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Why did Lowe’s stores feature an empty box with a picture of a CNC machine equipped with a Kobalt router?
I didn’t understand.
I visited Lowe’s stores a couple of times over the winter holiday shopping season, to see if there were any new tool promos, and came across this unusual Kobalt tools display.
Lowe’s stores were advertising Kobalt oscillating multi-tool blades and a Kobalt compact woodworking router, and there was a large empty box with a picture of a gantry-style CNC router.
I snapped some pics as a reminder to look into it, and moved on.
As it turns out, the router comes with an ER11 collet that makes it “ready for CNC makers using end mills.”
It’s a moot point now, I guess, as Lowe’s slashed the price by 40% and marked the router “unavailable for purchase online.”
There was no press release.
There was no launch video.
Lowe’s and Kobalt didn’t even talk about this in a social media post.
There was no explanation in stores, just an empty box with a CNC router on it next to a couple of promo trim routers.
It was a “limited time buy” at $100. Now it’s $60 and seemingly no longer available.
I guess they’re only interested in drawing attention to things like their Metaverse and NFT project.
This was a good idea, but it suffered from having seemingly zero follow through. Lowe’s and Kobalt tried something new, but it was a swing and a stop.
