[flaccideagle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebleshot

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.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebleshot

What clear move?

You answer this here-

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebleshot

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.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebleshot

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.

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.