Later waves may not hit retail?
 

Ok...so in my usual journeys to the WalMarts, Targets and TRUs of the world, I've noticed something which concerns me going forward.

If you look at the remnants of the IM2 series...I have never seen the last wave (Stark Racing Armor, Mandarin, Comic Whiplash, etc) in stores, nor have I yet seen the new 3.75 Armored Avenger line with 11 figs! Now we all know the pegs are backed up, but every store I have seen has not restocked IM2/Armored Avenger since well before the holidays. Same holds true for Spider-Man. The pegs got so backed up with the snowboarding spidey or ninja spidey, etc. that only some realeased the Ben Reilly and Carnage wave, let alone the NINE new ones that came out.

My concern with this is Thor and Cap America. They may not be hugely cool or popular lines, but for collectors, we all know the difference between retail and scalpers. So yes, we've all seen the excessive amounts of Thor, and likely will with the first wave of Cap. But, I believe the last wave of Cap hits August...and at that point will retailers even bother?

Thoughts?

I have seen nothing but those Mark V's at Walmart so the chance of finding the other 6" line seems awfully hard.

Same here. Every time I go to Wal-Mart all they have is the 6 inch Mark V and the same old IM2 figures.

All I see is the same MU figures, spiderman and the damn transforming marvel figures or the tiny heroclix toys, I would prefer seeing rows of MU,ML and Marvel Select toys, I seen the spiderman Marvel select toy at my local Zeller's $21.99 seems kinda steep but the car base he comes with is huge. I have a lot of holes in my MU/IM2 collection, reissues would be nice especially of figures like warpath,bullseye, silver surfer etc.

Well, I have spoken with some retailers and for example with the new line for spider-man, they won't be distributing it because of the big bunch of crappy figures that come in the assortment. One or two might be worth it, but out of a 12 figure assortment, is not profitable for them as the other "for kids" figures never get sold.
And let's face it, Hasbro keeps designing for 3-6 year olds when the biggest market is with older collectionists; and what kind of responsible parent would spend $8-$10 for their kid on a small ugly fluorescent orange spider-man when they probably can get something nicer and bigger for the same price.
So yeah, I don't see much future on retail for these figures unless Hasbro begins changing their marketing strategies.

With a new spidey movie coming that'll be rebranding the toyline, the old will be clearanced out, and the new will take its place. So it's not that big of a deal for spidey. Part of the problem is in the hands of retail and the head of those and what we want don't often mesh.

Sure the ground floor people can see what sells, but to be frank, the people ordering the cases for the main warehouses only know that kids love spidey, wolverine, and ironman, oooh and 2 big movies coming those will have to be hot... So yeah, some of these same people are still stuck in the mindset that toys are solely for kids. So it leads to them wanting these things so hasbro tries to comply to garnish sales from retailers. To be fair though, a good line can cater to both, the collector fan, and the child. Neither market is mutually exclusive to the other, so more variety is needed in these lines to help move them better. Sadly retailers(higher level not floor worker) want to be heavy on ironman, wolverine, and spidey. Because they believe those sell the most. Hence why hasbro keeps adding them back into cases. So really it's both hasbro and retailers creating the issues. Not just one side or the other. Retailers request certain things, and hasbro wanting to keep things on shelves tries to oblige while still getting in what the fanbases (kids and collectors alike) want.

As for cap and thor. It's still too early to tell with the movies not even in theaters yet. So it can go either way on how much volume they push.


The retail issue becomes the main burden because they attempt to overstock so much on the initial waves, prepping for the movies. Which then leads to an overabundance of early waves, and delayed following waves. They should be ordering at a more conservative rate, so as always to be getting the newer stock which has the initial waves figured included normally. So yup, it's mostly on the middle man. The point between hasbro factory and district warehouses.

Nice take guys.

This always happens. Best case scenario is that a year down the road, the last one or two waves of a movie line (including the comic-style figures) hits a discount chain.

What I'd recommend is preordering the last two waves of any movie line from an online retailer like BBTS.com. Sure, it will cost a little more, but you'll actually get the figures.

Not getting later waves of figures has always been a problem for most countries outside of the US - especially Europe. It seems this problem is affecting the US as well now.

With recent waves of Transformers it's been speculated that due to the weak US dollar, Hasbro can make more money selling those figures to other markets. There's also the problem that with a new movie coming out soon retailers just aren't interested (as well as having loads of old stuff peg warming still).

My advice is to pre-order later waves of toy lines.

Thats what I do, I always pre-order with my retailer which ironically sometimes sells cheaper than Hasbro. Unfortunately they won't be getting new spideys due to the reason already mentioned and I am not that hardcore collector that will buy a full case for 1 or 2 figures XD (I'll have to keep an eye on hasbro every 5 minutes until they restock)

Totally agree, but my major concern is that lately they have so much overstock (hence clearance) that I don't know if they are beginning to see those lines as non-profitable and because of this, not ordering them or at least in very little amounts. In my country, this last December, the wallmarts ended up with so many iron mans, black widows, L. Cages, archangels; and I am talking by hundreds, no one was buying and even less for like $15 a piece, so they ended up lowering the prices around $3-$4 and even with that, people were not buying. So I really doubt they will be bringing anything again.
Unfortunately, as you say, we are kind of stuck in a "vicious circle" (think that's the term, not a native english speaker) that in the long run might damage our "incredibly nice hobby" XD that is collecting figures.

this happens with every toy line near its end. big example is toybiz. as the hasbro deal was coming in, the later ML and other toyline waves became much harder. Mojo and Modok waves were only available in toysrus's, while the final fantastic four wave from that toyline barley touched the market, leading to the collectable juggernauts of Dragonman and Kang the Conquerer.
This also happened to Indiana Jones. Remember Short Round's wave? Never saw retail outside of clearance stores and the internet.
happened to Star Wars's Comic packs. though those never made it to store. those became internet exclusives.
bucky ohair, the mario bros movie toyline, teenage mutant ninja turtles, transformers animated, the list goes on and on.

I have to agree with Snow, it's too early but here is my prediction regardless.

Wolverine XMO never got CLOGGED but wasn't that desirable so the limited quantities available didn't move that well.

IM2 had well over 40 figures going into that series alone, of course it's going to get backlogged.

I don't know how hard they will drive Thor and Cap lines, but if they keep it small and simple I think it will do fine.

I dont think this will happen to every retail store. I can see a few retail stores slowing down but I dont think all retail stores will stop buying and reselling these waves.

I think iron man 2 may have done better had it had more variety(like characters who weren't Tony Stark) from the very beginning THEN pimp out Stark armors more towards the end.

Totally.

Yeah wheres Spymaster, Ghost, Living Lazer, Madame Masque, Count Neferia, Blacklash jesus i could go on for ages how many more characters they could have done on this line

Maybe we should all just vow to go out and each purchase a spiderman and iron man figure that way we can clear space for the new good stuff :)

You are correct.