Author Topic: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe  (Read 121997 times)

Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #270 on: May 1, 2010, 08:15 PM »
What's shameful about all this is the way TRU has handled the whole release.  Seems like everyone and their sister has known 5/1 was the release date, but you have to go through a dozen TRU employees to find one who knew about it.  There was also supposed to be a dedicated endcap for the EU wave, which I'm sure was part of Hasbro's agreement.  But I only know of one store that bothered to put up a display. 

While of course I can't speak for the display you saw, like I said in an earlier post, the endcap was only to feature 25% of the pegs dedicated to the Legacy collection. 50% of the pegs were to be dedicated to Clone Wars and the remaining 25% dedicated to Legends.

The one store I hit this morning didn't bother with an endcap and I can understand why - they dedicate almost an entire aisle to Star Wars so for them to dedicate any more space to Star Wars would probably be silly. So I really don't have a problem if the store really didn't know about the endcap or about the 5/1 street date - afterall the place I scored today was the same place I had already scored a set from last week, so they clearly didn't care about the sticker on the box.

One of the things I did do today was take advantage of the BOGO and buy two more Rebel Pilots Evolution sets. I took the Dorovio Bold figure and swapped heads with one of the Jaina Solo figures I picked up today - the heads swap perfectly and now I have a Jaina in Pilot Gear figure to add to my EU collection.

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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #271 on: May 2, 2010, 01:00 AM »
I don't blame the people who missed out so far being upset at all.  I don't know that it's really something that I attribute to TRU employees too much though, or the company in general.  Did they advertise that these figures would be available? I don't believe they did.  We were all just hoping that they would.  I blame Hasbro for their mismanagement of Legacy for the past year or so - not the retailers.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #272 on: May 2, 2010, 02:09 AM »
Hasbro definitely let people know that this wave was going to be scarce.  And that was pretty much the case in the stores this morning.  I saw a good number of collectors in TRU stores this morning, because they were looking for the same thing I was.  I managed to score the whole EU wave, but it took visits to 4 different TRU to get everything in the wave.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #273 on: May 2, 2010, 02:15 AM »
The one store I hit this morning didn't bother with an endcap and I can understand why - they dedicate almost an entire aisle to Star Wars so for them to dedicate any more space to Star Wars would probably be silly.

The problem there is that manufacturers pay for display space.  If Hasbro paid big bucks to TRU for a display and didn't get it, then TRU is cheating them out of their money and not doing the SW aisle any good either.  Doesn't really matter to me if the display has exclusives or not - the point of a display is to catch the eye of someone who might not normally be hunting in the SW aisle.

I don't blame the people who missed out so far being upset at all.  I don't know that it's really something that I attribute to TRU employees too much though, or the company in general.  Did they advertise that these figures would be available? I don't believe they did.  We were all just hoping that they would.  I blame Hasbro for their mismanagement of Legacy for the past year or so - not the retailers.

That's true, I don't think they advertised the release.  Just seems like a lot of people knew about it.  I don't run a retail chain or manage a store either.  All I'm saying here is that if I did run a toy store and one of the hottest lines has an exclusive coming to my store - one that I'm supposed to put up a display for in fact - then I might do my best to inform my sales people, get the display up, and do a quick check to make sure the sale pricing is accurate.  Pretty hard to blame Hasbro for any of that IMHO.
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #274 on: May 2, 2010, 02:40 AM »
Most stores in the Pittsburgh area didn't even have anything to stock, much less the EU wave, so it was a bust for me.  A buddy hit 2 stores north of me and saw nothing, I hit the nearer of the stores I visit and they also had nothing, and checked and had no cases in stock.  Only a couple stores in the entire area actually even had the EU wave to put  on the pegs.

I got a FU set as a 2nd set, and was pretty pleased with that though.  I have this wave on pre-order, but I was hoping to nab an extra wave or just a couple from it.  Met another collector in the area though, and that's always nice.  We were the only two there.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #275 on: May 2, 2010, 07:32 AM »
Ok, few more comments on the whole endcap thing...

In the picture I saw from the color instruction sheet that was sent to the stores, the ten CW pegs were represented by a photo of the carded Ponds figure.

The Legends figures were represented by five pictures of the carded ROTS clone.

The last row of pegs - the ones for Legacy were represented by the loose photo of Sgt. Edian.

The spot for the Force Unleashed packs was a nebulous gray box.

So while I agree that there is a chance that Hasbro paid some money for the endcap to be displayed/set-up, if they did, they dropped the ball when it came down to the stores actually giving them their money's worth.

1) They still have store reps, they should have sent them to the store to educate

2) The instruction photo for setting up the endcap should have been more accurate and helped to hype the EU exclusive wave

That would just be good business sense. So the conclusions you could draw from that are:

1) Neither company (Hasbro or TRU) cares or has any good business sense

2) Hasbro didn't have anything to do with the endcap idea - they merely put that sticker on the boxes at the request of TRU

3) The endcap was optional based on store stock and the amount of space already dedicated to Star Wars

4) All of the above.

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Offline Dressel Rebel

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #276 on: May 2, 2010, 07:45 AM »
I just realized EE has this case up for preorder with a June delivery for $99.99

Thanks anyhow TRU!  I'll have mine delivered to my door and skip all the usual bull**** at your store.


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Offline jedi_master_sal

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #277 on: May 2, 2010, 08:20 AM »
...

That would just be good business sense. So the conclusions you could draw from that are:

3) The endcap was optional based on store stock and the amount of space already dedicated to Star Wars

Were there truly a plan to have an endcap, I'd say this is the most reasonable option.

I only went to one and they did not have the endcap. IN fact they had no TFU stock on the pegs, be that the wave or packs. Granted though, I did get two sets of the packs and a complete wave from this store just a day before. So maybe I depleted their stock?

Man, if that's the case, that's pretty sad. I thought Hasbro makes a minimum of 50K of each figure to justify the cost of tooling, R&D and of course to make a profit. So if TRU's are only getting one or maybe two cases of this wave, then indeed Hasbro has cut way back on the production numbers.

I just know to buy them when I see them, regardless of sale or not.
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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #278 on: May 2, 2010, 09:43 AM »
At least the $5 figure offer is in play until July, so we can still get this wave inexpensively at TRU over the next month or so. I just need a few more spacetroopers and I'm done.
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Offline Captain Piet

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #279 on: May 2, 2010, 12:15 PM »
At the store I started at, endcap meant that the two EU cases they had were sitting in the box on the shelf of the endcap.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #280 on: May 2, 2010, 12:45 PM »
Ok, few more comments on the whole endcap thing...

I actually have a lot of experience in category management at retail stores, so wanted to shed some light on a few of these comments.

#1 - While some retailers offer displays at no charge, the vast majority of them are paid for.  In this case, it was likely part of the deal to carry the exclusives (either a fixed cost reduction or lower price per case on Hasbro's behalf in exchange for display space).  For action figures, it would rarely have consisted of just the exclusive figures - this is a kick back to Hasbro of sorts to help them sell other SW as well as the new stuff. 

#2 - I have never heard of an "optional" display endcap.  That's like saying someone will give you $100,000 for a car and you can just decide later if you want to give it to them or not.  There are varying levels of compliance by store, but they are not optional and stores can be fined by manufacturers for not putting them up if they are caught.  If there was a sticker on the box indicating a display, it wasn't just by chance or a "suggestion" from Hasbro. 

#3 - The "color instruction sheet" you referred to is called a planogram.  These are built from software that can manage all of the product dimensions and determine how much space is available (HXWXD) and number of products that will fit each slot. 

#4 - A category management team is responsible for submitting pictures for retailers, but they are frequently out of date.  The shelf plan is worked on and finalized months before it is set, so manufacturers rarely have time to put the most current product into the photo.  In many cases there is just a generic box that holds the information of the product.  There are product names and product codes to tell sales people what product goes where - they don't just go by the pictures.  They're actually incredibly simple to follow.  I don't see any indicationthat Hasbro dropped the ball on this.

#5 - The endcap was obviously meant to be comprised of lots of different Star Wars items, not just the TRU exclusives.  Not having the items in stock is not an excuse - they can still build an endcap for the product they have available.  Retailers do have the flexibility to alter the planogram if/when items sell out, so they could easily have expanded the Legends or CW pegs if needed.  Better to offer Hasbro a display of old product than no display at all.

#6 - Store reps are responsible for dozens of stores - sometimes hundreds.  If Hasbro has to pay someone time x gas to go check the display in every store, then you better expect to start paying a lot more for figures. That cost goes up exponentially if you're thinking the Hasbro reps should be the ones building the displays.

I watch things like sunday ad features and displays pretty closely because I deal with merchandising support at my work all the time.  From everything I've seen and read, this was a giant cluster on TRU's behalf.  When Target puts up a display, I have seen pallets readied the evening before and a team of 3-4 people builds it as soon as the store closes.  I sure wouldn't spend my merchandising dollars on TRU support after something like this.
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Offline Captain Piet

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #281 on: May 2, 2010, 01:02 PM »
Hey, TRU is far more at fault here, but I truly believe Hasbro has mismanaged this brand. Then it turns around and blames us.
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Offline Jabba the Slug

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #282 on: May 2, 2010, 01:52 PM »
IMHO, this is just another jab in the back to tell us that street dates NEVER work. Honestly, when was the last time every store in the U.S. has taken a  street date seriously? To most Toys R Us stores, what we consider collector's items - the figures themselves - are seen only as toys, which they are. But there are other solutions besides Toys R Us: EE, HasbroShop.com... etc. Ordering online saves a great deal of frustration, but it's also not like the exciting feeling when you walk into a store and find that figure you've been hunting down for the longest time.
« Last Edit: May 2, 2010, 01:52 PM by Jabba the Slug »
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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #283 on: May 3, 2010, 01:40 PM »
Well...

I opened all my EU figs and want just wanted to let the universe know that I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the over all wave. My only disappointment in all 8 figures (including the BAD and Alien BWG) is the lack of articulation on the Spacetrooper arm guns. Other than that, well done.
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Offline JACKOFTRADZE

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Re: Legacy Wave 13 - Expanded Universe
« Reply #284 on: May 3, 2010, 02:06 PM »
I talked to a very helpful TRU employee that is expecting 5k more figures. So this wave may show up in heavier numbers soon. Also the $5 sale goes until July so the price is still right. Here is hoping!
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