Triple Force Friday - October 4th

[Dave]

The small Target near me probably had five cases of 6" figures out, but only one Vintage 3.75" case.  I was second in the store and missed out on most of the 3.75" figures as a result.

Now I'm wondering how well the 3.75" line is even going to be supported at retail.  I may have to rely on HasbroPulse for a lot of these figures.

[Rob]

Same story at the Target I went to... I got a Bliss, Jet Trooper, and Rey.  The X-Wing Pilot I don't need, and there was no sign of the Knight.

[Rob]

I feel like today was a massive dud.  A year ago we had the barge on the way, all those great TVC offerings... tons of new, and generally pretty good 5 POA figures.  And now the big trilogy conclusion launch has almost zero new 3.75” product.  I know we’ve been talking about this for months... but man what a disappointment.

[Dave]

Agreed, although TFF is kind of weird anyhow. 

The movie and video game are one and two+ months away, so its mostly collectors like us that are paying attention.

Six inch figures had a fairly robust offering, but everything else seemed pretty weak.

If the five inch line is going to be the new focus, I would have expected a little more be made available.  I get it that maybe they're holding more back for the holiday / movie release since its kid oriented, but 8-10 figures and a small vehicle aren't much.  I don't think I've seen anything leaked beyond this initial wave, so its hard to tell how much more is coming for this line.

The Vintage Collection has been strangely manged for awhile, and today was no exception.  Three new figures and some repacks is pretty sparse, and there isn't a ton to look forward too that has been leaked.

[GrandMoffNick]

I find it hard to be disappointed since we knew this is what was happening

[Jesse James]

Only thing I guess I find disappointing is the dumb street date stuff and that half the stores don’t even have stuff out.  It’s implied there is coordination but the reality is a lot of stores still don’t have their **** out because there simply isn’t coordination.  This really only ever worked with toys r us.  It’s easier to order online (from one of our wonderful sponsored links!) than it is to worry about finding it at a store.

I don’t care really, but finding some figures last night would’ve been nice.  I’ll live though.

Retail is really just a chore now.  I’m glad online is easier than it used to be.

[GrandMoffNick]

Do you have targets by you not stocked? The reset for actual aisle was hit or miss but the endcap and the focal seemed all set here on MN

[Nicklab]

Retail is really just a chore now.  I’m glad online is easier than it used to be.

PREACH!

This is why Amazon is eating every other retailers lunch.  It is SO much easier than dealing with these brick and mortar chains.  Especially ones that have employees who are underpaid and as a result they don't really care.

[Matt_Fury]

After today, I'm pretty much done with trying to get things through brick-and-mortar stores.  Not when EE, Amazon and Hasbro Pulse are available.

I stopped at a Walmart this morning before work and they didn't get anything in.  I went by two Targets on my way home and I only saw one TVC X-Wing Luke on the pegs.  There's no point when the store only gets one case in!

I miss the 2005-2012 era of collecting.  The figures were, for the most part, really good and they were easy to find.

[Darth_Anton]

Retail is really just a chore now.  I’m glad online is easier than it used to be.

I didn't bother going out this morning. Ordered everything on-line.

[McMetal]

I saw plenty of TVC at Targets, but only Wave 1. Saw skiffs at one lone Walmart, and no X-Wings.

Did finally score the elusive red A-Wing at ROSS though! Nice cap off to the day...only $7.99 too.

[Pete_Fett]

Agreed - last night and this morning was a real chore, and if I could just learn to "roll the dice" on getting the mint-on-card/mint-in-box items, I should really just order online.

I don't know why I did it, but I bought into the Graphite Editions for the Black Series - so I have all those (except for Amazon, that one is on it's way).

I also got a complete set of First Day Issue figures - again, not sure why, just did.

The only thing I didn't get enough of, was TVC figures - and I ordered them from Hasbro Pulse last night after my 2nd WalMart visit ended up being a total dud. I also ordered a set of X-Wings from them, and then another set of X-Wings from EE (using JD's affiliate links) - the EE ones will be my MIB ones.

I did get a set of those silly gold figures - again, other than "completeness" not sure why. And in a couple months, I'm sure I'll be seeing news that Hasbro is ending the 3.75" scale completely due to lack of sales or interest or whatever, and quite honestly, they have no one to blame but themselves. The Galaxy of Adventure figures are D.O.A. from what I've seen, plenty of them to go around, so either no one wants them or they've over-shipped them, doesn't really matter, retailers are going to be left holding the bag on them in a major way.

I missed Force Friday (or whatever they called it) for the Solo movie and when I finally got to a store, the ONLY 3.75" figures to be had were the Force Link 1.0 figures repacked in Force Link 2.0 packaging. So clearly, as "bad" as the 3.75" 5POA line was perceived as being, it at least moved. The problem was that, as is the case with all of the Hasbro assortments, the case ratios STINK. They should have stuck with having two TVC waves hit today with Wave 1 being: Rey, Sith Jet Trooper, Poe & Zorii Bliss (2x of each in the case) and Wave 2 being: Yavin Leia, X-Wing Luke, Knight of Ren, and once again Sith Jet Trooper (also 2x of each in the case) - and those would have all still done well.

Also, where the heck was the Yavin Luke WalMart exclusive? One WalMart I went into had a metric ton of Skiff Guard Lando figures! 

Assortments, distribution and product focus are the problems that plague Hasbro Star Wars - not collector demand. From what I experienced today, if you were the 2nd person to hit any store today, you were pretty much shut out of TVC and/or the First Day Issue Black Series figures. In sharp contrast, I bet I could go into any store right now and grab a complete set of those 5" abortions called "Galaxy of Adventure".

[GrandMoffNick]

I'm not arguing that the 5" stuff will be a success but not sure you can base any conclusions on how well the line will do based off of 8 hours of day one sales.

[Brian]

I'm not arguing that the 5" stuff will be a success but not sure you can base any conclusions on how well the line will do based off of 8 hours of day one sales.

Yeah I don’t know that we will have a good idea on their success until after the holidays. I’m kind of interested to see how it all shakes out. The primary buyers on TFF (us) probably generally don’t care about these, and “average joe” consumer probably barely knows Star Wars stuff came out today. I picked up one, Chewbacca, just to see what they were like. Haven’t opened anything yet, but looks like a decent figure for $10.

[tmanthegreat]

Not sure whether this is any helpful observation on the topic of discussion, but I was surprised by the turnout, or lack thereof, with Triple Force Friday.  There were no midnight events in my area, so I went to a nearby Walmart right when it opened at 7:00am this morning.  There were only two other collectors there and the store was still in the process of putting the end caps and aisle displays out.  The other collectors and I had a nice time getting what we wanted and helping each other out, but we were surprised by how little there was overall.  Even the store stock manager was saying there really wasn’t all that much.  After the Walmart, I went to check out a nearby Target when it opened at 8:00am.  This time there was about 8 people and the store was still putting items out as we came in - the selection was largely the same as at Walmart.  After getting a couple items at Target that weren’t at Walmart, I went to another local Walmart that had no Star Wars out.  Asking an employee about where the Star Wars items might be, he said they had no plans for it, which seemed odd...  After that Walmart, I went by a couple more Targets, most of which were not terribly picked over, at least in terms of the Black Series and TVC figures.  No Walmart or Target had the larger TVC ships and I bought the Poe X-Wing at Barnes and Noble of all places (which was actually nice as I got my 20% off educator’s discount there ).  Despite the lack of collector traffic and overall limited selection, I was able to find everything I wanted so it was a successful day...  Still, the limited scale of it all surprised me compared to previous “Force Fridays”.