Man, and I thought this was the civil board. Looks like I could have been wrong...
As for "easy to get" what I meant was ( and I should have just stated what I meant) is that instead of putting out 30 figures at a time or in weekly waves they could put out less figures and increase the carton counts. something along the lines of what they did with POTF2. I don't recall having issues getting star wars figures in the 70's when they first came out either.
But to blame Wal-mart for blank pegs....Come on, star wars is probably 1/10 of a percentage point of their sales revenue. They could care less but blank pegs are not exactly because they don't order enough or stock the shelves appropriatly. It's the scalpers, the hot wheels guys, the geeks living in mom's basement who do the ebay thing (or grandmas doing the ebay thing-I've seen them stalk the aisles too) and those that think they need to snag avery single one of the hot figure to trade and pass on to their friends because if they don't the "scalpers will get them" are snagging them up. Oh and the kids, since toy's are general for kids. No, that couldn't be it. It's Walmart's/Meijer's/Target's/TRU's/KB's lack of vision for not wanting to over order on a non returnable item so you can hold out and wait for it to go on clearence to get it on the cheap costing them retail dollars by sitting on shelves and not moving.
And I never said the C-3PO was for trade, I know better than to try to trade a new figure like that but I'm sure I could get some stuff out of this sealed AT-AT I've been looking to move......
We now return you to your normally scheduled board......Let's try to keep it on topic.