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Quote:

Originally Posted by D Day

You know every other company that sells a product does site visits where the send reps into actual stores to see how stuff is selling, make sure the display looks good, make sure that if there isn't product on the shelves and if there isn't get it ordered and on its way, or find out what the deal is. How do I know? Because I've done it.

So why is hasbro apparently not doing this?? If they were they certainly wouldn't be repacking falcon! That's a basic practice of companies to maximize profits, and ensure if there is a product people desire make more and sell more, again, maximizing profits.

The conversation you had with whoever it was at the con was, for a while anyway, hope inspiring. Giving them a list of rares, them trying to explain distro issues, for a minute felt like they would actually fix something.

But my gut tells me it's lip service. It seems like they don't give a shit, telling you the case assortment is random is tantamount to saying, "we are gonna make these products, but we don't really care if it's something you want or if it actually sells or not".

Hasbro is a big company with their hands in a lot of different pots, so I gather it could be difficult to track it all, but where there's a will there's a way.

Pre retaliation joes, walking into my 4 area Walmarts and there not being one gi joe figure on the pegs is just plain stupid, a lack of effort on everyone's part.

I do appreciate the Rogue/Longshot pack coming out, but really? One more wolvie? Come on man!

I don't think we can ever expect Hasbro to do anymore than what they do now. Like you said, they only seem to give us lip service while ignoring the obvious distribution problems and blaming retail outlets for anything that goes wrong. I'm sure they have tons of statistics and year to year data that they use to try and project future sales, but seem completely unable to look outside the box.

When I was a kid I remember there being a much larger Marvel presence in stores. Now maybe I'm wrong, but I remember in the early 90's there being large sections of ails devoted to the different lines of the day. X-Men, X-Force, and the general line that carried characters like Spider-Man Punisher, Iron-Man and so on. There would be multiple waves available at my local TRU and for years I could go in and get most any figure my allowance would allow. Some where hard to find but for the most part they were all there, and I had to choice which ones I wanted that week or month.

I didn't decide to start collecting ML until after wave 3 with Magneto, Wolverine, and Thor and even at that point I could still find all the characters from wave 1 and 2 at retail.

Hasbro is not going to change. They will never start a subscription or online collectors club. They will not make any adjustments according to our wishes or thoughts. We are not valued. We all know that they see kids as their primary demographic and they will continue to think of us as the cherry on top. Not something you go to the ice cream store for but a little bonus.

The way I deal with this is to pre-order when I can afford it and fill in from there. To think of all the money that is made by online retailers and third parties just because their product has little to no presence in stores is mind baffling to me. I don't hunt at all anymore. It's just to time consuming and expensive to bother when you always come up empty handed.

Hasbro is by far the worst when it comes to in store presences. I mean year after year all their lines seem to shrink from store shelves. And when it comes to cutting corners and customer relations, I view them as being terrible. I have no expectations of them and can't for the life of me understand why they even bother doing Q&A at conventions, when all they ever say is the disingenuous "will look into that."

I see us having two options, stick it out and deal with all the problems or quit altogether.