What's wrong with TRU distribution? especially the East Coast

I have been trying to gather some of the newer generations TFs and I CAN'T seem to find them in any TRUs around me. I'm in the East coast and I know that West gets it before East BUT I have seen Target and Walmart get these figures when they are released and TRU never once.

For example, Generations Cliffjumper, N. Prime, Acid storm, Gears
Gen Brainstorm, Roadbuster, Skybyte
Gen Arcee, Chromia
CW limbs

I have gotton some of these figures in Target when they were on sale A MONTH+ ago. Targets and walmarts don't always have them in stock but they come and go,they are there; WHERE AS TRU, NONE, NEVER... not even the older Roadbuster and skybyte.. or Gen. Gears, acid storms.

I know that TRU.com has them occasional but thats not the point, the point is INSTORE. Why is TRUs' distribution so bad?
If the Target/Walmart in the EAST get them, why not TRUs too?

They do have RiD stuff, I don't know how update they are with those but I have Zero interest in them.

just venting and wanting to know. lol

 

I don't know what to tell you. They get what they get. If I had to depend on my local Walmart I'd have gotten legends wave one Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and that is it. The further I go in this hobby, I just wait and get stuff on the internet when I am ready to buy. Saves me from looking all over as well. I know that doesn't help.

 

Actually, I was wondering this myself...

I live in Jacksonville, FL. There are 2 TRU's in close proximity to me, but Walmarts and Targets are like weeds around here... I have a routine where, through out the week, I check each of these stores so I'm not visiting the same store too much. I was able to grab (from Target) a set of CW limbs, a Prime and a Silverbolt, well over a month or so ago and I've hardly seen anything new since... The 2 TRU's, the Targets and Walmarts, when it comes to TF distribution, is a joke... It's very spotty, and hit or miss at best... But it only seems to be with TF's. The Power Ranger, TMNT, Star Wars and Marvel aisles are clogged with new product. The TF section has some 2015 RID stuff and still a shit ton of AOE garbage and the same Rattrap and Tankor I've been staring at for the past 6 months... They also can't seem to give away the remaining Roadbusters, Whirls, Sky-Bytes and Rhinox's...

I'm not mad, so much as disappointed and I don't get how the other toy brands can get so much new stuff out so quickly, but TF's struggle so much...

I predict Combiner Wars are gonna fly off the shelves and way outsell the RID line even with a new cartoon backing it up.

 

Well, Gears and Acid Storm were technically short-printed by Hasbro, so your chances of seeing them at retail in the States are incredibly slim. At one point, our TRU was flooded with Cliffjumpers and N. Primes for two months...and then when they finally sold, they got in Cosmos and Swerve? Only after Christmas did those finally move.

Right now, there's a colony of Whirls, Doubledealers, Blitzwings and Rhinoxi choking the Voyager shelf. I think we're now flush with leftovers from nearby seasonal Mall Express stores that shut down.

 

I haven't seen anything but Legends class combiner wars. I think it has a lot to do with the movie stuff still being on shelves.

 

Target and Walmart employees tell me the day the figures are put on the shelves they are gone. The same 2-3 people buy them every time.

 

Yeah, scalpers killed this hobby for me as a kid. I remember going into my local Wal Mart and seeing some old fat guy walk out with a cart full of RID figures and I just walked away.

 

It doesn't matter if its TRU, Target or Walmart.. its bad all over right now. If you can't wait for the inevitable restock, just order the toys you need online.

 

Pretty much this, I hate to say. Other than the RID toys, in the past two months I've only seen Brainstorm and Chromia once each (both at the same Walmart, though on different visits), CW Legends Thundercracker (a couple of times at different TRUs), and one full case worth of CW Wave 1 Deluxes (set out at a Target - all disappeared within 24 hours, either by purchase or because the staff accidentally stocked them when they weren't supposed to).

Roadbuster, Sky-Byte, Nemesis Prime, and Cliffjumper have been common sights at Targets and Walmarts, but I've not seen a single Acid Storm or Gears.

What's boggling me is that it's now into February, and there's been no major restock in the action figure aisles anywhere, aside from the RID stuff. My wife collects Monster High and Ever After High dolls, and those sections have been getting mad restock since the holidays, but the action figure aisles are just swamped in older product or empty pegs.

I'm really hoping to see some of the new 6" Marvel Legends soon, myself.

 

There's too much stuff.. It's no longer legends, deluxe, voyager, and leader.

Plus there always seems to be layover from the movies.

Also.. It's not just TRU, at least not on my area.. Each place seems to get something in quicker than the other.

 

I'm not talking about target or walmart restocking then sell out. I know that target and walmarts have been selling them on and off. What I don't understand is that why are TRU not having any CW voyagers and limbs at all? While other retailers have been selling them for over a month or two.

 

The retailers near me haven't had nothing for two months

 

i personally haven't seen them anywhere.. and only now are there reports in my area of the limbs being at walmart.. and silverbolt has only been found at TRU in my area.

so.. i don't think it's just TRU.. i think ti's just the post holiday 1st quarter doldrums.

 

Here's why:

West Coast Ports Could Shut Down in Days, Cripple Asia Trade - NBC News

Everything is messed up right now. Like I said earlier, be patient.

 

1) It's the dead time of the year.
2) Hasbro's distribution priority is Walmart > Target > BBTS > Toys R Us > Marshalls/Ross > Goodwill > China > the moon > HTS.com. Don't ask me how HTS got it before TRU.

 

The worst is there haven't been any new kreo sets since aoe was released and kreos are a toys r us exclusive so if your into kreo then your just screwed because eBay is filled with price gougers

 

It isn't just CW. RID2015 has more or less disappeared here in Portland, OR, with no restock in sight. They were stocked to the gills, absolutely. Pegs full of Legends and Warriors and One Steps...now barely anything is around.

The reality is that the dock worker issue on the west coast is fucking things up royally. Even worse than Transformers not coming out is the economic damage that America will suffer from this. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.

 

At my Walmart there nothing but a whole wall of Age of Extincion one step changers that's it.

At my Kmart the shelfs are literally empty they have like 5 transformers in total.

 

On top of whatever is going on to cause a tf drought, tf distribution just sucks in general. Sometimes certain figures will only show up at target or walmart, maybe fred Meyer (Kroger), or whatever. Then there's exclusives, like tru mp prime, a lot of stores only got one box of 2 figures and that's it. And then there are times when just a stupid little $8 scout figure will be ridiculously rare and it goes for $40-80 online then a couple months later it starts showing up at discount stores for $5. It sucks and can make for a stressful hobby at times, but as others have said, patience. I mean, I don't have patience but I know a guy who does and he always eventually gets everything he wants. Lol

 

I work at Toys R Us, and cannot explain the distribution to save my life. We will get cases and cases and cases of toys that I know we will sit on, and little to no cases of things that would fly off of the shelves...

In my area the distribution has been like this:
TRU: Lots of RID2015 and a couple of cases of CW Legends (we got one case of legends in before XMas and one shortly after new years...but dry ever since)
Target: Good supply of RID2015 and a couple of cases of CW Voyagers
WalMart:A case of CW deluxe
KMart: HAH!