Important thing to remember about cons/toy shows is that Hasbro will only show you & tell you things that you want to see and hear.

I've gone to pre-ordering what I can, as I never find anything at the TRU, Target and Wal-Mart around me. Never saw the any of the Torpedo, R&R and BA CC wave and have only seen the CC from the latest wave. Haven't seen the latest comic pack waves either. The Target by me hasn't got anything new in over 2-3 months, the same figures from wave 1&2 are still hanging there, along with the wave 1 comic packs. So unless things pick up, I'll continue to buy online if I buy at all. May just quit and try to fill in my ARAH collection.

ebay , you pay more but no hassle with getting what you want .thats were most of my "must own" figures come from . i get what i can a Target

ebay is paying the Scalpers money which a LOT of us wont' do.

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Wow. They actually said they were working on improving distribution at the con again this year?? I'm starting to think Big H is underproducing on purpose. It's one thing to see the shelves clogged and understand that's keeping new stuff from hitting, but to keep seeing empty pegs with nothing flowing thru... it's like they are trying to create a collectibles market. And make sure Joe doesn't warm the pegs. It is a collector-themed line, after all.

The recent price hikes put Joe on par with SW and Indy, since they all go for about the same price now at retail. That fact coupled with the virtual lack of distribution of Joe product has caused me not to quit, but i have stepped back to the point where i don't go too far out of my way to make sure i get every single Joe coming out. Conversely, it has been relatively easy to pick up virtually every single piece of the Indy line. I'll pick up what new Joes i see, and may order a bit here and there online. $7 is too already too much to pay for a single figure, i'm not gonna be anteing up even more via shipping, gas expense, higher online prices, etc. They're just not doing enough new stuff with Joe to keep my interest that high.

I bet movie product will be a damn sight easier to find!

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Yes, with the poor distribution I'm ready to quit collecting.

All of this is stuff I said before, but I still believe it:

1. Figures should be produced in large enough numbers were any kid/collector has a reasonable shot at grabbing them.

2. This includes Master Collectors merchandise. I would still love an '07 Grand Slam, but don't have the money. Having bills to pay isn't fun, is it?

3. Chase figures, while often well done, are a load of crap. If you don't have enough food to share, don't invite people over for dinner.

Not "quit," but it has made me buy a whole ton less. Gas is just way to expensive to do the city-wide Joe searches I used to do, especially when I was finding absolutely nothing I was looking for. Now I mainly stick to the stores right near my apartment (a Fred Meyer, a Target, a Walmart and a K-mart...which sounds like I'm still going to a lot, but I'm not going to the TRU, the second Target, second K-mart, second and third Walmarts, or second, third, and fourth Fred Meyers I used to go to regularly). And since they never really change stock (Fred Meyer updates its toy aisle about once every two months, the Walmart updates regularly, but they put out about four or five cases of wave 4 a few months back and it is still occupying the entirety of the joe pegs, K-mart puts new stuff out but thieves beat me to it, and Target has had literally the same three Buzzers hanging on its pegs since that wave was new. I'm not even kidding), I really can't even remember the last time I bought a joe at retail. I think it would have to be the Night Specter w/ Grand Slam. I mean, it's probably better for our bank account in the long run, but still....

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I have moved to more online ordering. The case packs being so small to begin with makes it easy to order a whole wave (or case) and not be stuck with duplicates or unwanted figures that peg warm in stores (like Buzzer, CC, Snake-eyes V 3). I have been fortunate to see all the waves up to 9 at retail, but usually not in great quantity (except wave 8 for some reason). With BBTS's pile of loot feature, the shipping costs are better then if you had each case shipped on its own, and their per figure prices are now comparable to retail stores.

No whare near quiting. I have found everything at retail so far including variants, except for a yellow stalker. In fact I have almost 100 25th Anv. Vipers all of which I bought at retail. I honestly am not seeing a huge distrobution problem but thats probably because I always hit multiple stores (Targets) when I make a trip to one of the "big cities" around here. If your expecting to reliy on just the closet store to you house your never gonna find everything.

Around here it is a distrobution problem as far as most Walmarts go. Each store gets maybe one case per wave, but some stores like the north Loveland store or the Longmont store will get 10 cases. But I would just rather avoid walmart whenever possible.Targets have been much better with each store getting 3 to 4 cases and all the stores stalking them with in 1 to 2 days of each other. I can go to town on saturday and hit as many targets as I can and be confadent to find something at each of them.

The exception ofcourse is comic packs as every place around here is overwhelmed with them and they are peg warming to boot.

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Technically there is no need for us to offically quit. Not finding stuff they do the quiting for you.

I've gone from being totally against preordering to that being my only way of finding some of these things. The Target vehicles were impossbile to find at the only three Targets around (one of them being three hours to the west of me when I'm at school), so I preordered the vehicles. It may be a bit more, and shipping sucks, but I'll spend what I think something is worth without feeling too guilty. The sticker price on those isn't too bad, so a little more doesn't hurt too much. When it comes to figures, even the preorders of those sell out, though. So those are getting tough. I think the HISS Driver wave was the hardest to find. I saw it once, they were all crushed, so I passed. I've been able to pick up the Viper and Wild Bill (WB because I believe he was a re-pack with the newest wave that was nowhere to be seen when I found that figure) from that wave. It's a hassel. Halo 3 line type hassel, but with something I love much more. It isn't as big of a problem to make me just stop buying them, though.

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Ha ha, yea when Hasbro says they are upping production they likely mean that they are just going to produce enough movie figures to choke the shelves.

Maybe it's just the places I go to but if a toy is part of some movie line it's like there are a million toys on the shelf no matter how good or how bad the movie might be. If you've got a cartoon though you don't get hardly any space or figures even though it might be a butt kicking cartoon. If you don't have a movie and you don't have a cartoon then it's sort of lucky if that line gets a few pegs even if it's a quality toy.

To not totally bash on Hasbro at least their second chance figures, fixed figures, army building packs, and other goodies do give at least some shot at picking up the figures myself. Although if they do a BATs army builder pack it would be nice if it was a wide release instead of store exclusive.