Case Assortments

[RedOktobre]

Originally Posted by Commandoclone87

Went to Tru the other day. They had more Bumblebees than there were pegs to put them on. I actually lost track somewhere after counting out 40-50 yellow cars.

I like your post!

It made me laugh!

Here's my two (2) cents.

In my opinion, according to Hasbro:

• This is not about popularity.
• This is not about scalpers.
• This is not about pegwarmers.

Do you know what it's about?

It's about business:

• make a profit
• keep Hasbro's investors happy
• keep Hasbro's stock price up
• cater to the preferences of Hasbro's three (3) top customers:
  • Walmart
  • Target
  • Toys R Us

In the grand scheme of things, TF Collectors only make up a limited portion of Hasbro's Transformers target market.

The general public, children and parents, make up the bulk of the target market. Parents and kids are not as sophisticated as the typical TF Collector and they are not picky about the figures. If the TF figure looks nice, they probably buy it.

Hasbro has absolutely no obligation to TF Collectors. We are justing walking dollar ($) signs to them. Their goal is to maximize profit, grow the company, and keep their investors happy. They will do whatever they can to achieve their objectives.

This is why us TF Collectors often fail to understand Hasbro. We assume that Hasbro caters to us! Guess what? They don't!

That's my two (2) cents!

Oh yeah, please remember to read my disclaimer at the bottom of my signature.

[Nomad]

Well said.

Also, I should make a disclaimer like that too hhah

[Bruticus82]

Originally Posted by RedOktobre

It's about business:

• make a profit
• keep Hasbro's investors happy
• keep Hasbro's stock price up
• cater to the preferences of Hasbro's three (3) top customers:
  • Walmart
  • Target
  • Toys R Us

I agree with you, but I think in talking about the preferences of parent/children later in your post, you got a little off track from your point.

The following is my two cents:

Hasbro looks to keep their customers happy first and foremost, and their customers are, as you mentioned above, the retailers. Retailers have purchasers working for them who try and predict what toys will sell and purchase stock appropriately, and occasionally make demands of hasbro to fit what they think will "sell" better.

We saw this in the first movie line, when wal-mart requested Hasbro take "Universe" figures, like Fracture, and release them in movie packaging because Wal-mart thought they would sell better in the movieverse packaging. Hasbro is trying to please the retailers to seal the deals first and foremost.

There is, therefore, a slight disconnect between what Hasbro does, and what sells to consumers - and it is primarily retailers that are responsible for this disconnect.

If the retailers make demands, or purchase choices, which end up not reflecting what the public wants, less product will sell (e.g. "Make sure you have enough ravages in those cases!", or "I'll buy 500 cases of the first two waves...nah...I don't think I'll need waves 3 or 4..."). Of course that impacts badly on Hasbro as well, as the retailer will likely blame demand for hasbro product rather than their poor purchase choices, and Hasbro will sell less product.

As a result, I feel Hasbro is stuck in this delicate balancing act between keeping the retailers happy and giving them what they want while indirectly trying to keep end consumers happy and giving them the toys they want.

It's a very tough position for Hasbro to be in. They're essentially trying to sell to two different markets who have sometimes differing wants/needs.

[Undrave]

Retailers' purchasers don't know their shit that's what >.> I worked for three monthes in an independant toy store and probably know more about girls toys than they do and I don't even care about 'em...

anyway let's put aside the sea of Bee problem for a second and ask: WHY is Soundwave the one that gets Shortpacked in the first wave?! Dude is there in multiple episodes and he's a really striking prescence. Meanwhile you get two of the dude who dies within 5 minutes of the first episode and the dude who was actually an evil imposter for most of the ONE episode (might as well have the packaging say 'Makeshift' rather than Wheeljack) he was in? I don't get it.

And now we learn than in Wave 3 the Vehicon, the ARMY BUILDING figure is SHORTPACKED! Seriously? That's just being mean.

[Protoman]

Originally Posted by pandaprime

yah well check out this example

according to Protoman the RescueBots case assortment# 33051 for Canada is as follows:

2 Optimus Prime
2 Chase
2 Heatwave
2 Boulder
3 Bumblebee
1 Blades

WTF? why is Blades shafted?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vSX6M2lwg4

ffwd to approx. 6:08

If I had to guess....... (aside from making room for a 3rd Bumblebee), maybe orange helicopters don't sell well? =P

[Detective Barricade]

Originally Posted by Undrave

Retailers' purchasers don't know their shit that's what >.> I worked for three monthes in an independant toy store and probably know more about girls toys than they do and I don't even care about 'em...

anyway let's put aside the sea of Bee problem for a second and ask: WHY is Soundwave the one that gets Shortpacked in the first wave?! Dude is there in multiple episodes and he's a really striking prescence. Meanwhile you get two of the dude who dies within 5 minutes of the first episode and the dude who was actually an evil imposter for most of the ONE episode (might as well have the packaging say 'Makeshift' rather than Wheeljack) he was in? I don't get it.

And now we learn than in Wave 3 the Vehicon, the ARMY BUILDING figure is SHORTPACKED! Seriously? That's just being mean.

To be fair, you usually don't see Soundwave DO much of anything other than just hang out in the background silently. Vehicon... I guess they really needed to stick that one Bumblebee in with the two Hot Shots, so every other spot was taken up already. But I guess kids these days don't like army building, unless it's yellow and an Autobot.

[justprime]

There just screwing with us,... doesn't make sence to put all the time, effort,development, and cost into a piece to make a short run, piss off the collectors who have to spend more to aquire from third party, piss of the kids cause they can't complete there collection and decide to ditch the idea of collecting further and go back to there X box, the parents who after seaching and can't locate the short pack decided not to buy any more of a toyline thats too hard to complete for there child, money lost in sales due to the fact that there wasn't enough product produced of that charater, cancellation of further product due to overstocked shelves, no new sales, product not ordered by retailers,... wow what a snow ball effect and yet the line still goes on.

[Plainsjumper]

Hasbro's three (3) top customers:

• Walmart
• Target
• Toys R Us

Why not just start emailing these three guys and ask them about it? Or chat up your store manager on a slow day when he/she isn't too busy.

Or for the older fans out there.... buy 1 share in one of the companies, and *then* email them up and ask about it.

[Metroplex79]

Originally Posted by Plainsjumper

Why not just start emailing these three guys and ask them about it? Or chat up your store manager on a slow day when he/she isn't too busy.

Or for the older fans out there.... buy 1 share in one of the companies, and *then* email them up and ask about it.

Or hope a member here gets hired by one of those companies, rise up the ranks to the point where he/she can talk to Hasbro as to what's to be ordered

[Undrave]

How much is a TRU share going these days?