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jason1551

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Posts posted by jason1551

  1.  

     

    I've only seen Ant man and Ares at 5 below so far. They are getting full cases of single characters. Ant man I can kinda understand.....but who's idea was it to pack a character like Ares 12 per case?

    I have terrible news for you: they got full cases, but someone has already grabbed the "good" stuff.

     

    have you been wiping out an entire retail chain? I have 2 on my way home from work and both only ever had the Antman/Ares. 1 of which is wiped out already and reset with those playmotion things.

     

    I haven't personally wiped out any stores (as PsychoPirate can attest), but stores received full cases. At $5 a pop, I can imagine scalpers/customizers/collectors could tear through a store's inventory awfully quick. For example, I purchased 9 Valkyries, 4 Cyclops, 4 Omega Reds, and 2 Ares, and barely made a dent in the Newnan's store inventory. There were literally full pegs (8-12 figures on a peg) of each character remaining, and I didn't even touch any Deathloks, Antmans, or Beta Ray Bills (which would have been in the dozens).

  2. BBTS just emailed me saying they had to cancel my pre-orders for the Meta Knight and Rosalina amiibo figures. I'm really pissed. I pre-ordered so I wouldn't have to camp out at Target and Best Buy. I'm now SOL unless I pay scalper prices. Anyone have have a spare that they could hook me up with?

    I'll take a look tomorrow while I'm out.

     

    EDIT: No luck at either Target, TRU, or Walmart.

  3. I am sure the Ionic Wonderman wave is out by now. Theres plenty of listings on Ebay and Amazon and the online retailers all have the case or the 4 pack in stock. But nowhere is the individual figure listed for retail price yet?

    Those seem to be the only places he's in stock. I got him off Amaazon for $15 shipped. Dorkside had him for retail, but he was out of stock the last time I checked.
  4. My local TRU, after being abominable in putting out MU when they were current, has been putting out loads of W2x (not sure what else to call it!). I can walk in there almost any day of the week and pick up A-Bomb, Abomination, Cloak, Dagger, Rhino, or Nova. They're not all of the same wave...I'm not even sure what to make of it...

    They are actually. That's the Wave 24 Revision case. TRU seems to have doubled down on it, as I've been to multiple TRU's in the south and midwest that have had multiple cases on the pegs (some even in the front and back of the store).

  5.  

    That's the real issue. Not the anchor characters, but he anchor figures. Give us a different Cap or Iron Man, and everyone is at least a little more satisfied. We have an Iron Man suit that he hasn't worn in years, and a Cap outfit that was replaced well before they even pressed it for the MU line proper.

    Yup. Iron Man has plenty of suits that haven't been made. I wouldn't mind Iron Man in every case if it was always a new suit. I know why that can't happen, sure, but it's nice to dream.

     

    Wave 1 should never have had the Bleeding Edge suit. It should have been the black and gold Now armor. After getting that exact Cap in most of last year's cases, they really should have done something different with him too, even if it was just an unmasked head.

     

    Beta Ray Bill should not be in wave 2. Demand for him has been more or less filled. Commander Rogers has been absent from cases for a while, but he shouldn't be released so soon after the Cap that's been warming shelves for a year. Yellowjacket could have waited until next year.

     

    100% agreed. Hasbro could have done better with the figures they chose to be in that first wave; Commander Rogers slightly retooled to match his movie counterpart and a repackaged IM3 Mark 42 would have been my choices.

  6.  

     

    And that would be fine if the anchors actually worked. Instead, they are quite literally dragging this line down and drowning it. The anchor method hasn't worked in nearly 10 years for any toy line. It's time to find a new method.

    Tell that to retailers who only want characters that the target demographics know. You do that and convince kids/parents to buy characters that they've never heard of instead, and this line could go on forever.

     

    Hasbro has gone out of their way with Waves 2 and 3 to bring in characters that only fans would recognize. Hell, Death's Head and Whirlwind might be the most obscure character choices to date, so if putting CA and IM into Wave 1 meant we got those characters then collectors really need to take a look at the big picture of things. We think the big names ruin the line because we see them everywhere, but IM and CA aren't what's going to doom the line; it's characters like Nighthawk, Puck, Absorbing Man, Inhumans, GotG (prior to the movies), etc. that most people don't know or care enough about to buy that will clog pegs and sink sales.

     

    Please, if that were the case IM and Cap wouldn't clog the shelves. It's the same accross the board with Hasbro for crying out loud. They blame the retailers but yet they are the only company losing in sales. Hell Lego overtook them last year.

     

    The'achors" are clearly a problem and honestly the target demographic quit being kids a long time ago. All the marketing is collector focused and has been for the past decade. Even if you could get kids interested the distribution and horrid case ratios of all the lines from Hasbro would turn them off rather quickly. Only the hardcore collectors are still hanging on and most of them are over 25

     

    The argument in Lego's favor has already been made (multiple franchises, TV shows, and a movie will always help product move).

     

    The problem with MU/AI is that it tries too hard to be all things to all consumers: for kids, it's a chance to have figures of characters they've seen on TV and in movies; for adults, it's collecting figures of characters they've seen or read about in comics. Big retailers care more about the kids because collectors are a niche market and won't move sales to such an extreme to warrant a broader cast of characters. When they do, they generally have a hard time moving the product because there isn't enough interest for all parties involved. We, as collectors, want obscure characters that no one else in their right mind would ask for. However, those same figures pegwarm (I'm looking at you Wave 20) because we only want certain characters and only in a certain quantity and can't understand why Hasbro would push more recognizable characters that will eventually sell to kids or parents. We want to have our cake and eat it too; we just can't accept that we aren't the only ones at the table.

  7. And that would be fine if the anchors actually worked. Instead, they are quite literally dragging this line down and drowning it. The anchor method hasn't worked in nearly 10 years for any toy line. It's time to find a new method.

    Tell that to retailers who only want characters that the target demographics know. You do that and convince kids/parents to buy characters that they've never heard of instead, and this line could go on forever.

     

    Hasbro has gone out of their way with Waves 2 and 3 to bring in characters that only fans would recognize. Hell, Death's Head and Whirlwind might be the most obscure character choices to date, so if putting CA and IM into Wave 1 meant we got those characters then collectors really need to take a look at the big picture of things. We think the big names ruin the line because we see them everywhere, but IM and CA aren't what's going to doom the line; it's characters like Nighthawk, Puck, Absorbing Man, Inhumans, GotG (prior to the movies), etc. that most people don't know or care enough about to buy that will clog pegs and sink sales.

  8. I totally agree with Hasbro being abysmal when it comes to figure selections in cases (although that seems to have improved with AI (if you've seen what the revision cases and Wave 3 breakdown looks like)). However, I'd say the Wave 24 revision case was an improvement on what they did with Wave 23 and Wave 24 (essentially combing both waves in one case, similar to what they are doing with later AI revision cases). And I've seen no increase in their prices beyond what I've paid the few previous years ($9.99 a figure), and that has been true everywhere in the south and in the midwest.

     

    I can't point to AI Wave 1 as a handicap, though. You either have to be a collector or a serious Marvel fan to know who Hyperion and Grim Reaper are, and Wasp, while an important character, has no obvious media tie-in beyond the relatively long ago AEMH cartoon. Point being, that first wave had to have CA and IM as anchors if retailers were going to have any interest in it because CA and IM are well-known commodities that can tie-in with the recent movies. Future waves feature the same scenario (Thor, Hulk, CA, and IM repacks) but aren't as saturated with them. It's the price we collectors pay so that retailers will tolerate putting out a line that has no marketable features.

  9. The line was DOA the moment they hose to stick Iron Man and Cap in that line and keep the same inventory number as Marvel Universe. Hence why Target has none. Also, they overshipped the final repack case of Marvel universe so TRU can't even find room. And Wal*Mart just seems to have given up entirely despite having the most room out of all three retailers.

     

    As far as I am concerned, this is an online exclusive line.

    Hasbro didn't overship the final repack case. TRU overordered it. There is a very profund difference in that statement.

     

    TRU did the same with Retaliation Wave 4, to the point that stores are now drowning in pegs of Alley-Vipers, Fireflys, Battle-Kata Roadblocks, etc.

  10. The most amazing thing is the Hasblow "apologists" defended this change by saying it would HELP distribution...my arse...

    Hasbro is not a distributor (with the lone exception being what they list on their own website, which does include AI Wave 1). They are a manufacturer and sell their product to stores which in turn distribute said product to their stores. It's not up to Hasbro to order product and stock shelves; that responsibility falls solely to retailers. It is Hasbro's responsibility to supply enough product for those demands. If retailers don't order it, the product will sit in a warehouse until they do or be sold online on Hasbro's website.

     

    The simple fact is that most retailers are moving away from toys in general (blame videogames and alternate forms of entertainment), and boys' toys are mainly focused on TV and movie-related lines. Without a movie or TV tie-in, there's not a lot of incentive to carry a product like AI. Because of those reasons, I've chosen to switch from retail sellers to online merchants to get new product: it's easier to find, fairly similar in price, and I don't have to waste time, energy, and gas looking for it. This has been the trend for the past few years and is likely to be the case for the duration of the line. I would guess that waves centered on movies (like the GotG-based Wave) will see larger interest from brick and mortar retailers, but I wouldn't get my hopes up beyond that. Bottom line is that retailers just don't want to order product that appeals to a very limited market, and that is exactly what MU and AI represent.

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