True, but it's very difficult to ship a deluxe (packaged) figure for under a pound, short of simply throwing the figure into a slightly larger box with no packing. And if you're an eBay seller, heaven forbid you do that and take the (good) chance the package will get damaged, because that will be the one time your customer is someone who wants to keep the blister carded figures "mint in package."

 

It would be if domestic rates weren't bloated 7% more each year to subsidize Chinese ePackets. Most of eBay's GMV growth the last few years has been fees on higher shipping charges.

This too. I have a scale here and ordered a few different sizes of boxes for different product lines when I was selling. Hasbro uses some _enormous_ blister cards and changes packaging sizes/shapes frequently enough that ordering exact sizes leaves alot of unusable boxes behind. With my best guess box size, the weight always works out to around 1.2 lbs which USPS rounds up to 2 lbs. The foam peanuts don't really weigh anything at this level so there's no savings to be had there even if it didn't risk a banged up card to do so.

 

You're welcome. Part II just dropped this morning!

We actually talk about Child World/Children's Palace (to skywarp-2's comment) a bit toward the end.

 

I lived in NY in the 80's and do remember Childs World at most malls, but for some reason, hardly stepped foot in one let alone shop in one.

 

There used to be one in MN.. When I was kid we went there, while visiting my Great Grandma. They had a lot of cool stuff I had never seen, and lots of older out of date toys still around. I bought all the Gobots I could find on that trip. And some battle damage He man and skeletor, which at that time was hard as heck to find due to demand.

 

I remember going to that store in MN several times as a kid. It was always amazing. I bought several early wave G1 toys there long after they'd disappeared from standard retail stores like Alco. Yeah, the majority of my G1 toys came from Alco. I'd get my allowance and ride my bike across town, pick out a toy, strap it on the bike and ride home. Man, those were the days.

I only know of two Alco's left in existence in this part of the world now. One in Mt Pleasant, IA, and one in some small burg just across the border from South Dakota.

It's amazing the number of stores we've seen go down in our lifetimes. I imagine that's not over with either.

 

Indeed. I think Alco was extinct by the time my family made their way to Rapid City South Dakota. There was once another Mall Type toystore, I forgot the name. Wish I hadn't put my collecting aside till I was 30, because I could've had quite the selection, tho now I'm satisfied having a decent Doctor Who action figure collection, Guyver from Max Factory, star trek classic Kirk and HD Enterprise with lights and sounds, and my Masterpiece Transformers both G1 and Movie line up.

Of course out here in VA, there's only now the comic shops, Walmart and Target for,action figures. But now, that doesn't matter, because as I've gotten older, I've really only wanted high end action figures and collectibles. So now my focus is mainly on purchases that require shipping and handling. Such is the nature of the beast I guess.

 

Edit - This has nothing to do with TRU this was in 2017 - Edit

Also Star Wars is in bad shape; and this is the fate of Cyberverse.

 

Subscription boxes. Specifically there, smugglers Bounty. They were fun for a while but now a bunch of us are regretting that we're sitting on a bunch of pop figures we don't want, lol.

Nothing to do with TRU and not a sign of Star Wars in general. More that the subscription box service bubble has burst.

 

Yeah, I just noticed the date in the Video "2017", my mistake; but retailers do things like this all the time, there is an industry to it.

 

Man, we must have traveled similar(ish) paths. I lived in Fairmont, MN; Sioux Falls, SD; Mt. Pleasant, IA;, back to Sioux Falls. And I've got relatives in Rapid City and Spearfish. We probably passed each other shopping at some of the stores in Rapid City and Minnesota. Small world sometimes.

I'm kind a out of room for anything but the most impressive figures, so my shopping has boiled down to a figure here or there every few years. Don't really want to fill up my toy room so much I can't get in it, ya know? And no desire to move into a bigger house.

 

So with TRU Gone where is everyone shopping now?

 

Amazon, Target, Walmart.

 

TRU actually stopped sucking immediately around the restructuring/bankruptcy announcements. For whatever reason, that caused them to let go of alot of "sold out" stuff they were hoarding in various warehouses. If they had done that earlier, I might've shifted far less of my buying to BBTS. Actually, there's a fair chance I would not have tried to sell toys either.

Now I shop about 80% at BBTS, 5% online, and 15% scalping Target/Walmart (to move stuff I got stuck with during my legitimate sales days). Soon as I can get out from under that, I'll drop Target/Walmart like a bad habit and go 99% BBTS.

 

Which Online Retailers?

 

amazon, bbts, thechosenprime are usually my go to's

 

Same thing happened to Caldors & original K-Mart. When the 80's crashed the toy market when Atari crashed & burned, it was a GOOB Bonanza for us 2600 fans at Child World...assuming they actually worked...