The Energon Pub

So wave 2 of the IDW line has now become a scalpers paradise. Thanks to your abdsurd limited release I have to pay almost triple for Skids and Waspinator. I decided to get Takara Waspinator but Skids where are ye?

Hasbro come on with these absurd wave releases.

bvzxa wrote:I have to pay almost triple

No you don't.

Burn wrote:

bvzxa wrote:I have to pay almost triple

No you don't.

you know a cheaper price or site?

bvzxa wrote:

Burn wrote:

bvzxa wrote:I have to pay almost triple

No you don't.

you know a cheaper price or site?

He said what I was going to say. You don't HAVE TO own these TOYS RIGHT NOW. Wait a while. Tell you what, if I see another Skids around here, I'll get it for you at cost.

I wondered why I can't find Waspinator anywhere. Wait, they will probably get a release in a subsequent wave.

Yeah, thanks OBAMACARE.

Oy. I used to get worked up about not seeing these guys right away. I can't even count the number of times I've said "I will never see this guy at retail." Then I found them at retail. They will turn up eventually.

As I said in another post, if you're a Transformer collector, you can't just sit around and wait for every figure to show up at your local store. It doesn't work that way; it never has. Use the internet; use store sightings; make friends with the manager of your local TRU; preorder figures online; talk to other collectors. Make an effort. Hasbro isn't obligated to ensure that every figure is available at your local store when you go there.

GuyIncognito wrote:As I said in another post, if you're a Transformer collector, you can't just sit around and wait for every figure to show up at your local store. It doesn't work that way; it never has. Use the internet; use store sightings; make friends with the manager of your local TRU; preorder figures online; talk to other collectors. Make an effort. Hasbro isn't obligated to ensure that every figure is available at your local store when you go there.

Agreed. If you want the figures badly enough, do the legwork. In this day and age with the technology and community you will get very little sympathy if you say "well, they never showed up in the limited number of stores in my area so Hasbro sucks!"

--Make friends in the community to cast a larger net. Already there's a couple people in here who have volunteered their time and services to help you out. I'm one of them. Waspinator was warming shelves last time I was home, maybe there'll be a few left.
--I cannot stress this enough; start using online shopping more. Yes, the prices may be slightly higher than retail, but if you factor in the gas money and time spent hunting, it equals out pretty nicely. Using companies that will hold orders to save shipping will even lower the costs. Also it's like Christmas every time a package arrives at your door.

bvzxa wrote:So wave 2 of the IDW line has now become a scalpers paradise. Thanks to your abdsurd limited release I have to pay almost triple for Skids and Waspinator. I decided to get Takara Waspinator but Skids where are ye?

Hasbro come on with these absurd wave releases.

I could be getting your screenname confused, but aren't you in the Raleigh area? There were a few of us posting in the NC Sightings thread when these hit retail (First local sighting was here north-carolina-transformers-sightings-t11889s350.php#p1534580). If you're not keeping up with that thread, I highly recommend it. It may not be as active as the thread on that 'other' board but it's still a good resource and we try to help each other out when we can

I agree with most of the above. If you want to continue collecting Transformers (or any collectible toy line) you need to change your tactics.

Think more like a wolf. Wolves roam large territories in order to hunt successfully. You can't depend on one spot always having your "prey" available, so search a broader area, and that includes the virtual landscape, as other have suggested. Wolves hunt as a pack, you may need teamwork to bring down the "bigger game" that you desire. Build a network of fellow collectors willing to help you on your hunt, and reciprocate when you can! It feels good to help out a fellow collector, I assure you. The concept of the lone wolf is mostly myth. Wolves with no pack do not survive long, and if you can't think like a wolf to get the figures you want for your collection, your love for the hobby is going to die quickly. Yeah, I know this sounds a bit cheesey, but I couldn't help but reframe this topic in a more lupine mentality. I think the analogy works quite well, if I do say so myself.

To be fair, distribution is really bizarre. I never saw any of that wave in any stores, but the following wave with Starscream, Skywarp and Scoop is everywhere.

I don't even try to find figures in stores. I tend to do all my hunting online. Only in very rare cases am I unable to nab a figure at a decent price, and those are usually when I was just too impatient and Ebay'd the guy.

Still, I don't understand the whole concept of releasing characters in waves. One wave shelfwarms because there's only four toys to choose from which everyone in the area already has, so the next waves aren't ordered at all. I wish they would go back to the old ways of releasing the whole line at once. There would be the same number of product on shelves, but much more variety for consumers and I would assume more sales.

IT.
IS.
NOT.
HASBRO.

They are not the ones who decide when to order new toys for a given store, it is the store themselves!

Can people not UNDERSTAND this?

Valandar wrote:IT.
IS.
NOT.
HASBRO.

They are not the ones who decide when to order new toys for a given store, it is the store themselves!

Can people not UNDERSTAND this?

True for big stores, but I've heard from several smaller stores that distributors like Diamond, Alliance, and Entertainment Earth(EE Distribution) can't get that wave anymore from Hasbro. EE Distribution had taken it off their site last time one store owner checked.

Could just be a case of Hasbro hasn't received more from the factory or it could mean they've made all they're gonna make.

Of course, hard to know the full story there, I'm technically getting 2nd hand info.

Midnight_Fox wrote:

Valandar wrote:IT.
IS.
NOT.
HASBRO.

They are not the ones who decide when to order new toys for a given store, it is the store themselves!

Can people not UNDERSTAND this?

True for big stores, but I've heard from several smaller stores that distributors like Diamond, Alliance, and Entertainment Earth(EE Distribution) can't get that wave anymore from Hasbro. EE Distribution had taken it off their site last time one store owner checked.

Could just be a case of Hasbro hasn't received more from the factory or it could mean they've made all they're gonna make.

Of course, hard to know the full story there, I'm technically getting 2nd hand info.

Hasbro's factories are into full movie mode now, so anything showing up in stores now will be older warehouse stock. Beauty of it is that warehouses can have different "levels" of stock, like #1 is up to Wave 4 while another has been stuck on Wave 1 and 2 for ages. Give the liquidators time to buy up all that old stock, or for stores to run a good clearance sale to clean the warehouses out.

Over here in the Netherlands, I actually consider myself lucky finding something new as we tend to not get everything you guys do. Then again, we do get your overstock for cheap at times, mainly Canadian

You do really have to switch totally over to online pre ordering, because once it becomes apparent that a figure is hard to find at retail, it's already too late. Scalpers will be gleefully raping the unwary, online stores like Big Bad Always Out Of Stock Toystore will be...out of stock...for ETERNITY, but will leave the listing on their website so people's browsers will suck them into their store anyway, and Hasbro (whose own toy shop is "out of stock") will be sending you form letters helpfully informing you on "where to buy", as if you're an idiot who's never heard of Y'All-Mart, Target, Meijer, etc.

I've recently had to accept this fact. The days of the "instant gratification" local toy hunt are well and thoroughly slagged, and won't be coming back. And I'm also tired of stalking back to my car mumbling about shutting down the store and curb stomping the management, lol

Someone over at TFW asked BBTS about the skids wave.

Artereis

I asked BBTS for an update regarding Skids:

Thank you for contacting us and we apologize for the supply problem on this particular wave. Hasbro USA has canceled all open purchase orders on this series and will not be able to fill our remaining order with them. We then purchased a large amount of inventory overseas and air shipped it in, but upon arrival we discovered that the overseas vendor had shipped us wave 02 and not wave 01. At this time we are still exploring more options with several vendors and still waiting to hear back from them. At this point we are in a holding pattern and and once again we apologize for the shortage from Hasbro and the long delay. As soon as an update is provided we will be sure to let everyone know.

"Hasbro USA has canceled all open purchase orders on this series and will not be able to fill our remaining order with them."

Whaaa? Soooo it WASN"T the retailers? It WAS HASBRO? (Hasbro exec glances around fearfully and bolts for the door) GET 'IM!! (crowd stampedes hot on the trail of Hasbro guy) KILL! KILL! KILL!....

Just wait it out...

Remember the the case of FE ... or PRID Vehicon...

Everyone clambered to get one... was sold out everywhere...

In the end ... its still shelfwarming now at half off.

Recently came across a few skids at retail price. But i guess that's just a sign of more being readily available so I'll stick out for a sale.

Yeah, Prime FE figures are STILL showing up at my local TRU, and PRID Vehicon went from "impossible to find" to "$9 in the bargain bin at the off-brand discount grocery store".

it is frustrating not being able to find figures at retail stores right away. In the past 2 month I can buy as many Blaster, Soundblaster, Springer, and beast hunter figures that my heart can desire...but no Rhinox, whirl, skids, blitzwing (during that wave). I was super lucky enough to find Waspinator and Grimlock because those figures I've seen only a small handfull of times.

Could be worse.

Look at Animated Arcee. I live in the UK, and that figure was only given limited release in US Toys-R-Us stores, and became a scalper's dream. I ended up paying £40 for that toy.

Of course, being a toyfag in the UK is suffering, as we all know. Especially for the high-end Japanese figs I've become addicted to...

ScottyP wrote:

bvzxa wrote:So wave 2 of the IDW line has now become a scalpers paradise. Thanks to your abdsurd limited release I have to pay almost triple for Skids and Waspinator. I decided to get Takara Waspinator but Skids where are ye?

Hasbro come on with these absurd wave releases.

I could be getting your screenname confused, but aren't you in the Raleigh area? There were a few of us posting in the NC Sightings thread when these hit retail (First local sighting was here north-carolina-transformers-sightings-t11889s350.php#p1534580). If you're not keeping up with that thread, I highly recommend it. It may not be as active as the thread on that 'other' board but it's still a good resource and we try to help each other out when we can

I live near Charlotte and I started seeing Goldfire and Dreadwing in December. I only saw Waspinator and Skids once just before Christmas. I think a combination of demand and being released during the Holiday Clusterf^#k made them extremely hard to find.

Well... I have Wasps on pre-order at BBTS for september, plenty of time for me to gather money and I'll get crosscut instead of skids because he's in a 3 pack which I really want...

I was able to pick all of the recent figures/waves up, but I was lucky. Living/working close to TRU Times Square store has its benefits...

I generally blame the big box retailers for shortages, but it's only half the story. Hasbro uses the forecasted orders from the big retailers to determine their production runs. Given the holiday madness and the known Jan/Feb rut in sales, the most popular wave got the least figures. But I'm sure we'll see them again down the line.