The retail situation across the board right now is grim. Just from looking at Wal-Mart, Target, and TRU on a daily basis, the pattern pretty much repeats itself in each area:
STAR WARS: The only things that stores are getting, figure-wise, are the animated figures and Saga Legends. Even in stores with very little Yarnas or Brehas, they aren't getting ANY Legacy BAD figures. SL and CW are restocked immediately and in large numbers. And Plo Koons and Saesee Tiins aside, the SL figures do seem to be selling out fairly quickly. Vehicles sell, as do Battle Packs, albeit at a much slower rate. Comic packs are lucky to move at all unless they're brand new, and even some of those sit (EEEEEEVIL Luke and Clone Palpatine, for example).
GI JOE: Dead in the water. WM and TRU haven't stocked a basic figure since before Christmas, and all Target seems to get are endless revisions of the repaint wave.
TRANSFORMERS: Dead in the water right now. WM jacking the price up to 13 bucks a deluxe didn't help matters, nor does the sea of Oil Slicks and Blazing Lockdowns help that retailer either. I think that, at least in the case of TF and Joe, things are going to be at a standstill until movie toys hit. I just hope that Hasbro does a better job this time around than during the last film's release, when, Deluxe Swindle aside, you couldn't find anything for at least four months after the film was out.
MARVEL: XMO:W stuff is sitting, and again, WM is leading the charge in keeping those pegs warm with their price which is 50 cents of more above everyone else. Too many Wolverines, too fast, and a lack of kid interest in the film itself from what I can tell is going to kill this line quickly. Hasbro needs to cut and run on these, and integrate any further X-characters into the MU lineup. I wound up buying the Logan vs. Sabretooth TRU exclusive set because I was starting to doubt whether or not the deluxe set with Creed and Blob were going to even show up at retail given how they're hanging around. MU figures, however, are selling really fast, and nobody can keep them stocked. Target has had the same three Ronins on the eight pegs for MU for the last month, and WM has two Torches on four pegs. No sign of any restocking, though, so I guess Hasbro's just taking this quarter off.
DC: The Infinite Heroes tend to go pretty quickly, although there are a lot of Spectres warming the pegs these days. DCUC is a pretty swift seller, as well, but some of those (Black Superman) are starting to hang about a bit. Ditto the endless Batman repaints and repackages. Those haven't moved an inch.
TERMINATOR: These look awful and I have yet to see any of them move. They're the toy equivalent of those cops who spend their day putting chalk marks on the tires of parked cars and then going back to give them tickets when they haven't moved for hours on end. I could make a chalk mark on a Marcus figure and I guarantee it would still be in the same spot six months from now.
STAR TREK: 6 inch figures are selling, the 3.75" stuff isn't, unless your name is Uhura. I don't see these really moving now that the film is out either, even though it's only been less than a week so far.
WRESTLING FIGURES, McFARLANE FIGURES, OTHER LINES: Wrestling figures are pretty much dead in my area, and TRU's stock of McToys stuff hasn't moved an inch either. Some of the Diamond Select stuff that TRU's been getting turns over on a regular basis (BSG figures especially), but a lot of the ancillary stuff (like Bobble Heads, Sports figures, and TV properties) tend to sit for a long time. The "Heroes" figures never sold well here, and less than three months after each wave was released, they'd been marked down to 5 bucks apiece.
BAKUGAN: Like Pokemon, Gigapets, Furbys, and Britney Spears before them, this seems to be the hot disposable fad of the moment and I can't figure out why. I personally think they're laced with some tactile form of LSD and that it renders kids stupid and mute (hence why parents probably continue to buy so many of them), but it just seems to get stranger and stranger how these are NEVER in stock at any retailer around me. Weird.
As for what's coming up, I really think that the TF movie stuff is going to be the winner yet again this year, as you're going to have regular collectors (myself included) and kids with impulse buying very interested in the lineup. I think that Trek, XMO:W, and (especially) Terminator are going to be heading to the clearance aisle before too long, and that GI Joe had better depend on the quality of the toys to succeed, as the movie looks horrible. If stores actually order and stock SW stuff, I think it'll continue to do well, as will the Marvel and DC stuff. Still, the main issue is going to be the balance of ordering on the part of retailers, as overordering will doom the lines just as much as underordering these days.
