I recently (December 14) visited the Lionel Store in Nashville for the first time. It’s a large store in a vast mall (Opry Mills).
There was a very large selection of engines, rolling stock, accessories, starter sets, track and die cast NASCAR, all of which were Lionel products. There were also a few smaller layouts setup. While the store was roomy, well stocked and clean I would say it misses the mark overall.
First and foremost, I would say the mission of a store like this is mainly to seduce shoppers into buying train stuff. It should especially cater to the impulse buyer, someone who wasn’t at the mall to buy a train that day but is enchanted by the store’s offerings enough to buy something or at least be inspired to consider a future purchase. I would say the store succeeds in doing this for the ready to run sets; the setups for those are inviting and the boxes with their see-through packaging advertise how cool a Disney or Harry Potter train might be at home. The layouts don’t do much for this other than “oh they have a toy Polar Express”; the layouts themselves aren’t very imaginative and they don’t showcase any of the operating accessories that show that a train layout can mean more than just watching a train navigate an oval. There’s also no demonstrating of the “gadget” aspect of the trains with showing off how the remotes can control the trains or even that the trains have sound. When I was in the store, it was mostly filled with young families (the same overall patronage at the mall) but I didn’t see anyone buy anything or stay in the store very long. This is a waste of prime retail space – this is in one of the most popular shopping establishments in the south, just a few stores down from the Rainforest Café and one of the few stores in the mall that would be interesting to kids. Contrast this with the Lego store nearby which had a line to get in the store and all cash registers busy. Granted, Lego is at a sales high these days (mostly due to adult consumers) but even if the Lionel store captured a fourth of that business it would be substantial.
So I had a couple of things on my list to get (a steam engine and a couple of speeders) so after walking the store with my grandsons and looking things over a bit, I turned to do some shopping. So basically, the store has things divided naturally into some sections like track, starter sets, scenery/accessories and basically “everything else”. I was immediately faced with a challenge: if I was Lionel where would I put speeders among this vast sea of orange boxes? Some of the freight cars had window boxes so those were easy to identify but it seemed like speeders and locomotives were all just in various places (the sections of the stores were not labeled) and since they all have similar boxes, it seemed I had some treasure hunting to do. I quickly figured out which group of boxes were speeders based on the size of the box and the price (and of course the end of the boxes had the item name and some bullet points about the item but you had to pick those up and read them to get that info); after a couple of minutes my grandkids were bored and went with their parents to the Lego store. I found the area that had mid-sized legacy steam engines and by reading the Lionel part number on the side of the box and looking it up on my phone I was finally able to find the engine I wanted. So it took about twenty minutes to find the three items that were on my list and I had to do it by picking up a box, reading the part number and looking it up on my phone. If only the boxes had a photo of the item or if the display had photos or even if the displays said something like “items here are lionchief diesel” and the like it would have been a better shopping experience. Or even some sort of electronic catalog to help find things.
I got lucky with the speeders and found them quickly but the engine took longer. The section of the store where it ended up being was just in front of the checkout where there were three employees behind the counter. I figured with me picking up boxes, reading them, looking it up on my phone and moving to the next box right in front of them that someone might offer to help but no one did (even though they weren’t helping other customers or checking anyone out). I don’t know if they could have made the process any faster but it would have been nice to have been acknowledged.
Good news was each item I bought was $20-40 cheaper than the website price which was a nice surprise. It would have been nice to have been able to see some of the other engines “in person” for a visual and if I had an opportunity to see a different engine I may have seen something l liked better but I’m happy with my purchase.
So overall, I would give the store high marks on selection (at least quantity) and it was nice to have a slight reduction in price to offset the sales tax. But I would give it a huge minus in “fun to shop” since it’s basically just a bunch of orange boxes you have to wade through to get what you want. Not a very browsable experience for the most part. I think if they labeled the different areas to clue in what the boxes contain and maybe augment with some photos that would help a lot (it would be great if Lionel would switch to window boxes for their locomotives but I could see where they would be hesitant to do so). Hopefully I caught the staff on a bad day and they are usually more helpful. Granted I didn’t ask for help but again none was offered. Overall I would say this store is a good place to take someone who might be interested in trains and you can be their guide. It’s not such a great place, unfortunately, to come in cold and learn anything about the products or the hobby it seems. Anyway, that was my impression. Your mileage may vary.
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