Author Topic: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?  (Read 37867 times)

Offline efranks

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #165 on: November 21, 2009, 03:42 PM »
So today I was 15 seconds shy of picking up a new figure at Target.  Litteraly, as I was walking into the aisle, a guy three steps ahead of me got to the pegs first and proceeded to buy every ANH wave figure on the pegs, even the re-pack/carry forward figures.

I have that wave but would have liked to have pulled the R2 and returned the one I have with the B-A-D part that I don't need. 

So now I'm thinking that he might be the guy that beat me on the ROTJ wave earlier in the week, when all I found was a lone Nien Nunb figure.  So now I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that since every store I've been in has moved beyond the ROTJ wave, I'm probably never going to see them in stores.  Unfortunately, HTS only has about 2 figs from that wave in stock and since none of the ones that matter are carried forward into new cases, I'm going to have a hard time with them. 

Blah.  Still blame Hasbro for the bulk of this.

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Offline Jabba the Slug

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #166 on: November 21, 2009, 03:57 PM »
Wooow ... your story reminds me of a time back in 2007 when I found a lone McQuarrie Chewbacca. I put it back on the pegs (after inspecting it) for a split second to look to see what other Star Wars figures there were, and, sure enough, another guy walks in, looks at the peg where I put the McQuarrie Chewy, and takes him. Oh well. My loss.  :(
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Offline efranks

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #167 on: November 21, 2009, 06:50 PM »
It's actually funny you say that, because as I was walking down the aisle behind this guy I spotted R2 on the front of the pegs.  He reached for the Kal Fas figure above him and I contemplated, for a second, just walking by, reaching in front of the guy and snagging the R2 from the peg below where he was looking and then just keep walking out the end of the aisle and leaving.

I didn't, which surprises me, because I'm kind of a dick like that.   >:D 

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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #168 on: November 22, 2009, 09:44 AM »
I'm just having bad luck. One of my local Targets has several cases of legends erroneously marked as Basic Legacy. The box says Legends, but the conveyor sticker applied by the warehouse slapped on the Legacy bar code.  They pulled out two cases for me and and said the remaining 3 cases are labeled as such.
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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #169 on: November 29, 2009, 09:50 AM »
Now I know how the rest of the country feels. SW is just dead in my part of the city. Pegs are clogged and old waves continue to get re-stocked. Ouch.
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Offline DoctorPadawan

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #170 on: November 29, 2009, 12:18 PM »
This week has definitely been a complete rejection of the Hasbro "Legends sell better than Legacy" mantra we've been hearing for the last year or so.  Toys R Us actually has the three SKUs separated on the pegs (which, in and of itself, is a miracle), and even after Black Friday, the pegs are filled to the point of overflow with Saga Legends; only one Leebsub is on the 8 pegs allotted to TLC; three IG-86s from last year are occupying the 12 pegs for CW. 

The same story at the other major retailers in my area, with the TLC BAD figures being non-existent for the most part with the exception of the Ugnaughts and Captain Needas from the ESB wave earlier this year at WM, and a steady stream of the ROTJ wave at Target, and CW in acceptable supply.  Saga Legends, however, is dominating the pegs, and none of it has moved since Black Friday would theoretically see a lot of impulse buying on the parts of parents.

I think I've said this before, but Hasbro's claims that SL sells better and TLC-BAD is struggling are starting to remind me of the Iraqi Information Minister who stood on the roof of a Baghdad building with reporters claiming that they were "repelling the American invaders and Iraqi victory was imminent" while explosions were going off in the background.  You know, that whole "Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain" philosophy. :)


Offline efranks

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #171 on: November 29, 2009, 12:40 PM »
I was in Walmart, Target and TRU in the Binghamton/Vestal, NY area on Wednesday night.  Of the three stores the only TLC figures I saw were in Target.  They had one Malakili and I believe one or two blue/white Stormtrooper card TLC figures.  Everything else was Legends and CW.

Walmart has a dozen pegs for figures and probably a 100 figures on them, not a single TLC figure.

TRU has probably as many pegs and they had maybe 20 or fewer total figures, mostly being Legends and maybe a CW or two.

Target had some newer CW and a ton of Legacy.

I was in all three on Black Friday, after the crush of shopping during the opening two hours or so.  Nothing was moving.  Nobody was even looking at the sW sections in any of the three stores while I was there and nothing was much different from Wed night when I'd been in.  The Malakili figure was gone from Target but other than that it looked the same.

That Target also has had the newer comic packs, because they had six (let me say that again, SIX!  6!  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!!!!!) Luke/Deena packs.  Plus they had various amounts of the repacks on red cards.  What didn't they have?  The "new" figures, Krayt/Dare and Vong/Katarn.  So don't tell me the new comic packs aren't selling.  It's the ****** repacks and boring "old" characters that arent moving.

Oh, and WM in Vestal?  Has over a dozen Leia/Xizor comic packs.  That's it.  Nothing else.  And they've had at least that many for months now.  Months.  Plural.  They've had them going back to October when I was there and I'm sure had them long before that.

Then I got home yesterday and stopped in Target.  Guess what they got sometime between Wednesday night and Saturday?  ANOTHER ******* CASE OF 2008 WAVE 4 REVISION 2.  That makes four cases of that wave since October 1st.  There are two pegs dedicated to Stass, Breha and Bail.  The other two TLC pegs have a mix of Sandstorm Han (3), Wioslea, 327th and Faie with one each Grievous and Saleucami Clone.  Now we're back to being in a situation that lasted from January to August at this store; choked with unsalable inventory.

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Offline Keonobi

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #172 on: November 30, 2009, 09:57 AM »
Basically ditto, except in Albany.

I was at TRU just after it opened, well, around 2 really, and the line for the register started at the door.  I couldn't wait that long so I left, but they did have a couple new figures from the ROTS wave.

I've been into the half dozen closest Walmarts over the last week and the newest Legacy figure was from the first ESB wave (Needa or Ugnaught anyone?).  I'm tempted to buy one just to buy anything, but I know that won't trigger a restock, since no stores are restocking.  There has got to the some kind of supply issue for all the local stores to be devoid of new figures.

Its actually sad/funny but the time I stop into one of the local stores, 2-3am, is when they are stocking the toys, which in years past allowed me to grab a few figures before they were even on the pegs.  This year, no dice.  Take Wednesday night, I stopped in and there were four pallets each stacked 6 or 7 feet high with Purple and brown boxes (which i guess means the toy section).  Not a single one said SW Basic figs, or anything close.  And to prove that point not a single new figure appeared in that store over the next 6 days, I checked.

Seriously, how can they stock every other toy line except the one that in the previous year was the single most popular toy line in country?  That's like Coca Cola suddenly no longer selling Coke.  Sure Star Wars figures may not be the highest margin toy they sell (oddly enough I've seen plenty of AT-STs, Evolution packs, bobbleheads, Galactc Heroes, etc.), but its probably not the lowest margin toy either, so please stock it anyway.  I know that Walmart has bypassed probably a couple hundred dollars worth of sales to me simply because there was nothing to buy.
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Offline jedi_master_sal

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #173 on: November 30, 2009, 02:28 PM »
Man, I agree with these sentiments and observations of late.

Old stock and reissued stock is clogging up pegs.

I desperately want more Gungans to army build, let alone not finding the whole ANH wave. I want the NEW stuff (and with their wave specific BaD part, not the reissued part from a different wave).

I really think Hasbro is screwing the pooch so to speak with all of this. My personal opinion is that new figures should SOLELY come in new cases for awhile BEFORE refresh cases come out. I actually found an Ewok set but it had the freakin' Terminator droid part in it, instead of the blue droid part. I bought it knowing I wanted a second set, but it still irked the crap out of me that this is a NEW wave and yet I only found the REFRESH figure.

And please don't get me started on the Imperial Scanning trooper (and for that matter Ugnaught 2). Can't even find these guys in ANY wave, new or refresh.

Yes, Hasbro we all get it, you want the most out of your molds for figures.

However....refreshing them into cases that should be reserved for newer figures is not the way to go. How about doing some ACTUAL market research. Find out which figures sell well and people are asking for more of. Then guess what....yep, you already have an answer for that, it's called the LEGENDS line. NOT Legacy. Spaces resevred for Legacy should be new figures only. I get the repacks. You don't want to "force" people to buy a whole wave of figures when some are obscure, so you think by offering us popular characters with the same droid parts you're doing us a favor. Maybe...but I'd say more often than not, this is NOT the case. If you seriously want me to pay more upwards or more than $8 per figure, then yo've got to make available NEW figures, not repacks. And not even refreshed ones from previous waves.

It's obvious you're not doing this market research. How do we know? Simple, just look in this thread for example for all of those folks complaining about still seeing 2008 figures on store shelves. Or what of those figures from early 2009. It's verging on December now. We shouldn't be seeing figures older than 6 months on the pegs. Like that or not, it's REALITY.

If a figure is deemed a stinker, oh well. Sometimes you've got to take a hit on those. Maybe some additional research up front about what figures we want would help. You've done some of that, but you definitely can do more.

For example, Yarna. I personally think she's a great figure for what she is, but she'd have best been served as an exclusive, either on card or in a battle pack. More examples are aplenty.Were I not at work at the moment, I'd expound upon this some more. But I think I've stated enough for the moment.
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Offline tmanthegreat

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #174 on: November 30, 2009, 06:06 PM »
And please don't get me started on the Imperial Scanning trooper (and for that matter Ugnaught 2). Can't even find these guys in ANY wave, new or refresh.

Really?  There must have been at least six of the Scanning trooper at one of my local Wal Marts in Central California - and that was just one store.  I've seen more at other Wal Marts and Targets in my area.  They're not moving all the quickly and I already got my fill. 

That said, I certainly agree with much of what has been said above to an extent.  I still have not seen that new wave of CW figures (the one with Matchstick) or the ROTS wave.  I was used to regional distribution back with the 21st Century Toys Ultimate Soldier line, but I would have thought mighty Hasbro could do better...
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Offline tmanthegreat

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #175 on: December 3, 2009, 06:19 PM »
Within the past few days, my faith in Hasbro's distribution has been restored.  Finding the new ESB, ROTS, Clone Wars waves within the past couple of days as well as having already had the ANH and ROTJ waves available for weeks in my area has confirmed that Hasbro will pull through.  The large Wal Mart displays with all the ships and new figures by the dozens are further evidence of this 8)
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Offline efranks

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #176 on: December 4, 2009, 01:46 AM »
I've managed to find the comic packs, ESB, ROTS and most of the ROTJ waves over the last couple of weeks, but I'm nowhere close to easing up on Hasbro.

The entire year was screwed and while there was a gap in waves shipping (partly due to the card change), the bad decisions that were made in 2008 are still plaguing stores in some areas.  I still lay the demise of the comic packs at Hasbro's feet.

They've got a long way to come back to make 2010 a better year.  However, between the line change due this summer and the much smaller releases for the last 3 or 4 waves, I'm anticipating a long, dry Spring/Summer.

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Offline Jabba the Slug

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #177 on: December 5, 2009, 02:48 AM »
Reports have been flooding in that the new CPs are hitting harder at Walmart. Too bad there's no Walmart even near me.   >:(
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Offline jedi_master_sal

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #178 on: December 7, 2009, 12:10 PM »
Which comic packs are we talking about here?
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Offline efranks

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Re: 2009: Worst Distribution Year Ever?
« Reply #179 on: December 7, 2009, 06:50 PM »
I'm assuming he's talking about the Krayt/Dare, Vong/Katarn, Luke/Lumyia wave since I think that's all that's shipping right now.

There is another WM exclusive wave due, but unless I missed something, I don't think that's shipping yet. Probably soon, though.

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"I sell the drugs that keep you people from seeing dragons at night." - Gus "Psych"