JediDefender.com Forums
Collectibles => Past Hasbro 3.75" Lines => The Black Series 3.75" => Topic started by: Jeff on September 4, 2015, 12:35 AM
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From Hasbro -
This fall, Walmart is the home for STAR WARS collectors and the exclusive home of the fan-favorite STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3.75-inch action figure line. A limited number of the first wave of the new line will be available in Walmart stores, and the second wave, featuring brand-new figures from STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS and a brand-new PRINCESS LEIA figure, will be available for online pre-order!
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Will the stores actually stock them. Nice "limited" disclaimer.
Still not convinced SA still has a real future, just a prolonged death. Talk of TRU getting the Vintage collection with clam shells. So at least $15 figures, probably.
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I've been doing 90% of my collecting online for years now, so whatever. As long as anything that's actually new stuff is available I'm not worried about it.
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Yeah, I sort of feel like it is just putting off the eventual end, but very nice to see it continue. I wonder if the first repackage wave was just to get things going or if we will see that more often? I honestly would have liked to see Target or TRU get this instead, our local WM is abysmal with exclusives and Star Wars in general. Sounds like we are getting a couple (Kylo Ren, Stormie) in the next round but that will be a slow trickle to catch up on the new characters. That said, I'm in on the new ones,hopefully they will have them steadily available online.
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Here is the full press release from Hasbro & Walmart...
WALMART IS ANNOUNCED AS THE NEW EXCLUSIVE U.S. HOME OF HASBRO’S STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-INCH FIGURES
The Collector-Favorite Line Will Feature Figures From the Saga Films and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, Beginning on September 4
BENTONVILLE, AR, Sep. 4, 2015 – Walmart and Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) announced today that the retail giant will be the exclusive home of the fan-favorite STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch toy line in the U.S.
Starting on “Force Friday,” September 4, Walmart.com will begin selling the first wave and taking pre-orders on the second wave of the highly collectible toy line. Customers will find the product in stores beginning in October, making Walmart the only destination in the U.S. for fans looking for highly detailed, highly articulated 3 3/4-inch figures based on the upcoming film STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.
First launched in 2013, STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line quickly became a fan-favorite line, in the tradition of earlier Hasbro toy lines like the STAR WARS VINTAGE collection. As the new exclusive US home to the STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line, Walmart is proud to become the go-to destination for STAR WARS fans looking for the finest Hasbro toys available.
“Walmart is very excited to be the exclusive home of the Star Wars Black Series 3 ¾ inch figures,” said Anne Marie Kehoe, vice president of toys at Walmart. “This is just the beginning - fans, customers and collectors can expect Walmart and Walmart.com to be the place to find the newest characters and figures as they are released.”
“We’re thrilled that Walmart will be the new home for fans’ beloved STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch toy line,” said Maureen Smith, senior vice president of brand marketing for Hasbro. “With the support of a world-class retailer like Walmart, we can ensure that collectors continue to get new, highly detailed and articulated 3 3/4-inch STAR WARS action figures for years to come.”
The first wave of the new STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line is currently available for purchase on Walmart.com and features EPISODE VI DARTH VADER, EPISODE VI LUKE SKYWALKER, and EPISODE IV CHEWBACCA. The second wave, featuring a brand new EPISODE IV PRINCESS LEIA figure and the first two figures based on STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER and KYLO REN), are available to pre-order now on Walmart.com. Both waves will be available in stores in the next few months. Additional 3 ¾-inch figures will be coming later in 2015.
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WM sucks. I really hope it is true that you can order these online because the local stores are wastelands. I'd rather see this as a K-Mart exclusive over a WM exclusive...
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I really hope it is true that you can order these online because the local stores are wastelands.
Wave 1 (all repacks) went up for pre-order last night (http://www.jedidefender.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=24042.0), Wave 2 should be up in a few weeks (or sooner).
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Despite the fact that these are all repacks, kind of digging the packaging. Very old school Japanese.
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Yeah, it's an interesting choice to make them look like mini version of the 6".
You would think going "boxed" on them will cost them the carded collectors, but maybe that's not a big deal since carded collectors aren't so prevalent anymore?
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Here's a question I've been pondering. Will there be black series vehicles? Wouldn't mind a proper sized X-Wing and TIE fighter.
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Here's a question I've been pondering. Will there be black series vehicles? Wouldn't mind a proper sized X-Wing and TIE fighter.
I bet if the line sells well, there will be.
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The Kylo Ren/First Order Stormtrooper/ANH Princess Leia figure links no longer appear to be valid - maybe it wasn't intended to be up or was resulting in too many phone calls about the items.
Hopefully it doesn't mean that sales on the first wave haven't been "brisk" enough to warrant a 2nd wave.
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Got my wave 1 order in the mail on Friday. The stickers on the back of the box peeled off well - there was just a small bit of adhesive on the corner where I started to pull the sticker off. I did try using a paper towel that I had sprayed some goof off onto and gently rubbed that spot on one of the three figures and I noticed that the paper towel had started to "turn" black - clearly I was rubbing some aspect of the packaging's coloring off by trying to remove the adhesive residue with goof off, so I stopped. Didn't seem to "ruin" the packaging, but I wasn't going to risk it.
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I read a few unconfirmed rumors this line may be nixed after wave 3. Walmart had also removed the links listed on bantha skull for any figures after wave three too.
I really hope this is not the case. I would like to see Phasma, Han, Leia and a few more troopers in SA form. If this is true I hope it's to make way for a new SA line that is non exclusive and universally carried at retail.
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Walmart probably removed those links at the request of Lucasfilm or Disney in an attempt to control the flow of information about the movie that could be some sort of spoiler.
As for the future of this line? It appears to be selling through at a steady pace. The reissue figures take a bit longer to sell through, but those have sold as well. If anything, I suspect that the increased sales volume for all things Star Wars might mean that the Black Series 3.75" figure line may shift from an exclusive offering to a general release segment of the Hasbro Star Wars line.
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I'd love it if they could find a way to send this line somewhere other than Wal-Mart... hell, give it to Entertainment Earth, or make them HTS exclusives.
Something I can order online is all I ask for...
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I'd love it if they could find a way to send this line somewhere other than Wal-Mart... hell, give it to Entertainment Earth, or make them HTS exclusives.
Something I can order online is all I ask for...
Can't disagree with a word of this statement.
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The lack of any online availability is a real kick in the pants. Especially since these WalMart exclusive Black Series figures seem to be getting made in some quantity and they're pretty good figures. Even though WalMart has over 4000 stores in the U.S. alone, not everyone lives close to one of them.
I get the concept behind exclusives: they're designed with the intention of getting people to walk into the store repeatedly. That increased foot traffic leads to sales of other unrelated items, etc. In this case, though, it's odd. Because all of these figures were listed on the WalMart website at some point in time. But the new figure offerings were never put up for sale, only the first wave which was all reissues. I blame WalMart.
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Fault equally lies with Hasbro and their case pack ratios. I'm still convinced that there is no coincidence between a wave that consisted of an even breakdown of each figure in the case was offered online, yet all subsequent waves which do not feature a similar even breakdowns have not.
Walmart.com sells thousands of products - even case pack ratio allows inventory control to say "we're getting 1000 cases and there are 4 Luke Skywalkers in the case therefore put that item on the site up with an available quantity of 4000".
Variations in case pack ratio prevent that sort of simplification.
There was no reason for wave 1 to be all repacks/rereleases, they should have limited these waves to 2 new figures/1 rerelease and evenly packed them at 4x per case. With 1/3 of the case using pre-existing molds that should have kept the cost per wave down.
I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be to get the 4th wave of these things with the 3.75" SA Captain Phasma packed at 2x or 1x per case.
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There was no reason for wave 1 to be all repacks/rereleases, they should have limited these waves to 2 new figures/1 rerelease and evenly packed them at 4x per case. With 1/3 of the case using pre-existing molds that should have kept the cost per wave down.
Yes, there was a reason. SALES.
Hasbro has notoriously double dipped with character offerings in the action figure line during movie years. I distinctly remember seeing this in 1999, 2002 and 2005 where a crap version of Obi-Wan, or Qui-Gon or Anakin would be in the initial offerings, and 3 or 6 months down the line a much better version would be offered. So the onus is on us as collectors who remember what has come before to recognize this pattern.
Wave 2 of The Black Series offered up the SA renditions of Kylo Ren and the First Order Stormtrooper. When did those start showing up, November? That's a considerable amount of time since Force Friday back in September. And what were among the hottest figures in the TFA 5 POA line? Why, Kylo Ren and the First Order Stormtrooper! They don't announce it that way because then consumers might wise up to the scheme. I kind of saw this coming and vowed to NOT buy the 5 POA versions of Kylo Ren, the Stormtrooper, Finn, Poe and Rey. But that collecting/buying impulse is strong, and even though I knew things would play out like this I bought the 5 POA versions of these characters before I was able to get a hold of the WalMart SA versions. But had the WalMart Black Series new offering been out in October? Then I probably could have held out.
As for the first wave of reissues? Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Luke are evergreen core characters. They continue to sell through, albeit at a slower pace than the new characters. Vader is the face of the franchise. Luke proved to be the McGuffin of the new movie and had an all new allure as a character since everyone has been asking the JJ Abrams inspired question, "Where is Luke Skywalker?" And Chewbacca is in THE FORCE AWAKENS, so there was a tie-in for him to sell. Another reason for this first wave? It was a placeholder. It was supposed to secure pegspace in the WalMart planogram for this line until the new figures could be offered. But it seems likely that Hasbro and WalMart wanted the general line in place for at least 6 weeks following Force Friday before they launched the second wave so that they wouldn't hurt sales of the 5 POA versions of Kylo Ren and the FO Stormtrooper.
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Yeah I'm with Nick on this... I remember all the incessant bitching on those Wave 1 figures, and I said at the time to just wait and see... And here, Wave 1 sold out, twice, by the movie's release. Wave 1 carry overs and the Han are all also selling. They weren't a hindrance at all... Hell, all it took was the movie releasing to blow out all the Chewbaccas my nearest WM had, and it had a lot (this particular store got in a TON of Wave 1, twice).
Case packs... Can be argued all day long as to the why's, and Hasbro has said it's getting increasingly difficult to do 3.75" SA for a justifiable price... I don't have much reason to disbelieve this, personally, but whatever.
I think it's kinda ****** of WM to not offer them online. Exclusives are a pain, we all agree there. WM surely isn't handling any of theirs with much skill it seems. Look at the BF Trooper for instance. The X-Wing too. Bad place for these to land, but not many others would've handled it well either.
And if Amazon got them we'd have unending bitching/"news" about them being damaged in shipping, if TRU got them we'd have unending bitching/"news" about the price or stock boys "scalping" them... Target it'd be price and people bitching about the DPCI trick selling out of all the good stuff, and blah blah blah...
I have seen all of them now in person (still don't have some of wv3 though for myself) and I have to say, I just hope there's still TFA SA 3.75" figures to buy because that's all I want and get truly excited about to collect that has Star Wars slapped on it.
I'm not happy I can't walk into a store and find these, or order them online and avoid hassle too though. Ideally WM would put these up for pre-order, but they're not a collectible shop. And EE doesn't potentially have the buying power to support a continuing assortment of exclusive action figures like we want. Consider these designer toy lines out there, which put out limited stuff over long periods of time, and for considerable price. $14-ish sucks as it is to most people, so just imagine the same toy for $20. :-X
But hey, this is an old argument at this point. I just hope I get more stuff. :)
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I hear people on wanting to order these online, but that's not why Walmart signed up for an exclusive. They want you go into the store to buy these and hopefully buy something else. That's one of the big draws of having an exclusive.
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There was rumor, at one time iirc, that these were specifically to be put up for pre-order... But with WM, I doubt that was ever much more than a rumor without much truth to it.
And to be fair to WM, they're getting out. They're just selling fast.
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I hear people on wanting to order these online, but that's not why Walmart signed up for an exclusive.
There was rumor, at one time iirc, that these were specifically to be put up for pre-order... But with WM, I doubt that was ever much more than a rumor without much truth to it.
It wasn't a rumor, it was in the Walmart/Hasbro press release - "fans, customers and collectors can expect Walmart and Walmart.com" to carry the figures
That's why people are so annoyed - the press release makes it sound like the waves would be put up for pre-order on Walmart.com and that never happened for Wave 2 (or Wave 3, but the press release never talks about Wave 3 technically).
Here was the press release again...
Here is the full press release from Hasbro & Walmart...
WALMART IS ANNOUNCED AS THE NEW EXCLUSIVE U.S. HOME OF HASBRO’S STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-INCH FIGURES
The Collector-Favorite Line Will Feature Figures From the Saga Films and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, Beginning on September 4
BENTONVILLE, AR, Sep. 4, 2015 – Walmart and Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) announced today that the retail giant will be the exclusive home of the fan-favorite STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch toy line in the U.S.
Starting on “Force Friday,” September 4, Walmart.com will begin selling the first wave and taking pre-orders on the second wave of the highly collectible toy line. Customers will find the product in stores beginning in October, making Walmart the only destination in the U.S. for fans looking for highly detailed, highly articulated 3 3/4-inch figures based on the upcoming film STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.
First launched in 2013, STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line quickly became a fan-favorite line, in the tradition of earlier Hasbro toy lines like the STAR WARS VINTAGE collection. As the new exclusive US home to the STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line, Walmart is proud to become the go-to destination for STAR WARS fans looking for the finest Hasbro toys available.
“Walmart is very excited to be the exclusive home of the Star Wars Black Series 3 ¾ inch figures,” said Anne Marie Kehoe, vice president of toys at Walmart. “This is just the beginning - fans, customers and collectors can expect Walmart and Walmart.com to be the place to find the newest characters and figures as they are released.”
“We’re thrilled that Walmart will be the new home for fans’ beloved STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch toy line,” said Maureen Smith, senior vice president of brand marketing for Hasbro. “With the support of a world-class retailer like Walmart, we can ensure that collectors continue to get new, highly detailed and articulated 3 3/4-inch STAR WARS action figures for years to come.”
The first wave of the new STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES 3 3/4-inch line is currently available for purchase on Walmart.com and features EPISODE VI DARTH VADER, EPISODE VI LUKE SKYWALKER, and EPISODE IV CHEWBACCA. The second wave, featuring a brand new EPISODE IV PRINCESS LEIA figure and the first two figures based on STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER and KYLO REN), are available to pre-order now on Walmart.com. Both waves will be available in stores in the next few months. Additional 3 ¾-inch figures will be coming later in 2015.
The press release pretty clearly says "are available to pre-order now on Walmart.com" but that wasn't the case. There were Walmart.com placeholders for the figures (some of which have since been deleted), but they never went "live" for orders until ToyWiz started selling the Wave 2 figures for ridiculous prices as a Walmart.com secondary seller.
So yeah, I can see why people are upset Walmart.com isn't the option they thought it would be...
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Clearly "saying" and "doing" are two very different things at Walmart. ;)
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Yeah. Sounds like it was something that was planned, but didn't happen then. I couldn't quite recall where that said that, but knew I'd read it somewhere, at some point.
I had Wave 1 out on Force Friday here, and they sold oddly well, but then another shipment hit and sorta sold steadily but then hit a stagnant point and then blew out on the weekend TFA released ultimately. They got TONS of both shipments of wave 1 in too. I don't recall those ever being available online either were they? Nobody was really looking for them though either so maybe they were and just nobody cared? I watched the wave 2/3 like a hawk online just incase, but yeah.
Oh well... They're out anyway. Could be worse, in that there could be no SA figures for the line at all I suppose. I can't think of anything besides Amazon that would've gotten them out "easily" though. :( And who knows what they'd have cost I guess.
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I had Wave 1 out on Force Friday here, and they sold oddly well, but then another shipment hit and sorta sold steadily but then hit a stagnant point and then blew out on the weekend TFA released ultimately. They got TONS of both shipments of wave 1 in too. I don't recall those ever being available online either were they? Nobody was really looking for them though either so maybe they were and just nobody cared? I watched the wave 2/3 like a hawk online just incase, but yeah.
Yes, Wave 1 was available for ordering online and when my local WalMarts were completely void of them, I ordered a single set from the website just to cover my MIB/MOC/MIP collection. We didn't get them in stores until late Sept/early Oct in my area - and Wave 1 did hit in much greater quantity than Waves 2 or (so far) Wave 3.
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I hear people on wanting to order these online, but that's not why Walmart signed up for an exclusive. They want you go into the store to buy these and hopefully buy something else. That's one of the big draws of having an exclusive.
That's all fine and dandy, but I live in the middle of Chicago and it takes me 30-40 minutes on a good day to get to the nearest Walmart. Then it's another 30-40 minutes to get back home. So it's not happening for me or any of my neighbors unless they're gluttons for sitting in nightmarish traffic.
I'm not making that trip for hit or miss product availability and like Jeff said, they initially advertised it as being available online. It's 2016, nearly everything is available online, and as much as the goal could be to get people into the store, getting them to the website works in much the same way.
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Maybe it still will be? Just not anytime soon it seems.
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I think Walmart was always far more interested in getting that collector foot traffic into the stores, rather than making this exclusive subline easy to acquire online. I know that I made plenty of trips to Walmart without being successful getting any Black Series 3.75" figures of the 6" Battlefront Shocktrooper. Those trips numbered at least 10 to 1 in terms of number of trips to the number of times that I was able to get the figures. WalMart is playing those odds that in those trips where you don't find the exclusive you may buy something else. And it does happen.
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An interesting discussion about wanting to get foot traffic in the store, but the exclusives just don't work well out my way in SoCal. Here are two examples:
1) We never got wave 2 and the only reason I got wave 3 was because the Hasbro rep at my closest store found two cases sitting on a shelf in back that was not designated for stocking.
2) Monday took my out of my usual area and I stopped in a Walmart in Redondo Beach to check it out. The SW section was gone! They reset with one peg for SW. It was labeled Rebel Assist, had the two newer rebel figures on the peg (TFA packaging,) AND it was in the middle of the die cast section. ??? I asked the toy person with the scanner in the action figure isle where the SW section was and she said, predictably, that they weren't carrying SW anymore. Now, you and I have heard this every year from WM since 1996. It's never true. This does't happen ever at Target.
WM is such a bad choice for exclusives for SW. At least where I live.
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Just an FYI that I moved the "I hate the fact that Walmart is carrying these" / "I hate the fact that Walmart.com is not carrying these" discussion over here to clean up the Wave 3 thread a bit. Feel free to continue bagging on Walmart here as needed. ;)
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My point was that Walmart (or any other retailer) isn't signing up for these exclusives just to sell the items themselves. They could care less about you and your ability to easily get these through a nearby store or online. The strategy is to to use these sales to drive traffic (online or in store) in the hopes that shoppers scoop up a bunch of other stuff in addition to the exclusive figure. I think that's far more likely to happen via in-store purchase than online, so there's plenty of rationale for not putting them on the website from their end.
I feel for people that can't easily get to a WM and are frustrated that they're not available online, especially after WM stated they would be. But people also need to realize that retailers don't care about making sure you get your figure for your collection. Walmart can't seem to keep even the repacks on the pegs, so the smarter decision is to make sure stores have ample supply before making them available online.
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I can't honestly think of any retailer that wouldn't garner some kind of complaining.
I love EE, but seriously they're going to charge more and that's going to raise dander. Or they'll be highly limited. Or they'll force you to buy by the case including repacks.
Amazon... They'll put stickers on the boxes and people will bitch. Or they'll charge too much. Or they'll charge too much then drop the price and people will bitch they did that then.
Target... DPCI trick will get used, stores get cleared out, individual UPC's won't be used and people will bitch there's held up replenishment because of the DPCI, blah blah blah.
TRU... Price, availability, stockroom scalpers, whatever...
The point I am making here, is nobody would do this perfectly and Hasbro Toy Shop is NEVER an option. If it were Hasbro would've used it by now I'm afraid. They don't. I'm sure they have a good reason for that.
Hasbro heard NOTHING but complaining that there was only 5POA. Then they put out a SA 3.75" line for collectors, but it is exclusive for a variety of reasons. They then hear about how that's stupid and blah blah blah...
There is no "win" here. The only "win" is that there's some SA main characters for the 3.75" line, and that makes me happy as a guy who isn't into 5POA and really only wanted SA or near SA with the line.
I got Poe out last night, and opened him, and he was a blast. I had fun posing him, and loosening up his joints carefully, and getting him all cool looking and hanging out with some X-Wing pilots... I had fun.
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I think Walmart was always far more interested in getting that collector foot traffic into the stores, rather than making this exclusive subline easy to acquire online. I know that I made plenty of trips to Walmart without being successful getting any Black Series 3.75" figures of the 6" Battlefront Shocktrooper. Those trips numbered at least 10 to 1 in terms of number of trips to the number of times that I was able to get the figures. WalMart is playing those odds that in those trips where you don't find the exclusive you may buy something else. And it does happen.
Well that's great for some, but ten trips to Walmart for me is like fifteen hours in the car. Not happening... The fact that they don't put them online after saying that they will makes me less likely to favorably consider Walmart for other things at times when I'm maybe in an area that has a store.
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And that's the crossroads of collecting... It's either worth it or it isn't ultimately.
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Well that's great for some, but ten trips to Walmart for me is like fifteen hours in the car. Not happening... The fact that they don't put them online after saying that they will makes me less likely to favorably consider Walmart for other things at times when I'm maybe in an area that has a store.
So you're not going to make any trips to Walmart to look for these because they're so far away. But those rare times when you are near a Walmart and might need something else they carry and may have stopped in, well now you may be less likely to do so. I feel like they're going to be okay with that.
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I think Walmart was always far more interested in getting that collector foot traffic into the stores, rather than making this exclusive subline easy to acquire online. I know that I made plenty of trips to Walmart without being successful getting any Black Series 3.75" figures of the 6" Battlefront Shocktrooper. Those trips numbered at least 10 to 1 in terms of number of trips to the number of times that I was able to get the figures. WalMart is playing those odds that in those trips where you don't find the exclusive you may buy something else. And it does happen.
Well that's great for some, but ten trips to Walmart for me is like fifteen hours in the car. Not happening... The fact that they don't put them online after saying that they will makes me less likely to favorably consider Walmart for other things at times when I'm maybe in an area that has a store.
Then this is the sort of instance where trading pays off. I've traded/bought/sold with people on this board and others. Sometimes the deal pays off in your favor, and sometimes you're helping someone out. Hopefully, you find someone cool to trade with on a regular basis so that if something like this does come up where you don't have access to a particular chain, maybe your regular trading connection does.
Case in point? I had a tough time tracking down the WalMart exclusive Black Series 6" Battlefront Imperial Shocktrooper. I've got plenty of WalMarts near me, but I just could not find this particular exclusive. Lo and behold, one of my regular trading guys kept an eye out for me and picked one up for me.
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Well said Nick. I did the same thing with these. Ended up trading some of my wave 3 with Indysolo for wave 2 figures he found.
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Which was a godsend because wave 3 still hasn't shown up in the Boston area! But we had Stormtroopers a plenty before Christmas.
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I agree with pretty much everything stated. Walmart is trying to drive foot traffic, and Walmart sucks big time.
My biggest gripe with Walmart getting Star Wars exclusives is the randomness of how they run their stores. A good example is the Battlefront Stormtrooper and the rumors that only 25% (or whatever) of the stores received this. If it weren't for the good karma of Star Wars traders (thanks JediJman), I wouldn't have this. I've never seen this in stores.
You don't get this randomness with Target, TRU, or even Kmart. Every store gets at least one case of an exclusive, and are rarely all that hard to track down with a little bit of persistence.
I'm fine with Walmart not offering their exclusives online, although its annoying when they say they will and they don't. I just wish that with a reasonable amount of effort I could track down their exclusives. There really shouldn't be an excuse for getting an exclusive without enough stock to satisfy demand.
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I think you hit on something there Dave with the bare minimum product idea. I know that close to half the Wal-marts near me supposedly don't even have the Black Series figures in their Planogram. Some local collectors have taken to buying up the leftovers from a participating store and dumping them off at non-participating stores to drive faster replenishment. I never see an issue like that with Target or TRU, and there are 50ish Targets in the local metro versus maybe 10 Wal-marts. Not offering up at least a minimum amount of product at each store kills shopper interest and minimizes their return for having an exclusive in the first place.
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And that's the crossroads of collecting... It's either worth it or it isn't ultimately.
Yep, and the main thing is the promise of online availability that never materialized. So from that my main thing was a simple wish that Hasbro would give these to someone else, where I'd be able to get them without tons of driving, or begging for favors.
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On a positive note I have a set of TBS wave 3 figures that I just picked up this morning for anyone who is interested, please send me a PM if you are, thanks.
Update: The set of Poe, Rey & Finn are now claimed...
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Walmart is in the news today. CNBC is reporting that Walmart is set to close over 250 stores globally, and over 160 of those stores are in the US. This move is meant to consolidate stores that are close to other Walmart locations, and trim some stores that are underperforming.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/15/wal-mart-to-close-269-stores-as-it-retools-fleet.html
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I read that and most of the US stores closing are their Walmart Express line, an experiment that seems to have failed.
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I read that and most of the US stores closing are their Walmart Express line, an experiment that seems to have failed.
What is "Walmart Express"? Is that where they have enough cashiers staffed to check you out in less than 10 minutes. Epic fail. ;)
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Walmart Express is a glorified Walgreens with a Walmart logo on it and slightly more food for sale. We have one near my place, but there's no toy aisle.
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I was looking at the full list of closures. A good deal of stores closing are in TX and southern states. A few Sams Clubs and then a bunch of the Express stores. I've only seen 1 express store in New England and it is closing.
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Yeah WM express was a thing for urban environments where they had less of a footprint and couldn't get the land and permits to build big. They considered competition anything from dollar stores to drug stores to small grocery places... I feel like its a sound idea but not in areas with already stiff competition.
Locally we have a large grocery chain called Giant Eagle and they have GE express which is similar but is also a large gas station and sandwich shop. Basically same idea but works better based on locations they choose.
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Funny, I ran across a list of the Walmart closings and the express near my house is one of the handful that's on the way out.
Good riddance.
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I already have gotten many of the Walmart Black series figures here.
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Hopefully we will see more of these announced at Toy Fair (although do they deal with exclusives there?), but what would you like to see in this line in future waves? Looking that we may only get heavy hitters and army builders, and likely more TFA focused, what stands out to you the most?
Off the bat I'd go with Han Solo, Captain Phasma, and troop builders like the TIE Pilot, a Snowtrooper, or Flametrooper. I'd say Chewie as well, but we've gotten several beautiful Figures of him over the years and he looks fairly similar. That said, I'd buy a TFA version too. Beyond that, Luke would be cool, along with Maz and Leia.
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Hopefully we will see more of these announced at Toy Fair (although do they deal with exclusives there?)
Not usually. Sometimes they end up in the slideshow portion (that hasn't happened for a long while though). Definitely not on the show floor.
what would you like to see in this line in future waves?
Your list is a pretty good start - I'd also like to see more FO Stormtrooper variants (Riot, Heavy Gear, etc), an unmasked Kylo, Resistance Poe, and some kind of BB-8 with pop-out or swappable gear/slots for the map piece and the "thumbs up" lighter.
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It would seem to me that these have sold more than solidly enough to justify continuing the line. I just hope both Walmart and Hasbro can see the very strong desire for premium figures and increase subsequent production runs.
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With the Black Series now just as Walmart exclusive, I think that now the collecting might be hard and complicated.
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Hopefully we will see more of these announced at Toy Fair (although do they deal with exclusives there?)
Not usually. Sometimes they end up in the slideshow portion (that hasn't happened for a long while though). Definitely not on the show floor.
The last announced (hinted, actually), not displayed, exclusive that I recall was the SDCC 6" Boba/Han set.
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Wave 3 is finally showing up on-line, but for some reason at more than $20 a pop. I hear Rey was more than $30. And this was through Walmart, not Toy wiz.
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WM has third-party sales on its site I know... They were showing up via those people right away for more as they sold out pretty quickly via Wal-Mart itself. Not sure what to make of this. Wouldn't be shocked if they jacked prices up based on sales rates though. Target and TRU have been known to spike prices. What's really weird though, is these are parts of an assortment and yet all the prices are different. Like, very different. ???
My local Wally has only a lone Han and a lone Finn. :(
The other one up the road has 2 Hans, 2 Lukes, 1 Finn.
Finn is a really nice figure. It's a shame he's getting the shaft.
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They're currently all in stock for the normal price... I just got myself my final Rey and a few troopers. Order up.
BTW Scroll to the bottom after you click the link on our front page story for it... Rey's tough to get to come up in a search but she shows up in the "suggested" stuff for some reason right away. As does the Stormie.
Looks like Leia is not in stock btw, which she's actually probably the mathematically most difficult figure to get, which is ironic because she was the last of Wave 2 to sell that I ever saw.
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Lower your expectations on the Stormtroopers if you order one. I nabbed 4 and there was only one good paint job in the bunch. Another is passable in the back row, but the other two are ridiculously bad. Tempted to order more in the hopes of getting better ones, but I'm not sure I want to deal with more returns hassles.
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It's kind of sad that we have to rigorously inspect the premium line for major flaws...
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I think your luck was just bad... I saw over 20 Stormtroopers in stores and isn't have one paintjob I called bad. I saw worse Poe figures but that seemed to be his eyebrows. :-\
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I think your luck was just bad... I saw over 20 Stormtroopers in stores and isn't have one paintjob I called bad. I saw worse Poe figures but that seemed to be his eyebrows. :-\
What's curious is that Jeff received bad ones from WM.com as well. The ones I've seen in stores are much better. Makes you wonder if maybe there was a second production run that came out wrong? 3 out of 4 with bad eyes in my shipment and more in Jeff's is probably more than a fluke.
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Hmm I haven't gotten any from wm.com yet but should get a handful Wednesday so Ill look them over.
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Hmm, that's a bit disconcerting with the differences in quality noted between the in-store finds and the online items... I just ordered the few 3.75" Black Series figures I was missing and hadn't found at stores (Rey, Kylo Ren, FO Stormtroopers) since they were in stock on Walmart's site and nowhere to be found in my area.
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Went and picked up my order today... 3 troopers and a Rey.
Well, you're right Justin, the eyes are way worse on these than any of the others I bought at the stores (And I bought a TON for myself and others).
I wonder, if they do another round at some point, will they be fixed? I never saw a bad one bought from the store, but online, hoo boy!
Here's a pic of my 3... One on the far left is the worst. I won't say any of them have me "angry" about it I guess, as I'll take SA with some mistakes in paint over flawlessly painted 5POA any day of the week, but I think I'll be taking some goof-off and a micro brush to clean up some of the misapplied black. Not sure I'll replace it... Again, it isn't bothering me that much, and it's not like they completely missed the lenses, but they definitely weren't on the mark with these.
I'd say with it being so consistently bad, and all on the eyes, these have to have been mass painted right? Like not done by hand with a template mask, but by machine? Tough to imagine them being off on QC this long if it were more closely dealt with by labor.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb77944UcAALWLd.jpg) (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb777kpUEAAIyS6.jpg)
2nd is a better shot of the guy on the left. Like I say, I'll clean it up I think...
Or maybe he's the special model trooper with moving eye lenses? :)
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I found one in the stores mid January that had the eyes painted like this. It looks like Hasbro had an entire batch that should have hit scrap pile rather than ship to WM. Even if many WMs are technically scrap piles.
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Maybe we should bring up FFURG and the lost art of customization.
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Ugh, sorry to hear yours weren't in better shape Jesse. I think they must mass paint and had a bad production run get past QC (assuming there is a QC on this stuff).
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Not that Hasbro would answer a question like this, but why are the $14 TBS figure's paint jobs so much worse than the $8 basic figures? I've been opening my TFA basic figures over the past week and some of the paint jobs, wash, etc. are terrific on these figures. TBS seems significantly worse.
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All my TBS were fine but these last 3 troopers... I didn't buy a ton of TFA basic guys but they seemed on par or similar and in general I felt they maybe had less apps. Like Finns gun is painted in TBS, Poe has better face paint on TBS than his TFA counterpart... Also the white of the vests is worse on TFA than TBS I think.
Now that's not including 6" which some of those look like hell. Poe in particular I recall.
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TBS has been hit or miss for me. I think the Rey figures have all looked amazing, but I haven't found one Han Endor without crazy eyes across maybe 20 different packages. With WM BS figures, you're paying extra for both the articulation and exclusivity. Paint aps should be high quality regardless of which line you're producing IMHO. If they can make the generic army guys and wrestling figures and all that with perfect paint aps, there's no reason why these crap Star Wars paint jobs should even exist.
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Those are some weird looking First Order Stormtroopers displayed up there.