On our travels this morning, we noticed another sneaky price increase at our local TARGET. Whether this has already happened in your area or not (no one has written in to let us know), Saga Legends have now hit $8.99 each. To Hasbro we say that this is unacceptable. Yup, we're on another emotional rant. And apparently so are you! Join in by leaving your own comments on this stressful topic - your fellow collectors have already begun! Click through for our latest.
Nothing is more irritating than not being able to find a single new figure on the pegs and seeing the peg-warmers get a price hike. We just experienced this today and it's prompted us to write this rant. Before we begin, let us acknowledge first to our foreign readers that we aren’t trying to diminish the horrible retail you pay in your countries. Every time we post news complaining about price increases, we get emails right back to us from foreign readers explaining that they have it worse. And you do. But please keep things in perspective. Higher prices in the USA will translate into even higher prices for you in your respective countries. So please empathize with our aggravation and points here.
The Saga Legends line is meant to be cost effective in every way. Now it has equaled the MSRP of The Vintage Collection? What gives? And is TVC on its way up again!? Instead of defending your position saying that you don’t set retail prices, in effect you do because the net pricing of these figures is indeed dictated by you. Besides the horrible distribution woes AGAIN this year (we really thought you would have ensured this got under control with a whole new line), you want us to pay inflated prices for product that has been available in one form or another that dates back as far as 2005. We love Saga Legends and clearly understand its relevance at retail, but please don’t make this a premium cost line.... because it isn’t.
What is it going to take to see the new Star Wars figures hang on the pegs a little bit longer than 2 and a half seconds? And while not as much of a problem, even the newer figures in The Clone Wars line are burdensome to find. Collectors that don’t visit retail at every waking moment of their lives like us don’t even have a prayer to see new figures on the shelves. We have reported seeing 9 cases of wave 4 and 6 of The Vintage Collection at a local Walmart and in 24 hours, they were all gone except for a few of the carry-forward figures. Doesn’t this speak volumes that there is a severe drought of new Star Wars product in this collecting desert? Hasbro, at your next meeting, please revisit the platform of the Star Wars line. Gouging us with price increases will not work. It hasn’t before and it certainly won’t help now. And can the factories please spend their energies pressing new figures instead of Saga Legends for a little bit please? It’s a major problem that we can find more Episode II Clone Troopers from 2003 (2010 Saga Legends) clogging the shelves than we can of finding even ONE new VC45 2011 figure. Does this not make you shutter?
Can you increase production numbers? The Vintage Collection is viral in every sense of the word. There are a few stinkers, but the stuff for the most part is fantastic. We know you don’t like to give out production numbers, but have you increased the number of units per figure since the Legacy Collection (which you claim were the lowest produced units of all time)? It isn’t fair that collector will have to go up against collector to find one upcoming Rebel Fleet Trooper, a figure that most will want to army build. (And that's if we can even find the darn thing.) Something just isn’t working and it’s time to act now. The Vintage Collection is your best basic figure line yet. We want to see it continue forever as unlikely as that may be. Thank you for making it extend through 2012, but please steer it back on course. As we have mentioned, Star Wars should be affordable and we should be able to find the stuff with relative ease. Both are not happening right now. Please do what you can. Invite fan sites to discuss at a roundtable meeting the many detailed experiences at retail and what is going wrong. We spend a lot of time in the stores and can give you plenty of data on what needs to be changed.
This may be an extreme idea, but what if you made a contract with retail store each year (TRU, TARGET, etc.) where collectors could got to that one store where it was packed to the gills with all new product? And then the following year, the next store could get it. Something like that would have to work, right?
Thank you for your time, Hasbro.
