Battle of Geonosis Wave

[foolintherain76]

I found Yoda and Poggle today at Target on my way to work.  Hope to go Target Hopping tomorrw to find the rest.  There are like 12 here in C-bus, OH.

[speedermike]

Well, I just found the Hoth wave, so I'm not even gonna think about these guys yet.

[Reid]

I foresee Scorch evaporating from the pegs 2.3 seconds after he's out of the case, while Poggle's availibilty will be much like the Great Neimodian Warrior Plague Of 2005.

[Darth_Anton]

Walmart's are not stocking up the 3 3/4 lately (one collector told me that a manager told him that they were dropping the 3 3/4 line

Retailers have been telling us this every year for the past 10 years.

[Jeff]

Retailers have been telling us this every year for the past 10 years.

Agreed.  Every 6-8 months, someone on one of the forums hears that, starts a thread and people panic.  Sure one of the times it will be true, but with all the stuff planned for this year?  I'll guess no.

[TheBlackDog65]

(one collector told me that a manager told him that they were dropping the 3 3/4 line to which I said IF that happened, you might as well say the line is dead; and that this rumor cycles with every wave of figures).

Just wanted to clarify, that it was not my intention to start a post about that, put to merely show how panic some people become when the stores have not received a shipment in an area. I told him not to believe it, Walmart's not missing out on cash  Walmarts have been much better for me on the Saga than Target, but this is a hunting and time issue.

[CHEWIE]

I will say this though - in the POTJ era, one local Walmart about 30 miles south of St. Louis did not carry that line at all.  I was told there that they would no longer carry Star Wars back in 2001.  I told them they better get ready, because in 2002 they'll have an entire aisle for AOTC - and they did.  Then they quit carrying SAGA figures... no OTC line, no VOTC line and nothing until ROTS.  Now they aren't carrying SAGA2 figures.  They have a Femi-Nazi running the toy department there.  Oh well, their loss.

  

[Rob]

I'm suprised by that - I didn't think that department managers could make decisions on what they would and wouldn't carry.  Sure they can decide to order 1 case or 3, but I'd think that to just eliminate a line would catch the eye of higher ups who know that those things sell.

[Ithorian Clergy]

I'm suprised by that - I didn't think that department managers could make decisions on what they would and wouldn't carry. 

It's probably equally as likely that the figures found their way out the door to local hobby dealers.

As far as I know, department managers cannot make these decisions.  They receive a blueprint planogram from corporate on how to set their aisles, how many pegs and where to put them, and then the product starts flowing in from corporate warehouses.  I doubt they even place orders for them.

[Dan]

I've found nothing so far in Minneapolis, but I do have a question. Do the genosians stand up fairly well? I don't want to drop $7.00 on another one to lean on the wall-

[Ithorian Clergy]

Take a look at the case assortment for this wave that is just starting to hit stores:

1x Scorch (Saga #21)
1x Sora Bulq (Saga #15)
2x Sun Fac (Saga #16)
2x C-3PO with Battle Droid head (Saga #17)
2x Poggle the Lesser (Saga #18)
1x Jango Fett (Saga #20)
1x Orange Utapaun Clone Trooper (Saga #26)
2x Yoda (Saga #19).

I don't think that makes much sense.  Yoda is going to sit.  3PO is going to sit.  Poggle is an obscure character who is already released once, and not long ago.  Clones grow wings and fly out of the store, yet those are packed 1 per case. What would have made more sense?  This:


3x Scorch (Saga #21) - still won't be able to keep him on the shelf
1x Sora Bulq (Saga #15) - gonna move
1x Sun Fac (Saga #16) - gonna move
1x C-3PO with Battle Droid head (Saga #17) - will move, then warm
1x Poggle the Lesser (Saga #18) - will move, then warm
1x Jango Fett (Saga #20) - will move, then warm
3x Orange Utapaun Clone Trooper (Saga #26) - gonna fly outta the store
1x Yoda (Saga #19) - will warm in due course

[Jesse James]

Yeah I don't believe any toy manager has that ability in WM or Target...  What is possible though is that the demographic information for any particular store's area indicates that this or that may not sell well so they don't carry it.

For instance, a WM opened along my city commute in an area that's fairly well off however the area is accessible by lower income areas fairly easy so the shopping is kind of bad.  Most of the people that actually live in that area don't go to the stores there, including the Wal-Mart.  The information I've heard about this WM (one of the rare times a WM renovated an exisiting building btw, it's the first time I ever saw this myself), is that this store carries very little Star Wars product (didn't carry much through ROTS even at its height of popularity) because it tries to focus on lower priced toys like Chap Mei figures and items like that.  Star Wars just too expensive to cater to the demographic that most travels this Wal-Mart.

Department Managers at WM are really just the handlers for the area...  More or less.  When I worked retail for Penney's we had the same basic people running different departments and they only had slightly more responsibility for only slightly better pay.  The ordering was done by merchandisers primarily, who did full orders or manipulated the running inventory system.  WM's running inventory system is store-wide and managed by the district offices with only suggestions from store managers being accepted as to what to carry, but not necessarilly changing anything.

I've gotten the "We're not carrying that" anymore too.  It is a cover for "Please don't ask me anything, I just want to get my 7 hours in and go home, please leave me alone". 

[Darth_Anton]

I suppose another possibility is (although I favor the back door explaination) is that some stores are simply considered low volume stores and carry diffferent product than most other stores.

[ruiner]

And I'd like to point out that store managers (dept. or otherwise) don't decide how many cases come in.

Inventory is automatically ordered via the checkout process. 

IE:  once eight figures are purchased (scanned through the checkout process), a case is ordered.

What a store carries is dependent on their geographic location and store size.  Here in the midwest, most WM's carry John Deere tractors - a sight you won't find in say, a West Coast WM.

I have a WM on my commute home that does not carry SW, yet the one down the road does - a mere twenty miles away.  One is a Supercenter, the other is not.

[Jeff]

Take a look at the case assortment for this wave that is just starting to hit stores:

Yeah, we discussed the case assortment a few pages back (try page 8 or so).  Don't worry about the case assortment.  This is only the first of many case revisions planned for this wave.  If you click the EE links below, you can see the other case assortments planned:

The Saga Collection Wave 3
The Saga Collection Wave 3, Revision 1 - has more Scorch and Sora
The Saga Collection Wave 3, Revision 2 - had more clones
The Saga Collection Wave 3, Revision 3  - has more Scorch and clones

You'll notice that the Geonosians are not in the Revision cases, but the Clones and Scorch are, so hopefully they will not be too hard to track down.  Also, the Utapau Clone will continue to ship 1-2 per case for each case assortment in the Coruscant wave, so even if he is hard to find at first, he should be available slowly over time.