I currently work 1 day a week at TRU because of an internship I am doing and it's only on the truck days pretty much. Here, the truck comes in on tuesday evening and we're there at 4 am on wednesday morning to unload. once the truck is unloaded (1.5-2 hours) we take everything that was shaded (a black label that TRU puts on the box) and those go immediately out to the floor. Everything else is unshaded (same label, but white) and that stuff gets put into back stock. Back stock is worked out out almost everyday, depending on whats on the floor (below floor capacity, new planograms, etc.) normally the stuff that sells out quick gets shaded, while the constant but slower selling items become unshaded. Unforunately I believe a computer orders our products as well, so we cant order any one specific iem either.

Most restocks depend on when they get shipments. Targets don't have huge backrooms so the stores usually only get what they can either put on the floor (sales floor) right away or what will sell through rapidly so they don't have to find a place to keep it. For most items if they have something for longer than a couple of weeks without rapid sales those items will either be put on clearance or returned.

For the toys the majority of the clearances happen due to direction from the companies. Hasbro, for example, is notorious for clearancing out stock quickly due to anything from a new line coming in to a packaging change. That happens with all stores, not just Target. You'll often hear stories of people talking to Hasbro/Mattel/whoemever reps in the stores (by the way, those reps often don't know anything about the toys other than what they're told by Hasbro - which is often get rid of this, this and this and set up pegs for this, that and the other - no matter what stories you hear on the boards) these reps are there to set up new product displays and get old items removed from the shelves as quickly as possible.

Anyway, back to Target's restocking, they stock the morning after a truck comes in. Whatever night the store gets a truck, that night workers will come in to restock the shelves. How often that is all depends on the size of the store and the time of the year. Smaller stores sell less overall volume during off peak times so they get less shipments in terms of volume and have less of that volume devoted to any particular section. Toys is the smallest section in most stores and action figures is one of the smaller sections within an already small section. If they get a decent restock more than once or twice every few weeks I'd be shocked.

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so to answer your question, go to every store every day of the week when they first open or at 11 pm if it's walmart..

more seriously though, here i've found that there's a few collectors on other boards who work at walmart who know when stuff comes in, but also places like TRU try to restock around friday and saturday mornings, depending on when trucks come in since, of course, weekends are better times to sell stuff at TRU than weekdays. but yeah in some instances they do get a "drop shipment" later in the week around thursday to have on shelves by friday am.

with target it can be hit or miss, and of course some stores tend to stock more later in the morning/early afternoon to avoid the hassle of jerk collectors/scalpers.

k-mart...i think theirs is tied to the mayan calendar as to if/when they restock or organize their shelves.

usually it can help to just show up clean-shaven and look around at figures until an associate, a middle aged woman works best, comes up to ask if you are looking for something or if they can help you, etc. (target or TRU this has worked for me, basically be patient and don't destroy the shelving looking through it frantically lol)

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