Wal Mart price increase on deluxe class figures

[JediTricks]

Everything Hasbro is going up, across the board. But Deluxes have been their bread & butter for a while with this line, ever since they dropped the Basics (which were hotter sellers with kids, and why? Because they were CHEAPER!!!) so jacking that price up is going to hurt their bread & butter. The movie sold like crazy in '07, but with Hasbro KNOWING that now, they may try to compensate and end up overproducing. We'll see. Honestly, I think now would be an excellent time to shore up Hasbro's relationship with their market rather than try to keep their cozy-ass profit margins employing their management.

[Dominic]

I agree that getting rid of Scouts was a bad idea. But, in fairness, the increase in price on deluxes is consistent with the previous increases for other price-points. Of course, punching those up, (beyond the expected 25% since the beast era), is a nasty trick.

Dom
-knows the pain of addiction apparently.

[Onslaught Six]

But Scouts/Basics are coming back, though, so it's cool.

[andersonh1]

I wonder how sales are doing at the new price? I realize one or two stores can't provide much but anecdotal local snapshots, but I was browsing one of the local Wal-Marts today, and they seem to have pretty much what they had a month ago. They've clearly sold some figures since then, but there are still quite a few figures in every size class left on the shelf, and that didn't seem to be the case not too long ago. I expect the movie to boost sales, but I wonder if in the short term sales have actually been depressed by the new price?

I'm not wishing for Hasbro to "take it in the shorts" as it were. If they need to raise prices to keep profits up, that's fine. Nobody's forcing anyone to buy their product. But sales seem to have slowed down locally, and I wonder if that's a widespread trend.

[Onslaught Six]

The same thing here, 'nothing' is selling. Especially the Megas, I'm afraid that I won't be able to find Inferno once he hits.

[Mirage]

More than the price increase, I think the current drought is a symptom of low ordering in the run up to the giant glut of movie product. Stores are preparing this time, and they don't want a bunch of Universe and Animated mucking up the shelves. That said, they probably should have waited until the movie toys hit to do the price increase, as that can't be helping the older toys move any faster...

[Dominic]

Hate to say it O6, but Inferno is out now. I have seen two of them. Seriously, buy it on-line.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

Hate to say it O6, but Inferno is out now. I have seen two of them. Seriously, buy it on-line.

GRARGH ONSLAUGHT RAGE.

I'll pick it up eventually.

[andersonh1]

I may end up buying it online myself. No sign of it at retail so far.

[Mirage]

One bright spot: Target has a "temporary price cut" on Animated deluxes, now they're back down to $8.99. *After* I bought Prowl and Waspinator at Wal-Mart last week for $13 a pop, of course. Grrr...