, the first guy on the
(30:02):
waiting list gets it.
Kentucky Dave (30:02):
If I've got 10 left, the first 10 guys get it,
and so on.
And I would be shocked if youhave many, if any, when you come
back from the convention.
Yeah and I don't know.
Brandon Lowe (30:10):
We're going to hold back from telling people
how many we actually have.
Sure, but based on howWednesday goes, we'll determine
whether or not we put a perperson limit on them Thursday,
Friday and Saturday.
So we'll see.
It'll be neat.
And this is just one of thekits.
We've got another kit that we'regoing to announce this coming
(30:31):
Wednesday that I'm just asexcited about.
It's from a differentmanufacturer, it's not MiniArt,
but it'll be like I said, I'mevery bit as excited about it.
And's from a differentmanufacturer.
It's not mini art, but it'll belike I said, I'm every bit as
excited about it and lookingforward to telling everybody
about those.
And those are the only twothings we're going to officially
announce before the show, butwe've got a couple of other
surprises up our sleeves thatwe're hoping get finished off.
(30:54):
They won't be exclusives, withthe show logo printed on there,
but there's a few things thatpeople may or may not know have
even been announced to bereleased.
But we've worked it out with acouple of the manufacturers that
will actually have these itemsthere, but we're sworn to
secrecy until 1 o'clock onWednesday, so you'll have to
(31:15):
show up to see what it is.
Mike (31:17):
I'll be there.
Well, thinking of Wednesday andthis coming Wednesday, you're
going to divulge the secondexclusive Right.
Why don't you let our listenersknow exactly where Squadron TV
is and the times and all that.
Brandon Lowe (31:31):
Yeah, absolutely so.
If you actually go to ourwebsite at squadroncom up on the
top where it says all productsand home and all that, the last
link says friends and shows Gotthe plastic model mojo on there,
I know, right in the middle atthe top.
We appreciate that.
But this page kind of gives alink to all of the different
(31:52):
things that we do and you can gothere.
That's got a link to SquadronTV, is what we call it and that
is our YouTube channel and ourYouTube channel.
It's called Squadron TV.
You can search for it onYouTube.
You can also watch the show onFacebook live.
We just started streaming it toInstagram and X, but I'm not
(32:15):
quite sure how that works yet,so still working on that.
But YouTube is the main placeat 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 (32:29):
All right.
Well, can't wait to see thatone too.
So I'll be planning on jumpingon in on that one and chatting a
little bit too.
So looking forward to.
Wednesday on that one andchatting a little bit too, so
looking forward to.
Brandon Lowe (32:38):
Wednesday yeah, always love seeing the Plastic
Model Mojo logo pop up in thechat.
Mike (32:43):
We'll try to be a little more regular.
Yeah, how about that?
There you go.
Brandon Lowe (32:48):
Now let me ask you a couple things.
You guys are going to be atNationals, right?
Yes, we are Okay.
Are you going to have yourbooth set up to do some talking?
We've got a table, all right.
Well, I'll have to stop by andsay hello then you will.
You're usually too busy yeah, Iusually am, but we we've got a
couple extra hands going with usthis year, so hopefully I might
(33:09):
have at least a few extraminutes to walk around and enjoy
the show a bit that'd be great.
Kentucky Dave (33:14):
And mike and and I have something special we're
going to probably debut at theshow and we'll see how it turns
out Maybe get a little morecontent than we've otherwise
been able to get.
Brandon Lowe (33:28):
See, this show is going to be all sorts of full of
surprises.
Mike (33:37):
One last topic, brandon, and talk about surprises.
Okay, the buzz in the modelingcommunity has there's been a lot
of chatter about all thesetariffs, because a lot of the
stuff you sell and any hobbyretailer sells right now is most
of it's not made in the unitedstates.
It just isn't.
We just like to get, uh,houserons navigating that and
(33:58):
you know, and upfront and honestand transparent.
We want to keep this asapolitical as possible because
it is what it is and you got todeal with it and that's kind of
the level we'd like to talkabout it.
So what's squadron's angle beenon that lately?
Brandon Lowe (34:11):
Well, I mean, the fact of the matter is it is real
, probably the biggest thingthat we see from customer
feedback.
Nobody really and to someextent even us really understand
exactly how these tariffs arebeing implemented directly into
(34:32):
our hobby.
So for the past, however manymonths it's been now, so for the
past, however many months it'sbeen now, we've been paying
tariffs and actually before thebig tariff push that has eaten
up the news for the last severalweeks and months now, there was
actually specifically talkingabout China there was actually
(34:53):
tariffs already in place beforeall this, and even before those
tariffs were in place, on justgeneral 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,
(35:15):
we've been printing them inChina and that's no secret.
It says it in the book.
We have to put that in therewhen we don't print them here.
About half of our books weprint here in the States and
some of them we print there, butwe've been paying tariffs on
those for well over a year now.
My point in saying that is, asthese tariffs increase, a lot of
(35:35):
the tariffs you hear about mayor may not actually be in effect
yet.
We have not really had to raiseour prices any yet.
Now some of the new itemsperhaps that have come in are a
little bit higher than theywould have been had it not been
(35:56):
for the tariffs, but we'retrying to do our best at not
raising existing prices.
Now I'm not saying it's notgoing to happen.
I mean we got to make payrollbut we're doing the best we can
in a lot of cases, because rightnow it literally changes every
(36:17):
day.
And the bad part for us is whenwe've got a container,
especially when it first started.
We have a container on thewater that we ordered based on
this is what our landed price isgoing to be takes 30 to 45 days
to sail here.
While it was on the ocean, anew tariff would go into place
(36:41):
and then by the time it got herewe got to pay more for it than
we thought when we ordered it,right, so that the worst part
for us as everything is, youknow, threatened and put into
place and taken out of place andchanged it's the uncertainty
and it's the inability to plan.
I mean, if a model kit is goingto cost me this and I got to
(37:05):
pay this much tariff on it.
That's fine, I can plan forthat.
I price it accordingly.
It is what it is, but for usthe most aggravating thing was
all the uncertainty.
Now it's kind of started tolevel out a little bit, if you
will.
We kind of see how it works andwhat to expect.
(37:25):
And that's actually just thisweek.
You might notice on our websitewe're finally starting to put
pre-orders back up.
We've not been doing pre-ordersfor several weeks now just
because we weren't quite surehow this was going to imagine.
Not sure, yeah, but we we kindof understand it a little bit
not perfectly, but we understandit enough.
(37:46):
And at the end of the day wemake a little bit less money.
But I'd rather make a less, youknow a few less dollars than
turn off the modelers to.
You know, if I need to sell akit for $107, I might just put
it at $99, because that thatsounds a little bit better.
(38:08):
And you know I I got to buy onecheeseburger instead of two,
that you know that kind of stuff.
So we're dealing with it thebest way we can, while the you
know can, while the powers thatbe, 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 sowe can all plan accordingly, and
(38:29):
that's what I'm hearing acrossmultiple industries.
Kentucky Dave (38:33):
It's not necessarily.
I mean you can argue tariffsgood, tariffs bad, whatever.
The businessmen just wantcertainty.
Exactly Tell me what my numberis and tell me that it's not
going to change for six monthsExactly.
Brandon Lowe (38:52):
And that's where we're at too.
I mean, if I've got to, that'sfine.
If we need to do this, then weneed to do it, okay, but tell me
what it's going to be and don'tchange it when my container's
halfway here Halfway across thewater and if you do change it
when it's halfway here, can Iplease pay what it was when I
loaded and my container leftRight.
You know that kind of stuff.
(39:12):
But, like I said, it's allsorting out, it's working out
and I think we've got fourcontainers 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 muchwelcomed thing here in the next
few weeks when all of a sudden,we have a lot of new stuff to
(39:34):
look at.
Kentucky Dave (39:35):
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 oneverybody I'm glad to hear that
it hasn't shocked your system todestruction or anything like
that.
It's just been something thatyou can deal with.
Brandon Lowe (39:52):
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, whenyou're in business.
One thing that I've learned isif you have time to kick back in
the easy chair and just watchthe money roll in and I want to
be in that business, you know,because that's a business don't
(40:14):
exist, because that businessdon't exist Exactly.
I mean, it is always somethinghere, whether it's dealing with
the post office or, you know,dealing with the toilets backing
up.
You know, right now it'sdealing with tariffs and in the
next couple of months I'm sureit'll be something else, who
knows?
So there's always something,and that's just part of being in
(40:37):
business.
Mike (40:38):
Well, Brandon, it's been a pleasure again.
We need to not do this soinfrequently.
Kentucky Dave (40:43):
Yes, really.
Brandon Lowe (40:45):
Oh yeah, no, I always tell people I'd rather be
too busy than not busy enough.
Yeah, but I don't know, maybeI'd like some of those not busy
enough days every once in awhile.
Kentucky Dave (40:54):
Every once in a while Exactly.
Mike (40:57):
Got to rest and recuperate .
Kentucky Dave (40:59):
Yeah.
Brandon Lowe (41:00):
But it's good.
I mean, I love our business, Ilove our customers.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
Kentucky Dave (41:05):
I'm looking forward to seeing you at the
Nationals.
Man.
Mike (41:08):
Absolutely.
We love it too.
We're glad to be aligned withyou the way we are, and it's
just a cool thing.
The brand has just been in mylife since we were kids.
Yeah Right, it's so fantasticthat you've resuscitated this
thing to the degree you have,and it just seems to keep
getting better and better.
Brandon Lowe (41:28):
Well, I appreciate you saying that we certainly
love it.
I'm like y'all I didn't want tosee the brand die.
So happy to be here.
Mike (41:38):
All right.
Well, let's get back tosquatting, Brandon, and we'll
see you soon enough.
Brandon Lowe (41:42):
All right, mike, dave, thank you, thank you.
Kentucky Dave (41:45):
Take care, let's do this again.
You got it, yeah, bye.
they've been playing email tag with our guests tonight.
Yeah, we're gonna welcome backI don't know probably the
hardest working man in the hobbyindustry, brandon lowe from
squadron.
How you doing, brandon?
Brandon Lowe (00:24):
I'm doing pretty good, mike, I don't know about
hardest working, but in thehobby industry, brandon Lowe
from Squadron how you doing,brandon?
I'm doing pretty good.
Mike, I don't know abouthardest working, but I do the
best I can.
Mike (00:29):
You've logged some miles the last month and a half or so.
Brandon Lowe (00:34):
Yeah, it's been pretty consistent the last
several weeks, for us for sure.
Kentucky Dave (00:40):
I got to see you at Wonderfest and, man, you were
busier than a one-armed paperhanger.
Brandon Lowe (00:46):
You were doing a good business when I passed by,
Well you know Wonderfestspecifically, is that show kind
of lends itself to that?
Yeah, just because it's arelatively small vendor room and
it has, on average, more peoplewalking through that than most
(01:07):
of the other shows that we gothrough 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 itwas.
Kentucky Dave (01:21):
It was a nice time though I got to briefly say
hello, but not, but not aboutmuch more, because, man, you all
were just, you were sellingthem like hot cake of view, or
at least from my point of view,that's the only bad thing,
because I hear that same thingyou just said.
Brandon Lowe (01:48):
I talk to you guys more after the show than I get
to talk to you at the show.
Kentucky Dave (01:53):
Right.
Brandon Lowe (01:53):
Just because you know you're going through, you
buy your stuff, you move on.
The next guy in line needs toget 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 ofthe shows.
Kentucky Dave (02:06):
It is indeed.
Mike (02:07):
Well, you're quite a ways into it now, Brandon, with the
move up toward Chattanooga.
Is that complete now?
Are you still limping throughthat?
Brandon Lowe (02:17):
Or are you in pretty good shape by now, I
imagine?
I think to some extent we willalways be working on it, but you
know, I think that's kind oflike when you own your house
it's never finished.
Kentucky Dave (02:27):
There's always something to do, that's right.
Well, there's always that onebox over in the corner that when
you moved four years ago, youput in the corner of the
basement and you haven'tbothered to unpack it yet.
Yep.
Brandon Lowe (02:39):
And that same concept carries over into our
warehouse.
We have moved so many timessince we started in this
business almost 20 years ago.
2026 will be our 20th year inbusiness.
Wow, the lows, if you willstarted out as free time hobbies
, sure, and I think we countedthis up the other day.
(03:01):
Actually, I think we have moved10 times in 20 years.
Oh man, wow.
And thankfully, this move andit's been a year, mike yeah, it
has.
Yeah, last June, when I movedhere, I think we moved the store
sometime in July, I think iswhen we started moving the
warehouse over here.
(03:22):
You know we had the nationalsand that whole thing, but it's
been a year now and we are, forthe most part, settled in as far
as being able to do day-to-daystuff.
It's been a roller coaster ofstaffing.
You know guys and gals comingand going over the last year,
(03:42):
but we've finally got, I guess,what you can call a stable team.
Good, yeah, that's always a plus.
Yeah, yeah, I mean we got guyscoming and going still, but I
think that's kind of the casewith any business, but we've got
a good, solid team that we cancount on.
So that's a good thing.
(04:02):
The space there coming fromwhere we were at in Ellijay with
the horrible logistics overthere, shipping and whatnot and
just everything over there.
It's a super nice place.
Ellijay is to live and fromwhat I'm told to retire, but not
(04:25):
so much to run a distributioncompany, so it's great.
Mike (04:30):
That brings up an interesting point.
I know when we talked last timeyou mentioned the logistics and
you had a comment or two aboutoverwhelming the LAJ Postal
Service down there, yep, and youmoved up toward Chattanooga to
where on the list of reasons tomove it was.
Brandon Lowe (04:47):
That was up there.
I mean, that may have been.
If we had to pick one reason tomove, that was it.
Mike (04:55):
Well, it's probably not funny for you, but over the
holidays I know that you'd putthought into moving up there to
get a better service and I don'tknow how it works for you guys.
I know a little bit because Isaw some of the back and forth
with some folks and you, I think, but the post office kind of
imploded around Christmas in ourpart of the country.
Brandon Lowe (05:16):
Well, they did here too, and that's the thing,
lj.
Our issue was physicallygetting our packages that we
pack up every day, getting themfrom our warehouse into the post
office's system, and theyliterally did not have vehicles
in that town large enough toaccommodate.
(05:38):
I imagine not.
Yeah, so we've got a bigtrailer and we literally had to
deliver our own packages to thepost office every day, and that
kind of got old.
So when we moved here, thebiggest 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.
(05:59):
I don't know what it's called,but we we've got one of those
that comes every day and picksup all of our stuff.
I think it can hold like 12pallets 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 bestthing for us.
(06:21):
Now, after it leaves ourfacility, unfortunately, the
post office is the post office,regardless of where it's located
, and you know you were talkingabout them imploding at
Christmas.
Oh yeah, that's not just yourarea, that's everywhere.
Because go back however manyyears ago, before the Internet
took over.
(06:42):
What did the post officedeliver?
They delivered envelopes,letters and postcards and these
types of things.
So the infrastructure of howthe post office was set up many,
many years ago.
It was not set up to deliverpackages.
That's what UPS and FedEx wereset up for.
Well, fast forward to today,that's pretty much what they are
(07:05):
now a package handling company,and a lot of these old
facilities were not built tohandle that.
And they're doing all thesethings trying to improve it, but
the amount of volume thatthey're getting is way faster
growing than they're able tofacilitate this stuff.
Kentucky Dave (07:25):
Yeah, well, louisville, around Christmas we
have a regional center here inLouisville and it just
completely melted down to thepoint where there were numerous
news stories on the local TV andincluding at least one story on
national news about thetroubles they were having.
Brandon Lowe (07:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, and I am sure that there are
actual factual numbers out thereto look at, so I'm just
spitting fictional numbers out.
But let's just say that we shipa thousand packages in a day.
Yeah, just average, normal.
Well, christmas time, all of asudden we might need to send
(08:09):
five or ten thousand packages ina day.
Yeah, multiply that out byhowever many other thousands of
businesses that are like us outthere.
They can't staff that manypeople 12 months a year to
handle that.
And then all of the sudden Imean you know how hard it is to
find good helpers and goodemployees All of the sudden come
(08:32):
around October, november, allof a sudden they need like 10 or
20 times as many employees asthey have for one month.
How do you find that manypeople to come to work for one
month knowing you're going toget canned right after Christmas
?
Kentucky Dave (08:47):
Yeah, well, how did your customers handle it?
Were they relatively goodsports?
Brandon Lowe (08:53):
You know that's a good question, dave, and I got
to tell you and this is one ofthe things that I love the most
about this industry thecustomers in the hobby industry,
at least, the customers that wehave are some of the nicest,
most understanding people that Ihave ever met.
Kentucky Dave (09:12):
If you go back far enough and listen to our old
episodes, that is a recurringtheme that I have commented on
as a group.
I mean, you know there's badapples in every group.
Brandon Lowe (09:24):
Oh gosh, yeah, but as a group.
Kentucky Dave (09:28):
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 reinforcethe fact that it's a heck of a
nice community to belong to itreally is and customers usually
(09:49):
become friends.
Brandon Lowe (09:50):
Yeah, and, like I said, as long as we do our part,
you know you order it, we getit out of our warehouse into the
postal system or whatever.
I mean we've done our part andmost people understand that.
Now that doesn't mean theydon'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.
(10:10):
But if you consider what we doin our hobby and what I probably
don't build model kits so youknow that we're not selling
remote control cars or medicalsupplies or anything like that.
(10:32):
So, like I said, the customersfor the most part are some of
the nicest people I've ever metand they are definitely
understanding.
Doesn't mean they don't wanttheir stuff fast, but they sure
understand when the post officedoes something dumb, which
unfortunately is more often thannot.
Mike (10:51):
Well, another couple of things.
The last time we talked to youthat were sort of related to the
move and getting grounded againin the new location was
Squadron Club Yep and then theretail shop space.
Brandon Lowe (11:03):
Yeah, so we've got several different things that
we're doing.
The retail space it is open now.
Kentucky Dave (11:11):
We got to go down , Mike.
Brandon Lowe (11:13):
Yeah, road trip.
There you go.
Now for you guys we'll make adate and figure it out.
But in general the retailstores open Monday through
Friday and some people ask well,why aren't you open on the
weekends?
Well, we're there Mondaythrough Friday.
I mean, we want to have theretail space, we want to offer
(11:35):
that and have it open, but atthe end of the day this location
is still our warehouse for ourinternet business and our phone
mail order business.
But when we're there, the shopis open.
We advertise it being open from10 to 3.
That just gives us a littletime in the morning to get
things going and gives us anhour in the afternoon to close
(11:56):
up shop.
But that's there.
It's neat when you come by.
I think we've got about what isit?
2,500 square feet in the frontfor the retail space, and then
you know, usually, if you asknice and we aren't unloading
containers or something in theback, I might just let you
stroll through the warehouse aswell.
Kentucky Dave (12:18):
That's always an adventure.
Now, have you had a fair numberof people stopping by?
Brandon Lowe (12:24):
Yes, so there's a pretty good modeling community
here in Chattanooga.
Kentucky Dave (12:30):
Yes, there is.
Brandon Lowe (12:31):
We've got the Chattanooga Scale Modelers here
and they had their model showlast weekend.
Kentucky Dave (12:39):
Yes, which Mike and I were really trying to get
to.
Brandon Lowe (12:43):
Oh, wish you had made it, but their show is
usually not in June, it'susually in January.
We get it snowed out Anyway.
Friday because their show wasFriday and Saturday.
Our shop is open on Fridayanyway, so we extended an
invitation and made it apublicly announced thing that we
would have an open house thatday.
(13:03):
So we had several people stopby on their way to the
Chattanooga show and then westayed open.
The show ended at six o'clock.
We stayed open.
I think we were there till nineor nine thirty.
We advertised it being opentill eight, but we didn't want
to kick anybody out.
So we stayed till the lastperson was done shopping.
So that was nice, and more andmore people have started finding
(13:25):
out that we're open.
Everybody knew that we weregoing to do this, but we were
just so busy.
I realized last week that I hadnever really even made an
announcement that it was open.
Well that's what we're doinghere.
That is what we're doing.
But yeah, as people find outthat we're open officially now
and in a retail walk-in capacity, more and more people are
(13:46):
starting to come in.
Had a guy in today.
It was kind of funny.
He was looking around and justkind of amazed at all the model
kits that were there, and he hadbeen there for a good little
while.
So I just said, hey, would youlike to see in the warehouse and
see the rest of the models wehave?
And he's like you mean you havemore than this.
And I took him to the other20,000 square feet beyond the
(14:10):
2,000 he was looking at.
It's really nice.
I love doing that.
I love being able to havecustomers come in and look at
this stuff.
Put your hands on it.
Kentucky Dave (14:22):
Watching their eyes bug out.
Brandon Lowe (14:23):
Exactly, it's just fun.
You guys have seen how I do atthe shows at Nationals.
I like putting on a big displaybecause I like to give people
the opportunity to shop and seethings 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
(14:45):
in person is really cool.
Kentucky Dave (14:48):
There's a whole different experience putting
your hands on it.
Yep.
Brandon Lowe (14:52):
So that's good.
Then you know, mike, youmentioned the squadron clubs.
We actually have two differentthings now that have the word
club in them.
The first thing that welaunched was, I guess, last year
around fall.
We launched what we call theEagle Club, and this is kind of
the you got to buy this.
You buy a membership to theEagle Club I don't know, think
(15:15):
Costco or Sam's Club, that sortof thing.
You get a little bit of anextra discount.
Your free shipping thresholddrops from 200 to 100.
Discount, your free shippingthreshold drops from 200 to 100.
You get a few other perks whichwe'll talk about here in a
little while when we shift gearsto yet another subject but that
was that actually was receivedbetter than I thought it was
(15:37):
going to be.
I figured we'd have a few people.
We got a lot of people thatwere in on that and some people
were like why would I pay forthat?
Well, some of these guys, youknow you order.
You know you order five or six,seven times throughout the year
and that free shipping at ahundred bucks covers itself.
Because, going back to shipping, not only are the shipping
(15:58):
services pretty horrible thesedays, they're also way more
expensive than they used to be.
And you know I would say theaverage shipping fee these days
is anywhere from 10 to 15 bucks.
And you know model kits.
You buy two model kits now andyou'll be doing good to be under
a hundred bucks Some of thesenew kits that come out.
(16:19):
So a lot of people found valuein that.
You know if you're only goingto order once or twice a year
it's not worth it.
Don't buy it.
But there was a lot more peoplethat found value in that than I
was expecting.
So that's kind of cool andwe've got some couple little
surprises for them at nationalsthis year.
And then the other thing we'vegot is actually called the
Squadron Modelers Club and thatis our private Facebook group
(16:42):
and it's kind of small right nowbut it's growing.
And this Facebook group is aprivate group and the intention
is for it to only be forcustomers of Squadron.
So if you're a regular customeryou buy stuff.
You know us join that club onFacebook and we have a good time
.
We post pictures back and forthof what I was posting, pictures
(17:05):
of my Doro rail gun that I'mworking on last night, and
everybody posts pictures of whatthey're working on.
We give tips back and forth.
Sometimes I'll make specialannouncements in there that I
don't do publicly elsewhere.
So it's kind of fun, we enjoyit and have a good time over
there.
Mike (17:21):
All right.
Well, I'm glad that's goingwell.
I know we talked about theEagle Club.
I didn't know if you justchanged the name or if you
actually had two things.
Brandon Lowe (17:28):
now, no, it's two things.
We were trying to come up withsome way to have.
Everybody kept asking they wantto post pictures to hey, I
built this model, can you put iton your website?
I'm like, asking they want topost pictures to hey, I built
this model, can you put it onyour website?
I'm like I can, but thatrequires me to do it and if you
send it to me I'll forget.
(17:48):
And then I feel bad.
And so we just decided if westart a Facebook group, a
private group, everybody canpost their own stuff and we can
talk back and forth and it kindof becomes, you know, hopefully
becomes a community of modelingfriendship, if you will.
Mike (18:06):
Well, you mentioned some special things for the Nationals
.
Oh yeah, for these folks andyou know I snuck in, I didn't
sneak in.
I came in and watched yourWednesday night Squadron TV this
week and you had a bigannouncement and we're going to
hopefully reach a few morepeople with this podcast.
(18:27):
Oh sure, won't you let folksknow what's going on for the
National Convention?
I know, like I said, you made avery big announcement.
It was really, reallyinteresting.
Brandon Lowe (18:37):
The Nationals, for me and for us, has always been
a lot of fun.
My first nationals IPMSnationals that I ever attended
was 2008, I believe, which,funny enough, was hosted by
Tidewater and it was up in thesame area.
It wasn't at the same venue, Idon't think it was in Virginia
(18:57):
Beach.
Kentucky Dave (18:58):
The one at the convention center down by the
beach, rather than Hampton,which is the current one, I
would say.
Brandon Lowe (19:05):
Yeah, same club, same guys hosting it, just they
moved to a different venue.
So and since then I've madejust about every one of them.
A couple of the ones out on theWest Coast I did not make, but
for the most part I've madeevery one since 2008.
And when we started vending asfree time hobbies, every year we
(19:26):
would get a little bit bigger,We'd take a little bit more
stuff, go to a little bit moretrouble, and it was always great
.
We always enjoyed it, Made alot of friends there through the
years.
And then when we boughtSquadron, we started the year.
We bought Squadron in 2021, Ithink I bought it in fall and I
officially announced it inJanuary of 22.
(19:49):
So 22 was the first nationalsthat I went to as Squadron and
that was in where was it?
Omaha.
Mike (19:56):
Omaha yes.
Brandon Lowe (19:57):
Thank you.
Omaha was 22.
Omaha that year and I was justgetting back into the business
after selling free time hobbiesa year before and it was great.
As soon as we got there Iwalked in.
I'm like yeah, I don't know whyI ever tried to leave this
business, and so after that wedidn't get a big space, I didn't
(20:20):
have a lot of stuff.
You know, we were just gettingback going.
We had not bought Free TimeHobbies back yet, which we ended
up buying Free Time Hobbiesback a few months after that.
But the next year, in 23, outin San Marcos, texas, we decided
you know, we need to figure outhow to go bigger than we've
ever gone to nationals before,and that was amazing.
Kentucky Dave (20:42):
Oh, it was a blast, it was unbelievable.
A room unto yourself, yep.
Brandon Lowe (20:49):
And a big room.
Kentucky Dave (20:49):
Yes, oh, yeah.
Brandon Lowe (20:52):
The funny thing you know I talked about, we
moved 10 times so that room wasbigger than all of our stores
had ever been, except for theone we're in now and our big
store in Blue Ridge with thegiant standing out front.
I mean we took that much stuffto a store that was bigger than
any of the stores we had everbeen in when we were starting
(21:13):
out.
But that was awesome, loved it.
That was awesome, loved it.
(21:35):
And it was that year that wedecided we want to try to do
something special for nationalsevery year Definitely bring a
huge display.
I mean everybody loves seeingthat stuff.
I mean a lot of peopleunfortunately don't have local
hobby shops.
Russ at MMD here he sells to alot of the local hobby shops and
we support the local hobbyshops and that's unfortunately a
dying thing, but I hope thateverybody will hang on as long
as possible.
But the guys that don't havelocal hobby shops, they don't
get to see this stuff in person.
So we're like we want to bringas much as we can.
(21:57):
So the next year, last year 24,we were caught up right in the
middle of moving to Chattanoogaand we still took a ton of stuff
.
We still had a huge space, butit was so unorganized because we
had literally just moved it allto our new warehouse and we had
not organized anything.
We had not organized anything.
So when the semi truck gotthere to go to the show, we just
(22:19):
started rolling stuff in, hadno clue what we were taking.
And it worked out, we got itorganized, we had a good show.
But this year we wanted to planit out and make it more
organized, make it morestreamlined and do a few special
things.
(22:42):
And for me, years ago, backbefore I was doing all this
stuff and I was able to go tosome 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 wouldalways have convention
exclusives, whether it was a.
I'm a big Spider-Man fan, so alot of times the artists and the
(23:03):
authors and whatnot of theSpider-Man series the 50 million
different ones there are theywould have special artwork
version variants, as they calledthem, of their comic books and
the only way you could get thatwas if you got it at the show.
I'm like you know they'rereally neat, because I didn't
(23:23):
get most of them because Iwasn't able to go to whichever
show, whichever variant wasbeing offered at, but the few
that I was able to get, theywere some of the, you know, most
special items in my collectionand it meant something.
I went there, I got it.
I was like, you know, it wouldbe cool if we had something like
(23:43):
that at our show, because thenationals the IPMS nationals is
really like the biggest thingthat this hobby has, going as
far as an event.
And we thought about it and wesaid what if we did a convention
exclusive model kit and I knowit's probably been done in the
(24:05):
past I know that, heck, in 2019,edouard did their special
Chattanooga Choo Choo decalededition of one of their kits.
So there have been showexclusives before, but never one
that worked that I'm aware of,never one that worked
(24:26):
specifically with the hostchapter to utilize the logo and
actually brand the item as aconvention exclusive specific to
that club and that show in thatlocation.
You're right, and that's whatwe wanted to do.
Kentucky Dave (24:43):
Yeah, that's never been done before.
Brandon Lowe (24:46):
And I didn't think it had.
I mean, like I said, therecould be something I'm
forgetting, but I'm like you, Idon't think it had ever been
done.
So, thankfully, we are reallygood friends with the guys at
Tidewater.
We have known those guys for along time and I presented this
idea to them and they thought itwas great.
They thought it was a greatidea.
(25:07):
So we worked out all thedetails of what needs to happen
and all that kind of stuff andthen it was just a matter of
getting it done with themanufacturers and we worked
really close with MiniArt, whichis the first.
I got to be careful not to spillthe beans on what we're
announcing this coming Wednesday, but this past Wednesday we
(25:29):
announced our MiniArt kit is aP47D Razorback and it's 48 scale
.
Now MiniArt has this kit comingout in their own line.
It's a new tool Razorback, butit's not available yet.
It'll be available in August.
But our special edition thisgot different decals than theirs
(25:51):
is going to be available atNationals this year and on the
box we've got Tidewater's showlogo.
It says Limited Edition, 2025,convention Exclusive and it's
branded and marketed as aconvention exclusive.
That can only be purchased atthe convention and that's what
(26:13):
we've got and so far.
We announced this Friday.
We announced it two days agoand the buzz around it has been
just crazy.
That's really cool.
Kentucky Dave (26:26):
Yeah, they're going to be like locusts around
your all's tables when theconvention opens.
Brandon Lowe (26:34):
And I hope so, and not just for us.
Yes, I want to sell them all.
Yes, obviously that is the goalto sell them all but I hope
that it helps the show ingeneral, in the sense that
there's something here that Ican only get here.
(26:55):
So I need to make sure I mean,this is not going to get
somebody from the other side ofthe world to decide to make a
trip to nationals.
I understand that, but thepeople that are going, this
gives them something else Inaddition to all the other great
reasons to go to nationals.
This gives them something elseto to pick up and carry home
(27:15):
with them.
Everybody loves getting thenationals t-shirts Everybody.
I think everybody's reallygoing to love the goodie bags
that they get at registrationthis year.
I might know a little somethingabout those, but you know,
there's always somethingeverybody loves getting the
little pins, you know, and ifyou do the judging, you know you
get the judge's pin.
(27:35):
So there's all these littlethings that you get to carry
home.
And you remember nationals.
Yeah, that was a great event.
Now you can carry home a modelkit and I've got a feeling that
even if you're not an aircraftmodeler, there's still going to
be some guys picking this upjust because it says show
exclusive model kit.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So I really hope that it's wellreceived and we've got a lot of
(28:02):
really good customers that arenot going to be able to go to
the show this year and, ofcourse, they've expressed
interest in being able to getone of these.
And going back to what we weretalking about earlier with the
Eagle Club, our Squadron EagleClub, that's a pretty exclusive
thing.
All of the Eagle Club membersare going to have the ability to
(28:22):
buy one of these, whetheryou're at the show or not.
Kentucky Dave (28:24):
Oh good.
Brandon Lowe (28:26):
So that'll be a nice touch.
And then the only other.
Well, that's one way to get itif you're not at the show.
There's two other ways to getit if you're not at the show.
The second way is Wednesdaynight our live show.
That we do every Wednesdaynight at nine o'clock.
August 6th, the first day of theshow, happens to be a Wednesday
, so that night we willbroadcast our live show at nine
(28:49):
o'clock and anybody that'swatching live you know I keep
telling people, if you're notgoing to the show, why don't you
get a friend to pick one up foryou?
Last time I checked, I'm friendswith most of the guys that are
watching our show.
So at nine o'clock that night wewill open up a very, very, very
small window of probably about10 minutes or so where, if
(29:12):
you're watching live, I'm goingto give a code that will allow
you to go into our website andpurchase an item that can
otherwise not be seen withoutthat code.
So that'll give our guys thatwatch us on Wednesday nights
that aren't able to be at theshow, that'll give them a chance
to buy it at the show, becauseI'm going to be there and I
think that'll be a really nicething but, like I said, that's
(29:33):
just going to be for the guyswatching live.
It'll be a very short windowand if you're not watching live,
you're never even going to haveknown that it happened, and
then the only other way to getone is if we happen to not sell
them all at the show.
Obviously, we got to dosomething with them, so when we
get back we've got a waitinglist that we've started on our
website and if I've got one ofthem left, the first guy on the
(30:02):
waiting list gets it.
Kentucky Dave (30:02):
If I've got 10 left, the first 10 guys get it,
and so on.
And I would be shocked if youhave many, if any, when you come
back from the convention.
Yeah and I don't know.
Brandon Lowe (30:10):
We're going to hold back from telling people
how many we actually have.
Sure, but based on howWednesday goes, we'll determine
whether or not we put a perperson limit on them Thursday,
Friday and Saturday.
So we'll see.
It'll be neat.
And this is just one of thekits.
We've got another kit that we'regoing to announce this coming
(30:31):
Wednesday that I'm just asexcited about.
It's from a differentmanufacturer, it's not MiniArt,
but it'll be like I said, I'mevery bit as excited about it.
And's from a differentmanufacturer.
It's not mini art, but it'll belike I said, I'm every bit as
excited about it and lookingforward to telling everybody
about those.
And those are the only twothings we're going to officially
announce before the show, butwe've got a couple of other
surprises up our sleeves thatwe're hoping get finished off.
(30:54):
They won't be exclusives, withthe show logo printed on there,
but there's a few things thatpeople may or may not know have
even been announced to bereleased.
But we've worked it out with acouple of the manufacturers that
will actually have these itemsthere, but we're sworn to
secrecy until 1 o'clock onWednesday, so you'll have to
(31:15):
show up to see what it is.
Mike (31:17):
I'll be there.
Well, thinking of Wednesday andthis coming Wednesday, you're
going to divulge the secondexclusive Right.
Why don't you let our listenersknow exactly where Squadron TV
is and the times and all that.
Brandon Lowe (31:31):
Yeah, absolutely so.
If you actually go to ourwebsite at squadroncom up on the
top where it says all productsand home and all that, the last
link says friends and shows Gotthe plastic model mojo on there,
I know, right in the middle atthe top.
We appreciate that.
But this page kind of gives alink to all of the different
(31:52):
things that we do and you can gothere.
That's got a link to SquadronTV, is what we call it and that
is our YouTube channel and ourYouTube channel.
It's called Squadron TV.
You can search for it onYouTube.
You can also watch the show onFacebook live.
We just started streaming it toInstagram and X, but I'm not
(32:15):
quite sure how that works yet,so still working on that.
But YouTube is the main placeat 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 (32:29):
All right.
Well, can't wait to see thatone too.
So I'll be planning on jumpingon in on that one and chatting a
little bit too.
So looking forward to.
Wednesday on that one andchatting a little bit too, so
looking forward to.
Brandon Lowe (32:38):
Wednesday yeah, always love seeing the Plastic
Model Mojo logo pop up in thechat.
Mike (32:43):
We'll try to be a little more regular.
Yeah, how about that?
There you go.
Brandon Lowe (32:48):
Now let me ask you a couple things.
You guys are going to be atNationals, right?
Yes, we are Okay.
Are you going to have yourbooth set up to do some talking?
We've got a table, all right.
Well, I'll have to stop by andsay hello then you will.
You're usually too busy yeah, Iusually am, but we we've got a
couple extra hands going with usthis year, so hopefully I might
(33:09):
have at least a few extraminutes to walk around and enjoy
the show a bit that'd be great.
Kentucky Dave (33:14):
And mike and and I have something special we're
going to probably debut at theshow and we'll see how it turns
out Maybe get a little morecontent than we've otherwise
been able to get.
Brandon Lowe (33:28):
See, this show is going to be all sorts of full of
surprises.
Mike (33:37):
One last topic, brandon, and talk about surprises.
Okay, the buzz in the modelingcommunity has there's been a lot
of chatter about all thesetariffs, because a lot of the
stuff you sell and any hobbyretailer sells right now is most
of it's not made in the unitedstates.
It just isn't.
We just like to get, uh,houserons navigating that and
(33:58):
you know, and upfront and honestand transparent.
We want to keep this asapolitical as possible because
it is what it is and you got todeal with it and that's kind of
the level we'd like to talkabout it.
So what's squadron's angle beenon that lately?
Brandon Lowe (34:11):
Well, I mean, the fact of the matter is it is real
, probably the biggest thingthat we see from customer
feedback.
Nobody really and to someextent even us really understand
exactly how these tariffs arebeing implemented directly into
(34:32):
our hobby.
So for the past, however manymonths it's been now, so for the
past, however many months it'sbeen now, we've been paying
tariffs and actually before thebig tariff push that has eaten
up the news for the last severalweeks and months now, there was
actually specifically talkingabout China there was actually
(34:53):
tariffs already in place beforeall this, and even before those
tariffs were in place, on justgeneral 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,
(35:15):
we've been printing them inChina and that's no secret.
It says it in the book.
We have to put that in therewhen we don't print them here.
About half of our books weprint here in the States and
some of them we print there, butwe've been paying tariffs on
those for well over a year now.
My point in saying that is, asthese tariffs increase, a lot of
(35:35):
the tariffs you hear about mayor may not actually be in effect
yet.
We have not really had to raiseour prices any yet.
Now some of the new itemsperhaps that have come in are a
little bit higher than theywould have been had it not been
(35:56):
for the tariffs, but we'retrying to do our best at not
raising existing prices.
Now I'm not saying it's notgoing to happen.
I mean we got to make payrollbut we're doing the best we can
in a lot of cases, because rightnow it literally changes every
(36:17):
day.
And the bad part for us is whenwe've got a container,
especially when it first started.
We have a container on thewater that we ordered based on
this is what our landed price isgoing to be takes 30 to 45 days
to sail here.
While it was on the ocean, anew tariff would go into place
(36:41):
and then by the time it got herewe got to pay more for it than
we thought when we ordered it,right, so that the worst part
for us as everything is, youknow, threatened and put into
place and taken out of place andchanged it's the uncertainty
and it's the inability to plan.
I mean, if a model kit is goingto cost me this and I got to
(37:05):
pay this much tariff on it.
That's fine, I can plan forthat.
I price it accordingly.
It is what it is, but for usthe most aggravating thing was
all the uncertainty.
Now it's kind of started tolevel out a little bit, if you
will.
We kind of see how it works andwhat to expect.
(37:25):
And that's actually just thisweek.
You might notice on our websitewe're finally starting to put
pre-orders back up.
We've not been doing pre-ordersfor several weeks now just
because we weren't quite surehow this was going to imagine.
Not sure, yeah, but we we kindof understand it a little bit
not perfectly, but we understandit enough.
(37:46):
And at the end of the day wemake a little bit less money.
But I'd rather make a less, youknow a few less dollars than
turn off the modelers to.
You know, if I need to sell akit for $107, I might just put
it at $99, because that thatsounds a little bit better.
(38:08):
And you know I I got to buy onecheeseburger instead of two,
that you know that kind of stuff.
So we're dealing with it thebest way we can, while the you
know can, while the powers thatbe, 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 sowe can all plan accordingly, and
(38:29):
that's what I'm hearing acrossmultiple industries.
Kentucky Dave (38:33):
It's not necessarily.
I mean you can argue tariffsgood, tariffs bad, whatever.
The businessmen just wantcertainty.
Exactly Tell me what my numberis and tell me that it's not
going to change for six monthsExactly.
Brandon Lowe (38:52):
And that's where we're at too.
I mean, if I've got to, that'sfine.
If we need to do this, then weneed to do it, okay, but tell me
what it's going to be and don'tchange it when my container's
halfway here Halfway across thewater and if you do change it
when it's halfway here, can Iplease pay what it was when I
loaded and my container leftRight.
You know that kind of stuff.
(39:12):
But, like I said, it's allsorting out, it's working out
and I think we've got fourcontainers 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 muchwelcomed thing here in the next
few weeks when all of a sudden,we have a lot of new stuff to
(39:34):
look at.
Kentucky Dave (39:35):
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 oneverybody I'm glad to hear that
it hasn't shocked your system todestruction or anything like
that.
It's just been something thatyou can deal with.
Brandon Lowe (39:52):
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, whenyou're in business.
One thing that I've learned isif you have time to kick back in
the easy chair and just watchthe money roll in and I want to
be in that business, you know,because that's a business don't
(40:14):
exist, because that businessdon't exist Exactly.
I mean, it is always somethinghere, whether it's dealing with
the post office or, you know,dealing with the toilets backing
up.
You know, right now it'sdealing with tariffs and in the
next couple of months I'm sureit'll be something else, who
knows?
So there's always something,and that's just part of being in
(40:37):
business.
Mike (40:38):
Well, Brandon, it's been a pleasure again.
We need to not do this soinfrequently.
Kentucky Dave (40:43):
Yes, really.
Brandon Lowe (40:45):
Oh yeah, no, I always tell people I'd rather be
too busy than not busy enough.
Yeah, but I don't know, maybeI'd like some of those not busy
enough days every once in awhile.
Kentucky Dave (40:54):
Every once in a while Exactly.
Mike (40:57):
Got to rest and recuperate .
Kentucky Dave (40:59):
Yeah.
Brandon Lowe (41:00):
But it's good.
I mean, I love our business, Ilove our customers.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
Kentucky Dave (41:05):
I'm looking forward to seeing you at the
Nationals.
Man.
Mike (41:08):
Absolutely.
We love it too.
We're glad to be aligned withyou the way we are, and it's
just a cool thing.
The brand has just been in mylife since we were kids.
Yeah Right, it's so fantasticthat you've resuscitated this
thing to the degree you have,and it just seems to keep
getting better and better.
Brandon Lowe (41:28):
Well, I appreciate you saying that we certainly
love it.
I'm like y'all I didn't want tosee the brand die.
So happy to be here.
Mike (41:38):
All right.
Well, let's get back tosquatting, Brandon, and we'll
see you soon enough.
Brandon Lowe (41:42):
All right, mike, dave, thank you, thank you.
Kentucky Dave (41:45):
Take care, let's do this again.
You got it, yeah, bye.
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