Transformers Legacy toyline

[Rhinox]

I'm somewhat torn here. No, I don't want to encourage the eventual demise of brick and mortar, but at the same time pretty much all we have left here is Target and Walmart. Speaking bluntly, both can ******* burn for all I care.

As a collector, I haven't relied on 'I'll find it locally' for damn near a decade now. If I want something, I put in a preorder. I'm not willing to play the game of chance.
In that regard, I think we're living in something of a golden age for collecting. If you really want something, you will have the opportunity to buy it. If you choose to gamble that you'll stumble upon it locally, then you're making a choice.
I get the arguments for brick and mortar, but I don't think we can dismiss the very legitimate complaints of distribution. Stores and companies have also made decisions regarding shelf space, distribution, and what store gets what. For many (like me), we're just not going to get exclusives because we don't live in areas where those hit shelves.

Brick and mortars are absolutely complicit in their own troubles. The quandary they find themselves in is entirely due to their decisions. Hell, Walmart can't even do online shopping right. How many issues do we still have with Walmart.com? If brick and mortar stores want to be in the conversation, they need to fix things. If they choose not to, for whatever reason, then online is going to fully take over for everything outside immediate needs.

 

[Darth_Prime]

I loved the thrill of the hunt 20 years ago. Checking 2 TRU, 4 Targets and 5 Walmarts trying to find that one figure and seeing what else I might find. Now, with gas, inflation, having a family, seeing the same wave 1 over produced figures filling holes for a year where wave 3 and 4 should be, etc….its so much easier to just preorder it and be happy knowing that I’m getting the ones I want. Others if I find them in the wild are just a blessing.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Pretty much. I used to break out the bike on nice days, get a couple dozen kilometers under my belt, hit up a bunch of TRU's, zellers, walmarts.

TRU in canada lost so much buying power when the american division died. They were never great for restocking anyway, but much better about it then over now. Zellers went under, replaced by target and they didn't last two years. Walmart hasn't bothered to maintain the toy section between january and september for a decade or more. Sure it's fine if you're just walking in to get something for some kid as a gift or something, but if you're actively hunting SOMETHING you end up going hungry.

I've gotten more figures from the overstock liquidation store in the last two years than I have from whatever big box stores are still around.

 

[Platypus Prime]

I think where I broke was GOING broke on fuel. The trouble is, when gas was less expensive and I had a place located more centrally, even with a lower paying job I could easily pop by Target and Wal-Mart before or after work. And if I had more time I could even go to Toys R Us and see that. Nowadays, things are further away and gas is more expensive, so between the two, the hunt became nonviable. I just don't have the means financially to run all over and then come up empty handed. It takes very little driving to come up to half the cost of a figure. Or more.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I have a Toyota with the eco mode option. Saves me a fair bit on gas.

But yeah... I have a few independent comic/hobby shops around me, and a fair bit of Targets and Walmarts.
So I can get a good hunt in provided the time's there.

I donno. I'm not opposed to online retail but I rather get what I can in person and use the internet to make up the difference/pick up older figures that aren't in stores anymore.

I mean yeah Target and Walmart aren't greta companies but I'd rather not see them die and put all of those people out of work.
I'd also like them to pay those people better... but to me that's the solution, not burning down two retail giants, damned the human cost.

 

[Platypus Prime]

So do I, now, but that was a recent development and the car payment for it precludes any cost savings. I could almost buy a Haslab a month. I got it mostly because my older car stranded me three times in three weeks and did seven thousand in repairs doing it. I figured I might as well bite the bullet and get a new one. Turns out car costs have jumped a lot since I last did it in 2013.

 

[lastmaximal]

At this point if I had a consistently good and well-priced online channel for entertainment and hobby stuff, I'd be getting my stuff mostly through that. (Amazon, BBTS, Pulse etc do ship here, but it's costly and will definitely add up.)

As it is I already do most of my buying from specialty stores through their own preorders, and just schedule a shopping/errand run when I'm told stuff has arrived. (This is me helping support their brick and mortar presence in general, I guess.) Mainstream retail very sparingly, but it does happen too. We're a far smaller venue than the US so distribution is less dramatically janky, but it's janky enough to make this less-physical approach more convenient in the big picture.

There's also the surrounding economics of everything else. With the toys themselves shooting up in price, that's money I can no longer spend on also-pricier-now transportation, which is absurd in this car-centric metro with historically sad public transport. And even if that weren't a factor (never happen), I'm too old and out of shape (then again, oblate spheroid is technically a shape) to be at any comfort level with schlepping across town to maybe not find anything.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

I much preferred shopping brick and mortar, but with TRU and KB long gone, the only options are the big chains that don't really seem to care about actually keeping things stocked. (Also I don't work at Target anymore, so I can't just snag things right off the truck.) And with distribution still in the toilet from, well, vague gesture at the last eight or nine years, I've started just preordering anything I really feel like I have to have, usually on BBTS. I still look when I'm out at the stores for other things, but it's just not worth physical hunting anymore.

 

[Shadewing]

Yeah, anything I feel I really must have or might end up hard to find; I preorder. For everything else, I sorta take my luck.

 

[Rhinox]

Toy hunting was a hobby for a bygone era. In this day and age of $3 gas and the horrors of the modern day big box store, it really is just not worth it to go out and look just to look. If I stumble on something, great, but that just doesn't really happen anymore.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I don't often need anything else from Target that would make a failed toy hunt worthwhile. If you gave me a $500 Target gift card and told me I had to use it, I wouldn't know what to do.

 

[ZacWilliam1]

I'm the opposite of that. We're at Target between 2 and 3 times a week on average for stuff we need for the house or kids (it helps that it's like 10 minutes from our house) so my problem is more often that I've already looked there twice this week and maybe we should at least go to the walmart that like 15 minutes further just for some variety.

-ZacWilliam, but yeah even being there all the time I am more likely to not see any new transformers there very frequently. I'd guess I get at least 60% of my toys online nowadays.

 

[Superomegaprime]

Brick & mortar is pretty much a no go for me as my local Toy shop has next to nothing TF wise and the major Supermarket is just the same (not surprised as the company that runs the local Toy shop also surplies the Supermarket), if I want to go shopping in different toy shop, I got to go further a field and then there is very little chance of finding what I want, so ordering off the Internet is the only way for me!

 

[Echowarrior]

I have all but given up on brick and mortar. Don't get me wrong, if I could buy toys at an actual, physical store, I would...but none of the places near me restock, and if they do, they tend to get clogged with the first couple waves.

I miss Toys'R'Us.

 

[Darth_Prime]

I don't often need anything else from Target that would make a failed toy hunt worthwhile. If you gave me a $500 Target gift card and told me I had to use it, I wouldn't know what to do.

I mean, they sell food. I’m sure you would need food at some point. Or shampoo. Maybe toothpaste? New shirt?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

There's at least three Publixes between me and the nearest Target, so if all I get is groceries that's a really inefficient shopping trip. But if I had the gift card, yeah you got me.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Toy hunting was a hobby for a bygone era. In this day and age of $3 gas and the horrors of the modern day big box store, it really is just not worth it to go out and look just to look. If I stumble on something, great, but that just doesn't really happen anymore.

Ironically, because I’m a general “toy nerd”, the stuff I’ve had the hardest amount of time actually finding is the actual “kids toys” that aren’t subject to “collector distribution” :lol Racerverse, Spin Master’s 4” DC and Jakks’ Star Wars Micro Galaxy are minor interests to me, but seem harder to get because those lines aren’t offered the same way as collector centric Action Figure lines are.


And to clarify my position, I WANT to shop retail. I WANT to support local retail venues. I am WILLING to pay a little extra to do that. But here? There are literally NO OPTIONS besides Walmart (Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Walgreens don’t count). And without ANY competition? Up until this past Christmas season, the entire action toy section was a single side of a single aisle block. They haven’t carried Masters of the Universe in four years. GI Joe in 2 and a half. And they haven’t carried a full spread of Transformers product in nearly a decade. And it is HIGHLY questionable for those SKUs they DO carry are even being stocked. I’ve seen this store go MONTHS without restocking empty pegs. And if they ARE getting stock, then clearly it’s not enough because I keep seeing the same dang empty pegs!

The next closest Walmart is 30 minutes away, and the next non-Walmart retailer (Target) is an HOUR away. The “hunt” is impractical for me.

As is? My “tier list” for buying is Hasbro Pulse, BBTS, and sometimes Best Buy (seriously). For any of my electronics needs, I DO go out of my way (and maybe even pay a hair more) to get stuff from Best Buy rather than Walmart or Amazon. Because they are a retailer I WANT to support (the mere fact their site doesn’t allow 3rd Party sellers is a MASSIVE positive to me).

Going a slight off-topic…I think a LOT of the issues facing the action toys segment (supposedly, the toys industry is doing fine, but it feels like elevated prices and the inclusion of certain categories kind of skew those results) can largely boil down to loss of a dedicated toy retailer to put pressure on brick and mortar venues and the “fracturing” we saw a decade ago. Splitting the kids and collector dollars might well be the root issue to some of the issues many of Hasbro’s action brands are facing right now.

 

[unluckiness]

I don't toy hunt at regular retail much since the Yolopark model kits started to become available and promptly overtook most transformers sections. I usually order exclusively from dedicated collector stores for stuff that's essential for me. Retail prices going slightly lower for generations/Studio Series might tempt me into more impulse buys in the future, I'll admit.

I do enjoy trawling around the specialty/hobby store segment of a specific local mall catering towards collectors/toy nerds. Never can tell what pre-owned or old stock you can find.

 

[lastmaximal]

I don't toy hunt at regular retail much since the Yolopark model kits started to become available and promptly overtook most transformers sections. I usually order exclusives from dedicated collector stores for stuff that's essential for me. Retail prices going slightly lower for generations/Studio Series might tempt me into more impulse buys in the future, I'll admit.

I do enjoy trawling around the specialty/hobby store segment of a specific local mall catering towards collectors/toy nerds. Never can tell what pre-owned or old stock you can find.

Yeah, that's another reason at the moment for dipping out. Sometimes it's distribution, sometimes it's whoever's running the store that just seems to shift focus to lines you're not into. One branch near me was great up to like Legacy Evolution, but now it's all Yolopark and Blokees and ONE.

That second point I can relate to, but the likelihood of a neat find has gone down hard in the last ten years or so because it's all resellers and stuff now with the same rotation of the last few years of retail. Haven't stumbled onto any gems since well before the pandemic. Not that I begrudge them for it; that's probably what's still making money.

But even given that, that circuit is far more likely to be visually interesting than mainstream retail if only for the variety. Still, gonna take more to get me to leave the house these days.

 

[unluckiness]

If I wanted to build model kits of variations on the same handful of designs, I'd still be building Gundams. Blokees at least have the decency to be in their own sub section most of the time.