Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought the whole point of a pre-order was to gauge consumer interest and then update production to match or slightly exceed that amount. Is there any benefit to the manufacturer or retailer beyond this? If I sell a product coming in October today versus just selling it in October, what is the benefit beyond holding onto your money for a few extra months (which honestly is not worth the amount of added costs they probably have in setting up and facilitating the pre-order). What am I not understanding?
Given the short windows on the Star Wars online preorders, I have never assumed these were a "gauging interest and building a factory order" situation so much as a "coordinating online availability with online reveals before Yakface can spoil them" deal. But it is really getting out of hand, with unrevealed figures sold out, presells for next March sold out,
The Bad Batch pack is getting a rerun after insane preales, and I would imagine that rerun will get presold too. The TVC Jabba's Palace set got a second run back in 2019 too after everything sold through on initial release. That led to overstock and clearance.
The only Hasbro products that are presells in the real sense are HasLab campaigns. The rest are marketing schemes that are grinding the fun out of the hobby for many.