Strange experience of not being able to purchase this at Target.

 

I really can't wait for Hasbro pulse or Amazon to get this figure in. I am really hoping to see someone of the e-tailers get this figure in early and sell it earlier than july 1st. I've seen so many videos i wanna buy now.

 

Target seems to have him street-dated at 7/28.

Which, well, that's not their fault if that's the directive being handed down from Hasbro. I honestly feel bad for them, as the figure has started popping up with some frequency at Targets in my area. So distribution is sending the stores a case it can't sell, but there's likely nothing notifying them of this since Shockwave *isn't* street dated.

So now they've got half a case they can't sell, and what are they supposed to do with the Primes? Have them sit in the back and collect dust for two months? That's pretty lame. But they can't put it on shelves because then you'll keep getting parents (and collectors) who're turned away trying to buy the thing they've already put in their cart (that's a $50 purchase lost).

Meanwhile, maybe those Shockwaves do sell...but what now? You can't order more cases because technically for every Shockwave there's a corresponding Prime taking up space in your inventory.

"Why do you need more, our records say you've still got 3 in hand?"
"Well yeah, but you won't let us sell them."

Meanwhile, your competitor, Walmart, either wasn't given the same edict or is simply ignoring it and now you're falling behind.

 

It's probably been mentioned here already but Big Boy Collectibles has this thing in stock. Mine just shipped out this morning.
Transformers War for Cybertron Siege Leader Optimus Prime

 

Street dating a random figure in a random assortment of a random line makes no sense. Either Hasbro's stupid or Target is, either way the fan experience was another terrible one. I want to buy something that they have and they won't sell it to me. That's the ultimate retail folly.

 

I'm not blaming Target on this one. I've seen the case, and there's *nothing* on it that indicates a street date. I guess I haven't tried buying the Shockwave to see what would happen (mostly because I don't want Shockwave).

One thing I do know, while at retail Target uses the assortment DPCI at checkout...online the individual figure has it's own DPCI when you order. So if Hasbro handed down the edict that a given figure is street dated, there's nothing telling Target that when they open the case because they're reading it as the assortment. My guess is at checkout there's something that maps the individual item to the assortment, and that's what causes Prime to specifically be blocked.

But yeah, it's incredibly foolish of Hasbro to enforce a street date on figures if the case itself isn't dated. And if you are going to street date something, for God's sake don't start distributing it two full months before stores are allowed to sell it. Because if the case said "Don't sell until 7/28" then at least Target could plan around that and use the shelf space for something else until they're able to reset with the new figures.

 

Hasbro is certainly to blame for it's "left hand doesn't know what it's right hand is doing" approach to online street dates and how they put together these case assortments, but this is largely Target's fault, or at least their system that is causing the problem. Something has happened fairly recently (possibly a part of recent system updates) where items despite being sent and stocked by the assortment (as they always have) are now often ringing up with their individual DCPIs instead of the assortment DCPI, which wouldn't be a problem normally since this in theory should improve the physical stores' inventory matching the online website's allowing for possible expansion of the online shopping and pick-up program, and the prices should all be the same, but now you're running into issues like this where the website isn't selling and shipping an item until 7/28 but the stores are already receiving it and by all purposes should be able to sell it but can't because that item is still locked out in the system.

A similar situation to this happened with the Studio Series Voyagers and Bumblebee Prime where he was for some reason street dated while his case mate Rampage was not.

Actually yes, that's exactly what they should do with any item that the system won't let them sell. Electronics stock rooms often have a street dated section they can live in for now if they have to.

Although that's a lot to ask these days, as most Targets have no one that pays attention to the toy department anymore and will probably do the same thing they've done for the recently released Spider-Man Marvel Legends two packs that aren't allowed to be sold until the end of the month and just ignore it and leave them out on the shelves anyway to annoy collectors and other potential buyers everywhere.

 

See here's the thing though, BB Prime was the one that everyone online had preorders for. Including Pulse. Rampage didn't appear online until after the PO date passed and the item went up for normal sale.

So it would seem it is in fact Hasbro street-dating the item, but this screws with retailers because even if they can track individual figures they can't order anything but cases. So I don't know what it means to "stock shelves" ... but if all they do is scan the case and the system goes "Okay you've got 2 things from this assortment..." then that's all they've got.

Unless they now want employees who stock shelves to scan every single individual item in a case assortment in the off-chance one of them is uniquely blocked for sale. (Or just to know which items they specifically do and do not have) And that's straight bull.

But then that item sits taking up inventory space that stops them from ordering more stock. Because now those Shockwaves sell out but they're sitting on what the system thinks is a "case" of Leaders and they can't order more. It's not like electronics where each game, movie, or CD is uniquely identified and has a release date. A case of Smash Bros is a case of smash bros. A case of Leaders could be two different individual IDs or (as we've seen in at some points) two of the same figure. Hence why the assortment is so important.

 

It's bad business anyway. If the Seige Optimus is done and produced, sell him. There is no coinciding release or event to hold him for. It's completely overthought, another case of high paid managers who don't have anything to do to justify what they make. So they have to change something, in this case adding a problem here that never existed before.

 

...stores putting figures on shelves prior to street dates has been a thing for years now, it’s not some new phenomenon

 

Hasbro did come up with the date as the new "this is when everyone will sell the item" keeping it fair date for online retailers, but like I said the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, because the right hand is still operating on putting these toys into cases to stock physical toy store shelves, and these stores don't know Wave 1 from Wave 10 and simply know "take item, put item on shelf". And you're right, unless somebody at Target takes charge of handling these situations (and that's not going to happen), then it's not going to be caught by employees because the morning stockers have pallets of merchandise all over the store to put away and don't have time to individually check every single "collectible" to make sure it didn't have a street date even though one wasn't printed on the box. If this continues, however, Target will have to figure out a way to better align the selling dates on it's website with the in store product, but for the foreseeable future problems like these are going to keep popping up from time to time.

True, but likely Target isn't going to see a couple of Optimus boxes sitting in the back as a huge problem, they'll just sell them in July to you just the same, or an empty leader spot as one either, arguing that it's just a toy, and unless it's advertised in the Sunday ad not a high priority item for the company, so just put another $50 Transformer or whatever in that empty spot and move on.

The dates are supposed to keep every one on the same page, so it's a good idea in theory. The problem is Hasbro isn't Takara who releases these toys individually with catalog numbers and set dates, they instead release everything in case assortments and waves which get shipped out entirely differently and end up popping up at different retailers and different times making adhering to a set release date virtually impossible.

 

The only way to do that is to screw the stockers by forcing them to individually scan each item into inventory when they're stocking.

Not to mention it really screws things up if they need to put multiple UPCs under a single DPCI on the shelf.

 

I wouldn't put it past Target to do just that someday, especially as the online shopping/in store pick-up system advances. After all the softlines side of the store have been doing that since forever with different sizes having different numbers but sharing the same space, so it is not unheard of.

But the system still does all the work on inventory, so it won't have an impact on team members that much, they would stock things as normal. Keeping track of these situations as they arise will just have to fall to management to get e-mails and alerts out for logistics team leads or Electronics team members to keep an eye out for oddball items like a street dated Optimus so they can keep it off the salesfloor until it can be sold. At least until the system gets straightened out, which might be annoying for team members, but is one more little step to avoid an awkward conversation with likely an adult collector when you have to inform them that you are unable to sell them the toy truck/robot that they wish to buy.

 

Heck, a parent who had just told their kid they could bring that Optimus home.

 

Most parents are pretty understanding and can be easily swayed from having to spend that extra $50 if they don't have to. Some collectors, however, act like they need a hand written letter of apology from the CEO of the company before they will accept that they will not be buying their chosen Optimus today.

 

Do you know of someone's kid who needs one? I can get one.

 

Hopefully this snafu doesn't affect Reflector or Brunt!

 

Those may not have that problem because they're not up for pre-order (on Target at least). What would be interesting to see is if any of the ones who are (Impactor, Mirage, Red Alert) run into that problem while their case mates don't.

Because that could cause some real chaos.

 

Can anyone name one benefit of street dating any of these figures?