[MGTAJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1

Uh...yes, times are less hard at Wal-Mart, because they're still the largest retailer in the land and thus get the best wholesale deals from manufacturers, as well as having far more padding to take losses or minimal profit on some items if their profits on all the other stuff they sell are good enough. But put it this way: If Toys R Us is paying, say, $3 a figure (purely hypothetical) for Star Wars figures, Wal-Mart is probably paying $1.50.

But hey, if you all want to believe it's the grand Hasbro conspiracy to piss off toy collectors, be my guest.

My post didn't have anything in it that isn't supported by a few simple internet searches for yearly and quarterly earnings by Mattel and Hasbro, and what you can see with your own eyes every time you go to one of the stores over the past few years. Stuff floods in the fall/winter, and droughts the rest of the year unless it's a movie tie-in. The only difference now is that the drought is even drier because the retailers are losing confidence and faith in traditional toys over higher-profit items and electronics. Notice which sections of Wal-Mart and Target keep getting smaller and which keep getting bigger year-by-year.

This is all pretty much on point. Walmart, or any large multi-national, can take advantage of economies of scale by buying in larger bulk quantities than their nearest competitors. The more you buy, the more you save, basically.
The thing with the volatile global economy is that households are spending less on non-essential items, and for example MU figures at $9 a pop will be one of the first things to be reduced or eliminated on a family budget. And with only collectors being the main buyers of the primary MU line, only the HTFs or short-run figures are selling. More than likely, Walmart's inventory will only show, say, 15 MU figures on shelves. Sure, it may be 10 wolverines and 5 iron mans (men?) but Walmart's software likely doesn't differentiate between different characters and won't reorder. This, in essence, is the main problem. Hasbro chooses how it packs cases, retailers stock and won't restock until the levels are ata sufficient low.