Move over BB guns and video games. Christmas morning may have a new menace.
Sam’s Club is betting drones will be a popular holiday gift this year and plans to stock about a dozen kinds — from $100 models to a $4,000 version with high-resolution cameras or the ability to pick up small objects, said Dawn vonBechmann, senior vice president of technology, entertainment and office products for Sam’s Club, a wholesaler owned by Walmart Stores Inc.
The move comes as drones are capturing attention at a time when little else in the battered consumer electronics market is clicking at the register. Sam’s started thinking about expanding its drone line after noticing that a $1,169 model with a digital camera was selling “like crazy” online, vonBechmann said.
Sam’s surveyed customers this year and found about half bought the pricey drone for professional reasons, such as real-estate agents taking bird’s-eye-view pictures of their high-end properties. The rest are buying it for fun, vonBechmann said.
