Walmart.ca Transformers Sightings and discussion

[kirbenvost]

Usually TF figures only receive one production run or "release," unless they are released again in a later wave or reissued. Blaster is coming out at the end of Kingdom and again at the beginning of Legacy, for example. But generally for a lot of figures you get one chance, or maybe two if you're willing to import from Japan because they get their own releases on a different schedule.

It's always a gamble waiting for deals. These days there are so many distribution problems that sometimes you have to preorder from multiple places just to ensure you get ONE copy of a figure. If you're on a budget, definitely keep an eye out for deals, but if you really want to make sure you don't miss anything, your best bet is preordering.

[cheukgor]

Thanks for the insight!

Guess I just have myself to blame for not catching on this earlier...I didnt know it was a thing until I saw the vintage beast wars rerelease that sparks my interest again...

[Grayfox]

Chances of Kingdom Blaster being put up on the website at clearance price? lol

[Collectingtoys]

Originally Posted by Grayfox

Chances of Kingdom Blaster being put up on the website at clearance price? lol

My mind would blasted if that happened!

[imfallenangel]

Originally Posted by cheukgor

I have a question (I am new to all these transformer figures)
It seems like they already have clearance on almost all the war for Cybertron kingdom.figures, even tho they are really barely a year old for some of them (but can't find anywhere anymore, like the Beast war Megatron/primal, dinobot, cheetor...etc)

Does it mean hasbro is already stopping production and if I want them I should not even look for discount price and get them for reg price wherever I see them (Kijiji/Amazon)?

Thanks!

We all have kicked ourselves to missing sales I would say.

And the approach to the manufacturing and distribution has changed completely since the 80s.

Before, they'd produce full lines without actual set waves, it was more a question of getting out the toys as they were ready... the production was much slower so they'd continue for quite a while, with running adjustments when possible, especially when they'd have defects that could be rectified.

So you could see new figures between the older ones and the transition to just the newer ones would be much slower as they would overlap a lot more. It's part of why you'd get a lot more shelfwarmers in part.

For a while stock used to flood the stores and you could easily find figures from the last year in a few stores if you hunted.

Trouble is... so many stores died and now we only have Walmart as main department stores. Before, you'd have Zellers, K-mart, Woolco, Woolworth, Towers, Sears, The Bay, Consumer Distributing, and so on.

So even before the Combiner wars line, a lot of the lines barely make it to stores, Canada has been ignored quite a bit for the stock we get... but it just got worse, and for a lot of figures, either we didn't get them or the numbers were low, but at the time of POTP, I believe that many felt it more than before with the low numbers, you blinked or hesitated (hoping for a sale or such) and they were gone.

Where once upon a time, stock was high enough that one could wait for a sale for most figures, nowaday it's a race.

In the last couple of years, it's gotten worse as with the Pandemic, there's a lot of factors that came in play.

Production was hampered because of it, distribution was horrible, the sunk ship lowered stocks, and the Pandemic created a surge in "collecting" as people jumped into hobbies due to being stuck at home, and this created a vortex of higher demand and prices increases, more scalping than ever, and so on.

The "new" reality is that it's simply a race for most.

1) Either you jump at pre-orders as the odds that you'll manage to get a figure is always in question until it's set that it's in sufficient numbers, especially exclusives that have been horrible. It can take minutes for items to sell-out from the second it's made "live".

2) You get it at full price when you can/when you see the figure as otherwise it might be gone the next time. If it's a figure you truly want, you cannot hope for a sale as they are extremely rare.

3) When you do see something on sale, it's a race against everyone else to claim any as I've yet to see anything on sale that hasn't sold out.

4) If you miss something, expect to pay the "late tax" regardless if it just be released a few weeks, it's all about the numbers of available figures. It is always a gamble to what's going to disappear or jump in price.

5) You may have a chance at a decent price within the community as some will sell their figures at a reasonable price. For older figures than Combiner Wars (Universe, Classics, Generations), I've seen great prices for great figures that are more in league with what "used" should be like, but for CW and WFC, most figures tend to have a higher price tag, but some will sell at or close the original price, so you can have a chance to get some at that level of pricing.

6) anything that's more "rare", prepare to sell a kidney unless you get a massive break and get lucky.

7) when the obscure and rare sale comes along, you have to jump... with the price that keep increasing, any deal for just about any figure is worth getting.

8) (relating to sales) any figure that are "maybe", should be purchased as in hand, a figure that might not have interested you that much, may end up a diamond in the rough once you play with it. Worse case, you can always offer it up for sale and get your money back most probably.

[Digibasherx]

Slammer's available. Go go go!!!

[Digibasherx]

Originally Posted by imfallenangel

We all have kicked ourselves to missing sales I would say.

And the approach to the manufacturing and distribution has changed completely since the 80s.
...

I totally missed out on ER Sunstreaker, was waiting for a sale or seeing one in store. Because of the lockdown, I never had a chance to go to the store and Sunny came and went, now 3x the price on the secondary market.

I think Asia had a lot more of them but I didn't like the shipping since it was either months of waiting or high priced due to the pandemic again.

So now, I'm guessing unless he gets a re-release, I won't see one.

[cheukgor]

Originally Posted by imfallenangel

We all have kicked ourselves to missing sales I would say.

And the approach to the manufacturing and distribution has changed completely since the 80s.

Before, they'd produce full lines without actual set waves, it was more a question of getting out the toys as they were ready... the production was much slower so they'd continue for quite a while, with running adjustments when possible, especially when they'd have defects that could be rectified.

So you could see new figures between the older ones and the transition to just the newer ones would be much slower as they would overlap a lot more. It's part of why you'd get a lot more shelfwarmers in part.

For a while stock used to flood the stores and you could easily find figures from the last year in a few stores if you hunted.

Trouble is... so many stores died and now we only have Walmart as main department stores. Before, you'd have Zellers, K-mart, Woolco, Woolworth, Towers, Sears, The Bay, Consumer Distributing, and so on.

So even before the Combiner wars line, a lot of the lines barely make it to stores, Canada has been ignored quite a bit for the stock we get... but it just got worse, and for a lot of figures, either we didn't get them or the numbers were low, but at the time of POTP, I believe that many felt it more than before with the low numbers, you blinked or hesitated (hoping for a sale or such) and they were gone.

Where once upon a time, stock was high enough that one could wait for a sale for most figures, nowaday it's a race.

In the last couple of years, it's gotten worse as with the Pandemic, there's a lot of factors that came in play.

Production was hampered because of it, distribution was horrible, the sunk ship lowered stocks, and the Pandemic created a surge in "collecting" as people jumped into hobbies due to being stuck at home, and this created a vortex of higher demand and prices increases, more scalping than ever, and so on.

The "new" reality is that it's simply a race for most.

1) Either you jump at pre-orders as the odds that you'll manage to get a figure is always in question until it's set that it's in sufficient numbers, especially exclusives that have been horrible. It can take minutes for items to sell-out from the second it's made "live".

2) You get it at full price when you can/when you see the figure as otherwise it might be gone the next time. If it's a figure you truly want, you cannot hope for a sale as they are extremely rare.

3) When you do see something on sale, it's a race against everyone else to claim any as I've yet to see anything on sale that hasn't sold out.

4) If you miss something, expect to pay the "late tax" regardless if it just be released a few weeks, it's all about the numbers of available figures. It is always a gamble to what's going to disappear or jump in price.

5) You may have a chance at a decent price within the community as some will sell their figures at a reasonable price. For older figures than Combiner Wars (Universe, Classics, Generations), I've seen great prices for great figures that are more in league with what "used" should be like, but for CW and WFC, most figures tend to have a higher price tag, but some will sell at or close the original price, so you can have a chance to get some at that level of pricing.

6) anything that's more "rare", prepare to sell a kidney unless you get a massive break and get lucky.

7) when the obscure and rare sale comes along, you have to jump... with the price that keep increasing, any deal for just about any figure is worth getting.

8) (relating to sales) any figure that are "maybe", should be purchased as in hand, a figure that might not have interested you that much, may end up a diamond in the rough once you play with it. Worse case, you can always offer it up for sale and get your money back most probably.

Thanks for the details...

I am new to this so maybe I am just really out-of-touch on pricing (since I haven't really look at these figures for a long time, and I don't have kids). For example, I remember I bought the OG Rattrap from Zellers 25 years ago for maybe $10, but the reissue cost like $33. I know there's inflation and such, but the pricing (for me, maybe a newbie to this) is just somewhat excessive imo...

It's just really hard for me to justify to pay the original price for most of them. I am not expecting to buy every one of the ones I want on discount, but at least maybe 1/2 1/2 to balance out the cost a little bit =\

[Tonestar]

3 Waspinator still available on their site for $14. Updated.

[imfallenangel]

Originally Posted by cheukgor

Thanks for the details...

I am new to this so maybe I am just really out-of-touch on pricing (since I haven't really look at these figures for a long time, and I don't have kids). For example, I remember I bought the OG Rattrap from Zellers 25 years ago for maybe $10, but the reissue cost like $33. I know there's inflation and such, but the pricing (for me, maybe a newbie to this) is just somewhat excessive imo...

It's just really hard for me to justify to pay the original price for most of them. I am not expecting to buy every one of the ones I want on discount, but at least maybe 1/2 1/2 to balance out the cost a little bit =\

Sadly, pricing is what it is. We had a jump before and during the Combiner wars but it was fairly low, (for deluxes for reference) from 12-15$ and then in some areas it jumped to 20$ in the last wave.

When Siege (WFC) followed it was an instant jump to 29.99$, which I didn't even think that I'd go for all that much, considering the figures to pick and choose a few IF they would truly appeal to me. And of course, after seeing the first few, I was hooked... the return to better plastic, much better details and pain and such got me and I ended up spending more on the line that I ever did for any line, almost turning into a completionist for Siege. But by the later waves, the recolours and such stopped this (thank goodness), BUT, with sales and liquidations and such I ended grabbing quite a few more.

ER was much less of a pull with me getting very few compared (pretty much the characters that had been missing from Siege), again grabbing some and extras when sales/liquidation permitted it.

There were a lot of "must have" as for me, WFC (Siege mostly) was the "Finally, figures that are actual proper updates to the G1, that simply looked right. It was the first time that I did go for the G1 main characters, as I've always been more of a jet/planes, spaceships and tanks collector.

The impact that WFC had on me was that I considered what I'd call "definitive" versions of a LOT of characters... I didn't bother nor was interested in the "earth mode" duplicates from ER as I preferred the Siege design. I also got a LOT of upgrade and filler kits (as I hate the gaps that causes the figures to look half-completed), and some kits cost as much as the figure did, some more, but again... it is in consideration that I don't believe that I'll get newer versions, these are "it".

Why I'm writing you a book is to give you something to consider... I defined what I wanted to add in my 40+ years for collecting and hated the hike in price, but I also considered that I would not be getting newer updates to these characters anyways, unless they crush it. Also, to me it would not be about the particular character but because of the figure/mold/engineering that would win me over.

Looking at the BB movie figures that are coming out for example, I'm tended like crazy but aside Brawn that I don't have one and the mold is very different and appealing, the rest aren't getting considered. (but I did get the earlier cybertronian BB and the seekers because they stood out).

So, while if can be a challenge to pick and choose due to the investment needed into these, consider setting yourself some goals, what your collection is about and which figures are the "must-have" and which are "nice but just maybe, if cheap/on sale" and the "nope, not going to". Consider that in time you might get the "maybes" on sale or from another collector, or event (geek "cons" type, geek garage sales, etc.).

I mention the events as those are the best to find a lot of figures at decent prices. Also get into Facebook groups (look for Canadian Transformers groups/local) and you may connect with local collectors that trade and sell or a regular basis.

And part of setting goals, consider your budget at all times, and even if it's a case of getting one figure per month or such, go slowly, don't overwhelm yourself as the more you look into the rabbit's hole, the more you'll see that there are SOOOO many figures that it's mind boggling.

For the prices of figures at this time, sadly, we've hit 3 price hikes in the last few months and it is what it is... the quality of many latest figures have been debatable as many have had issues, so it's a bit crazy for that. I've championed the debate many times that these prices going up to much and so fast are hurting the hobby, sadly some defend Hasbro's practices and don't understand or care that in time this will just push many to quit (or not even start) lowering sales, and causing a vicious cycle.

The most important thing is, enjoy the hobby, enjoy each figures that you get... go for quality and enjoyment over quality.