The Energon Pub

Shelf warmers. I think every toy line has them. You know what they are. The toys nobody wants. They sit there for months on end, staring you in the face. Mocking you with their suckiness. A constant reminder that though there are better toys out there, you won't see them because the shelf warmer is still there.

Now, I don't really want to get in an argument over weather a shelf warmer is a good figure or not. There is always the lone oddball who thinks that a figure is pure art, even if the vast majority recognize it as similar to their latest chili dump. Hell, there is probally even one nutcase out there that thinks Armada Scavenger is a great toy.

I've just recently caught up on the IDW comics, so I sold some stuff on eBay and have been pursuing the comic related Generations figures. I was literally shocked when I realized just how many were made over the last couple of years. I sure never saw them in stores. I hadn't paid attention to releases on the news here, what with the birth of my babies (my first son in Jan 2013, my second son in Jan 2014) I just didn't have much time for looking up transformer release news.

I've been actively collecting Transformers for 15 years now. I've seen a lot of TF lines come and go. I've seen fast moving lines, and slow lines. I've never seen anything as bad as Beast Hunters and Age Of Extinction. These figures sat and sat and sat on the shelves. My local stores still had a ton of clearanced Beast Hunters junk at Christmas, and simply took most of it away after the holiday. The stores are still so full of AOE items, that only 2 stores have started putting CW and RiD stuff out. Like I said, they never really gave Generations stuff a chance. If they did, it sold so fast that I never even saw over half the line. That's really saying something. With my job, I'm in several retail stores, several times a day, 5 days a week.

So who else has had such a problem with self warmers? Did your area have different items collecting dust? Have you missed out on items you wanted bcause of them? What are your thoughts?

So, I think you were active during the heyday of shelfwarming villainy, which was Energon Series 1.

All the movie lines have lingered, but I think Dark of the Moon was the worst.

I know first hand how small town stores often get wave 1 of something in and sit on it for the duration of a line, but the truth is, distribution is better than it was during the AEC years with only a few hiccups of real disruption. I'd mention the HftD line and some of the late Universe 2.0 figures as real offenders.

The thing is, where retail stores have failed, Hasbro Toy Shop has routinely been a saving factor. You can usually find what you are looking for in a timely way on their site and there is often a promo code with free shipping and 10-20% off retail.

Honestly, I don't go to stores to "hunt" anymore. If I happen to be there I look, but going around shopping is a waste of effort now. When I'm serious, I avoid the shelfwarmers entirely and buy online.

I used to buy a lot of my stuff online, but that was when the Canadian dollar was stronger and I didn't get nailed with heavy conversion rates on shipping and the figures themselves. I recently moved out of Quebec, which has done wonders already for me seeing more figures in more accessible locations (I live now a 5 minute walk from a moderately well stocked TRU) but even then the AOE stuff is still cluttering shelves, with a bunch of Predakings from Prime Beast Hunters joining them on deep discount clearance. They have all been there more or less since I moved here. That self-same TRU just got a boatload of Roadbusters and Sky-Bytes in out of the blue (making me slightly hopeful for seeing Brainstorm and not having to hunt online).

I wish i could justify shopping online more often, but as my Prime Minister has placed a stranglehold on our economy by shifting its focus off of export goods and on to tar sand oil, my dollar isn't strong enough to justify the conversion rate on a lot of items. And places that have the best prices often have the shittiest shipping rates to Canada.

Quebec was worse than ontario, based on my experiences thus far, we would always get stuff after everyone else had seen it and then we would get stuck with more of the shelf warmers than it seemed other places had (which is **** bonkers, because Hasbro's canadian distribution centre is in Longueuil, Quebec...).

I blame shelf-warmers for me missing a lot of figures over the years I lived in Quebec, and now after market prices are making them near impossible to get (Oh, god, why couldn't I have seen Fracture at retail?)

Pretty much agree with CPs' statement to a T.
The glut of Movie toys, of varying levels of popularity, due to their proximity to a street date has been a hampering factor.
Same problems with TFPBH, just to a lesser degree.
Through the ease of online ordering, specifically HTS but most well known e-tailers in general, have made shelf warming less and less of an issue for myself.

NuclearConvoy wrote:(...) I lived in Quebec(...)

Compatriote Québécois, je te salut!

Recently, things have improved a bit for Quebec. I dunno if it was the infux of emails that pushed some things along, but the MPS and Platinums are finally entering the province due to the new tri-lingual packagings. Pricing is absurd, but they are still here Distribution is still sucky. I gave up and ordered Arcee and chromia off BBTS. With $ exange, shipping, and sadistic custom fees, both girls cost me around 40$ each... Sigh...

I never saw Skybite in store and I saw Roadbuster only once at Target. I picked up Roaddy so only skybite is left. TrU recently had an LEGION on Roadbusters and Skybites in Laval too. This worries me because even a GOOD figure WILL become a shelfwarmer if there is too many of it. So, if half of thet humongous stock remain on shelves, why TrU would order new stuff? This mean I may have to pay big bucks for Brainstorm by ordering online.

Also, screw HTS with their promos and couppons that never apply to Canadian orders. Screw them for mandatory 30$ FedEx shipping.

-Kanrabat- wrote:
Also, screw HTS with their promos and couppons that never apply to Canadian orders. Screw them for mandatory 30$ FedEx shipping.

Yup. So much agreed.

Counterpunch wrote:So, I think you were active during the heyday of shelfwarming villainy, which was Energon Series 1.

All the movie lines have lingered, but I think Dark of the Moon was the worst.

I know first hand how small town stores often get wave 1 of something in and sit on it for the duration of a line, but the truth is, distribution is better than it was during the AEC years with only a few hiccups of real disruption. I'd mention the HftD line and some of the late Universe 2.0 figures as real offenders.

The thing is, where retail stores have failed, Hasbro Toy Shop has routinely been a saving factor. You can usually find what you are looking for in a timely way on their site and there is often a promo code with free shipping and 10-20% off retail.

Honestly, I don't go to stores to "hunt" anymore. If I happen to be there I look, but going around shopping is a waste of effort now. When I'm serious, I avoid the shelfwarmers entirely and buy online.

I remeber energon being bad, but not to the level I've seen lately. To be fair, I think part of the problem is that stores over ordered based on past sales.

I always chuckle when people mention "the hunt". I've never really hunted, I've just been in multiple stores everyday due to work.

What do you do?

What do you do?

I work for Coca-Cola in merchandising. I'm in a Wal-Mart and/or Meijer supercenter every day (Tuesday through Saturday) checking up on our stock.

Fun job?

NuclearConvoy wrote:Fun job?

No. I hate retail with a passion. But it pays well, has great insurance (though that is coming to an obamacare end), and doesn't interfere with my home life. Work stays at work.

As far as shelf-warmers go, I managed to find DOTM Sideswipe half a year ago and only bought it because it was -50%. Right now I am looking at the more atrocious (hideous) Beast Hunters and some decent Prime:RID figures that I have no further interrest in. The more recent are AOE kids toys that arent even worth looking.

In my region the main reason for shelf-warming is that the local retailers are only selling the Robots in Disguise rather than Generations figures. The last decent figures we were given were the early Prime:RID figures along with some BH figures. From the AOE line from which I had made plans to acquire primarily three figures, we only saw the itty-bitty-kiddie stuff. The last we saw of Generations was FOC Optimus and someone else (might've been either Jazz or Shockwave)

Unfortunately ordering online isn't really an option for me. Hopefully that'll change in the future, but by that time some marvellous figurines of now and recent past shall be unacquireable. The damage's been done.

I got tired of the "hunt" for the figures I want. And I have shelf warmers to blame. Beast Hunters was a joke for me, then generations began releasing molds I didn't care for. At this point I only toys that really interest me, which are few and far between.

Here most everything shelfwarms, I would say those who collect either go to specialty stores or online stores.

I'm going to defend some legit shelfwarmers though, Transquito and TM Scavenger were great figures that were doomed to shelfwarm, mostly due to overproduction coupled with not being in any fiction whatsoever.

Back to the situation over here though, it can take years for stuff to move off of the shelf, especially with recent lines. It's a combination of constantly rising prices, each new line sees an increase of at least 1 euro on every class, terrible marketing, barely any TV adverts or anything to promote toys. But another factor is the retailers themselves. Barely any toy store stocks stuff past wave 2 of most lines like Transformers. They just order a whole lot of the first wave and put it on shelves, and for the times they do have stuff from wave 2, they put that on shelves as well. They don't bother restocking or anything should something from Transformers sell, all they know is that they sell a certain amount of figures, and order just enough of each line to cover those numbers. And stuff that isn't sold, instead of cutting the price, they actually increase it so it's the same as the most current lines.

TRU is so bad at selling licenses these days that Transformers (made up of Generations 2013 wave 1, Transformers DOTM, AOE, Beast Hunters, Combiner Wars, and RID 2015) shares a shelf with Star Wars. It is a tiny shelf, Star Wars used to have an entire aisle to itself, but TRU's insistence on only stocking up on the first few things of the latest line killed that cash cow.
Every now and then a general store picks up super reduced stock from Hasbro when they have to empty their warehouses to make space for new things, this is the only time you'll see something from later waves sold in stores these days, but by that time you'll already have ordered it online.

And a few notable regional shelfwarmers from days past:
RID 2001 Optimus Prime (last one I've seen was during ROTF), Alt Ravage (sat on shelves for 3 years), MP Rodimus (shelfwarmed for a bit over a year at a -70% price cut), 2007 Leader Prime (last ones I saw was ROTF), most of Human Alliance (all of the small Wave 1 figures), every single Legends or Cyberverse figure I have ever seen is still warming shelves, all of Beast Hunters released here, oh and Cybertron Primus and Metroplex sat on shelves until ROTF.

Dead Metal wrote:Here most everything shelfwarms, I would say those who collect either go to specialty stores or online stores.

And a few notable regional shelfwarmers from days past:
RID 2001 Optimus Prime (last one I've seen was during ROTF)...........

You mean Hasbro Fire Convoy right? That bruiser shelf warmed in Germany? Heck, it barely made an appearance in TRU Singapore back in 2001-2002!

What's wrong with Armada Scavenger in vehicle mode? It looks cool.

fenrir72 wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Here most everything shelfwarms, I would say those who collect either go to specialty stores or online stores.

And a few notable regional shelfwarmers from days past:
RID 2001 Optimus Prime (last one I've seen was during ROTF)...........

You mean Hasbro Fire Convoy right? That bruiser shelf warmed in Germany? Heck, it barely made an appearance in TRU Singapore back in 2001-2002!

Yup, him and to a lesser extent Ultra Magnus. I bought my RID UM while Energon was going on. If they weren't to expensive I would have bought some to resell.

Dead Metal wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Here most everything shelfwarms, I would say those who collect either go to specialty stores or online stores.

And a few notable regional shelfwarmers from days past:
RID 2001 Optimus Prime (last one I've seen was during ROTF)...........

You mean Hasbro Fire Convoy right? That bruiser shelf warmed in Germany? Heck, it barely made an appearance in TRU Singapore back in 2001-2002!

Yup, him and to a lesser extent Ultra Magnus. I bought my RID UM while Energon was going on. If they weren't to expensive I would have bought some to resell.

Crazy shelf life.

AOE, how I hate thee, may you be sent to the lowest smelting pit of Hell, along with all those old Bumblebees and Mudflaps.

Oddly, while the AOE glut is heavily effecting CW (and to some extent Gen before it), RID15 is stuff is not nearly having the same issues. I'm guessing once they clearance/throwout the AOE stuff, we're looking at a RID glut going into Summer/Fall.

Those damn dino-rider garbage...

It's weird, having gotten out of mainline collecting I feel rather ignorant of whatever's shelfwarming. It's just a big mess of RiD, a big mess of AoE, and a gap where Generations should be, and none of the Legends I'm kinda sorta... wasn't going to buy anyways.
Granted I don't even know why I'm going down that aisle when I have nothing on the to-buy list in the first place...

You know guys, I changed my opinion on shelfwarmers. At least, I changed calling toys that because I realized I didnt really have a clue if they were or not.

You go to a store and see the same toys all the time and call them shelfwarmers and get an idea that they dont sell at all, but we cant be sure of that. Maybe that is simply all hasbro has to offer at the moment and as they keep selling out they keep being replaced.

I tested it for myself at a TJ Maxx. A friend wanted all the Gen Skrapnels I could find and TJ Maxx had a bunch. So I just bought them whenever I found them. I would go twice a week to the same few places and sure enough I always found one or two more and I kept getting them. Anyone else who just walked by at the same frequency as me (so twice a week) would thus see skrapnels all the time, probably never removing due to how quick they were replenished. They might see them as shelfwarmers but I knew for a fact that they werent. All of those Skrapnels were newly stocked and I was one of the few to actually know that.

So I stopped calling stuff shelfwarmers unless of course they are still around by the time another line comes around replacing it (like DOTM replacing ROTF).