[Captain Nash]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBlueMarvel

At this point, I'm not even sure this is a procurement/retail "buyer" problem (not sure if that's the term - I know that in media, a "buyer" buys ad-spots within broadcasting time slots of commercial television - I think the vernacular is similar in retail - maybe not). The deeper into this 'exclusive collecting game' we get, the more I believe the problem lies squarely with Hasbro. There was a time when I often opined about what the incentive could be for short shipping certain figures within cases. Wouldn't Hasbro want to provide for the demand of a particular fig and move more units? Then it dawned on me that, outside of it's own website, Hasbro makes it's money not specifically from me (the collector), but from box stores buying large numbers of their product at wholesale to sell to customers at a bump-up. Short shipping hot-commodities like rare figs brings in foot traffic to (dying) retail spaces. Obviously, stores want to sell the fig, but more foot traffic means more sales of the other things we tend to buy when we go searching in Target, Walmart, Walgreens, etc. Extrapolating this concept of 'cross-pollination' buying to 'exclusives' and specialty stores like TRU doesn't provide a direct correlation, but it does make sense on some levels. How many of us have gone to TRU to look for a Legends Exclusive, but left with a Neca (or other) fig to assuage our disappointment in not finding what we came for? In short, in my opinion, this process is one of meticulous and purposeful design. Retailers want these exclusives because they know we are desperate. We will search high and low. We will drive miles. We will come back multiple times in one week. And, most importantly, we will buy other things beside the toys we came in search of...

That's a very good point. I don't fit that mold for TRU exclusives - if they don't have what I'm looking for, I'm just walking out, as I tend to have "tunnel vision" for TRU. But for other stores I'm much more likely to pick up something I might need/want though it may not be collectibles. But I imagine I'm probably in the minority on that. If it is Hasbro I feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot - why go to the trouble of molding and producing these figures to sell at a standard retail price ($20 a figure basically) if they don't intend to distribute many of them, taking into account of course only to exclusive stores, not to everyone. If they were "rare" figures that would cost much more I can understand, more money for same production costs, but it just doesn't make sense. Not that you may not be right of course, it just a bit baffling to think they'd do that.

For what it's worth I do wish that there were no exclusives period.