No, I blame Wal-Mart. The item is exclusive to their store, and yet there are stores that aren't even going to have it at all! You can't order it from their website for home delivery, you can't even site to store it from a store that has one to the one close to you! Short of walking into a store that just happens to have one at that moment you're pretty much fucked as far as getting one at retail. That's why back when they did the poll with Blaster I asked "what difference does it make, nobody will be able to buy them anyway?", and several people pointed out I'd be able to find anything I wanted on the Walmart website. Hasn't worked out that way has it? I know this is a bit of a rant, but this crap about so called "store exclusives" that the stores never stock is bullshit and it needs to stop...
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong...

 

As someone who works for a national retailer at corporate level, I'm telling you that you are wrong. But at least you acknowledged that you could be.

 

How am I wrong? Everything I stated was my personal experience with the stores in my area. Help me understand what's going on here...

 

Burke Walmart has 2 of each.

 

First off you need to understand that retailers do not place product to be in stock every day on every item. They do for things like milk and cereal, but not toys. Toys are bought for one purpose and that is to sell out. Toys are worthless dust collectors come December 26th so a retailer buys them and tries their best to buy exactly the number that they can sell thru by the end of the season without missing a significant amount of sales.

Your store might not have gotten units for any number of reasons. It could be a very low volume store in general, so gets a more limited assortment. It could be a high shrink store so doesn't get high retail/small box items, or it could have sold the reissue Optimus Prime last year very poorly. Most new retail items are allocated out based on the performance of a "like item," something that they expect will perform as well. My guess was Optimus was used for Soundwave.

This is a one time buy for Walmart, or at most a short flow. This is not something they intend to be in stock on forever. Buys like this are very hard to execute online because it is hard to estimate popularity online versus in store so at some point someone made a call on whether or not to add it to walmart.com, whether it was the right call or not we shouldn't judge because they had their reasons. This is a specialized item and if they sell out they are happy because it means they didn't waste any dollars and maximized their revenues and that also they will hopefully do more in the future. Stop assuming that Walmart in anyway understands the Transformer-fandom. Hasbro came to them, said "we think we got a cool item that you can sell XXX,XXX number of units making XX% margin." Wal-Mart probably looked at it, compared to what other items recently did and placed their orders. If they sell out then they did their job. On product like this it is way better to sell out and leave sales on the table then risk being overloaded with inventory they way they clearly have on so many of the other reissue product.

 

That makes sense, it just doesn't make me any less annoyed by the fact I'll pretty much be stuck trying to find Wal-Mart "exclusives" everywhere but Wal-Mart.... I'm not saying stock all the stores, but being able to ship from one store to another would be a significant improvement. That way if my small town store in Williamsburg hasn't got any, and the stores in Richmond do, at least I have a shot at getting one without a 45 minute drive and the hope it'll be there when I arrive...

 

I know that sounds like it should be a simple thing to execute, but trust me that store to store transfers are actually massively difficult. In theory you just throw it on a truck, but in practice it is so much work that most chains don't view the "juice being worth the squeeze".

 

The egregious thing is that you can’t simply order it online from them. The brick and mortar issues cited by ChErikS are valid, but not having the option to just order it from Walmart.com is completely ridiculous. That’s on Walmart.

 

Has anybody's Fancy Refraktor 3-pack shipped yet? It was supposed to be released over the weekend, and Hasbro Pulse's page no longer seems to say it's a "preorder" item, which would indicate that it's in stock. But I'm still waiting for a shipping notification.

 

Short Pump Walmart has two Siege Jetfires and 6 each of the classic tape packs.

 

Two refraktors at the Shiela Lane WM in RVA.

 

S. Fredericksburg Walmart has 2 Refraktors and 4 each of the G1 Tapes.

 

My Fancy Refraktor set shipped   It's supposed to be here by the end of today, though, which seems kind of unbelievably fast. Not that I'd complain. We shall see.

Edit: It's apparently already waiting for me at home. And I'm at work for like five more hours. Bleh.

 

If possible can someone check an Ollie's.

 

Since all of the Pulse stuff ships from PA for us folks in VA it does not take long. Still waiting for my fancy camera box to ship along with Shackwave and the SDCC Bot bots pack.

 

I swung by Ollie’s on Sunday. Only TF-related things I saw at the time were some version of those large-head TF novelty items (god I hate those types of things) and a single RID Fracture Deployer.

They were gearing up for Christmas, with lots of toys being set-up in the front of the store.

ETA: just went by Ollie’s again, and they still have only the aforementioned items.

ETA part 2: forgot to mention that they still have 3 RC Squeaks. Yeesh...

 

Skyline Target has one Rainmakers set and a ton of the Micromaster 10-packs. Also, one Cyberverse Deadlock and one "chestburster Laserbeak" Soundwave. Nothing else super unusual/noteworthy.

 

As of 7:00PM, the Hillcrest Parkway/Edinburgh West Walmart has Two Siege Jetfire's

 

I've seen the rainmakers around RVA lately too, i've been too busy to post, but people can check brickseek if they're curiuos

 

One Refractur at the Powhatan Walmart, nothing else note worthy.