Around here they fly off the shelves, except for a few shelf warmers.

 

you, my good friend

win the internet

 

Well I'm glad Transformers is still going strong, my only (probably unfounded) concern is that underwhelming toy sales would prompt the cancellation of the Friendship is Magic tv show. Foxtel is airing it now in Australia, so I catch it when I can to help boost the ratings but none of the toys have shown up when I've been cruising Toys R Us, although I haven't had the time lately.

 

To be fair...it is true, every Target I have been to has at least 12 BB's on the pegs. When the pegs are full, they don't put new figures out, when they don't have a spot to put new figures out, they have no reason to order more when they don't have room. Because of Hasbro's case assortment of 3 BB's to a case, every damn kid already has a BB, and now they have no room because everyone leaves the BB's! THERE ARE TOO MANY BB'S! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! ALL I SEE IS BUMBLEBEES! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

 

I'm really not at all surprised, with exception of My Little Pony, all of Hasbro's other Girl's Toys Brands never seem to sell consistently. When the revived My Little Pony at the beginning of the Millennium it almost seemed to suffer a similar problem, but as time progresses I think MLP is really a strong selling brand again, just like in the 80s.

So I find it hard to believe they'd cancel their only top selling Girl's Toyline just because of other brands bringing the entire Girl's Toy Department down. If anything they'll push even more Pony out the door.

As for their Boy's Toylines.

G.I.Joe barely has any presence in Canada, we only just started seeing 30th Anniversary Figures this month in large numbers, and you can still find some of the PoC waves if you're lucky.

Transformers is a big seller, but it is also equally a big slow moving frieght train.

Marvel is dead in the water, Spider-Man, MU, Movie Merchandise, it sits around. Really, only the Adult Collectors even seem to be buying these toylines.

Star Wars is equally a Collector Oriented Seller, they've got figures on shelves that should have been gone by the end of 2010 languishing around for two years after the fact, because the stores keep ordering the same stupid case assortments. (I rarely find the Vintage Figures I want for very long, Gamorrean Guards, hot ticket items, they're around for a short time then vanish. Leaving us with only the left over scrap, and we've been stuck with Phantom Menace and only Phantom Menace for months now, except for Darth Maul, I haven't seen hide nor cloak of that figure since initial sightings.)

With the way the world economy is going I'm not surprised at this loss, especially coupled with all the lay offs that went on.

Quite frankly, I think Global Economy works in certain cycles, we North Americans have had it good for a while, but I'm afraid that economoically speaking Europe or Asia is going to come back pretty darn strong and turn the tides on us again.

 

Although I agree with most or all of your points-

oddly enough I was in Target this week and they had more CJ than BB (and pegs were pretty full). I have no idea how that happened, but there it was.

 

You Bronies can have your crappy MLP:FIM Toys. I hope they      

Real Men buy   Monster High.

 

Pretty much every Target I have been to has at least 12 BB's. On occasion 1 or 2 CJ's. The couple TRU I go to have 8 BB's and a hand full of CJ/WJ. Needless to say, the wall of BB's is real here. Pegs for the most part are full here. Walmarts are the only ones that are rather empty, but they still have a few BB's only.

 

Rescue Bots is having strong sales?? This can only be a good thing  
I'm not surprised, every time I look on Amazon there's very few left in stock, and when I visit the ELC, they've very few charcater figures left...that reminds me, I really should go out and buy them at some point

 

I won't lie; I did a fist pump when I read that Kreo is doing well, it's probably my favorite toyline at present, even surpassing Lego and Transformers. In particular, the new Battleship has been an absolute knock out for me. I bought the USS Missouri two weeks ago and haven't stopped playing with it since.

 

Drop the girl stuff and stop downsizing Transformers and give us better paint apps. Otherwise we buy from Takara anyway...

 

which should go along way to showing that how things look to sell in your store, is not indicative of reality or the nation as a whole. which would be great if everyone here could learn that.

 

No we don't. Some of us do, but most are content to stay with the cheaper domestic stuff. Plus we're not the target audience anyway. So that's stupid.

 

So, the wall of BB's are only in my area? Whew, I was worried this was a problem everywhere!

 

Not in my area.

The last major TRU sale cleared out all the Bees, and left behind only the "rare" figures.

 

And these days Takara's stuff has even less paint apps and soiled sculpts than Hasbro's, so really you're only depriving yourself of better quality and totally not doing a damn thing to Hasbro's sales.

 

yeah it's pretty sweet to know kreo was doing well. I had a feeling amongst the skepticism, even though it looked like some units were shelfwarming or being clearanced at some stores. stores just ordered a lot of these things, and they sold well. with anything of that nature you're going to be left with some spare units, if you want to have stock for everyone that wants the sets. time for wave 2  

 

I'm not really surprised by any of this. I think it was pretty much assumed by the 2007 movie and then subsequently ROTF, that any movie year is gonna be a huge seller for Transformers. Seems unfortunate that it is the case considering how I don't think the movie aesthetic is pleasing or appealing to me anymore, so I'll be one of those guys skipping out on movie years. Just because it makes Hasbro money doesn't mean I have to like it!

Anyways...girls toys down? No surprise. Did they mention their games too being down? I think the problem with girls toys is that you're in an age where perhaps little girls aren't content with buying the typical girls toys anymore, in addition to Hasbro having to compete against the Mattel giant that is Barbie. Hasbro's strengths is being able to churn out media tie-in toys, and I think in regards to MLP one of the biggest failings is to update the sculpts to the Friendship is Magic style. It's noticeably different than the G3(I forget...) style of sculpt that the current toys use, and I think that is contributing to the lack of sales in that line.

Happy to see the Hub doing better and better. Too bad that it's off basic cable now, at least for me. I used to watch it every now and then, but now I have no reason to turn on that TV anymore.

 

Hmmm...judging by the Bumblebee's here locally, I'd say you're not too far off!

 

^ THAT I find particularly interesting. I wonder if this is why Hasbro has suddenly been so insane about enforcing their licensing etc. They are just flushing themselves down the toilet if they keep hounding their hardcore fanbase for their brands, though.

*rolls eyes*

Their girl lines are suffering because of a complete lack of understanding of girls. I wonder how many females are in that division, honestly. I know I'm not a typical female, being into transformers, but I am also not the only one. There are a few steadfast things about being a little girl that seem pretty universal, one of which is most girls love horses. This is why MLP is a core brand they should never drop.

The reason the Little Pet shoppe stuff is suffering is because it's been overdone. There is nothing really interesting or innovative, and there is no character branding.

What they need to do is knock it off with the pink and purple already. Girls like bright colors, they need to move more towards bright blues, lime greens, bright oranges in addition to the pinks & purples. They need to develop another line (not recycle the past stuff) with core characters. And why not be more innovative like they are with the boys toys? The appeal of the boys brands are the interactive levels, but girls toys tend to be static. A line of action figures for girls with the posability and kickassness of the MMS (Busou Shinki)/ Revoltech/ Figma would probably sell really well, imo.

But I'm running off on a tangent... I wish Hasbro would get their heads out of their butts regarding the girls stuff, because it is total yawnsville. And they should look into bringing over Blythe dolls in a more widespread manner, and look at other lines from Japan they can take clues from.