Plus, why limit themselves that way?  You know these would sell in bunches, even if sold everywhere instead of being limited to Target.

Because they would take up valuable space in case assortments that could otherwise be used for reshipping the first two Obi-Wans, Anakins, and Yodas.   

(even though I'm being sarcastic, I'm sure someone at Hasbro does think this way...just look at the future case assortments in Collection 1 for later this summer)

Just wanted to give a big thumbs up and +1 to CHEWIE for a wonderful transaction.  Lightning fast payment, great communication, and he's an all-around good guy.  I'm looking forward to dealing with him again and would recommend him highly.  Thanks Justin!

AE, that's where I get stuck too.  I can see the pros and cons from both perspectives and it's a situation where I think location might have a lot to do with it.

People in rural areas might have very limited options to get an exclusive figure or ship or doll or whatever.  If I was to walk into Mega-Lo-Mart and buy all 12 of a figure to sell to people on the boards or friends at cost, it would be doing them a favor, but in such a small area where collectors pretty much have one shot at getting things, I'd be causing them some problems because now they might not even see the things ever.

In a city, however, you've got more "competition" both in terms of the number of stores and in terms of number of collectors.  If you walk into Mega-Lo-Mart A and buy all 12 of their Megator figures to sell to people on the boards at cost, it is likely that the other 18 Mega-Lo-Marts in the immediate vicinity will have them and other area collectors would hopefully be able to get them there.  (I'm sure that this never happens thanks to people who buy everything at all the stores in a 100 mile radius and sell them on Ebay to finance their Cheetos habit).

It's really interesting area of consideration, and one that I'm not exactly sure where I stand on.  I'd be interested to hear other members' thoughts on this, as, like I said, I can see both positive and negative aspects from both sides of the argument.

Thanks a lot, Nick!  I'm on my way over to that site right now to see if it might work out.

What gets me (and I know I make enough jokes about it) are how speculators will always try to play up the so-called rarity of the mass produced toys in order to drive prices higher.  One of my favorites recently has been the whole "Perky Padme" movement by Ebay sellers for that Unleashed figure.  Hasbro (yes, that Hasbro, who can't do much of anything correctly these days) even has a statement in their SW FAQ disputing that the figure exists in a "warmer" state and that the only version that is and was ever released is the original "chilly" version, and it was NEVER RECALLED.

Yet, still, you get "VHTF RARE RECALLED UNLEASHED PADME HOT ATOC" about 140 times if you search for it on Ebay.  The sad thing is that there are people who pay for it.  The so-called "scalpers" are kept in business because of people buying from them.  Brian's Toys should, by all rights, not get any business from collectors, but a lot of people still use them for his vintage stuff.  That's all well and good and I don't fault anyone for doing so, but in the end scheme of things, buying vintage stuff from him just gives him more financial ammunition to pay 40 for a C3 Vader and then sell it for 80.

That's one of the great things about Target.  They have probably THE best inventory management around.  They keep track of sales not only on a day-to-day basis, but they check their stock levels 2 times during the day as well.  As a result they manage their stock much more efficiently than TRU or WalMart.  It also helps keep their stock as current as possible.

I've always admired how Target is so ruthless about if something isn't selling after a certain period of time, they mark it down and move it to the clearance aisle to make room for products that will sell.  This happens in nearly every department of the store (even their DVDs and CDs go on sale every week or so) and like you said Nick, they keep a very close eye on stuff.  Those pricing guns they have are very cool, as I got to see one up close this morning. 

I could go on a huge anti-Wal-Mart rant here, but it's neither the time nor the place.  What I will say is that Target seems to actually care about not only what they stock, but how they stock toys; WM just throws the stuff out on the shelves, overfilling pegs and then leaving the "falling figures" lying on the floor, and when they eventually do mark stuff down for clearance, it takes them forever to lower the price more than 5 dollars on a 50 dollar item.

The idea of clearancing the basic figures is a tricky one though, and the main reason this doesn't happen more often is because of Hasbro's insistence on sticking to a single (or in film years, two single) UPC for the assortment as a whole.  Yes, each figure has its own UPC code, but they are all part of a larger assortment and that is what is referenced when the figures are ordered/reordered.  If Hasbro actually wanted to get product to shelves, they would delete certain case assortment numbers at the beginning of every year, and new figures would be released under a new case assortment number.  That way the old figures could be clearanced out and new figures would actually be on the pegs.

Hasbro had the same UPC for Collection 1 figures from the beginning of POTF2 until the end of 1998 and near the end (with the FF figures) it caused some major problems because retail had so many older figures under that UPC, they didn't want to order the cases with new ones.  Hasbro continuing to pack in figures that had already reached a saturation point with these new cases didn't help matters either.  I thought they had finally figured out how to do case assortments during the POTJ era, but I was completely wrong.

And they're still making stupid assortments.  Future C1 assortments for ROTS will be including Obi-Wan 1, Anakin 1, Yoda 1, Super Battle Droids, Bail Organa, Grievous' Bodyguards, and so on.  Is there really any need at this point to reship these?  All of them are easily found and I would wager that there are so many of these out there right now that they would more than fulfill the demand once the film has been released.

They could have very easily done their first two case assortments with 1 of each figure (the way they did), and then subsequent case assortments would not need to include any of these figures again, with the exception of Clones. 

This is just how I would have done things:

Collection 1, Wave 2 case:

3 x Tarfful
3 x Obi-Wan 27
3 x Anakin 28
3 x Yoda 26

Collection 1, Wave 3 case:

3 x General Grievous 36
3 x Palpatine 35
3 x Clone Commander
3 x Clone Pilot

Collection 1, Wave 4 case:

3 x Clone Trooper 41
3 x Destroyer Droid
3 x Neimoidian Warrior
3 x Wookiee Warrior

Then, they could do this case assortment, which would do a lot of good:

Collection 1, Wave X case:

6 x Clone Trooper 41
3 x Clone Commander
3 x Clone Pilot

But, it's Hasbro, so they only pack the Clone 41 at two per case AT MOST and in several assortments at only one per case, so they can shove in MORE Obi-Wan 1s and Anakin 2s.   

I've often found that a good way to measure whether or not someone is actually collecting them for fun versus collecting them for "profit" is mentioning to them that you're immediately going to open said rare figure when you get home.  I have seen more faces drop and looks of incredulity cross them when mentioning my loose R2 with Holo Leia, CW SA Clone Trooper, EU Darktrooper, Ephant Mon, etc than I could ever get tired of.

Not to disparage people who collect on MOC for fun, but when the Comic Shop Guy-stereotype with his arms full of Rare Figure of the Moment asks you how much you think you can get for your One Rare Figure of the Moment and you tell him, "Nothing, I'm opening it as soon as I get home.", you will never see a funnier sight in your life. 

And you know, theoretically (and some people I've traded with on these boards can probably vouch for this), even if it's something that is going for an assload of money nowadays, if I paid retail for it, that's what I'll be selling it for, should I decide to do so.  I can't understand why I should charge someone 20 bucks for a loose figure when I paid 5 bucks for it carded.  To me, charging more than 5 dollars would be a ripoff because I'd be making a profit.  Do I hold others to that standard?  No, not really, but I do hold myself to it.

While I understand the logic that "something is worth only what you would pay for it" as it applies to items which are no longer at retail, I don't get it for items that are at retail.  Sure, I may miss out on the Exclusive of the Moment, whatever it may be, but I think I would sleep better at night knowing that I didn't bend over and lube up for some guy who stinks of Cheetos and whose idea of work is to wake up at 5 AM to dig through a bin of Hot Wheels cars while the K-Mart employees laugh at him.

And trust me, when K-Mart employees are laughing at you, you know something is funny. 

I find this whole situation utterly hilarious.  Hasbro goes on and on about how the toys are for kids, insults collectors with their snide "They're action figures, not sit on a shelf figures", and then (presumably) figures out they're alienating what drives this line in the first place.  To extend an olive branch, they put these cases out and they do the opposite of what they're supposed to do in the first place.  I wonder if they didn't do this on purpose just to piss carded collectors off.

Then again, they do have a history of making cases that don't fit any figures.  I mean, they're using that vintage Vader case for the second time in a year when none of the slots have been changed for the new figure sizes.  Now they put something out to "protect your figures" that basically protects it by crushing it. 

Their removal of the item's existence from their website is rather telling too.  After all, as we all know, Hasbro doesn't make mistakes.