Or perhaps they decided to sell the set together?

 

You mean as a two pack or as in the whole King Poseidon (or whichever one he is)? Two pack makes sense, the other, not so much. I doubt they'd want to sit on a bunch of toys until the full combiner is complete.

 

I'm guessing you don't remember TRU in the 80s.
They were a warehouse store. They had nearly factory direct prices.
They had tons of toys, and if they didn't have it, no one did.
Walmart forced everyone to compete and undercut one another and TRU couldn't compete. I'll give you that point in terms of them being a specialty shop.

That said, they made terrible mistakes. They bought out the competition's remains (KB) just to exploit the name for sales, overextended themselves, they updated their store format to be more like a department store and less like a warehouse store (which did turn a lot of people off) and they didn't carry nearly as much stock as they used to.
TRU clearly was suffering from a lack of business, even nationally, because they kept closing stores all over the country, even before the hedge fund murdered them Old Yeller style in the back yard. Just because some locations were doing better than others doesn't mean they were actually doing well as a whole.

BBTS can and will suffer overcharging more because it's one sin thrown in with others. The pricing, in general, isn't the problem. It's just one.

I've gone over this before, so I'll just TL;DR this one:
-No points system.
-No perks.
-No free shipping.
-Customer service is taking a downturn, reports everywhere, not just here.
-Prices go up while some of their competition stays at MSRP or only slightly above. (Sometimes below.)

If you think the pricing is the only issue, it isn't. TRU should be a warning for all to heed. Their business model didn't work, and anyone playing from their playbook is making a terrible mistake.

The only things working in BBTS's favor right now?
-No benefits for employees.
-No retail location(s).
-Customers pay for shipping, even if they live right down the street.
-Customer loyalty.

Of course, they can operate as they have been, it's all toys in/toys out, some clearance, and go home at the end of the day. Not bad for an operation that started out of a dude's (and his brother's) parent's attic and garage, I'll admit.

 

The whole set. BBTS often neglects to sell some figures as singles and instead makes you purchase the wave instead. I was lucky enough to preorder 2x of both Gulf & Turtler from them before the listing disappeared and was assured by customer service my preorders were valid. However I was told the listings were taken down for an unspecified reason. Im just curious whether BBTS is waiting until the last 2 are revealed (probably next month?) and then selling them as singles in sets of 6 next March/April.

Im just throwing pasta at the wall here trying to make heads or tails of the lack of current listings

 

They probably regretted listing Gulf and Turtler at "MSRP" without a mark up, so they took them down immediately.

They are now waiting for every other U.S. seller to sell out, then they will relist them with a mark up and hoping you don't notice and/or are desperate.

  

Probably wouldn't hurt to email their customer service again and ask when they will be back for preorder.

 

yeall i'll 2nd you on the customer service downturn, i contacted them on the 25th that my soc voltron had multiple points of qc issues, i get a reply they dont have any replacement parts. someone else contacted them on the 26th and they got a full black lion for even less qc issues and im like, wtf?

 

More often than not, they honor the pricing and you joke, but it's not the first time they've balked on honoring a preorder price. I'll bet they will reopen the preorders and have a higher price.

The fact that they haven't put the other two up for pre-order has me worried that I missed my window with Pulse and BBTS won't get the rest or something. That's just silliness on my part, most likely, but I can't help it.

Seriously? That's awful. I've had to get their help, twice, in the past and they honored my requests without much hassle, but I can certainly sympathize with people who've been less fortunate. It took me months and months with another retailer to get a missing piece for my figure I bought back in November, so I know what it's like to be left holding the bag with a bunch of WTF running through my mind. I hope they fix it for you. This is one of the reasons I don't buy a lot of Bandai stuff. Small numbers, high prices, no real wiggle room if something goes off the rails.

 

yep, both me and another guy were told they have no replacement parts, but someone who contacted them after i did, they had a replacement for. i sent them an email today calling them out on this, as i've supported them for 16 years since 2003 but damn, this might be it, though they've made $10k off me haha

 

I don't blame you. That's ridiculous. I've spent that much, at least, since their opening. I'm really disappointed if this is the current trend with them.

 

that was my initial assumption, but the original listing disappeared on 8/6 and its now been nearly a month without a relisting. That seems......odd.....

 

They're figuring out some money-making scheme.

 

This, pretty much. Though I will use BBTS if they match MSRP. Shipping or tax rarely factors into my decision making, but base price certainly does.

Yes! I will never forget my first trip to TRU. It was around 1987 and we were somewhere in northern Indiana, perhaps Goshen or Elkhart. The TRU was comparable to a a Costco today in size and shelving, and the Transformer section alone was unlike anything I had ever seen at Meijer or any other store at the time. I bought all three Insecticons at that TRU. There were Shockwaves and Megatrons by the dozens, literally hundreds of Autobot cars, hundreds of Decepticon jets, hundreds of movie cast toys.

It wasn't until 2005 that I went to a TRU again. Even then the Transformer section was impressive in comparison to most stores today - maybe a good 20 feet of shelving stocked top to bottom with Unicron Trilogy toys. Through the years it just dwindled away until there was no point in even going there. Trips were wasted as they only ever had empty pegs or the terrible Bayverse toys. My last TRU visit was when PotP wave 1 was released, and they wanted 21.99 for deluxes at the Topeka, Kansas store when I was Christmas shopping there with my mother in law. Between empty shelves and the markups, they lost my business completely over the years. I celebrated their demise. Good riddance. Greed is such a turnoff.

 

I do remember TRU in the 80s.

Again, not everybody has to compete on price. You can compete on price, availability, service, quality, any number of things.

Having the best price on toys would not have saved TRU. They were saddled with debt from their own buyout and the buyout of another company at credit card interest rates by investors who wanted to dismantle them from the beginning.

They were also denied any attempt at reorganization by, again, the investors.

Their business model was profitable. They were assassinated to make a quick buck on real estate and selling the giraffe.

 

TRU's demise was a shitshow. The same people responsible murdered our beloved KB Toys.

 

Got a 10 day notice about my botbots series 3 24 pack arriving soon. I think this is like the first thing transformers related in several months that is actually arriving the month they first put the pre order out and not pushed back till whenever. I'm looking at you Springer who was out around July in retail and still not instock yet <_< Not that I've seen him in retail in my local stores....

 

so weird that the people that bought them out, did the same thing to kb toys and expected a different outcome?

 

They did not expect a different outcome. They weren't looking to own a sustainable business, they were looking to maximum their personal profits at the expense of an already established business.

 

and then screw over all the employees in the process. i feel for my TRU, they had really good staff so knowing they all got laid off makes me sad.

 

I remember going to my first local TRU as a kid, and then watching its new location be built and open. It was bittersweet going to the new location for the final time.