I remember in southeast Michigan at least it was virtually impossible to find wave 5 of titans return deluxes. I still don’t have a misfire

 

Oh, She's rare? I own her and thought She was a shelfwarmer.

 

I saw RTS deluxe figures the most at Kohl's of all places. I got Legends Megatron and Optimus at a store in Florida called Beall's. Strange times.

 

I'd go the opposite and ask which line did NOT suck for distribution... so many lacked waves, many lacked some figures from any of the waves, some would barely had a few of a figure that if you didn't jump on it when you'd see it, it was GONE...

The Siege cassettes for example... I bought 2 sets of the two spy sets as a "in-case" I had one break (and one did)... and barely saw any afterwards.

Same with so many... one day you'd see a couple and go.. "next time" as there's a few.. and the next time was "all gone never to be seen again".

Machine War being non-existant aside the exclusive in the US store...the 30th figures, I didn't see half of them in stores ever.

At least with the G1, they might have shelf-warmed for a bit, but it did give a chance for someone wanting a particular figure to get them (but at the time, so many weren't even collecting them at that time and missed them anyways), and most figures did make it to several stores. (note that the internet and pre-orders did NOT exist then, so finding a particular figure was only done by hunting them).

To me, in a way, it's not just the distributing, it's the numbers of each figure per pack that sucks, with boxes that has three of one figure and just one of another... stuff like that.

 

Here in Mexico
I think that a lot of lines got very bad distribution.
The latest waves of RID 2015 were missing here, making figures like Soundwave, Windblade or Bisk very hard to find at a decent price.
Going a little further to 2014 we only received the first wave of Thrilling 30 Anniversary line and almost anything of the Generations figures from AOE apart form the Toys R Us exclusive packs

 

Anything from CW onwards

 

I was able to get the figures I was looking for, and I've seen a few restocks since, but at the time it seemed like most places just skipped right over that wave.

 

both Titan's Return and Combiner Wars had MIA at regular retail cases, hence wave 5 of TR being almost non-existent and the Combaticons were hard to get at regular retail being sandwiched between the lame Autobot car repaint waves (but at least showed up en masse at secondary retailers later).

I remember the big dockworkers strike back in, I think it was 2013 being when distribution really got horrible, and while it's gotten better, I don't know that its ever fully recovered:
when you factor in TrU closing and ever-shrinking shelf spaces + Multiple Lines (WFC/SS/CV (with multiple sublimes by itself)/various evergreen or authentics/some of my stores still have BB movie stragglers/Netflix line at Walmart) it's kind of amazing you can find anything.

(I remember back in the 2000s when Deluxes would often have a full 4 foot section all by themselves... 4-5 rows + 3-4 columns 4 deep... now your lucky to get 2 deluxe pegs per line)

Earthrise seems pretty good so far (plus it's WAY easier to order online nowadays)

 

oh yeah, that was another one I think mostly ended up at Ross/TJ Maxx... were the gold box figures part of that line?

 

Distribution wise, Alternators come to mind. I know that the first release of Tracks was almost impossible to find and then Swerve was even harder, especially when Wal-Mart stopped stocking the line for awhile. I only saw Prowl and Decepticharge one time at a Target. Then towards the very end, I almost missed Wal-Mart exclusive Rumble and Ravage because only a very few local Wal-Mart stores stocked them.

Present day, I'd say Wal-Mart not stocking Bot Bots anymore has hurt the line. I don't have a local Target and I don't really like to order them online not knowing what assortments you might get.

 

intrestingly, the Combaticon wave was one of two that actually were available here

 

where is "here"?  

in the PacNW I never saw them at regular retail, and that first wave of Autobot cars lingered forever (was that wave 3 or 4?)... but I remember walking into a TJMaxx I think the next season and seeing an entire endcap of Combaticon deluxes.

yeah, I remember scoring those at Walgreens. I think the difference between RTS and HFTD was really confusing for retailers.

 

Norway.
We only got wave 1, Legends wave 3, and then the combaticon wave (wave 5?) long after TR had launched in the US.
Supposedly the protectobots were also avaible, but I never saw then in store or online.

 

wild ~ was it the original 2 arielbots/2 stunticons wave 1? that had to be frustrating.

 

I got my RTS Tracks and Jazz at Walgreens as well. I remember hating paying $14.99 for a deluxe at Walgreens back then. Hindsight, $15 is a good deal vs. today's $20 deluxe.

 

3 arealbots, Luckily I went on vacation to the US that summer and was able to find air Raid.

 

Oh that’s right, forgot it was 3/1

 

Funny how a lot of this depends on the region. Here in Germany, the 2007 movie line had some pretty infamous shelfwarmers with Swindle and Bonecrusher due to shipping four per case each, with nothing else inside the case; Reveal the Shield was easy to find at Real, the Studio Series waves with DOTM Ratchet, VW Beetle Bumblebee, KSI Sentry and ROTF Starscream didn't exist at all, while Voyager Ironhide and the Deluxe wave with Sideswipe, Barricade and WWII Bumblebee was easy to find... it seems like sometimes, certain toys get dumped in one country while being a rarity elsewhere.