Q and A of the Day: Day 36

Welcome to our next Q and A of the Day post! This column will be published daily, weekly, monthly, or just based on how many questions I get emailed – but no more than one a day. Feel free to send in your questions and I will put them in the queue. Click through for Q and A of the Day: Day 36.

Q: Some thoughts have been stewing around the old noggin there, and I was hoping you might help me out with some expert opinion. Sorry if you have already shared your thoughts on the subject. Over the past weeks, I have had a some great experiences with Hasbro Toy Shop. Many of the best Black Series offerings have made their way into my collection. Using HTS, I wasted no time or gas in doing so. With the dismal state the toy aisles are in, why waste any time going to brick and mortar stores scouring the vestiges of Wave 1, especially when Amazon offers many of those same figures for less than $3? I have to imagine that Amazon and HTS, at least in some way, have affected the toy sales at stores this holiday season. It is quite clear that the stores care very little about selling Star Wars action figures, given that we have to wait until every single figure sells through before we see another case come in stock. An insider, who has been at my local Target for the last two years, shared this information with me. His name is TVC Naboo Royal Guard. Hasbro has drawn a 5 POA line in the sand, and seemingly very few collectors dare cross it. That's where the focus seems to be shifting. We can all appreciate Hasbro trying to make figures more affordable for kids. That's partly why we are here. It seems Hasbro thinks that they can grab the "casual" fan with their offerings on shelves, but I doubt that they will pay $10 for figures, beloved by collectors, that are more obscure. They can simply buy a nice-enough looking, better-known Saga Legends for $6. I know that when I was a casual fan, POAs meant nothing to me.

My question is: Why doesn't Hasbro sell the collectors line from their store exclusively? The current system is working at the efficiency of a Moisture Vaporator on Mustafar. HTS sells figures for the same price as the big box retailers, or cheaper in some cases. When they sell from their own shop, I have to imagine that they take a higher share of the proceeds. And instead of shipping figures to stores all around the country, they would only have to get them to a couple of warehouses. This would cut down on shipping costs. If Hasbro sold directly from HTS, maybe we could get away from the case assortment model that has been plaguing the line since TVC. Thus making it easier for Hasbro to get us the more desired figures, alleviating some of the losses they take by packing in the less desirable figures. It might also give us more input on future figures. This would, in all likelihood, completely sever the line between collectors and kids. The online model has worked for other licensees, and Hasbro is the biggest of them all. Could you see the collector focused line switching to an online-only model, or would the line "transform into the force" before ever going that route? There are a myriad of reasons why I think this could work, and, most likely, even more why it couldn't. One thing is for sure, something has got to change. I have given up looking in stores, I just hope that others haven’t given up looking entirely. I just wanted to know the thoughts of an expert hobbyist.

Sorry for rambling, and, as always, keep up the good work on my favorite site. By the way, I cannot get enough of the Vintage Collection Special Report. I refer to it when the toy aisles get me down, which is nearly every day. The Tribute belongs in an art gallery somewhere. I am going to get it printed and hang it in my collection room, unless JTA can make it happen first of course. (Civilized Opress)

A: Civilized Opress – I couldn’t articulate my feelings better than the way you have in the first paragraph. You’re not alone in your feelings and concerns. In the last few years, I have grown to accept that giving Big Box retail the ability to sell Star Wars figures may have been the worst decision possible. I can’t get into all the reasons I feel this way here, but in a nutshell, it’s my opinion that when you’re a huge chain like Walmart or TARGET, Star Wars action figures are about the last thing on the list to worry about, and that's understandable. However, the line shouldn't suffer because of it. I know of a Walmart very close to me that received over 20 cases of The Vintage Collection wave 11 (Deleted Scenes wave). They put out four cases and returned the remaining 16 cases to the “steel” in the stock area (Walmart employees will know what this is). To date, I haven’t seen ONE of these stowed cases make a return appearance on the shelves. And you would believe that Walmart NEVER received another case of TVC figures again? No surprise, right? Granted, there were way too many TPM carry-forwards in that assortment, but these cases didn’t even have a fair chance at retail, thanks to Walmart, not Hasbro. This one store clearly didn’t need 20 cases obviously. Not one retail location on Earth needs this many. There are too many stores around and this kind of volume would make any store come to a screeching halt. The line bottlenecked. I have already gone off on a tangent, but it sets up my point about Hasbro. Had the Deleted Scenes wave contained at least 80-90% new figures, maybe they would have sold through better and not halted the flow of future waves. (Also, let's not forget the disadvantage wave 11 had after the influx of wave 10 everywhere.) After we (JTA) personally complained to Hasbro about the case assortments and the over-shipment of inaugural waves, they promised us they revisited things. OK, so wave 2 and wave 3 of The Black Series have started arriving at retail. That is wonderful, but have you seen the case assortments? Why are figures from “the most boring wave arrangement of all time (TBS wave 1)” still getting shipped? Why are only four all-new Saga Legends figures shipping in wave 2? Why is there only one Stormtrooper in packed in a case? Hasbro needs to start arranging cases that aren’t designed for retail locations. The collecting culture has changed. Figures are too expensive to army build nowadays. So carry-forwards pile up quickly now. Hasbro told us they would create different case arrangements for online than they would for retail. You know what? They need to release the Star Wars line with a minimum of ten new figures per case. No more 4-5 new figures and 7-8 carry-forwards. It’s ridiculous. Until this changes, the line is in peril.

What your question suggests would work, but it would also alienate the many online shops trying to make money from this line too. I am a working class man, so I respect the small business owner and his need to bring in revenue. I have no issues with the Star Wars line being exclusive to toy-focused retail in general however. I don’t think that Star Wars figures need to be available for sale at a store where I buy toilet paper and shower curtains. But that is just my two cents. I think Hasbro should support the retail toy industry, make contracts with them on what the items should sell for and stock them to the gills with the products we want to see. I would also like to see a state where Hasbro is accountable for terrible case assortments. If a store like Toys R Us cannot sell through their 25 Biggs Darklighter action figures, then Hasbro should immediately come to their rescue, credit them somehow (in product, not dollars) and get the new cases flowing in strongly again. Maybe that would show them that they need to revisit how they do things, if they felt that financial pinch all the time. (Are they hoping retail just takes whatever they shove their way? Geeze.) Things aren’t working anymore. And Hasbro seems to just want to get their diminished quality products into stores and let retail fend for themselves. I don’t like this approach and I want to see some accountability from them. Hasbro has told me directly that they need stores like TARGET and Walmart otherwise the line wouldn’t sustain itself. But I ask, these stores haven’t gotten any new product in almost two years and clearance chains have been blowing out what they were supposed to be selling. So who is fooling who? Give the retail toy industry exclusivity on the Star Wars brand. And then once stores like TARGET and Walmart (and others) get their act together with the Star Wars line, then let them start handling the lines again responsibly. But they won’t be able to handle the line responsibly until Hasbro changes a few of their protocols first. Aside from a few freak store reports, I have found nothing at retail. And TARGET is now blowing out The Black Series figures because they’re still under the TVC DPCI. It’s disastrous I tell you! I also have to tell you, aside from ONE store find at TARGET, I too have only found The Black Series wave 2 and 3 on Amazon.com and HasbroToyShop.com. Maybe it’s already happening that the Star Wars brand is becoming an online exclusive? I don’t know. But I do know that things will likely never be like they used to which saddens me a lot.

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