Eh. 6 of of my 20 orders through Pulse would not have qualified for free shipping because they are under $50. If I had placed those same orders through BBTS, that shipping would have cost $4.99. So I saved less than $30.

 

There's no minimum with premium. I ordered Bug Bite by himself, free shipping.

 

Right. Without Premium those figures would have cost me $30 in shipping from BBTS. With Premium it would have been free but the membership cost me $50. In other words free shipping is not automatically worth it.

 

Not to be "that guy," (especially since I wasn't expecting this to get newsed in the first place) but... did a staff member mistakenly click the wrong post when applying this news credit?



@Black Convoy

 

Contact the person who posted it. They'll get you the credit!

 

I'll answer this in a sec. Read below.

THIS.

For as little as I purchase from Pulse, $50.00 a year ($4.17 a month) isn't worth it. And honestly, for as little as I order, it doesn't cost Pulse that much to ship all of my items. I'd say it cost them $50.00 in shipping over the THREE YEARS I've had the service. Yet, they want that much for a single year and I'll most likely order...$10-12 worth of shipping in terms of items purchased. That's just not a win in my book and the math doesn't work.

And now that BBTS is allowing people to extend their POLs by request due to the pandemic and you can use their Super Saver Shipping to ship pretty much anything, no matter how small or big... I'm not seeing what Pulse is doing for me to get my $50.00 for the year. $25.00 a year? Okay, I could cough that up, or $50.00 for 2 years, yeah, okay. I'm sorry to anyone who's a die-hard Pulse fan... I'm not seeing the value.

If Pulse was the absolute, ultimate go-to, then yeah I'd be right there with y'all Pulse fans. Instead, I still have to go through Amazon, Target, and Walmart to get the bulk of what I'm buying. That doesn't account for my local collector store, sponsors such as Toy Dojo, The Chosen Prime, TFSource, and BBTS... I just want to buy HASBRO's Transformers that they produce. I want them at MSRP, with free shipping, I want Takara-Tomy exclusives, and I want a reasonable time frame to order/get them. Pulse isn't doing that. Even with early bird, you still have to jump through hoops and hope the site doesn't crash, etc.

I should be using the other retailers ONLY as a source for 3rd party and other company's products, I shouldn't have to shop anywhere else for TFs, but I do. I know, someone will come along and say "You're impatient. You have more money than brains, you could save money if you'd be patient." and there's some truth to that, sure, but when we're talkin' $15.00 for shipping, now, and getting an item Pulse should have...months in advance of when they actually get it, I'll spend the $15.00. Saves me from worrying about it later, saves me from searching for it later. Naw. I'm good doin' what I'm doin' now.

When Pulse steps up and does their job properly, I'll give 'em my money. I think it's absolutely ridiculous of them to believe they're big enough to compete with their customers/retailers (and that really is one of the reasons they're among the last to get stuff) is ridiculous. Amazon, Target, and Walmart will do just fine with Pulse being a competitor. Do y'all have any idea how many people DON'T know about Pulse? Parents go shopping at Walmart (even in a pandemic) all the time. Kids, too. If they can get it there or Target or Amazon, that's all they care about. Pulse is for the likes of you and me and they're not actually trying to appease you and me.

That's not $50.00 worth. Sorry, but no, just no.

 

One complaint I do have to add with HP though is they do not have everything. I’m not talking about store exclusives, I’m saying they have not traditionally carried the smaller price items and force you to pay often double retail if your region never sees distribution. That’s stupid. Carry everything and make store exclusives timed with release on Pulse three months later. That alone would make it worth paying.

 

I wouldn't say I'm any kind of Pulse fan, or that it's any skin off my nose if you don't renew? It's a service that works for me. I tend to order in little bursts. I want a toy now and then, and generally order under the $50 threshold at a time. The money saved is handily over $50 in my case. I'll admit, I forgot shipping for orders over $50 is free without premium when I posted... in that case, sure, makes sense not to renew if you mostly order over that amount.

 

I generally do. That's not a weird douche flex, it's honest. I try to save shipping where and when I can, so I'll go out of my way to build a POL or Stack or Roller's Stash so it can all ship in one box/one price. If Pulse can give it to me free because I hit the threshold, why would I pay for it coming from them?

If I do have to pay Pulse shipping, it's like $5-7 for a Deluxe, I spend more in gas trying to find the stuff, so it evens out in my mind.

 

The Generations Selects they release are always marked up by $2-3 at the other retailers. Between that and shipping and the con exclusives, I'm inclined to pay it. It will actually pay for itself in this instance. And I can't argue with shipping times, more often than not. For regular wave stuff I'll still get it at Amazon.

 

There are 2 draws to the premium to me outside of the free shipping, being first dibs on SDCC sets & the back in stock items sometimes being premium only.
I usually don't use Pulse for TF's anymore as I find them in stores months before Pulse sends em out. Those other perks though ARE nice and tempt me, it's gonna depend on what items are at SDCC or get re-released.
I've currently only got Marvel Legends on preorder there, Firestar & Maestro so I'm pretty sure those will keep the free shipping. I do love the free shipping method, I just end up using it so scarcely with an order every 3 or so months. Intesting as well cuz I thought I'd heard they were wanting to revamp the membership tier, but this seems the same. Oh well, 2 years of free Premium was very nice still so I can't complain at all.

 

While I have been using Hasbro Pulse less more recently, I think I am going to renew my Pulse Premium membership because of the rumor from the I'm Drunk Thread that "Hasbro Pulse will carry 5% of exclusive stocks from like Amazon Walmart etc so you can order from them instead". If that is true and I no longer have to step foot inside of a Walmart looking for their exclusives or deal with their website, I think it is $50 well spent. Also with how Amazon has been dropping the ball with their exclusives not a bad idea to have backup option.

 

Same here. Good place for impulse buying, don't have to hit a minimum for free shipping. Pricing isn't bad either for exclusives.

 

I'd advise even those that plan to renew to at least wait until your next order to do so. For one thing, you're just paying for unused time if you renew immediately. Secondly, it might pressure them to actually make the program worthwhile to more of us.

 

Two very good points!

 

I got the email to renew   and then checked a few of the recent posts in this thread...   It drove me to search back on a post I made ~2-years ago to actually answer some of the, "what more could you want?" comments people were expressing then. Interesting to see, that after 2-years, not much has changed.  
Maybe later on I'll see what some of those avid and/or passive aggressive antagonists to my comments have recently said and if they were still in defense of HPulse or not.

Although, in fairness, I will admit that the early access to the exclusives they had w/ Quintesson pit, hellfire club, drakkon, etc. was probably the first time I felt distinctive value out of having the membership; especially since they pretty much all sold out relatively quickly. Not sure if I'm confident upcoming exclusives will have the same (or larger) amount of wow factor(s). Besides, is it a discount to renew now as opposed to a day before the next event of early access to exclusives? I guess I've got more reading to do... Perhaps tomorrow night.

 

One thing I like about Pulse: they actually give you a date for when they’ll charge your card on a preorder - even if that date moves from time to time, it’s still good for someone like me who’s being careful with money.

 

Hey, I like free shipping as much as the next guy but considering how little I actually bought from them AND the fact I don’t really do most exclusives $50 would be a net loss for me.

 

I like Pulse and prefer to order there over anywhere else. They're never over MSRP, they've never cancelled my preorder, and their free shipping is super fast. I've enjoyed the premium membership I got for free, but it really only came in handy a small handful of times, if that. The way pre-orders drop nowadays, I usually am only placing a few bulk orders a year and they are usually over the $50 threshold. The early order option only really helped with the Pit of Judgment and even that came back in stock later.

I'd love if they gave you premium if you, say, spent over $100 on products or something like that (which they brought up as a possibility in the survey they sent out a while back), but at this point I don't see myself dropping $50 on it (I might be tempted to pay less).

 

Agreed with some others here. I might be tempted if Premium was a lower price. $30 would be my absolute top end but then they’d also have to offer more deals which were sorely lacking this past year.