Posted by SoundwaveSuperior24 on September 1st, 2022 @ 1:30am CDT
Hey all! LONG-time reader, probably going on 10 years, but I wanted to make an account just to add some information to this news of NEW Transformers being sold at Big Lots!
I worked at a Big Lots for nearly 4 years, and in that time I got a pretty good idea of how Big Lots gets stock. Big Lots used to be seen as a TJ-Maxx style store that receives older products that simply do not sell. That was SOMETIMES the case, but while I worked there Big Lots often got brand new toys direct from the manufacturer. Big Lots was one of the first stores to get Bot Bots for instance. Since I left Big Lots seems to be stocking more and more current Hasbro product, such as Lightning Collection and Fortnite. While Big Lots did sometimes receive products that did not sell at other retailers and sold them at a discount similar to stores such as Ollies, Big Lots worked to gain a more "current" image, and wanted to lose the "Thrift Store" identity that it had for itself, instead trying to be a Target store on a dollar store budget. Thus, Big Lots began stocking newer merchandise.
So I would say it's a safe bet to NOT take this as bad news that this is a distribution problem, but rather that Big Lots has decided to purchase this assortment for their stores. I hope this helps ease some worry!
Say, SoundwaveSuperior24 (agree with most of that username BTW), do you have any insight as to whether the shift to current TF product was spurred ty Big Lots getting in trouble over the TF knock-offs they used to carry? That's why I LOVED Big Lots 15-20 years ago, starting with some of the same Beast Wars and Brave KOs previously found in Easter Baskets, then G1 and Machine Robo combiner teams, and finally enlarged Minicons and Legends figures which seem to have spurred a crackdown from Hasbro.
The final straw was apparently oversized KOs of the Operation Combination Six-______ torso and head with Cybertron Legends figures enlarged to near-Deluxe size as limbs. One used Vector Prime for arms, and the legs were red and yellow Starscreams that scaled perfectly with the Titanium Tetra-jet mold, an army-builder's dream come true! I bought a few, not having much use for all the dead weight from the knees up, but a month or 2 later I saw them all stacked on overheads and labeled "NOT FOR SALE", and learned they were ordered destroyed, an event tied with the closure of all US Toys'R'Us stores as my saddest toy store memory (bear in mind, the latter meant I was out of a job). Seriously, I should've come back with scissors and a box cutter, ripped open every pack, taken out the legs, then dared them to call the cops on me for "stealing" small parts of a product already designated trash instead of merchandise.
After that, tiny, piddly, official TFs trickled in to replace them. Whoop-dee-slag. I haven't had reason to enter a Big Lots in years, but even though I just found Wildrider and Jhiaxus in Target today, and Elita-1 last week, I guess that's my next stop to hunt for Tarantulas and Knock Out: the one TF "KO" the chain still apparently allows.
And SoundwaveSuperior24, if you're still reading this, and know where the KOs I'm talking about were buried, we have much to discuss in the Carbombya forum! Is it out in the desert by all those Atari games?
(Sorry about my odd quote structure above, but the post I'm replying to seems to keep disappearing when I go to the thread)