ToysRUs.ca Transformers Sightings and discussion

[ssjgoku22]

Originally Posted by steamwhistle

Hasbro should just have everything available for pre-order.
Let collectors buy direct from them via pre-order.

If Lego can operate well off a website along with distribution to general retail, why can't Hasbro do the same with Transformers and other lines?

I am sure hard-core collectors would even pay a nominal annual membership to ensure they can acquire the figures they want.

I think that's their eventual game plan. Pulse is probably an experiment to see how many people will use it. If it's successful, they'll only sell their products directly to the consumer.

[Matrix_Holder]

Big nope on that. I'm not going to let someone limit my collecting because of trash that scalp figures. A limit of a few figures is OK but big hell no to a limit of 1.

[The Nemesis]

Maybe not limiting figures to 1 per hosuehold, but 1 per order/transaction. You want 2? You essentially have to "get in line" for each one and put through a separate order. That way each purchase is its own thing and you can't just snap up a big chunk of stock in one go. Yes, it would potentially hose the handful of people that buy for friends, but what is that against the number of people that buy entire batches just to scalp or the ones that buy 3 copies so they can have box/unbox/modify copies or hold some for trade or whatnot.



The other thing would be to let R club members pre-order online or in-store. Make the damn card worth something by letting us go to a store and say "I want one of these when they come out, can you set one aside and give me, say, 5 days to come in and pick it up when it arrives?"


Maybe also, to deal with the whole $75 shipping thing, allow free shipping to stores like EB or wal-mart does. Set that at a minimum of, say, $20 so that you have to order more than just a single core class figure and then they can just toss your piece onto a truck taking regular inventory across the country or from the warehouse to the store.


but otherwise, yes, the biggest thing to fix this is to get more stock. Not TRU, but it's ridiculous that a given Wal-Mart gets maybe one pack of 4 Retro Headmasters per stock shipment. Maybe send them 4 at a time so they can put a real amount of stock out on the shelves for people.




Something like Pulse would be fine by me if it wasn't prohibitively expensive. If they offered more stuff, direct to the consumer in Canada and not shipping from the US with exchange and all that fuss, and there was an easily reachable free shipping threshold.

[RNSrobot]

Originally Posted by The Nemesis

Maybe not limiting figures to 1 per hosuehold, but 1 per order/transaction. You want 2? You essentially have to "get in line" for each one and put through a separate order. That way each purchase is its own thing and you can't just snap up a big chunk of stock in one go. Yes, it would potentially hose the handful of people that buy for friends, but what is that against the number of people that buy entire batches just to scalp or the ones that buy 3 copies so they can have box/unbox/modify copies or hold some for trade or whatnot.



The other thing would be to let R club members pre-order online or in-store. Make the damn card worth something by letting us go to a store and say "I want one of these when they come out, can you set one aside and give me, say, 5 days to come in and pick it up when it arrives?"


Maybe also, to deal with the whole $75 shipping thing, allow free shipping to stores like EB or wal-mart does. Set that at a minimum of, say, $20 so that you have to order more than just a single core class figure and then they can just toss your piece onto a truck taking regular inventory across the country or from the warehouse to the store.


but otherwise, yes, the biggest thing to fix this is to get more stock. Not TRU, but it's ridiculous that a given Wal-Mart gets maybe one pack of 4 Retro Headmasters per stock shipment. Maybe send them 4 at a time so they can put a real amount of stock out on the shelves for people.




Something like Pulse would be fine by me if it wasn't prohibitively expensive. If they offered more stuff, direct to the consumer in Canada and not shipping from the US with exchange and all that fuss, and there was an easily reachable free shipping threshold.

All. Of. This.

[Matrix_Holder]

So in a global pandemic you want people to buy one, go back to the end of the line and spend more time in the shop exposing themselves, yeah, I won't be doing that either. I buy my stuff and get out fast and limit how much time I'm in any shop.

[RNSrobot]

Originally Posted by Matrix_Holder

So in a global pandemic you want people to buy one, go back to the end of the line and spend more time in the shop exposing themselves, yeah, I won't be doing that either. I buy my stuff and get out fast and limit how much time I'm in any shop.

Sigh. He was literally talking about online ordering.

Anyway, dude, it's fine if you want two of every toy, but you can see the point, right? You can't just be like "scalpers are scum." They wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market. And so long as their are 40 year old toy collectors, the scalpers have a market.

There isn't any ONE thing that needs to happen. There are multiple things.

There is zero reason TRU or any other store can't do what they do for video games or other items and do some restrictions on exclusive or big ticket items. That cuts down on scalping and makes it less frustrating for regular folks to get it.

Up-chain Hasbro needs to stop being so fucking dirtpoor with their stock levels and distribution. Covid has FAIRLY made it worse, I mean, we're talking about fucking toys. But the reality is that even pre-covid it's been getting shittier for years.

[Ransak The Elder]

Originally Posted by The Nemesis

Make the damn card worth something

Hilariously its only benefit is an extended duration return policy (90 days i think?) which only really helps resellers returning items they could not scalp. Takes all the risk out of scalping.


Also for scalping to happen there has to be a lack of supply... since stores are getting 8 Runabouts and 6 Thrusts with a limit of 5 items per person a scalper and his kid could clean out an entire store. My city has 3 TRU's and a thriving transformers community and if one goes down to a scalper it hurts quite a bit. Target has realized how much this is hurting their business and started anti-reseller policies.



TRU already limits the purchase of certain Funko Pop! exclusives to 1, a few stores in Canada have reported limits of 1 per customer on this board so its not out of the realm for them to implement it Canada wide which would help the situation greatly. Keep any TRU exclusive of any toyline in a collectors area and limit 1 per customer. Ive seen it numerous times where if a scalper is limited they will hide the items elsewhere in the store and come back for them later. People only need 1, if you are someone who needs 2 then put in double the effort and come back another day. If you are someone who cannot make it during the day. Call... some TRU's will put things on hold for people until end of day. 1 is the answer!

[canprime]

The supposed point of exclusives is to drive traffic to your business. The lack of reasonable limits on exclusives, like pretty much every store in existence does with a limited sale item, is ridiculous. Leaving it to the store level to make up rules about limits is dumbfounding in this day and age.

If people come to your store/site to buy an exclusive/sale item they will probably buy other things while there. However if they can't get said item they will likely not buy anything, on top of leaving with a feeling of ill will towards the company (consciously or subconsciously).

The other reality nobody wants to face is the "exclusive, gotta have it now" mentality. Anyone paying above retail for the classics Seekers? Didn't think so. What about any of the numerous Seekers released since then? Yep.

The reality is that a year, or two, from now most everyone will have moved on to whatever the "new" thing is being released and desire for these figures will be much lower, along with their price (compared to right now). Also there is a good chance that these figures will show up again somewhere down the road, most likely even this year since Hasbro has been improving at second runs of desired products. Although they still have a ways to go obviously.

[steamwhistle]

Originally Posted by canprime

The supposed point of exclusives is to drive traffic to your business. The lack of reasonable limits on exclusives, like pretty much every store in existence does with a limited sale item, is ridiculous. Leaving it to the store level to make up rules about limits is dumbfounding in this day and age.

....

^ ^ ^
yes.

All of this post. Agree: 100%

[Masta_Skidz]

Everything you guys are talking about has been going on for over a decade. The sad truth is if you aren't first. You're last.