So seeing as the PotP Deluxes are starting to appear around retail, I figured I'd have a look around my local (Australian) area last evening and just see if there was anything. Absolutely zero new stuff made itself known, sadly, but on my putzing around I decided to do something that I rarely do, and ask customer service at one of the stores for info.
Naturally, the answer to the first question - "do you have any Transformers stock that isn't on the shelves" - was the stock-standard everything-we-have-goes-straight-onto-the-shelves stuff that I've gotten every time I've asked any customer service person in any of my local stores in the last three years (even when by chance, I check back the next day and there's an entire new wave filling the previously-empty-for-three-weeks shelves).
I'm starting to doubt its authenticity; if you always immediately put out what you have, even when there's clearly no room for it on the shelves, then why do you even have a storage area?
And then I had a stroke of genius - what if I looked up the manufacturer code (thanks Seibertron for those helpful in-hand package images!
) and gave them that, and asked them to contact me when they got stock in matching that code? But apparently, doing that would be... against store policy? Now I want to clarify that I'm not mad at the desk-person specifically, and also that I'm not very familiar with how big retail stores work - but surely it wouldn't be against store policy to let a customer provide you with their phone number of their own free will, and then notify them when you get an item in so they can come and buy it from you straight away?
So to help quell my self-righteous anger, I ask you, boardspeople - can someone with retail experience explain why it might be against policy for them to do that? I'm sure there's a reason, I just don't know it yet, and when I don't know things I get grouchy