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Post by Cole D on Mar 22, 2020 11:28:24 GMT -5
This was kind of inspired by a question in another thread but was something I was thinking about. Has anyone else noticed fewer running fan displays in stores?
For me as a kid whenever we went to Walmart I always wanted to go to the fan aisle and see the fans running. Back then it was usually Laskos.
Nowadays not only did Walmart do away with the ceiling fan display back in 2007 or so when they remodeled to what I think they called "Project Impact", but I don't think my local one has had a portable fan display since at least 2016 or thereabouts. Even though today's models don't interest me that much I still liked to look at them. Another Walmart I went to in my area a month or so ago did have a few models on display but they were way up where you couldn't reach them or feel the air moving.
My local Bed Bath and Beyond probably has the best display now but they don't seem to be running lately when I go. Maybe they turn them on more in the summer. Lowes and Home Depot also have displays but they aren't powered up ever.
I also miss the display Kmart had years ago as well. In later years it was mainly just a few Kenmore models in boxes, never anything running at least during the past 10 years before they closed. Same with Sears.
Plus the drug stores. Walgreens and CVS used to have pretty good selection and fans on display, usually low enough you could change the speeds, look at them, etc. Now the last 10 years or so neither does and the selection is pretty small.
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Post by JackTheFanMan on Mar 22, 2020 11:42:09 GMT -5
When I was little, I LOVED the fan aisle at Lowe’s. But in 2015, they stopped setting up the display and just had boring boxes (at least at my local store). This would go on for the next 4 YEARS until this year, when they brought back the display.
When I was little, my parents never really went to Walmart, so I never got to experience their aisle until the last few years, and while they are big fans of target (my parents), target always seems to have an underwhelming aisle with just boxes. Has target ever had an actual display?
At my local Home Depot, they have a fan display where fans are ran and you can reach them, same with bed bath and beyond. However I haven’t been alive long enough to see the change.
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Post by JackTheFanMan on Mar 22, 2020 11:42:45 GMT -5
Also, has bed bath and beyond always had a display? Or is that a more recent thing?
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Post by Cole D on Mar 22, 2020 21:17:00 GMT -5
I'm not sure on Bed Bath and Beyond. As far as I remember they have, but they've only been here since 2007 or so and we never went there very often. My local one though doesn't have the selection as big as ones I see in videos (they don't have the metal Vornados or the metal Sunbeam retro fans here like others.) Mostly just plastic Vornados, Laskos (though usually black or fancier models) and Holmes/Sunbeam plastic fans.
Target I can't really say because we don't have any in my area. I believe I've only ever gone to one Target and it was back in 2009 or so and I don't remember looking at any fans. From one I saw on YouTube they had a nice selection and even had the metal Vornados, but I don't think any were out of the box.
I don't recall Lowes or Home Depot here ever having any fans running although both have always seemed to have at least a few on display. Home Depot is a little odd because they almost always have the black Lasko pedestal fan sitting on the floor instead of up with the others. Maybe there's no room on the shelf but it seems to be in the way where it is.
When I was a kid I remember Albertsons supermarket used to have fan boxes lined up on top of the freezer aisle (usually Duracrafts) out of reach. That was kind of fun to see because in the summer my mom would always take me grocery shopping but there were never usually any fans to be seen other than there.
As a kid my favorite brand was probably Duracraft, which Eckerd Drugstore (which was what CVS here used to be) and a store called Scotty's Hardware used to sell. So those were my favorite stores as far as displays. I lost interest in fans during the early 2000s for a while but then in 2006 I got back into them and that summer, CVS was still selling Duracraft so naturally I liked to look at the fans there like I did Eckerd. I think Walmart even had a couple that summer. Unfortunately a few years later Duracraft was done away with, although CVS does still sell the Turbo Fans under the Chill Out name at least last I checked. But none are on display anymore, plus CVS is quite overpriced. My parents bought me a few Duracrafts from Scotty's and Eckerd for my birthday over the years but I only ever got one from CVS because they never had any sales or clearances on them it seemed.
Some stores also used to tie ribbons to the fans so when they blew the ribbons would move around, haven't seen that in a long time either.
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Post by JackTheFanMan on Mar 23, 2020 9:09:01 GMT -5
Sam's club used to put ribbons around their fans, but they don't really turn them on anymore, so...
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Post by fancollector12 on Mar 29, 2020 3:27:53 GMT -5
Yeah no stores around here except for Bed Bath and Beyond put their fans out on display, but of course BB&B wants you to try out stuff, so they do it. A lot of their "floor models" go on clearance at the end of the season as well.
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Post by JackTheFanMan on Jun 1, 2020 9:21:12 GMT -5
I have never seen a "floor model" at Bed Bath and Beyond... Here in the US, there seems to be some sort of display wherever you go. My dad went to Sam's Club recently and they had all of the fans turned on (according to him) and that's also usually the case at my local Costco as well. Walmart has always had some sort of a display, no matter which one I go to, and after a 4-5 year hiatus, I can proudly say the fan display is back at my local lowes as well (but they still don't turn on).
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Post by JackTheFanMan on Jun 1, 2020 9:21:31 GMT -5
What floor models are you talking about?
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Post by Cole D on Jun 1, 2020 22:02:42 GMT -5
Last time I went to Walmart, before the virus, they didn't have any on display. But I think it depends on the store. Another I went to earlier this year had a few out but they were way up high and you couldn't really feel any breeze from them.
I think by floor models it means the fans out on display. I haven't ever seen any display models on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond, but maybe I just didn't go at the right time...
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Post by Jordan U on Jun 10, 2020 13:24:10 GMT -5
I remember the fan displays at WalMart well. I think the Home Depot was one of the last stores around here to have a functional fan display, as recently as maybe 4 or 6 years ago. All the other stores stopped a long time ago. The ceiling fan displays at Home Depot still have the lights going on the fans, I wouldn't be surprised if that goes away sooner or later too.
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Post by Cole D on Aug 28, 2020 23:49:35 GMT -5
I thought of this thread today when I went to Home Depot. They had their usual fan display (non powered) but on the desk lamp display they had one of those small evaporative air coolers and a small Vornado fan plugged in and running. Never seen them do that before.
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Post by steelcityfancollector on Oct 24, 2020 22:17:25 GMT -5
You know, this is something I was just recently thinking about. Growing up, it seemed almost every store had a portable fan display, most of them powered, but those seem to have fallen by the wayside in recent years. Home Depot and Lowe's around here still display portable fans during the summertime for the most part, but not like they used to. As a kid I remember going into the stores and walking down aisles of fans running with streamers attached, being able to turn on/off the various different fans, play with the speeds, essentially try them before you buy them. Now trying to find a powered portable fan display in a store is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, it seems.
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