Wholesale distributor Stevens International is closing, so its online outlet, Megahobby, and bricks-and-mortar outlet, AAA Hobbies & Crafts in Magnolia, NJ, will close. The Bass family who own the business are retiring.
The end of the year is the latest target date, but they could close before that, any day, really. As of right now, there is no plan to sell the business, but that doesn't mean it still couldn't happen.
My club, the MFCA, has been meeting at Triple-A monthly for the past 5 years; our marketing chair is AAA's marketing director. He has been holding special sales, announced with emails to their list. Each sale has been for a different brand or brands. And as Blake noted, they have a warehouse sale (sorry, not a factory) on February 28. That should be interesting.
Meanwhile, we have a new location for our meetings and will switch over starting with our April meeting.
Besides losing Megahobby and AAA Hobbies, consider that Stevens is a big distributor serving many retail hobby vendors. Their closing will leave a big hole in the supply chain for those vendors,