william-james88 wrote:But those Starscreams won't be there a year from now and hasbro does not do buybacks, so everything will have been sold to consumers in one way or another. And we know that collectors are the ones who bought them first, while the rest are purchased for kids birthdays and christmas. So there are 10 SS86 Starscreams, 3 of them sold within the first month (most probably to older fans) and the rest stayed there for a long time. However, all will be sold after a 1 year cycle of birthdays and holidays.
So that's 3 out of 10 sold to older fans and 7 out of 10 to be sold for kids.
30% according to your own example, which is the same stat Hasbro gave.
So what am I not seeing?
Your examples have to do with what you are seeing selling (currently) on your shelf, but instead you have to look at the entire picture to get the true stat. Think back to all the toys that you chose not to buy (either because you didn't want or because you already had it) that you kept seeing on your shelf for months at a time a year ago, or two years ago, are they still on shelves now? Seeing that there are 7 starscreams out of 10 left means that there are 7 starscreams left for general public to buy once the older fans took the ones they wanted.
This is very similar to when I read fans saying "man there's so much cyberverse and its always on the shelf, not selling", which is a fallacy but it seems true to them because they choose recency bias (the same toys were there last week) rather than actually sitting down and looking at the facts.
We have a TF wiki that shows all the previously released Cyberverse figures and we have entertainment earth showing the case assortments for rereleases, of which there are plenty. Jot down all the figures released and then go to a shelf and check how many of those you still see on the shelf. All the ones you don't see have been sold. But it didn't appear that way because people forgot what the shelf looked like a year ago.
In the end, while I get your use of logic as a fan and what people may think, and going through that approach, the only facts that matter are sales, and Hasbro pays millions to keep abreast on that while none of us do. So that's what I go with too.
My example used pretty random numbers, and the point (that I also stated later in my post) is that collectors and fans most likely make up more than 30% of total TF sales.
So if this makes it clearer, I'll put it this way...
I'm betting of 10 leader class figures, at least 5 are bought by collectors/fans. And initially, 1-2 could be snagged by scalpers... So at best 5 are bought by any other type of consumer.
Let's just say it takes a sale to get other types of consumers to buy this figure.
If 5 are bought at $40; $200.
If the 5 bought by collectors/fans weren't on sale, that's $250.
But let's change those numbers to where 6 were bought by other consumers on sale, and only 4 were bought by collectors/fans at regular cost.
That's $240 vs $200... That's not exactly a 70%/30% split.
And I thought it was a bit generous to say other consumers would buy this figure at a price of $40.
My point had nothing to do with what I'm seeing in my local stores... I believe this is what happens everywhere. Because for every 1 "rich" parent who can drop $50 for a kid's toy on a random Tuesday trip to Target, there are 12 parents who don't even have that financial option. 4-8 of those parents probably don't even shop at Target.
I think in the context of this topic, people need to consider reality; both of the product we're talking about, and the variables of the consumer groups.
Where as most of us here on the forums budget and end up spending a crap ton on these toys, most parents aren't doing that (which was part of my last post).
You want to throw-in birthdays and Christmas, and again, not all parents spend a truckload of money on toys for these holidays.
People may not want to think about this, but the cost of a full set of Legacy Stunticons (so $190-ish) is more than a lot of kids see in presents for their birthday and Christmas
combined.
I also want to throw out there that there are plenty of parents who may have the financial means, but are shelling that money so their son or daughter can play on a traveling baseball or softball team. And on new cleats every season their kid has grown... New uniforms, new equipment.
As far as the two photos you posted, I hope you realize that's not what the 'average' Target looked or ever looks like...
To have that many leader class figures truly seems like a distribution/ordering mistake.
Around Christmas I saw 6 Slags... That was it. There was never a TF display of any TF figures on an endcap. During or after the holiday.
Most times when I've seen TF on endcaps it's never been a full TF display; they're mixed in with at least 2 other completely different toylines.
After Christmas I never saw more than 6 total, until I never saw them again.
Your other point about figures that people never see because they sold also could be way off...
Because there's always a chance that certain stores flat-out never receive any of that specific toy (character, vehicle, variant, etc.).
And outside of my own experiences such as having to buy all 5 of my Sharkticons online (after hunting at multiple stores for multiple months),
When a handful of Targets (or Walmarts) manages to get 1-2 dozen SS86 Slags that fill up shelves or an endcap, I'd willing to bet that means other locations didn't get any.
Out of all of the characters and character variants of MotU, I'd bet my life on it that my local Target won't get those all in stock. There's just no way.
