Peoria Super Walmart has Wave 3 of TLK deluxes and Titans Return Slugslinger.

 

Which Wal-Mart? I might be able to get there tonight.

 

Allen Road in North Peoria.

 

Meijer in algonquin had slugslinger this morning

 

How many?

 

Last i checked there was 2, but that was this morning, so i wouldnt know off hand

 

Anybody seen the Wave 2 Tiny Turbo Changers? I need Sqweeks to complete my TLK Autobots. Edit: And Dlx Hot Rod, forgot about him.

 

I posed about it over a week ago. Target in the loop had them. I know there were 2 Squeeks. Problem is they are 3.49 there instead of 2.99. I'm sure they are trickling into other targets by now

 

I had that almost full set I posted awhile ago I got from Target in FL back in July. Returned to a store around here and haven't seen any wave 2's since. Picked up a Sugslinger at Walmart this past week, only one. Also picked up a couple Misfire's and Wingblades at Target but TwinTwist still eludes me.

 

I found Nitro Zeus and Scorn at a Walmart in Lincoln. Bought NZ. However, on my quest to find an Overlord between 3 Walmarts, 2 Targets, and a TRU I came up empty handed.

 

Found Twin Twist, Misfire, and Windblade at Target in the loop. Left 1 each. Also had Nitro Zeus, Scorn, and Voyager Megatron.

If you get the deluxes, make sure they price match the tag at 14.99 inst ad of the 17.39 they are scanning at. The voyagers however are tagged 36.99

 

Belmont/Western TRU restocked a whole bunch of wave 1 TLK deluxes and voyagers.

Doubt anyone wants them, I just honestly admire that level of bold, unapologetic hubris.

 

It's somewhat bizarre, but the problem is that most stores don't seem to track the new toys versus older toys. They're the same SKU at Target, and I'm sure it's something similar at TRU.  

Another issue is how badly Hasbro ships their inventory - wouldn't it be better to have Wave 1 shortages than overstock?   Consider: every TF toy line has an overstock of wave 1 toys! Stores clearly want to order their entire TF inventory at once (when it's a "new" toy line  ), and Hasbro is content to collect the money and do nothing to dissuade them. Likely this is Hasbro freaking out about poor sales, but they're completely to blame for not helping the stores sell the ENTIRE catalog, rather than the first 3-4 toys.

Spoiler: Solution?

Hasbro could combine wave 1-2 and ship them together. At least that would give stores more variety. But it's hard to see anything changing when the margin on these toys grows smaller and smaller. Ideally, Hasbro would monitor individual toy sales and react with fresh shipments of top-sellers, rather than fresh cases of random junk. To do this, Hasbro could establish a central shipping center that could create unique cases of figures for each store - so if a store sold out of Twin Twist, they could order a case of 4x Twin Twists.

The central shipping center could track sales and communicate with the factories that make the toys. But this would only work if Hasbro produced toys on-demand, rather than making thousands at once, in the beginning.

 

I'm just glad it's the movie line having these distribution problems and not Generations (for the most part). Hopefully they'll drop the idea of putting repaints of figures from the previous lines into the first wave of a new line. Can't help but imagine that that helped contribute to these things shelfwarming, along with the higher prices and movie-design fatigue.

 

While true it did save some $$$ on their end from developing new molds. But in the long run I wonder did the ends justify the means by way overproducing wave 1? As I recall correctly, they had Wave 1 and 2 of the deluxes on the shelves when the first movie (2007) came out, why not use that same strategy?

 

Finally found a new wave of TLK deluxe at my local Walmart in Godfrey, IL. They had Sqweeks, Drift, Steelbane, and Slug.

 

Hot Rod is back on walmart.com for $15.47 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transfor...mier-Edition-Deluxe-Autobot-Hot-Rod/915845422

 

Ordered! Thanks man!

 

I got word from tru this morning that the titans return leaders are being discontinued

 

Well yeah, Overlord was the last one. They're gearing up for Power of the Primes. I'm just happy Overlord is getting relatively decent distribution- gives me hope that PotP will distribute better.