That is one that is also very common, and usually I see people do it in areas where the "buy-online-return-warmers-to-store scam" I describe is prevalent. It doesn't really help anyone, it just passes the burden and lessens the chances of the store that was falsely returned to ordering anything new. I didn't mention pop-and-swap, but that is also incredibly destructive as well, as it results in massive amounts of unsold product that at the corporate buying level equates to "These didn't sell." What is better, save a total of $5-10 at retail playing these stressful destructive games, or buying a case online? If the difference between buying a set of a wave online, or buy & returning a ton of figures to WalMart- which in all honesty is usually $10-20- if that breaks the bank for someone, maybe they should reconsider collecting on a whole and wait until they're more able to do so. I love Hot Toys and collected them for many years, I can't afford to do that anymore; it was disappointing for a while, but hey, years later, and I've found lots of other things I can afford and don't feel like I'm missing out.

All three of those scams mentioned are not only illegal, they hurt everyone- your fellow collectors, the stores you buy from, and the company making the toys. They're not the only reasons for all the problems Hasbro and others have with distro, but they are a factor, and it doesn't exactly endear stores or companies to collector's complaints, when some of the same people are being dishonest, or other good-natured fans do nothing to prevent it. The people who do these scams have no honor, and taking the time to explain them to a store when it's happening takes less time that it did to read this thread.

I'm going by interviews and Q&A's that were straight from Hasbro over the years. It's true some things have changed (Hasbro did state that it wants to become a multimedia company, not just a toy company).

I don't believe I was arguing against any of that. Or at least I wasn't trying to do so. :confused:

And with their experiences specifically, it's understandable. My issue is when they use those experiences to make blanket statements about US retail (or even the world market).

Ok, I understand your point. And as an aside, I'll be 38 later this month. I have been buying and collecting toys since I was 8. Action figures and the like were bought for me since I was 5. I took a break from collecting from 18 until around 24 (but kept most of the toys I owned up to that point). I haven't stopped since. Make of that what you will, but I say I've been collecting for almost 30 years.

While I don't doubt the name of the line was chosen (in part) for that very reason, I don't believe the 3.75" Black Series figures are going to cost that much, unless I missed a news article. I believe the $20 price point is for the 6" figures, which is not that much more than what ROML or DCUC figures are going for now (both considered "collector-oriented" lines).

It doesn't do nearly the volume of business that brick-n-mortar does. Also, even HTS still doesn't keep track of why a given person bought a given toy. How do they know if he/she is a collector, a friend of a collector, a collector friend, or a parent? How would Hasbro know why that person bought the toy(s)?

They may be able to say, "This toy sold well" or "This toy was a flop". But they can't say "90% of the people who bought this toy were adult collectors buying it for themselves". The reverse is equally true, which is again why I say it's speculation at best to guess the ratio of adult collectors to other purchasing groups.

And as we discussed, personal experiences can vary greatly and are not the most reliable source pool when it comes to extrapolating national or international sales trends. Yes, you can have a consensus on chat forums and message boards like ours, but that doesn't account for everyone who doesn't post on sites like this (or is even part of the fandom).

But they don't check on specific figures - at least that has been my understanding. IIRC, they're checking for full pegs and shelves and that the area is nicely-kept.

What clear move? I agree it should be done (if only to help better track sales and fix the issues with POS systems), but I'm not seeing any moves towards that - at least nothing obvious. Though I have noticed some toy lines at Walmart have SKUs that identify specific toys. Too bad it's meaningless to the cashier or customer service clerk.

Oh, I believe they do all kinds of research at various levels. But I don't think they visit every retailer to see how specific items are doing. I also know they can't review certain sales statistics because the data simply isn't gathered at the point of sale. They can't look at non-existent data.

My apologies, then. But I also wasn't saying that there aren't any Japanese kids buying toys. I just said that there were far less of them than adult collectors when compared to the US market.

I'm not going to debate distribution issues here (I've done enough of it on this site). I will say I think you make some valid points, especially about geography being a factor.

That was also during a wonderful period where it seemed like just about everything else went up with inflation, but toys stayed at roughly the same price points for several years. At least as far as Transformers were concerned. Back then I didn't pay as much attention to rest of the toy aisles like I do these days.

The online surveys they occasionally ask me to fill out when I buy from there? It's pretty easy to see what sells and what doesn't- what ends up on clearance is one. ;) Retailer feedback is another. Why do you think we don't see, in Star Wars for example, the Rancor Keeper every year, or Lando toys all the time. Or certain characters from Marvel. Besides obscurity, there's a lot of characters which were "clunkers" over the decades- they don't tend to get remade much. Performance of retailer exclusives. Google search key words, Focus groups... many many more ways companies do market research.


You answer this here-

But for inventory control, backend corporate and the buyers inside of those chains- it's very useful, and been requested. The trend is towards more information than less. Sometimes, for many retailers, they'll fold the unique barcodes into one SKU- since they as a retailer don't care.

I've tried to find the specific Star Wars Q&A where this was mentioned - it was maybe Toy Fair or some other non-collector event within the last two years, and in direct response to the distribution question. It was probably around 2010-11. It could have been a video for the event? I can't find it- but then again I'm in my old age -mid thirties ;) and the memory cheats, it could have been an interview. I'll post it if I can find it.



No, definitely not every retailer. At least in the northeast, there is an occasional presence on the ground. This may be due to the high concentration of stores in a short distance: one could cover at least four high traffic TRU, Walmarts, Kmarts, and Targets each in the area between me and New York City, not counting the ones there, and easily do that in a day. They don't just look at the action figure isle and are there for many other reasons. We all know the people there look at, but do not participate with, fandom, and that is one (of many) factors put into the pot when decisions are made. Since this type of data isn't shared with the public, there's no real way to know. But that doesn't stop fans does it? With toys in general, one could just look at Toys R Us on any given day and see, the entire huge toy market does not cater to the random whims of the collector. In the action figure isle it's a little different. It's not all for collectors, but it's not all for the under-5 crowd. I haven't collected TF since the movies (but keep up with the news somewhat) and that is a different beast in a lot of ways, the US always sweats what the Japanese get, we fans have unreasonable requests.

It's that darn price of oil effecting plastics, shipping, and everything else. There really is no excuse for how high the price of oil has risen in the last 10 years.

There's actually a lot of reasons, whether they're true or not... ;)

Personally I think there's a lot of issues with the factories, and profit margin per piece- how much toy companies make per item sold, and what modern business practices are. The economics of scale. Sometimes it feels artificial, sometimes justified. I think oil is used as an easy scapegoat a lot of times. The factories have been going through a huge number of changes, political and otherwise, which results in workers getting better wages (a good thing) and that is passed along the line too.

When you discover things like how fully painting a face on some lines costs almost as much as the materials for the whole figure, or how sometimes adding an accessory for one figure means three others get extra too, the cost of double knees/elbows, or even how the hated practice of a store exclusive that makes a line live for three more waves- it becomes tough to take the varied excuses at face value, when they understandably don't release information that could back those things up.

Heh, online surveys. The ones done by retailers, right? The ones that randomly pop up once in a while, and that you can easily bypass if you're not in the mood? I highly doubt Hasbro would see anything like that from retailers, since those surveys appear to be geared towards feedback on the retailer, not a toy manufacturer or even a brand. Besides, I would imagine that online surveys probably account for a very small sampling of the overall retail market, since it does not account for purchases made at a BNR.

And once again, personal experience alone cannot be used to "prove" what sells and what doesn't sell. Just because one chain (or even a single store) has certain toys on clearance, doesn't mean that those toys failed at retail. The retail store/chain may have chosen simply to not carry that particular item (or items) anymore and needs to clear shelf space for a new item that it will carry instead.

They may not have sold well in that one area, but are doing great in another (MU being available at some Walmart stores, but nonexistent at others springs to mind. And in the same town, no less).

So in short, no it is not "easy to see" what sells and what doesn't - at least on a national level.

But see you're missing my point. Walmart is not going to tell Hasbro, "Don't make that Rancor Keeper anymore. It doesn't sell very well. Make more of those Jedi and Sith guys. They go like gangbusters." They're basically going to tell Hasbro they want more or less cases of Star Wars, depending on how many they're selling and how many they have in stock.

One retailer adjusting the SKU description for certain toy lines is not what I would consider a "clear move" from the industry. If anything, it comes off as a pilot program. It doesn't seem to matter to the employees and the POS system that Walmart uses still has to order by the case and so doesn't keep track of the sales of individual figures for the purposes of reordering.

I'm not denying that Hasbro and co. have reps that visit retailers. I've met a couple. I know others who have met them. But you seem to be missing my point. What I'm saying is, at least in Hasbro's case, they do not look at the sales of individual figures. That is just not the reason they visit those stores - it's not even a "factor".

For the most part, I agree. No one has successfully explained to me why OPEC seems to treat the price of oil like it's a Duncan yo-yo. But as this particular topic could very easily slip into political territory, I suggest any further discussion of it be taken to PMs.

Do you mean the cost of oil going up, or the cost of toys? Considering Iceman was talking about there being no excuse for the increased price of oil over the last several years, I thought you meant the former. And in that regard, I've heard a lot of the same "reasons" as well....

...but based on this statement, I would have to assume you meant the latter.

In that case, Hasbro had warned a few years ago that prices would go up due to material costs rising (including oil used to make the plastic). There are probably other factors that contributed to the rise in toy prices, but Hasbro specifically said that prices would go up while the toys themselves would also be affected design-wise. I wish I could remember how they worded it, but basically smaller, more simple, less plastic used.

It's a running gag over at TFW: The effect of THE ECONOMY! (dun, dun, dun)

I was actually talking specifically about HTS, but the rest of your comment shows me where your head is at. Data from those surveys is used to make judgement calls, and if you think Walmart or Target doesn't use those surveys for anything, then you're not playing with a full deck. Look, you or I may not take those surveys, but thousands of others do. It's a huge industry. If they weren't looked at, they wouldn't pay for them, full stop. The toy industry isn't unique in the way it does business, it's like everything else. It does epic amounts of market research. It does research about the research. ;) To say otherwise, is to sell them pretty short. You or I may not value those surveys, but it is foolish to imply no one fills them out or pays attention to them.

Actually it is, because on their face, items that get clearanced are items that can not be sold for full price; it doesn't matter whether its old or new or blue or purple, the store ordered a case, and the entire case didn't sell at full price, that is bad. Box retailers hate to clearance anything as like you say it means the floor space is more useful for new items. It's not personal experience it's the way it is. We can go in circles on this as it's obvious you have your position, and are the mod here, and just aren't going to be swayed. The other cases you mentioned are exceptions to the rule. I'm talking in broad strokes and it seems like you're talking about Walmart in specific.



Actually they do. You can see evidence of this in how many companies offer specific versions of their products for Walmart, from DVDs to milk. They don't make "specific" figures for them, but you're lying to yourself if you think there isn't a huge amount of communication between Hasbro and retailers. It's how exclusives get defined and made. You don't think they negotiate those deals? You don't think there's some discussion, like "this wave didn't sell, this one did gangbusters"? If they don't pay attention to which figures sell more than others, or which are more popular with buyers than others, how do they decide what to make?


Really? Because you've got someone in the store, and you're going to tell them "Hey, don't go down the action figure isle." If they didn't look at individual sales like you say, we'd have shelves of Bumblebees and Wolverines, and none of the exclusives, none of the obscure characters. What would be the point of doing mixed cases, why not go back to 1996 and do solid cases of just one character? You yourself noted that individual names and SKUs are showing up. It's a fact they're showing up- retailers want this, have asked for it.

Now what stores do with them (for example, a drug store folding them into one SKU internally, or someone like FYE who re-stickers the product with their own internal SKUs) is their own thing. I'm saying this is something they said they were going to do, retailers asked for it, it's showing up, and that the trend at retail is for more information, not less.

You can't really talk oil or factories or even the toy business like this, without getting political to some extent, and that is somewhere I didn't want to go. There's the politics involved in the discussion about international vs. US toy markets too, and the misconceptions from those who don't buy from that international market as well. The irony of this being discussed on 4th July is not lost on me.

But I will say, I have no problem paying a premium for my collecting habit. If I get priced out of Hasbro's offerings then I'll go somewhere else, like I have before. There's been an amazing amount of great stuff produced since the 1960's. If Hasbro stops making Transformers or Marvel toys due to costs, I'm not going to cry in my beer. Disappointed, sure. If Star Wars figures go up another couple bucks for the 3.75-inch guys, I'll have to stop getting as many as I do per year. I don't think it's right to charge the same price for a 5 POA figure as you would a super articulated one. This is the year where what you buy really matters, as it's the first year they've cut articulation, detail, and paint without lowering the price. So I vote with my dollar.

Look obviously you have your point of view, and others have theirs. The trend on action figures in general is skewing older, whether you like it or not. Transformers has its own world where it exists, and is currently the in-vogue thing with some kids and teens.

Things have really changed in the last three years, and I see Hasbro and others making moves to fix the distro, as well as move away from toys and into other non-tangible goods (such as movies, or apps.) If you don't agree with those moves, or don't see them at your specific Wal-Mart, fine. But it's happening. The move in retail physical goods is more information, rather than less. Toys are physical goods. The altering of SKUs is part of that, much like a lot of the buzz about trackable tags. I've seen it at several stores, across several Hasbro products, to be fair I haven't seen it on Transformers. You yourself mentioned you've seen it before. Remember I'm talking about SKU, which is different than the bar code on the back of the figure. And besides, this is all pointless to discuss- the move in retail is to do away with UPC bar codes anyway, and move towards a QR Code based system, which by nature can be easily individualized.

But then Transformers aren't the toys people are really constantly, constantly complaining about distro and selection, like they are Star Wars, GIJOE, or Marvel. They can't do a Q&A without it coming up, and rightly so. Distro has been the main news story for Hasbro Star Wars, pretty much since 2010. Since after the first movie, GIJOE has been impossible for casual fans to find. So if you're only really looking at TF you aren't going to see those things. We're around the same age, and I get where you're coming from, but times have changed. Hasbro - as well as most international players in the toy market- are moving towards electronics, apps, and movies- all things with bigger profit margins, for their child-focused products.

The middle of toys is going away, it seems to be going in the direction of physical goods for children under 4, and collectors 17-40; and virtual goods (apps, video games, movies) for the 5-17 set- which is where for decades our little plastic men were aimed at. The 70's-80's model you and I grew up with is long, long gone, whether we like it or not. Your experience is the exception, not the rule- you're collector and a mod on a toy site, so of course your children would play with physical toys. If you were a mod on a video game site, I doubt there'd be an Optimus Prime in the house, but you may think "everyone has an iPad" or "Everyone has a PS3 as well as an XBOX."

The bottom line for me is, there is no clear answer on collectors vs. kids, it's a mixed bag. Some collectors think the world revolves around them and some think it revolves around the little ones. The truth is in between. If they can't see where a $5-6 5 POA Wolverine figure is marketed to, or a $150+ Transformer of a 30-year old character is marketed to, then... their bad.

I never, never said that retailers don't use those online surveys. Where did you get that? I implied that they are only a sample of the overall market. And granted, that trend towards online purchasing is growing, so I would imagine more focus will eventually be placed on those surveys. But when Target and Walmart are both expanding their BnR divisions, I have some doubts about how quickly the shift in focus is being made.

Again. Never said they don't do research. Never implied they don't. Never implied they only do a little bit of research. And I never said that no one fills out those surveys. I wasn't even implying that "no one fills them out". I was, however, implying that some are not filled out and because of that those surveys may not be the most accurate in terms of market trends. Especially at the physical retail level, which is the only area I've been talking about. You brought online purchasing into the discussion, not me.

Not always true. Sometimes retailers simply decide not to carry an item anymore and just want to clear out remaining stock. And sometimes "clearance" doesn't always mean the price went down - sometimes it just means the items will no longer be carried. Target uses a status called NCF ("Not Carried Forward"), while Walmart simply changes the color of the price tag (but not the price). I would hazard a guess that other retailers have similar methods.

Yes, you are speaking in very broad strokes. And no, I'm not talking about Walmart specifically, I'm speaking about physical retail in the US. I tend to use Walmart as an example, since it's easily relatable to most people.

Retailer exclusives and the like are out of the scope of this discussion. I'm not talking about any of those - certainly not DVDs, milk or any other product that Hasbro doesn't make. I'm talking about good old-fashioned toys made for mass-market retail. The kind that goes to every retailer Hasbro can get to buy it.

Mass-market toys are not made for one retailer, but do attempt to please them all. Toy buyers for retail companies look at the line as a whole at industry events (like Toy Fair) and make the decision to carry or not carry a mass-retail line based on that.

As you said, exclusives are created through one-on-one negotiations between a retailer and a manufacturer. It does not mean that in the same conversation, they talk about how Target or TRU can't get enough of Darth Vader figures, but "that crappy Rancor Keeper has got to go". Especially if the exclusive they were just negotiating about was a Marvel Universe multi-pack (different divisions, marketing, legal, etc). But they might talk briefly about MU as a whole - again, no specific figures. At the corporate levels that those conversations occur at, I sincerely doubt either side has numbers in front of them that would single out a particular toy or character.

I would imagine they'd go by the case sales. If a case of figures sells well, they assume that the characters in that case are popular enough to carry over or make more of them. Also, the associated media will help decide as well. Vader and Luke for SW, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee for TF, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow for Joes, Spider-Man/Wolverine/Iron Man for MU, and so on. The development cycle of a given toy line also plays a factor too (1-2 years on average, from design to pegs/shelves).

Bumblebee may be an extremely popular Transformers character, but it doesn't automatically mean he's a bestseller in the toy aisle. In fact, a major complaint during the DOTM line was the massive amounts of pegwarming Bumblebee toys (just about everyone on the forums was complaining about it at one point or another). Hasbro even made a statement about it, which is not something it normally does. Hasbro thought Bee's toys would do really well because of how popular he is, but apparently overestimated the demand for them at the time.

Are you kidding? Of course they're going to go down the various toy aisles and take a look around. But they're not going to go to each and every line and mark down how many of each individual toy is there and ask the retailer how many of each character's toy(s) were sold or haven't sold.

And as I mentioned earlier, we did have pegs/shelves full of Bumblebee. We have pegs full of Iron Man (both IM3 and Avengers). We had pegs full of Thor at one point (but hardly any of the supporting cast). Ultimately, it's a guessing game that Hasbro plays when it plans out the case ratios at the beginning of a line. The obscure characters that are included are Hasbro's way of throwing a bone to the collectors/fandom. But if Hasbro honestly thought that obscure toy would be the big seller of the case, it would have the highest ratio instead of the "popular" character(s).

Yes, but in the exact same statement, I also mentioned that it doesn't seem to matter to some retailers. Target, Walmart and TRU all use blanket SKUs for the majority of the toys (at least at the assortment level). Even for the lines that have individual SKUs for each toy, the POS system used by those same retailers ignores that SKU since orders are done by the case, not the individual toy.

Don't get me wrong - I welcome the day when the Toy Department manager will have the ability to order 20 of the figure that constantly disappears from the pegs/shelves and does not order any of that pegwarmer who's been sitting there for three months. But I think we're obviously not there yet, or there would be far less complaints about distribution - regardless of the toy line.

Who says I don't like it? ;) And I'm not saying it isn't skewing towards an older target demographic. Simply put, I'm just saying that adult collectors do not make up the bulk of Hasbro's customer base. And yes, this is speculation on my part, which is why I won't even attempt to pull numbers out of thin air and mention specific ratios.

Why the sudden emphasis on Transformers? While it is true that I collect them more than any other toy line or brand, I also collect several other lines and pay attention to those as well as several others that I don't collect. My buying habits may be focused on a few lines, but that doesn't mean that I remain ignorant about everything else.

You know, you're making a lot of wildly inaccurate assumptions about me. Especially since I was a hardcore gamer for several years as well. It is a hobby I readily chose to give up when I got married and had kids. Money can only go so far and some of my hobbies fell by the wayside. But that doesn't mean I no longer keep tabs on the industry, either.

I do own a couple console systems and play video games with my older daughter from time to time as well. Some of the other mods on this site and our sister sites collect toys and play video games. They have kids who do both as well. One hobby does not automatically preclude the other.

Regardless, maybe we disagree on the particulars and are now locked in a circular conversation. Because I completely agree with what you have said below:

There's no point in replying to all of your post (as I'm not sure you remember what you posted over the course of seven pages...) but if you think Hasbro doesn't look at which characters sell more than others, or just pays attention to case sales, semi-ignores retailer and their own surveys, and doesn't use all of the tools at the disposal of modern business and does things like it was the 90's all over again, I can't help you. ;) I have a huge amount of respect for you and the site, but that is almost as likely as Donald Trump taking off his toupee for cameras.

I can help you on your last point: We both collect, but have very different opinions and views on what children do and don't buy. You're basing it on your own personal experience- one family- and I'm basing it on tons of families. We're in different regions and I split my time between two countries, but you should accept that your situation, however cool it is, is definitely not the norm of America or even the rest of the world in 2013. Again, if you want to paint the world in your image, where kids in Japan don't play with toys and everything is made for adults, but here in the US it's all focused for the kids, go right ahead. But the old school thought process that "the toy market is geared towards kids" is the past, things have changed, they continue to. Again, if kids bought so many figures in general, Hasbro would not be buying a TV network and putting millions into video games and apps, they would be buying factories! There would be announcements made to other kids toy sites as to new action figures, when those sites tend to focus on completely different toy products, and not giving "little" collector sites the scoop.

My point is, the whole "Hasblos" argument is not defined true or false by those with unreasonable expectations, their crazy does not change what is going on- in fact it may be a symptom of the mixed message given by years of doing one product for both audiences and the change in direction and availability over the last few years, not to mention the shouts heard on high from them that they don't look at collectors as significant.

I sincerely wish you would stop putting words in my mouth and stop assuming you know me at all. If you truly think those are my opinions, then you really need to re-read this thread and work out some issues you seem to have with reading comprehension.

As it stands, I've said all I'm going to say on the matter. It's painfully obvious that this conversation is getting us nowhere and I'm essentially wasting my time. So I will simply wish you good day and good luck.

good lord this thread is a wall of text. I cant even tell what the argument even is.

why can't Hasbro just give us Foom and more gigantic battles and all the figures I want on my shelf? Damn you Hasbro, damn you to hell! Seriously though, I hope SDCC has some new stuff shown whatever it is.

So I did read the whole thread, quite entertaining for the last few pages...

I have one minor thing to add... Someone posted something about how Hasbro was trying to please everyone with one line (per IP): kids, collectors, parents, etc. But it seems now like they're deliberately trying to split their lines. For Star Wars, there's the normal 4" figs AND the 6" Black line, for Marvel (all lines lumped together for the moment) you get the 5 PoA 4" movie figs and the 6" Legends line. For Transformers, we now have (as of this most recent Botcon) the "upsized cyberverse" Beast Hunters line and the collector oriented "Generations" line...

At Botcon, during the Hasbro panel, they even said as much. That previously they were trying to please kids *and* collectors with one line and it wasn't working. So instead of doing that, they're splitting it into two distinct lines, one for kids (currently Beast Hunters) and one for collectors (Generations). They said this would continue with next years Movie line, where the "mainline" would be "simple transformation" figs for kids, but Generations would stay as it is. I'd also guess (and this is just me) that they'll bring back the Human Alliance toys for adults too (or something similar). I'm not even bringing up Masterpiece here, but they're clearly expanding that for "us" too.

From in-hand Botcon reports, the "kid" upsized legends toys are HUGE compared to normal TFs, too. You can also see Hasbro trying to cater to kids with the 12" 5PoA figures showing up for all their lines.

I think Hasbro is deliberately trying to split their SKUs and try to appeal to each segment separately. In 2-3 years, they'll have some solid info on which types of lines sell better, and to whom.

Splitting of the lines isn't exactly a new thing for TF. Fast Action Battlers were the kiddy version of deluxes. There is also all those more recent Playschool Transformers which I think (I don't own any) are near deluxe sized.

I believe the difference now is that Hasbro is planning to do it with the entire main line, as opposed to having a sub-line within the main line specific for really young kids (like FABs, Gravity Bots, Activators, etc).

Also, Rescue Bots are their own thing (like any of the other Playskool lines), so I really wouldn't say they're indicative of what Hasbro's trying to do with Transformers specifically.

Yeah, what trebleshot said.

Either way, we'll have to wait a year or two to see how it pans out. But if we (adult collectors) really are more than 10-20% of the market, this move will make it obvious.