[Trivial Psychic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phantomcrow

Welllllllll.... I just so happen to work in receiving at Wal-Mart. I see everything that comes off the truck when I am at work. AND I can tell you from first hand experience that 9 times out of 10 we get 1, YES 1, case of any given figure line at a time. Unless the toy aisle is getting reset ( which only happens about once a quarter) we will get in 1 case of Legends, DC Multiverse, Transformers, ect at a time. The ONLY time we get an abundance of a line is if it is for a feature. A feature is going to be an end aisle display or a floor display that goes in the middle of the main aisles. Like when Civil War came out we got a display that had 2 cases worth of the Onslaught wave in it. And once that product gets sold enough that the display is partly empty it will get put in the regular spot in the aisle and cleared for a new product to display. AND yes ALL Cap Legends are under the same sku no matter the WAVE. Same goes for Spidey Legends ect.. So when a store has , lets say 3 pegs for Cap legends, that means about 15-18 figures depending on how crammed the peg gets. (but the store usually goes with what a peg can hold without cramming) So Legends come in a case of 8, so 2 cases would be 16 figures, so enough to fill the pegs and have an extra as they see it. So since that sku is the same in their system no matter the wave, if the 3 pegs are full of previous waves the system will not automatically order any more because the inventory tells them that the stock is at max capacity for the assigned spot on the shelf. SO unless the current stock sells, they have no reason to get more in because it is all the same product to them.
Hope that all made sense, got a little long there.

P.S. We just got 1 single case in this week of the new Transformers Titans Returns figures. Just 1 case because we are still sitting on a few of the Combiners wars figures.

P.P.S. We HATE having anything in the back stock room, We will do almost anything to not have product back there. Most of what gets put in back is food, baby, pets, and general bulk merch. Toys has one of the smallest backstock areas in the back room and most of what ends up back there are stupid stuff like Hulk Hands and child movie tie in crap. There is almost a 0% chance that FIGURES that members of this forum would be wanting are not put out the night that they came off of the truck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GizmoTron

Well I used to work at Target, and personally it's less about laziness than some of us who just get tired of collector nerds thinking that the back room is a magically subspace where stores keep all the latest cases of the toys you want. When an employee says there's nothing back there, there really is nothing back there.

The stores you speak of do only get 1 maybe 2 cases at a time, and it's an automatic ordering process that will tell the Distribution Center to send more only if that store needs more, if you want another Cap ML case of 8 to show up you need to go out and get rid of the pegs full of Hulkbuster wave and Red Onslaught wave figures no one wants first. There's no secret about it.

Wall of text coming...you've been warned.

@Donmeca2020: I can tell you for a fact that everything that Phantom and Gizmo are saying is the truth, and despite it being a focused toy vendor, that the stocking practices aren't all that different at TRU. I worked at TRU in their warehouse and receiving department around the time of the Hasbro takeover of all things Marvel, and everything that they said in terms of receiving cases for standard stock is spot on.

The focus at TRU has changed greatly over the years. Every year, less and less emphasis is placed on the action figure department (commonly known to employees as "boys section") while other departments have expanded rapidly. TRU's main business focus these past few years has been in their electronic/video game sales, Lego and Nerf products (which never used to have their own aisles the way that they do today) and their own Imaginarium and educational toy line. Their "Animal Alley" plush department was scaled back to make room for their FAO line of plush. Where Barbie used to rule the girl's section, she has been scaled back to make room for Disney, MLP and Monster High. And as more and more action figure lines started to disappear from the market altogether (G.I.Joe, DCUC, and even TMNT and Transformers all disappeared from the shelves for a while at one time,) TRU started scaling back their ordering to reflect this change in the marketplace. To make things even more woeful for toy collectors, many TRUs started building Babies R' Us stores within the the TRUs to save that brand from bankruptcy (both of my local TRUs have been converted into BRU hybrids) which in turn ends up chopping the store in half, eschewing dolls, action figures and bikes in favor of diapers, strollers, and baby furniture.

Action figures such as Marvel Legends are now considered to be "licensed product" as opposed to being action figures and as such, are ordered in a complimentary fashion with all the other licensed product, which is why you see your Marvel Legends stocked just two pegs up from your foam Hulk Hands, Black Panther dress up sets, and blind bag Marvel stuffs and Funko Pops. Unless there was a specific promotion for a movie, or end cap display, everything is set by a plan-a-gram given down to us at the corporate level that we are expected to follow, and we never received in more than one or two cases at a time of any specific action figure. Skus are often bunched together (like Phantom said Cap America Legends or Spidey Legends,) and are ordered automatically when a case count is scanned, and only if the said item is available from the local warehouse. In other words, if a store receives in an 8 figure case, no new ones would be ordered by the automated system unless those 8 figures were sold, and if that local distribution center is out of cases by the time you sell your first 8 figures, well...tough luck, you won't be getting any for a while. The ability and power for an employee to order more has been mostly stripped from them in favor of this system due to employees being heavy handed in the past.

There are other things that can cause issues to this ordering system, such as if a person has to manually enter an item because it's not scanning, or if a person returns a damaged item. This causes hiccups in the inventory in that items end up being shown that they are still in stock, and unless they are promptly received in and/or written off by management (which most of the time, they are not,) this also causes issues in new cases of figures getting replenished.

Quote:

Originally Posted by donmeca2020

I beg to differ.... im quite sure IF i offered someone a $5 spot or $10 dollar bill, i'd bet they would run back there to actually look. While im NOT saying EVERY walmart/target/TRU employee is a lazy sack of Sh!t, alot of them are though. i can easily tell when someone just tells me something just to blow a costumer off.

You can beg to differ all you like, but the truth of the matter is that "the back" isn't an endless void where bountiful product exists. And while you will have your off moments where there is extra stock, 9 times out of 10, truthfully, there isn't. Any TRU/Walmart/Target stock clerk will tell you that open cases of toys in the back are a F***ING NIGHTMARE come inventory time, and open case items is one of the quickest and easiest ways to put your store in the red and can ultimately cost you your job. It can also be a nightmare to find one box of stuff stored on a shelf in the back when it's been stuck on a shelf among a bunch of other items that might not make sense, like toilet paper, duct tape, diapers and boxes of rubber flip flops.

I should also mention that some stores have policies that state that even if there is something in the back, employees are NOT to go to the warehouse and retrieve them should someone ask, and are to only place them on the shelf should proper shelf space allow it. My Targets all have signs like this on their toy departments, in particular the action figure section, because of the "collectible nature" of them, and that it "ensures everyone will have a fair chance" to get said items.

Also, not being judgemental, but if you want to try that five or ten spot thing though...lemme know how that works out. I'd be almost willing to bet that the employee would gladly take your money, crack a smile and still tell you there's nothing in the back without checking. Giving someone cash to do something in the manner that you put it is not being gratuitous for them helping you, it's you attempting to display power over them by buying them off, which makes you come off as being a jerk. Better to just ask them nicely. More bees with honey my friend. =)