General Vent and Rant about Action Figure Collecting Today

[Dice]

So I went to Walmart at opening and they had 7 A.W.E Strikers on shelf. I went again after work just to see if anything was restocked. All 7 were gone. I’m guessing 1 person bought them all. I already have one but this is the stuff that sucks the life out of collecting

I would believe you're right. They've been "out" for a long time so I'm surprised you saw them still in store. And going by what people are asking for them now you could easily double your money on each one and be one of the lower prices around.

I was fortunate to get mine from someone just looking to get their money back and cover shipping.

[wyldman11]

So you're saying I could be making a decent penny for the last month or more.

They just redid the toy aisle at my walmart. They put the hasbro stuff on separate sides of the aisle.

Also Walmart can be notorious for leaving stuck in the back, this coming from many many vendor accounts.

[Dice]

So you're saying I could be making a decent penny for the last month or more.

They just redid the toy aisle at my walmart. They put the hasbro stuff on separate sides of the aisle.

Also Walmart can be notorious for leaving stuck in the back, this coming from many many vendor accounts.

Ha! I went to my Walmart.com site with the intent of giving you a "going for" price and I'll be danged if they aren't showing as available right now.

Prior I was seeing them go for around 40 each or more. They're 18 bucks retail.

After checking there's only 1 left on my site.

[wyldman11]

Just realized I typed stuck and not stock but kind of appropriate.

[Night Stalker]

So in summary, based entirely on my meaningless armchair analysis: Exclusives exist solely because retailers believe it gives them a slight benefit. In reality, this tiny benefit is practically nonexistent and customers and toy companies suffer significant negative consequences.

Pretty much right on the money.

There are different levels of exclusives as well. You have one-off figures or playsets that you traditionally couldn't move en masse. Sears began the trend of asking for exclusives that smaller retailers couldn't stock. Hasbro, Kenner and Mattel were obliged to create said items in order to do business with Sears, which was 90% of the North American toy market. Production costs were a lot higher back then for small run figures, and the toy manufacturers ate the expense as a necessary cost of doing business. Meanwhile, Sears loses clout and companies begin ditching the exclusives, opting instead for direct mail giveaways.

Now we're in the late nineties and production costs are dropping for short-run figures, so they become popular again. But now they've spilled over into convention exclusives. Every big convention expects and receives an exclusive. Mattel and Hasbro may not make any profit off the figure, but they see it once again as a necessary cost of doing business. It's also a 'two birds/one stone' toss: fanservice and supplying a partner with exclusive goods that drive traffic to their show or store.

Then you have entire toylines like WWEternia which are created as a low-cost/high return item they can offer as an exclusive to a retailer that does well with that segment. Hasbro invented this genre with The Defenders line in the early seventies. They were cheap, blow-mold figures made on original GI Joe molds and featuring a heavy reuse of existing Joe accessory inventory, sold exclusively through Sears initially, who still moved a lot of war figures. Masters of the WWE Universe is not quite so bargain basement, but it's a direct descendant of The Defenders. Sears/Wal-Mart is happy with their exclusive line that they know will sell well, and Hasbro/Mattel still makes a decent profit with little risk or tooling costs.

What I hope for is a return to the way Mattel used to handle exclusives. Sears always favored Hasbro and Kenner over Mattel, so Mattel didn't bother breaking a sweat to provide Sears with exclusive figures or playsets. Instead, Mattel would do exclusive multipacks of existing figures, or package an existing figure with additional accessories. They would throw together something like a He-Man/Skeletor/Battle Cat multipack or a Man-E-Weapons deal: something that nobody really felt the need to repurchase unless they were absolute diehard completists.

It would go a long way to repairing fan relations if they said "the exclusive for Butt-Con will be exactly the same Butt-Man figure you can purchase at retail, except it will be in exclusive Butt-Con packaging with a few extra repainted weapons we previously sold in the Butt Universe Weapons Pak." Not "Here's a brand new character and figure we created exclusively for the Butt-Con and won't sell anywhere else, so if you want to complete the line, make friends with a scalper! Collect 'em all!"

[wyldman11]

Or not even a whole new character but one that's part of the media that hasn't been released elsewhere. Or they con exclusive 'comic accurate' deco, or including an accessory they actually use in the media.

Sometimes with the exclusives it feels we are one step away from He-man with Power sold, which won't be sold at retail you can only get He-man at retail.

[DadStrong]

Here’s another reason to be ****** lol




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