America’s biggest retailers are stocking up on hoverboards as fires, falls and rising restrictions fail to dent their popularity.
Walmart and Toys ‘R’ Us, both of which sell the devices online, are adding the two-wheeled, self-balancing scooters to their physical stores as soon as April as distributors and manufacturers ramp up production. During the holiday shopping season, the majority of hoverboards were sold online.
“It’s a very exciting trend,” said a spokeswoman for Toys ‘R’ Us, which is selling only a hoverboard by Razor called the Hovertrax for $600. Addressing safety concerns, she said, “Razor is a reputable company and one we work with often.”
Retailers are turning to name brands after authorities blamed bad lithium-ion batteries from shoddy manufacturers in China. In January, the Consumer Product Safety Commission launched an investigation of companies that make or sell hoverboards.
Walmart said the company has had discussions with its suppliers to “make sure that the batteries are up to industry standards.”
Stores are jumping on hoverboards — easily one of their biggest-ticket items — even as lawmakers and others try to get ahead of the new technology.
Last week, New Jersey Transit became the latest to ban hoverboards, following Amtrak, the New York subway and most major airlines. Scores of colleges have also restricted their use because of concerns about spills and collisions.
Toys ‘R’ Us plans to sell Hovertrax in its stores in New York City, which has banned hoverboards.
Whether they become as ubiquitous as skateboards remains to be seen, but the next iteration will sport bells and whistles like Bluetooth speakers “to provide music and sound effects for riders,” said Noah Bremen, president of Bdirect Inc., a sales and marketing company that is working with a hoverboard maker, DGL of New Jersey. DGL makes a ROAM hoverboard that’s sold by Bed Bath & Beyond for $500.
Some retailers are not ready — at least to say publicly — that they are stocking up on the scooters. A spokesman for Target, which sells the Razor Hovertrax and another product called Swagway online, declined to say whether it would sell them in its stores. Target pulled both brands from its website for one day on Dec. 14 after a lawsuit was filed against Swagway and Modell’s Sporting Goods, alleging that they didn’t warn customers that Swagways could catch fire.
“We paused the product on Target.com for that day while we worked with vendors to confirm that we had all of the proper product documentation,” the spokesman said.
Razor, for its part, is trying to position itself as the only legitimate supplier of hoverboards, having acquired a license from the patent holder, Shane Chen, for a “self balancing two-wheeled vehicle.”
Razor said it is actively protecting its patent and attributes hoverboards’ bad rap to disreputable makers that are selling cheap models — some for as little as $200 — and to consumers who might not be using the devices properly. In January, it published a new user safety guide.
“When anything new comes out and it’s a hot item, there is always hysteria surrounding it,” said Katherine Mahoney, vice president of marketing for Razor USA.