Last month I went to Wizard World Chicago, where I was able to find some of the newer stuff. Much to my surprise, the mark-ups were still cheaper than ordering them online would have been.

Almost a month later, those same items (mostly the comic packs) still have not shown up- or they were gobbled up so quickly that I've never seen them in stores. As I've griped about before- there are figures, maybe entire waves, which I have never seen in stores.

I have to admit frustration bordering on disgust, with a sliver of jealousy , when I see everyone else already talking about how fun the new Vamps or new figures are. To clarify, the disgust is purely at Hasbro and not my fellow geeks.

I know it would do no good, other than making me look like a crazy grown man with far too much spare time, but I'm considering writing a grumpy letter to Hasbro. A real letter, sent to a real person (don't know who of course), really sent by mail- as e-mails are generally not given as much credibility as actual letters.

Many of us have supported the GI Joe brand name for two and a half decades now. Hasbro should really treat its customers better, especially for one of its oldest brands.

Would anyone else be willing to do this? Maybe even the same form letter, but printed out, signed, and mailed from different people.

I'd like to get a feel to see if anyone else would do this. I don't need to be told this is a stupid waste of time, as I fully realize that. If you're only going to post a reply to tell me the obvious, please hold off. But, if you would be willing to waste five minutes of your day and the price of a postage stamp, please say so or send me a pm.

I'm about ready to quit collecting. Even the news that Hasbro's planning on re-releasing some of the earlier figures doesn't impress me. Quite honestly, I find it hard to believe, even if it's right from the horse's mouth. I assume that the re-releases will have just as bad distribution as they did the first time through, so what's the point? They'll also probably be slight variants, making it even more maddening.

Remember the old man in Creepshow who kept yelling, "I want my cake!"? (I think it was Creepshow) That's what I feel like.

I'd say go for it. It can't hurt to sent a letter. The worst that can happen is they throw it away and ignore it. It is possible though that a letter might help. You never know.

I've been tired of chasing after the figures. They don't hold as much meaning to me as they did. When I find them, I now just throw them in a pile with others I haven't opened. I'll get home with the newest Transformer, Star Wars figure, or whatever and open those, but the G.I.Joe figures I don't. It's almost like finding a chase figure with every one of them for one thing, plus the hunt has made me not care as much for the find.

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Pre-Orders (that don't charge ahead of time) are the way to go. I gave up chasing down figures at retail a long time ago.

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Dependable pre-orders would be the way I'd like to do it. I don't want to pay $10 a figure plus shipping, and the only way to get a pre-order that won't be canceled are usually the ones you have to pay extra. I still don't know why HTS can't just take pre-orders for as many as you want of any figure and be able to fill all orders. Heck I ordered a Viper from them way before they became somewhat easy to find and I just got an email yesterday saying they had to backorder that figure.

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It's curious that you don't see this with any of their other toy lines. I think it's pretty evident that Hasbro is underproducing the figures for the purpose of creating an artifical collector's market.

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I think one thing is that they are trying to create a "false hype" so to speak, but they're also trying to figure out a way to get enough product out there without being stuck with extra. They started to test out ideas with the Valor vs Venom wave with Torch, Airborne, etc. and failed really bad. After that wave they amped production back up and it still didn't work.

From the start of the 25th product, they were determined to figure it out. They just haven't yet. I don't know why exactly, but that is the reason things just aren't working out I'm sure. They're determined to not get stuck with product this time, but they also don't know what to do to get production at a level it should be.

I don't know myself. It seems like it should be simple, but I do think allowing pre-orders that will not be canceled on HTS would be the way to go. Most people will just order there and any extras we'd want we'd probably pick up in store if we happened to see them. They wouldn't have to stock any figures on HTS, just sell the pre-orders and the only stock would be those that were canceled orders.

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I have actually quit trying with Joe, when I can get SW chase figs easier than regular joe figs, forget it.



I said this a few months ago and was called crazy But I stil believe it.

THe part that convinced me was at my comic shop he started ordering some toys for me and a few other nuts who were sick of the hunt (SW and Joe) this is from a distributor outside diamond ect. He ordered three cases of joe (Destro RnR wave) and all cases were cancelled Why, cause the distributor wasn't getting enough from hasbro and it was first come first serve. Since then he has ordered three cases per wave, mostly he gets one. Sorry but that is outside the channels that we tend to hear about. That also isn't adding to the fact my bud from college works in the local wally mart andTold me about orders cancelled last year for wave 2 and 3 just got filled the past two months, nah has to be the retailers fault.

I'm not sure that is what is going on. Is it financially worth it for them to do so, rather than sell as many units as possible? I don't think so. We're talking lots of potential lost profit, and that is the bottom line.

What I see is total incompetence on part of whatever department or people decide production numbers. When in '97 they started releasing the collectors' series, I remember reading how "surprised" Hasbro was at how well they sold. 10 years later and they still haven't figured it out. 25th has been out for OVER a year now, and distribution has ZERO improvement! I too have never seen almost entire waves.

I tell you what, whoever does decide on production numbers sure wouldn't still have a job in my company. He would be costing me too much by his uninformed, incompetent guesstimate number crunching. An MBA doesn't mean you actually know how to figure such things out. And the guy probably makes well over 100K a year!

Only in government and big corporations do the incompetent, lazy and stupid get away with it.

I feel your tormented frustration bro, and it felt good to get that out of my system!!

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You can look at the flip side. By creating a false market and driving sales, they're making more money than actually flooding the shelves. They're causing scalpers to buy up product along with the collectors. Heck we're buying extra when we see it figuring we won't see them again (just incase we want some custom fodder). So yeah "lost sales" actually is a marketing tool that actually creates more sales in the end.

It's something going on though, and like a lot of us said that went to the con, they admit they're not meeting orders. They claim it's due to them being caught off guard with demand, but it's bound to be more than that.

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I doubt there's any kind of conspiracy. If there's demand for product that isn't being met, they're not making as much money as possible, and that's not good business. Hasbro doesn't benefit by having empty pegs in stores, nor do the stores. Yes, they've underproduced the line, but it is becoming easier to get. Wave 4 '08 is plentiful here, and the 4th wave of Comic Packs is now as well. There is simply no plausible reason for Hasbro to deliberately underproduce Joes, or any other product. Underestimation of demand is.


As far as why it's taking so long to correct? Well, consider how far ahead these figures are planned. The production numbers for these waves were determined late last year probably, and even if they did want to increase them the factories they use may not have had space in their schedules to lengthen the run without delaying subsequent product. We've already seen that they're going back to make more of previously released figures, so they are making an effort. I just don't see any benefit to Hasbro deliberately falling short of demand or lying to anyone about the reasons behind it.

You just proved J-man's point I believe. If they make more and they are selling out, then where is this downside people keep talking about. Remember Joe is a dying line. THe appearence of sellouts makes perfect sence, to inflate demand, scalpers will scalp what is there. The numbers are going to show a sellout, reguardless of how many produced you sit in a board meeting and proclaim sellout people are impressed.

As for numbers I seriously doubt ehy order tha far in advance. A Year ago they were doing consept drawings I doubt they are making orders while drawing up the figures. I would estimate they would make the orders shortly after prototype stage (Probably 4-6 months before release) and I am sure there are options to up roduction before release time.

The situation right now is that Hasbro is making X number of figures. If the demand for the product is greater than that number then Hasbro isn't making as much money as they possibly can. Hasbro doesn't care if collectors, scalpers, kids, or dogs are buying the product, as long as it sells through in a reasonable amount of time, but if the scalpers buy all the product, and there are collectors or kids who still want it, then there's money to be made, money that Hasbro has no reason to pass up. Making less product than can be sold to the consumer cannot possibly increase sales. It can create increased demand, but you still can't sell someone a product they can't find. It doesn't benefit anyone to create demand for a product that can't be met. And a sellout isn't impressive if you know that you could have sold out of even more if you'd just made it available.

Some of this may be on the retailers too, since the production runs would be determined by how many orders come in. If the retailers underestimate demand, then the product will be underproduced. The cancellations that the smaller retailers purportedly experience are probably related to this as well. If Target or someone realizes they need more product then Hasbro would probably divert cases from smaller places (or if it's comic shops, it's probably Diamond Distribution, moving cases from smaller shops to larger ones to fill orders) to the big retailers, since it's in Hasbro's best interest to keep them happy.

But again, you take that and apply it to what we are seeing. If you flood the shelves with items that has been proven to not be a huge seller without heavy marketing, then you will have lost money. Too many items sitting around is of no interest to any toy company now. So you ship a lower amount and yeah, not care who buys it. If it sells through, it's a hit and money is made. Sure more might could be made, and that's where I think Hasbro does try and do a reorder with the factories. But they can't just go back and say "we want just 20 more cases of this group" (just to name a number), so they end up maybe canceling store orders since they can't get more without being stuck with too much.

Now applying that with this new way toys sell in "waves". They can change the card and re-release a new wave of figures that are some of the same previous waves. Those figures become "new" again. Sales might be somewhat slower and more people have a chance to get the figures, but Hasbro again isn't being stuck with anything.

That's just out of the top of my head and I'm sure it's even more complex than that, but I don't think it's as simple as "they can't meet the demand". I think it all comes down to the Big Lots figures we've seen in the past. Hasbro had a lot of overstock that they had to do something with. I don't know if they necessarily lost any money, but they naturally didn't make as much as they could have. They could have even took a hit on them. Either way, I'm sure all of this having a hard time finding the figures due to there not being enough made comes down to Hasbro trying to figure out a good ratio between supplying the stores and having too much product on hand.

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BUUUT Orders are being cancelled to retailers by distributors who are sayig that Hasbro won't ship them enough product to meet the demands of reatailers.

On the other side, Remember the X-box 360, how demand went through the roof when they sold out, the Wii, even the PS3 had some of this. Do you really honestly think Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all couldn't estimate demand, this is not an unpressedented situation. While your logic makes perfect sence, you have to remember Corperations very rarely make logic. The old saying is that if the solutions seem obvious the corperation will go the other way.

The benefit to the company is that they can repack and re release product selling almost more than they would have if they had released in normal channels and normal practices. Demand increases so will profits. You;re right in that they don't care who buys it, but the scalpers wouldn't inflate demand if they didn't sell on evilbay for exorberate prices, One scalper can wipe out a case in a few seconds. A scalper wouldn't do that unless there was demand.

BUUUT on top of that, what other explaination is there for waves 2 and 3 from last year suddenly appearing a few months ago. Suddenly there are reports of Buzzer chocking shelves where as this time last year he seemed almost as common as Bigfoot sightings. These orders were cancelled and suddenly filled a year later without a reorder (keeping in mind I have talked at length with a Wal-Mart manager bud of mine over this) so what other explaination is there.

And lets not get into the sudden inexplicable 5 waves turning into 8 like lightening.

What you have to remember Zed is that retailers outside the big 3 are WAAAAY down the line as far as distibution is concerned. If Wal-Mart suddenly orders an extra 3000 cases they have to come from somewhere, and that means that the guy supplying figures to your local comic shop gets the shaft.

The same goes for Hasbro Toy Shop for that matter.

And once again I have to point out that TRU has no shortage in their wharehouse. Based upon observation of my local market and others I've visited in the last year, I have to assume that Target and Wal-Mart don't either.

As for waves 2 and 3, Hasbro did a refresh case with older figures not too terribly long ago. Are you sure it wasn't these you were seeing? Because the whole point of that was to help collectors "catch up", not to screw Wal-Mart over.

I'm still not buying this giant conspiracy theory. It makes ZERO business sense. While I understand your frustration, I think it's unfair and kinda crazy to create a huge behind the scene reason for it.

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