TRU rolled out a big display for TF, leveled the main aisle

[JediTricks]

TRU West Los Angeles put up in their main display area, the one you first see when you walk in - 2 walls, a sidekick or two, and an aisle bin - a giant Optimus on Grimlock with Grimlock's dino eye flashing LEDs, and their various products from across the line. There were 2 pegs of AOE Generations Deluxes, a peg of Evolutions deluxes, and the rest of the pegs I think were Power Attackers, with shelves getting various boxed figures and exclusives. There didn't seem like that many figures compared to last week, so I figured they had more on the normal aisle... nope. They gutted the normal aisle, now just older Generations figures and even some Prime leftovers, and the AOE Dino Rider pullback boxes, and then a ton of empty space. It's been 2 weeks since the launch, and already TRU is cutting down on product.

[Sparky Prime]

Speaking of, I noticed TFW2005 posted an article couple days ago that the AOE toyline was off to a slow start, with sales down 50% compared to the DOTM toyline launch. Interestingly, The Globe and Mail article they reference attributes the lower sales to a lack of retail shelf space for the line, having about half what DOTM had. While The New York Post article says that all of the big action movie toylines this year have been suffering from action-figure fatigue.

[JediTricks]

Speaking of, I noticed TFW2005 posted an article couple days ago that the AOE toyline was off to a slow start, with sales down 50% compared to the DOTM toyline launch. Interestingly, The Globe and Mail article they reference attributes the lower sales to a lack of retail shelf space for the line, having about half what DOTM had. While The New York Post article says that all of the big action movie toylines this year have been suffering from action-figure fatigue.

I saw that, it made me notice the TRU shelf space issue. In the article from Globe and Mail, I think they're using sales and retailer sales interchangeably, they are talking about customer takeaway but also retailer orders when they talk about sales, and retailer orders directly correlates to real estate - if they cut half the space they used to order the previous movie line's products by, they are going to cut half the orders to fill it... at least until customers show more demand. Hasbro's TF line has already been cut in half by these big box stores, supposedly, which translates to fewer orders going forward, so the retailer sale is Hasbro to Retailer, and it's going to be lower from here on out.

Then again, watching Hasbro's Marvel lines tank at market again and again and again is just pathetic, Hasbro keeps flooding pegs with the main guy in lower articulation, sculpt, and paint while asking for more money for the product... that sounds somewhat familiar right now in their other lines too.

[Tigermegatron]

Speaking of, I noticed TFW2005 posted an article couple days ago that the AOE toyline was off to a slow start, with sales down 50% compared to the DOTM toyline launch. Interestingly, The Globe and Mail article they reference attributes the lower sales to a lack of retail shelf space for the line, having about half what DOTM had. While The New York Post article says that all of the big action movie toylines this year have been suffering from action-figure fatigue.

I saw this article, I thought it was total nonsense.

Talk about jumping the gun and judging a toy lines sales when it's only barely in stores for a few weeks.

DOTM also had a slow start like AOE is currently having.

I calculate the AOE toys will get higher volume units stocked in stores in the USA compared to DOTM. I think once the AOE movie does really great in theatres in both sales,reviews,story,dialogue,actors & plot,This will cause a kids/teens/adults to run to stores & buy all the AOE toys in over demand abundance.

[JediTricks]

Toys is a fast-moving industry, it's a "fashion" industry basically, tastes change quickly, retailers must have faith to believe their customers will fall for a line hard enough to dedicate a lot of real estate to it, there's a mountain of competition these days on the aisle and the whole market is down. Plus, summer is when toys really sell outside of the holidays, if retailers aren't feeling THAT confident in the line then it's not jumping the gun, they don't want to be caught with too much product that doesn't move like they always do. These movies aren't for kids anyway, so is the movie release going to push sales? Maybe, maybe not.

[Tigermegatron]

Toys is a fast-moving industry, it's a "fashion" industry basically, tastes change quickly, retailers must have faith to believe their customers will fall for a line hard enough to dedicate a lot of real estate to it, there's a mountain of competition these days on the aisle and the whole market is down. Plus, summer is when toys really sell outside of the holidays, if retailers aren't feeling THAT confident in the line then it's not jumping the gun, they don't want to be caught with too much product that doesn't move like they always do. These movies aren't for kids anyway, so is the movie release going to push sales? Maybe, maybe not.

I agree with everything your saying and I feel a similar way towards this problem.

As we already discussed in the "AOE Power attack" thread. The garbage failure in sales/product sub lines have more of a impact on the whole entire TF brand than Hasbro realizes. Most of the time store employees and manager are too incompetent to weed out the failures,most of the time they bundle one failure for the entire TF toy line.

Bots Shots,Kreo/Kreon,Rescue bots,Constructbots,Cyberverse,role play, were all garbage sub lines that have bad sales in stores. These failure lines made most USA retailers lose confidence in the entire TF toy brand. Lost confidence and getting stuck with slow moving bought toys in stores equals lower ordering toys in the future.

The TFP-BH toy lines were one of the worse TF toy lines I ever saw. The BH toys were leaps & bounds worse than the awful TFP toys.

Hasbro does a piss poor job on their marketing of the TF brands. Classics/Generations toys should have received its own cartoon series years ago.
The movie lines need to tone it down with all the garbage side lines they create. Rescue Bots should have never got a cartoon series.