Is everyone experiencing this, or is it just a Midwestern thing? I have noticed since I have been collecting toys that during the spring stores around here might go months without restocking their toys. We missed whole waves of Alternators in Louisville because of this (not that I am complaining, I have always manages to get Alts off the net if I could not find them in a store) It's just that I have been hunting a lot lately seeing that Alt Prime has started showing up in the US, and have realized most places have not re-stocked in almost two weeks, then I realized what time of year it was and remembered the same thing happening previous years.
Yup. We go through it pretty bad around Lafayette. Everywhere's overstocked because of bad case assortments at Christmas. I even managed a 20 minute chat with a Hasbro rep a couple of weeks ago about just that topic.
This happens every year and is pretty much a nation wide occurence. At Toys R Us we have pretty much flat sales on Action Figure toys from directly after Easter until mid-October. That means assortments sell out much more slowly and are replaced with new waves much more slowly. Nothing about it can really be done.
Yeah, both of my Taget's haven't put anything new on the shelves since that stupid Cybertron endcap showed up. And TRU still has a million Mudflaps to sell.
sure the store start going dry, but this is garage sale/auction season for me. about 70% of my stuff i find for my collection and 75-80% of my stuff to sell comes from these next 4 months.
Yeah, I've noticed the Spring drought too. I wonder if that's because retailers have too much overstock from previous waves or if they're waiting for summer time so that kids have more time to spend at the toy store?
It's a financial thing. April is the end of the financial year so lots of measures are taken to fudge figures to look better/worse. Tada.
Yeaqh, I think my area is a draught, all over Michigan I keep hearing about the Walmart Marvel Legends wave hitting, but all I see in my area are Legendary Riders Thing. And if anyone knows aout fudge, it's you buddy!
I've noticed the same thing here in the KC area as well. Gen Magnus found Soundwave several days ago and havn't seen him since. I think he found a Wingsaber, but I could be wrong. I, on the other hand have not seen a new figure in the stores since about April. I did manage to snag a Soundwave all thanks to Gen. Magnus. He's been finding everything so far.
Not here. it is spring and in the last week or two I've found: Cyb Soundwave Alt Optimus Cannonball Thundercracker Repaint Shortround ML Giant Man series ML Vs packs ML Young Avengers ML Monsters i just need two more of the Giant Man series and I'll be content for a while..
Usually happens around here too. I haven't noticed it yet, mostly because I haven't been out looking in a while.
I don't purchase or really know what's out of the new line anymore. The only thing I follow are the Alternators and reissues. Mirage I'm looking forward to and I'm also looking forward to what Takara plans of the next reissue. Blaster and Twincast look great
One of the TRU's near me last weekend put up about an entire shelving of the 1st Cybertron wave. That was heart-wrenching.
I've been relatively happy here in MA. in the past month, I've gotten soundwave, lugnutz, downshift, and scrapmetal. just found 'em at target and walmart, I have to do a lot of travelling, so I just look whenever I have a spare minute. but I definitely do NOT go out of my way to look for them. I'm patient, and when I find 'em, I buy 'em.
I see this around here, too. Last year wasn't too bad, since they stocked for the new line starting. Year before, wally woild never bothered to restock the TFs, all summer. The pegs were bare, but they weren't restocking them. TRU wasn't quie as bad, but still not really usefull. Signs point to them doing it again this year.