Low Q4 Hasbro Sales

[Hylo]

Originally Posted by sikkbones

unicrons and masterpceice roddy seem to be shelfwarmers as well.

Masterpiece Rodimus has been sold out since he arrived where I am, Unicron, well no wonder, it's only like the 4th time he's been released, everyone has it.

[Hylo]

Originally Posted by Goaliebot

Movie toys, including DOTM, have sold VERY well as far as I can tell. There just seems to be this clogging of certain characters, like we saw with HTFD Ravage, etc.

Once the backlog clears I think we'll see a more even distribution of stock and lines. I don't know whether its Hasbro's figures per case ratios that were off, or exclusives, or what.

Funny everywhere I go, even when I visit other cities DOTM and ROTF are doing nothing but shelf warming and clogging the inventory space. It's surprising given the fact these companies know that the usual rule with movie toys is that they never seem to sell well no matter the movie. Go to any store and what do you see? Loads of Spiderman, Batman, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and Transformer movie toys clogging the boys isles right up there with CARS and Toy Story.

[sikkbones]

Originally Posted by Hylo

Funny everywhere I go, even when I visit other cities DOTM and ROTF are doing nothing but shelf warming and clogging the inventory space. It's surprising given the fact these companies know that the usual rule with movie toys is that they never seem to sell well no matter the movie. Go to any store and what do you see? Loads of Spiderman, Batman, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and Transformer movie toys clogging the boys isles right up there with CARS and Toy Story.

these things sell... but they keep oredering them long after the boom periods for them,

case in point... it took about 3 weeks for my local walmart to sell out of the captian america figures after they clearanced.. and they went on clearance over the holidays.

[Hylo]

Originally Posted by sikkbones

these things sell... but they keep oredering them long after the boom periods for them,

case in point... it took about 3 weeks for my local walmart to sell out of the captian america figures after they clearanced.. and they went on clearance over the holidays.

No they don't sell, that's the point.

[gagagalvatron]

Originally Posted by Hylo

No they don't sell, that's the point.

I think we have to be careful about proclaiming what does and doesn't sell.

Ultimate Prime did sell, though only after being discounted. You couldn't find one except at Zellers (who did not significantly discount). I bought one at Wal-Mart, then returned it after TRU had a better price. When I returned it to Wal-Mart, the store supervisor almost flat-out told me to keep it and sell it to someone myself since the demand was so high. Wal-Mart has none of these left now, and TRU only a handful.

DOTM did sell. TRU, even Wal-Mart have gone through lots of stock -- the failing here is that they tend to replenish with old merchandise and don't have an even distribution of waves.

There seems to be little rhyme or reason to wave distributions. Wal-Mart (for example) will get a couple of cases of Wave 5, sell them out, and then replenish with Wave 3. Is this backlog at Wal-Mart? Is Hasbro just not very good at product distribution?

They can be when they want to be. Both the Zellers I frequent (one in Cambridge, one in Guelph) got massive amounts of Wave 5 and sold all of them. But now? It's a wasteland of store exclusives and stuff that was introduced back in July.

Whose fault is this? Zellers? Hasbro? Both? I mean, if Zellers can move that amount of product, clearly the demand is there...

What didn't sell?

- HA Bumblebee and Skids
- Store exclusives
- HA Basics

There are reasons for all of these.

HA Bumblebee and Skids is old news. This one is totally Hasbro's fault and remains one of the worst retail decisions they've ever made. What I don't understand is why retailers didn't sharply discount them to clear them out. They just disappeared at Wal-Mart -- I fully expect to see them at Winners soon.

The Store Exclusives didn't sell because most of them were ROTF repaints. Stores want exclusives, though maybe Hasbro should consider giving them stuff that hasn't been retread so many times. I'll note that of all the Store Exclusives, only Space Case was challenging-to-hard to find. And guess what: it was a figure that was only used once, an interesting redeco, and a character that hasn't been sold at retail in a long time. There's a message here, if anyone is willing to listen and learn from it.

Somehow Hasbro convinced retailers that HA Basics would sell like hotcakes even though none of the vehicles or humans were in the movie. Most places either did not get or did not significantly stock the later waves.

I do think Hasbro has been really bad about getting movie product that people want. Between HA, the Wreckers, the lack of Soundwave/Wheeljack/Mirage, and the overabundance of things that weren't in the last movie at all, it just seems like someone's asleep in Hasbro's marketing department.

[Hylo]

Originally Posted by gagagalvatron

I think we have to be careful about proclaiming what does and doesn't sell.

Ultimate Prime did sell, though only after being discounted. You couldn't find one except at Zellers (who did not significantly discount). I bought one at Wal-Mart, then returned it after TRU had a better price. When I returned it to Wal-Mart, the store supervisor almost flat-out told me to keep it and sell it to someone myself since the demand was so high. Wal-Mart has none of these left now, and TRU only a handful.

DOTM did sell. TRU, even Wal-Mart have gone through lots of stock -- the failing here is that they tend to replenish with old merchandise and don't have an even distribution of waves.

There seems to be little rhyme or reason to wave distributions. Wal-Mart (for example) will get a couple of cases of Wave 5, sell them out, and then replenish with Wave 3. Is this backlog at Wal-Mart? Is Hasbro just not very good at product distribution?

They can be when they want to be. Both the Zellers I frequent (one in Cambridge, one in Guelph) got massive amounts of Wave 5 and sold all of them. But now? It's a wasteland of store exclusives and stuff that was introduced back in July.

Whose fault is this? Zellers? Hasbro? Both? I mean, if Zellers can move that amount of product, clearly the demand is there...

What didn't sell?

- HA Bumblebee and Skids
- Store exclusives
- HA Basics

There are reasons for all of these.

HA Bumblebee and Skids is old news. This one is totally Hasbro's fault and remains one of the worst retail decisions they've ever made. What I don't understand is why retailers didn't sharply discount them to clear them out. They just disappeared at Wal-Mart -- I fully expect to see them at Winners soon.

The Store Exclusives didn't sell because most of them were ROTF repaints. Stores want exclusives, though maybe Hasbro should consider giving them stuff that hasn't been retread so many times. I'll note that of all the Store Exclusives, only Space Case was challenging-to-hard to find. And guess what: it was a figure that was only used once, an interesting redeco, and a character that hasn't been sold at retail in a long time. There's a message here, if anyone is willing to listen and learn from it.

Somehow Hasbro convinced retailers that HA Basics would sell like hotcakes even though none of the vehicles or humans were in the movie. Most places either did not get or did not significantly stock the later waves.

I do think Hasbro has been really bad about getting movie product that people want. Between HA, the Wreckers, the lack of Soundwave/Wheeljack/Mirage, and the overabundance of things that weren't in the last movie at all, it just seems like someone's asleep in Hasbro's marketing department.

Funny everything you mentioned is complete shelf warming crap in New Brunswick.

[justprime]

Ultimate prime plus the first wave dotm are clogging up our walmart shelves, matter of fact early waves dotm have replenished the sold out racks from Christmas not that there was a lot of new at that time to pick through mostly pieces that had been released earlier, too bad we are still waiting for newer product q/wheeljack, soundwave etc.. and it seems that the retailers have become a dumping ground once again,.. no wonder ordering my be on the light side with respective lines and we may not see the later end of dotm bright side resque bots are not to be found and we never did get the last three in our area lotsa dotm bees though.

[vohkuhl]

Originally Posted by juxtapose519

Just finished reading this article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...17-714041.html

I'm not sure why Hasbro posted low numbers last quarter, but I do know that I intended to buy lots of Transformers this holiday season only to find TRU and Walmart shelves barren. I'm not sure if the US was in a similar situation, but I can't imagine it looked too different.

So who's to blame? Normally when retailers show less interest in stocking products, it means that consumers aren't buying them. Except this time it seems like the reason people weren't buying them is because they weren't on the shelves to begin with.

So who is the chicken here and who is the egg? Is it Hasbro not creating enough supply to fill the demand, or are the retailers not buying because they're getting shelf warmers? Whose fault is it that lines like Prime and Generations were snapped up off shelves before people knew they were there, and the movie stuff sat there for months taking up space? Is it just bad market research? WHY HASBRO?

Sorry for the TL;DR. This just confounds me.

When I was in the States during boxing day the shelves were very bare... So I guess it was the same issue there, but luckily I found Sky Shadow during my frustrating hunt on sale and no tax!

[gagagalvatron]

Originally Posted by Hylo

Funny everything you mentioned is complete shelf warming crap in New Brunswick.

Then neither of us is right or has access to the whole story.

Originally Posted by justprime

Ultimate prime plus the first wave dotm are clogging up our walmart shelves, matter of fact early waves dotm have replenished the sold out racks from Christmas .

And this is one of the things that makes it hard to track. Saying DOTM is clogging the shelves is not the same thing as saying it doesn't sell, as it clearly sold well enough to be replenished.

[Autovolt 127]

Originally Posted by gagagalvatron

I think we have to be careful about proclaiming what does and doesn't sell.

Ultimate Prime did sell, though only after being discounted. You couldn't find one except at Zellers (who did not significantly discount). I bought one at Wal-Mart, then returned it after TRU had a better price. When I returned it to Wal-Mart, the store supervisor almost flat-out told me to keep it and sell it to someone myself since the demand was so high. Wal-Mart has none of these left now, and TRU only a handful.

DOTM did sell. TRU, even Wal-Mart have gone through lots of stock -- the failing here is that they tend to replenish with old merchandise and don't have an even distribution of waves.

There seems to be little rhyme or reason to wave distributions. Wal-Mart (for example) will get a couple of cases of Wave 5, sell them out, and then replenish with Wave 3. Is this backlog at Wal-Mart? Is Hasbro just not very good at product distribution?

They can be when they want to be. Both the Zellers I frequent (one in Cambridge, one in Guelph) got massive amounts of Wave 5 and sold all of them. But now? It's a wasteland of store exclusives and stuff that was introduced back in July.

Whose fault is this? Zellers? Hasbro? Both? I mean, if Zellers can move that amount of product, clearly the demand is there...

What didn't sell?

- HA Bumblebee and Skids
- Store exclusives
- HA Basics

There are reasons for all of these.

HA Bumblebee and Skids is old news. This one is totally Hasbro's fault and remains one of the worst retail decisions they've ever made. What I don't understand is why retailers didn't sharply discount them to clear them out. They just disappeared at Wal-Mart -- I fully expect to see them at Winners soon.

The Store Exclusives didn't sell because most of them were ROTF repaints. Stores want exclusives, though maybe Hasbro should consider giving them stuff that hasn't been retread so many times. I'll note that of all the Store Exclusives, only Space Case was challenging-to-hard to find. And guess what: it was a figure that was only used once, an interesting redeco, and a character that hasn't been sold at retail in a long time. There's a message here, if anyone is willing to listen and learn from it.

Somehow Hasbro convinced retailers that HA Basics would sell like hotcakes even though none of the vehicles or humans were in the movie. Most places either did not get or did not significantly stock the later waves.

I do think Hasbro has been really bad about getting movie product that people want. Between HA, the Wreckers, the lack of Soundwave/Wheeljack/Mirage, and the overabundance of things that weren't in the last movie at all, it just seems like someone's asleep in Hasbro's marketing department.

^Totally This dude.

DOTM's toyline was one of the weakest lines in years.