Should figures be exculsives ?
 

hello arkers
im slightly annoyed with hasbro about these walmart , tru, target exculsives
Seriously what is hasbro doing ? Yes they make awsome figures but why in gods name cant they be like the normal ml / mu figures that are international toybiz did it easily with no problems. (i hope) If i owned hasbro i would forget the meaning of exculsive or special edition , the company would be inertnational and i would likely make more money then the lazy staff in hasbro (not scuplters) i think one day hasbro will possibly fall this is due to less people buying these figures luckly for usa and some international comapnies you get the exculsives but not uk or canada ( i have heard you dont get any) This needs to stop or dont make the figures at all ! otherwise people like me get so excited until i see that lovely blue sticker saying "walmart exclusive" :mad: hasbro if you can read this or some assossiate of hasbro here tell them now to stop making exculsives and sell worldwide so everyones happy , i a uk customer gets the figure i love and want , while hasbro is happy cause they are making money !!
anyways what do you guys think ?
many thanks
warmachine6

I for one don't like exclusives at all. The distribution on them are terrible. Some Wal-Marts are overflowing with them, so never even sniff them. Target and TRU seem to ok with their exclusives, but Wal-Mart is awful.

And don't even get me started on convention exclusives...

Exclusives usually mean more figures. Usually a toy company wants to make something but they don't think there will be enough demand to flood the market so they see if anyone wants it as an exclusive. If there is no interest then often the figure never gets made. If an exclusive is the only way to get a figure then it's better than no figure at all.

That said, I hate the exclusives don't get released up here in Canada. I think a lot of it has to do with not wanting to make separate packaging with French (which we don't even need). Before I moved up here I never thought about but now it sucks. Things like Gigantic Battles and such never hit stores up here. I've wanted a couple of those destroyer droids with the shields but they never shipped up here.

why make something harder to buy. stores want my money, why make it more difficult

Store exclusives are something the store wants. It's not the toy company that decides "Hey, let's make an exclusive for Walmart!"

Target comes to hasbro and says "We want to have a figure/doll that no one else has. We're comissioning you to make a special Transformer/MLP that only we can sell."

Why? It's an attraction to their store. Collector/parent goes into their store for a toy no one else has, and decides to do the rest of their shopping while you're there.
That's why store exclusives exist.
It's not some conspiricy to drive collectors insane, or make toys difficult to find.

As for TRU, it's only logical that they would get their share of exclusives, being a genuine toy store.

I say yes for the idea of marketing experimental toys, but no for online exclusives that are only available overseas, they wind up hitting me hard in the pocket. If they were available online here, for cheaper prices, I wouldn't care.

I thought this thread was against really HTF exclusives like those from SDCC- which I hate. I don't mind store exclusives too much. Probably because I live in the US. But I can see other's frustration who mightnot have ready accessibility to these stores.

Thank goodness for the interwebz where you can befriend a total stranger that can send these things to you. Who needs what? I'll see what I can do... :)

The toy industry caters to newbies and collectors alike. Boat load of IM, Spidey, Wolvie for the newbs and kiddies... and exclusives for the collectors.

The 'I have what you don't' angle is a cornerstone of collecting. No way around it.

Oh, I agree 100%. But if that's the case, distribute it better. When Wal*Mart had their exclusive Marvel Legends Giant Man series, I went to every Wally that I knew existed. And some that I had to find online. I traveled to 3 different states. And found exactly 1 figure on the pegs. Piss poor distribution.

This post pretty much sums up that issue.
Not the toy company's fault, either.

In a perfect world exclusives would be just fine. But like others have stated distribution is terrible, that's been an issue for a long time. I don't mind so much that there are store exclusives, but for someone like me who lives in a smaller town I have to drive an hour or more in one direction to my nearest toys r us. If I want to go to Target, it's an hour in the opposite direction. The only thing local to me is wal-mart which hasn't restocked it's MU since the 1st appearance wolvie wave. Life's tough when it comes to buying new figures. But usually through other channels and fellow collectors I can come up with about all my needs unless it's a convention exclusive, which i do not care for at all.

If you're ok with it, I'd like to add that post to this thread:

General Reference Guide for Collectors - Toy Discussion at Toyark.com

Be my guest!

voted yes because I feel store exclusives bring figures that otherwise would not be made. I think there have been some poor shoices though for covention exclusives.
Sdt. Slaughter, Zarana, the upcoming Oktober guard.
And Canada does have at least one exclusive, Shocker.

Ok, I've added it in, and gave you credit. I did make some minor changes for spelling, grammar and to match the general flow of the thread, but otherwise it's the same as your original post.

Check it out using the link above.

Awesome. :thumbs :pimp

Great info. Don't forget the scalper's! Who like to buy them all up and well you know...

For me, I have limisted selection. I have 2 LCS, 1 indepdant toy store that marks up figures. 1 Walmart, zellers which is going to be a target somtime next year. No TRU. I have to drive to another province to get a TRU. Canadian tire gets some stuff around Christmas time, they have the 6'' Iron man 3 pack ,but missed out on it. Winners has some decent discount figures from time to time. Some movie stores sell the odd figure. but not much. My walmart got the IM2 6'' exclusives but no gigantic battle packs and have yet to see regular marvel legends in stores yet!

I hate the MU subscription figures. I think it's a great deal for the digital comics, but I don't want them, just the figure. SDCC stuff pisses me off also, as scalpers end up buying multiples and inflate the going value on ebay.

Thing will be better next year when we get the new Target and TRU store.

These exclusives are the worse!
I wonder if the people that go to the SDCC/NYCC are they going for the figures to buy and scalp, or as fans/collector's.

To any who has gone, are you able to differentiate this?