And that answers the question of what will happen once the site reaches 5000 - you can still back it and the number keep counting up.

Not that he would make much of a difference, but I'm a little surprised Crumb hasn't been thrown in here. He's sort of part and parcel with Jabba, so... I figure a POTF Klattu w/ coin is in the offing, though he won't have the oomph of Yakface.

I was thinking about that as an alternative - but I don't believe Klaatu was ever on a POTF cardback with a coin. Was he? Barada was, which is why I picked him. I'd be okay with either really - anything that gets it to 5000 is a good thing in my book.

The mini-Vintage carded Salacious Crumb would be a nice touch too.

Yeah - without the shortfall being covered by a retailer (such as HTS, Amazon, Target, etc...) if there are only 4999 backers at midnight on April 4th, that's it, the item does not get made.

I do find it highly unlikely we will end up in a situation where there will be less than say 20-30 backers to go though. Anything less than that, I'm sure HTS can afford to step in, pick up the remaining units and bring 5-10 of them to events like SDCC or the next SWC and unload them pretty easily. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is a contingency plan in place if they do get that close. Better to do that and maybe even eat $5k - $10k worth of product vs. having it end up a failure with less than 20 backers to go.

The good thing about this is that it does show viability for the concept at this point - here's hoping that they already have a lower price-point item on deck.

Wow.  I'm surprised that they would have shipped that much product out a month in advance of the street date.  But it would probably cost Hasbro more to reclaim that stock and figure out a way to re-distribute it.

Today I walked in to what I consider my "home" Toys R Us store.  I’ve been going to that store since the 80's when they put another toy chain, Child World, out of business.  And when I saw the “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS” sign it was like a slap in the face.   

Notable signs?  All sales are final as of today.  Action figures are discounted 10%, and construction/LEGO is discounted by 5%.

That was what I was referring to in my original post back on the 20th - the boats leave Asia and the shipments head to stores MONTHS before the street date and these liquidation announcements have been pretty rapid-faire. So my point was - will Toys R Us put Han Solo stuff out if it makes it all the way from the distribution warehouses to the stores or will they be expected to just pack it up and ship it back.

Sounds like we already have the answer based on Jeff's post, and honestly, I'm not surprised, you're working at a store that is closing, you're probably worried about finding your next job, who gives a damn if that 6" Han Solo toy is supposed to be shipped back to Hasbro or if it can go out on the shelves, your manager just said bring stuff out of the stock room, so that's what you're gonna do.

I'd say the answer to that is simply Hasbro is a tanker in terms of maneuverability and demand/perceived demand requires faster steering to avoid the issues.  I'm assuming the waves were planned out long ago and it was too late to make changes on some of those.   

Even so, whoever is doing the planning is being "penny wise, pound foolish" including as many repacks as possible to keep overall case production costs/overhead down and just making unwise decisions for the overall health of the line, and they've been doing it for quite some time.

Things aren't great at retail and the Star Wars toy line hasn't been doing that great since The Force Awakens - that is more than enough time to plan things better.

Here's what they keep getting wrong:
- Seven figures in a case that holds 12 - right there planning has failed - they need to be making choices that allow online retailers to sell full and half cases easily.
- Carry forward figures that do not include any value or reason to pick up said figure - in Wave 1, I'm looking at TLJ Luke
- Expecting the sub-line to go beyond two waves with any level of success
     * TFA - 3 waves, third barely made it to retail, ended up being dumped at Five Below
     * RO - 4 waves, third barely made it to retail, fourth ended up being online exclusive and most collectors got third wave online too
     * TLJ - 3 waves, third ended up being only partially made available online, never at retail

The whole point of these 5POA figures was that it kept their development costs down. If that's the truth, cases of figures should contain 12 figures, 2 sets of 6, with three or four of those 6 being new figures and the remaining being repacked/refreshed figures.

So...

Wave 1:
Qi’ra (Corellia) [NEW]
Chewbacca [NEW]
Range Trooper [NEW]
Stormtrooper (Mimban) [NEW]
K-2SO [refreshed RO figure with Force Link and new blaster]
Maz Kanata [refreshed TFA figurewith Force Link and jetpack/backpack]

Wave 2:
Moloch [NEW]
“Artemis” – Tobias Becket [NEW]
Princess Leia (Hoth) [NEW]
Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master) [TLJ repack]
Supreme Leader Snoke  [TLJ repack]
Kylo Ren [TLJ repack]

Wave 3:
“Artemis Trooper 1” – Rio Durant [NEW]
“Artemis Trooper 2” – Val [NEW]
“Medusa” – L3-37 [NEW]
“Zeus Scout – Brown” – Mudtrooper [NEW]
Luke Skywalker (Jedi Knight) [repack from Target 3-pack]
Royal Guard [repack from Target 3-pack]

Wave 4:
“Hades Joker” [NEW]
“Vesta Driver” – Imperial Patrol Driver [NEW]
“Perseus” – Quay Tolsite [NEW]
Darth Vader [probably RO repack]
Rey (Jedi Training) [TLJ repack]
First Order Stormtrooper [TLJ repack]


Wow - look at that, I didn't omit or leave any figures out from the list - every case has three or four new figures in it and each wave is 6 figures.

Impressive how the backer pace has picked up as a result of this exclusive packaging Yak Face news.

I was looking forward to placing a big order on their website, but they have already started pulling off droves of lines. there is almost no NECA stuff left whatsoever for example. 

Not surprising actually - they got a lot of stock for the holidays on credit and I believe I read in one article that a lot of it is probably going to be packed back up and returned to the manufacturer since they really didn't pay for it in the first place.

I'm hoping I might be able to score a couple more of the Force Link 2-pack sets that were exclusive to Toys R Us once the discounts start.

I wonder what this time-table means for the Solo toys. Aren't they hitting in April?