Do you really think that if they mistakenly put them out on May 8th that they knew about a limit of how many you could buy? Believe me, when I bought mine they didn't know what it was...

 

Nice try. Scalping has been around ALOT longer than distribution issues. The issues with distribution didn't effectively start becoming a big problem until the end of Titans Return and running into the Power of the Primes line. Before that, Classics figures were always pretty easy to get but, there were always scalpers trying to falsely inflate market value.

The problem isn't Hasbro at all. In the case of Trypticon, more than enough product reached the consumers through Ollie's Bargain Outlet. But then you had a greed-driven third party (scalpers) who saw a hot selling item, inserted themselves between Ollie's and the consumer, ravenously bought up a majority of the product, and are trying to inflate prices to their own benefit.

This "don't hate the player, hate the game" mentality is absurd. Scalping is and always will be the bane of collecting. Seriously scalpers need to move out of mom's basement, get a REAL job, and stop trying to milk collectors for a living.

I can't say this loud and clear enough to these boards:

HASBRO.

IS.

NOT.

YOUR.

ENEMY.

 

In the mid to late 90's there was a superhero figure craze going on. If there was something short packed, you could be assured that the scalpers would sling through every case in stock to get the rarer item. Does anyone remember Ultraforce? There were limited edition figures in the line that were run in 5,000 unit production runs. One per case. Not one of each rare per case, one of a randomly selected rare figure per case. Add to that the short packing in the cases of the other figures in the line, and you had a REAL mess when it came time to try to chase down all the figs. Hell, ANY short packed fig would be snatched up in a heartbeat. Many people on this site know I got into a fistfight with a scalper over a Toybiz Domino figure for specifically that reason. Scalpers have ALWAYS been a problem with the collecting hobby.

 

You are on drugs.

Distribution was a big problem in Combiner Wars. In fact I would go as far as to say the tail end of Thrilling 30. I would not have been able to sell through five solid cases of Arcee and Chromia at $20 if people had been able to find them at retail. Hell, I never saw either of them at retail. I didn't see a full 3/4 of Combiner Wars at retail either. Stores aren't even carrying leader class now. Voyagers, that were down to as trickle in TR, are just about gone as well. Brush it off all you want; I've been taking photos of my trips to the Soviet grocery stores.

You know why those Trypticons hit Ollies? Because they weren't stocked at major retailers. End of story. I don't care if your stores had them piled floor to ceiling. I saw one, and only one, at one Toys R Us 50 miles away during the entire run. And Hasbro made it damned hard for many smaller players to want to stock them. They don't even solicit most of this stuff until the release date or afterward. And in the case of Fort Max and Trypticon, they wanted $140 shipped per unit too. If I even got them with all of the stupid games they play with phantom solicitations and surprise cancellations. How many do you think I would've sold, knowing full well that I can't pay your shipping for you and you were just going to wait for Ollies anyway? Meanwhile that same Hasbro was happy to let Ollies have them for less than $25 per unit. Hasbro is so smart, S M R T.

I can't say this loud and clear enough to these boards:

SCALPERS. ARE. A. BOOGEYMAN.
SCALPING. DOES. NOT. AND. CANNOT. PAY.
HASBRO'S. EMBARGO. MAKES. SCALPING. SOUND. DOABLE. UNTIL. YOU. DO. THE. MATH.

This pauper mentality driving endless searches for bargain basement deals and refusal to shop anywhere but Amazon and Walmart is why you can't find toys. Those two have one hand clamped around Hasbro's balls and the other clamped around yours. If anybody needs to "get a real job", it's those going "oh me, oh my, can't afford that 'spensive deluxe until payday and only if somebody gives me a coupon with fwee shipping."

If you want a Trypticon, or Fort Max, at retail price, there's still plenty to go around. But what you really want is a deal.

 

In this particular case, I agree with you. Most people really just want their cake and to eat it too.

Although to say there's plenty to go around runs counter to your distribution argument. When it comes to Big Box, the distribution is fine...it's the store's methods of stocking, ordering shippers and constant resetting that runs the system afoul.

However, again, you are correct when Hasbro sticks it to the little guy. Small retailers are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to priority. I've heard way too many complaints to think that's not true.

 

Agree to disagree. Hasbro can't force retailers to buy product they don't want. That's how product ends up at Ollie's. And why don't retailers want Transformers product? Because they keep getting burned on the shelf warming Movie and RiD toys.

GMAFB Combiner wars pegs looked like Transformers aisles in the 80's compared to Titans Return and Power of the Primes.

You "Hasbro is the root of all evil" people can hop back on your elevator and ride it to the lowest possible point. Because that's where you usually drive the conversation anyway.

If you hate Hasbro, their business model, their distribution, their prices, their perceived lack of quality, and so on, then you know what? Stop buying their product.

But, for the love of God please stop bitching about a company that provides a product that alot of people love.

Boogeyman? You can't be serious. Scalping IS and ALWAYS WILL BE the bane of collecting. It exists. Always has. Always will.

I live in Maryland. The 4 Ollie's closest to me sold out of their full stock of 20 Trypticons within a day. A day. 24 hours. There aren't that many collectors in my area. So where did all of the Trypticons go?

The boogeyman?

"Recouping costs" is scalping. No doubt about it. People can claim otherwise until they're blue in the face.

But if you sell a clearance item (that's essentially what Trypticon is) for a large markup to cover the one you bought for yourself, you're still a scalper.

Only instead of cash money to make a living off of, your profit was a free figure for yourself that was at the expense of your fellow collector.

 

Yeah, I sold an extra to pay for the one I bought for myself. As long as people are willing to pay the price, it will continue to happen. Free market, dog eat dog world, etc.

 

Limit of three here. All you had to do was stop once in the morning and go back later in the afternoon. Glasses on, Clark Kent, glasses off, Superman. I really thought about doing it too. And then smashing at least one of them on YouTube. But if I had money to flush down the toilet like that, I'd still have my distribution account.

 

I'm sure that happened to some stores. But an exception only proves the rule. Most people here, including myself, reported that their store had a limit of two.

Exactly. Or just have your girlfriend, friends, parents, etc pick them up for you. LOL....why would you smash one?

I find it comical that you blame a little guy who is intelligent enough to capitalize on their good fortune, but side with the idiots in the boardroom who make the decisions. They chose to put Grimlock in with a second rate Starscream at a 1:2 ratio. If the wave would have been all Grimlocks, do you really think they would be going for $40 on ebay or Amazon?
Who ever said that Hasbro was the enemy? What is with some of you guys? It is not about an "evil" corporation. It is about the fact that they have proven, many times, that they cannot effectively manage that Transformers brand. Hasbro is much too large. Transformers is just one of their lines. If the brand were owned by one single entity, you would not have the distribution problems that we have today. They are not evil. Just ignorant.

Pretty much. Except the last line. You can only assume you jipped another collector. Maybe you grabbed them up right before another scalper could.....regardless there is nothing illegal or evil about scalping. I have been "burned" by local scalpers many times. But what I didn't do was whine about it. The fastest feet wins. Its that simple. I have beat people to the punch and have been beaten. This is how a free market works.

Just because you do not agree with the business model of a company doesn't mean that you have to hate them and not buy their product. The scalping situation really only hurts Hasbro in the long run as they could have moved many more units if they would have had someone who knows something about the fandom planning distribution. The people they have probably do not give two squats about the fandom. Only pushing product, regardless of what it is. This is why every single line has to have an Optimus or BB. The morons act like they are the only two Transformers in existence.

I will tell you this though, the $20 deluxe price that will come with WFC will definitely cause many more "Ollie's" type situations. I know I'm not paying that much for a deluxe, ever. I heard the Studio series deluxes are smaller too. If that is true, then what a joke. The funny thing is that I remember years back when the price went to $12.99 I did a financial analysis for fun to see what the price would be by 2020. And I shit you not I called it, just a year and a half earlier. These price points will be the end of this line if they keep it up. No parent is spending that cash for a glorified scout sized Transformer.

 

Dude, multiquote.

Also, the scalping thing is real. You may support, you may protest, but it still exists, and will as long as there are at least a few people who will pay that much for convenience. Pretending it doesn't exist certainly doesn't solve the problem.

 

You call it intelligent. I call it selfish and unethical.

I'm not taking sides. But, to blame a large corporation because the product that actually *is* on the shelves, especially at a discount, disappears faster than you can blink your eyes, is absurd to say the least.

Hasbro can't force these retailers to buy their products. And I believe the absence of the Titans Return and Power of the Primes lines has alot more to do with retailers over-ordering and subsequently sitting on Movie and RID product that won't sell and is shelf warming rather than case assortments.

The lack of product available, which I don't believe is Hasbro's fault (see my first two paragraphs above) is creating a market that is ripe for the scalpers' taking. Product that does appear is causing the roaches to see an opportunity, multiply, come out of the woodwork, and take advantage of an already bad situation.

By expense, I meant the "recouping costs" scalper crowd is actually profiting from the money of their fellow collectors not depriving someone else by buying extra figures. Though that is another issue in and of itself.

Also, after much digging, and coming up short at my 4 Ollie's (Aberdeen MD, Dundalk MD, Kennett Square PA, and Lancaster PA) because they all sold out within 24 hours of Trypticon's release, I had to go out of my way into another state not listed above just to find what I needed. (I will not be publicly naming where I found it because I don't want to feed the scalpers)

It was frustrating to say the very least. And as popular as this hobby is, I don't believe collectors were the ones to clean out all of the Ollie's near me. Especially not as fast as the shelves went bare.

You may not hate Hasbro per se. But there are far too many collectors on this site who spread far too much negativity by complaining about Hasbro's business model, their distribution, their perceived lack of quality, and their prices.

They're obviously not having fun with Hasbro or their products at that point. And that's what this hobby should be all about. Having fun.

Hasbro doesn't give two squats about the fandom? The time since Classics came out in 2006 all the way through Power of the Primes has been one giant fan service. Those lines wouldn't exist without a love letter from Hasbro to the fandom.

 

I picked up 2 yesterday at an Ollies in NJ. There was about 12 or so more left. I need to find a Fort Max still.

 

FYI BBTS has fort max on sale for $120. While it is not $50, its probably the best price you will find for NIB version. THey also have the DK02 kit on preorder and I totally recommend that upgrade kit if you do get fort max! Transformers Fortress Maximus | Transformers Titan Class

 

I don’t think that’s really an accurate assertion though. If the fandom demand for a figure is 10k units, but scalpers buy 5k units forcing half the fandom to have to buy from scalpers, that doesn’t mean the total demand was 15k units and Hasbro could have sold an addition 5k units (10 to the fandom and 5 to the scalpers). Scalpers buy what the fandom wants, and if Hasbro gets 10k units directly to the fandom scalpers aren’t going to buy that additional 5k because there will no longer be a market for them to sell it to. Increasing production runs would then simply lead to unsold units not increased sales.

 

Spite, mostly, followed by morbid curiosity as to how much AdSense revenue the video would bring in.

 

Went to Ollies today, not to find Trypticon, but to try and find TR Windblade, but no luck... It was mostly the wave with Twinferno (Doublecross).

 

I will admit to considering similar acts for those same reasons... Just look at those guys who smash Silly Putty with a hydraulic press...

 

Reaction is the main reason I want to post a video on youtube for "converting pewter miniatures" and film me and my friend smelting down limited edition figures to make 1 oz pendant sinkers. The comments alone would be epic, regardless of click revenue.