Kenner Empire Strikes Back – 1980 Consumer’s Distributing Catalog

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Hello and welcome to Consumer’s Distributing week on PlaidStallions. I recently picked up a grail catalogue in the form of the 1980/81 Consumer’s Distributing catalogue. For those not in the know, Consumer’s was a popular Canadian chain of catalogue showroom shops that ran from the 1950s until about 1995. At their peak, they had over […]
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[Bruce Banner]

I believe I looked through that very same catalogue that year!
(Snowtrooper on a Dewback. )

Good to see the Sonic Fazer, too.

And I had a similar version of that white laser gun, but as a Battlestar Galactica item.

[Makernaut]

I looked up Consumer's Distributing to learn a little about the company and it seems like the equivalent retail chain that I would have known at the time was Service Merchandise. While I got all of my Star Wars figures from Walmart or TG&Y, all of my vehicles came from Service Merchandise.

I've tried to explain the concept of these kind of stores to younger people and in an age when retail stores are becoming less of their experience because of online shopping, they think the concept of these types of retailers is a little weird or quaint. That is until I tell them it was a little like going to a brick and mortar to see the actual item and make some decisions about it while you look at it and gauge the quality of the item and then based on that impression, you go home and order it from Amazon if wanted to purchase it. I know that's not a perfect description of the experience, but it's close enough to what they understand to give them a clue as to why people would walk around a store with a clipboard and a store sheet that you wrote down SKUs on to turn in for the order to either be filled from stock on-hand or ordered for you to return for pickup.

[Nostalgiabuff]

we had Consumers here in NY. i def ordered stuff from them as a teenager. they went under i think probably in the early nineties

[Tarzilla]

Ah, yes...Consumer's Distributing...the tiny little pencils and just as tiny order slips. Fill out the slip, hand it to the clerk, wait 20 minutes for the clerk to return, unable to find one or more of your items. In college back in the mid 80s, I had the former IT head from CD teaching how not to do inventory control systems.
As he explained it and as best as I can remember it with 35 years old memories)

When a store ran out of an item, they ordered some from the computer (70s vintage terminals)
At the main warehouse in Ontario were cages for each of the provinces.

The reordered items from any of the Alberta stores, for instance, (if in stock centrally) were put into the cage. Only when the cage was full did the items get shippped from Ontario to the provincial warehouse...which had its own cages for each city...which would only ship when full...

[Mr.Marion]

Kenner Star Wars isn't my bread and butter line. But I do like buying a mint loose figure every so often.

[jwyblejr]

Huh. Surprised to see the remote controlled Sand Crawler was still be sold at the time.