It depends £13 including shipping i can stretch to. But £15 and then shipping on top pushing up to 20 odd quid is just too much for me
Hang on, if shipping on a £13 figure is £2, how can shipping on a £15 figure take the total up to over £20? If you spend over £50 at Kapow then shipping is free. Then you can at least be sure that 100% of your money is going on toys and 0% on shipping.
I'm sorry, but can the mods sort this out please. Here I am trying to read idle chit chat, and interesting nonsense, and some bugger goes and asks a question about sightings! There is a sightings thread for that sort of thing you know, kindly use it in future. Hurumph. (Smiley included to indicate the seriousness of my above statement)
Sorry, maybe i wasnt being clear.The £13 figure i was referring to was scourge from 3 darths with free shipping. Wheeljack is 14.99, and the postage options have changed to be circa £3. As i said in my original post, there are £0.00 options, but they say they are weight dependant so its not clear. I can stretch to £13 every now and then, but im tight and money is not particuarly in abundance. But £15 and then shipping on top for just the 1 thing i want is abit too much for me personally to justify to myself. Free postage over £50 is great, but as i said i collect only classics figures and even then i pick and choose very specifcally. Usually the figures i want are in different waves so some (eg blur and kup) are out of stock by the time the next wave hits. So i rarely spend 50 quid. The only times ive spent more on new figures was dirge and henkei hound at christmas. Those are just my own personal circumstances though, i appreciate other people do it differently
Is everybody's Toy R US TF section all but vanished Seems to have been removed in the past month and nothing replacing it Slightly worrying for us. In the US the reboot of He-Man was cancelled because TRU refused to stock it's toys anymore (Can't blame them when it was cases of 9 he-mans, 9 skeletors and 2 other characters) If TRU decide to steer away from TF then other retailers will follow That is until TF3 is out then we will be back to TF being slapped over everything for 2 months! Hitch
TFs seemed to disappear from TRU almost completely around Christmas - the most anyone can find are the odd PCC 2-pack, lots of Animated Waspinators and a ton of ROTF Prime/BB kids' costumes.
That's cool, didn't mean to go all spotlight in a dark room on you. I was just trying to figure out where you were coming from. I guess TF spending is the one area I'm fairly frivolous with, as for everything else I'm tight as a drum
Pretty much the case round here. Oxford, Reading Swindon - TFs all but gone, save for some new BiS sets. What happened to the massive overstock of Animated they all had a few months ago at 50% off? I can't believe it all sold that quickly (although Reading still has plenty of Waspinator's left...)
Probably just the early prep for DOTM, I wouldn't say it's anything to worry about. TRU refusing to sell one of the best selling toy brands just before their big summer blockbuster hits wouldn't make much sense.
Hahaha! No problem matey I'm hoping it doesnt rain next week, so i can walk to work and spend the £16 that saves me on wheeljack The issue is, I really want blur and kup, but they'll be expensive to buy from ebay now. Its a monumental wrestling match between my wallet and my mind! Too many choices, not enough money.
There was a report late last year I think, that stated that transformers were toys r us's biggest seller. They wont be dropping them, they'll just be covering isles with DOTM toys soon enough....yay...more variations of deluxe movie bumblebee.Woot.
I'm always a bit torn about buying online I don't like i because finding the toy in the shop is part of the fun and once I start buying online I can get almost anything whenever I want and it can get out of control. For the most part I reserved online purchases to second hand stuff. But I really hate the multilingual packaging and given a choice would pay more to get the american version. Thankfully annual holidays to the US and to Botcon for the last few years have meant getting most of what I want in person and cheaper than UK prices. Stupid luggage rules are making that plan harder so now I buy what does make it to the UK, but only generally while its on sale and whatever doesn't I get from the US. Things like £7.50 Tracks from Smyths after almost paying £15 online make the approach worth while.
True, but hypothetically (playing Devil's Advocate here) what happens if you wait for RTS wave 2 deluxes to appear at retail and it doesn't happen? How would you feel about passing up the chance to have paid £xx.xx for them online if they've now sold out at places like Kapow and you can't get them anywhere (except maybe eBay at scalper prices)?
Between AA and Botcon (and a few friends over there willing to keep hold of the odd item for me) its usually possible to play catch up. And if I have to pay a little more for an item later I figure it'll most often balance out. With RTS wave one I paid about £31 for all 4. If I'd paid £13-15 per figure I would have gotten the US packaging which would have been a bonus, but would have cost £52-60. So now I have at least £21 spare towards the generations figures I am missing. If in May I can grab some of those generations figures still at retail in california then thats further savings. If I can't even with a mark up in the dealer room I can get them for close to UK retail at Botcon. Last year at the height of the Animated Arcee rush it still cost less than $30 at Botcon so generally the mark up is acceptable. Then theres always AA after that for another shot at anything I missed and then if I need to I go deal with scalpers on Ebay. I'm not saying its a perfect system but I get to enjoy the hunt and I'd say on balance I don't over pay for anything. Plus I get to wait for Japan to do what they do with figures.
Good stuff mate. I think you have to have a system, and also make sure that system is flexible. Sadly, flexibility mostly comes from money, but like you say, making contacts abroad doesn't hurt either.
Before this thread I don't think I had thought of it as a system but I don't remember over paying or missing out on too many things beside the odd Japanese release so I guess it works. Friends abroad are a big help.
My system is simple, I order most of my Transformers online whether it's from Kapow, ebay or via buddies in the US that pick things up for me. I very occasionally come across the odd item in a supermarket but with me mostly collecting Takara or 3rd party releases there's very little from the Hasbro lines I want even if they get a UK release so the crappy distribution doesn't really bother me.
There's just been a TRU sighting of RTS wave 2 deluxes in the sightings thread I took the plunge on Perceptor from Kapow and Wreckgar maybe too, if my friends has put the order in for me then cool but if not I'll say the money back and go hunting for myself. It's a good sense of achievement finding that toy you've been looking for for ages. (Those at Nerd day will recall the look when I found that Animated Ironhide on the lowest shelf in Kapow ) Still, with DOTM dawning I'm looking forward to having the extra cash until the return of Generations/RTS/whatever they call it this time.
I just ask my neighbour if he could get a few (usually alot more) figs from his business travels to America, then in return I help him with his work on weekends or around his house.
