TF Views

Warning!!! 3 of my Walmarts had nothing DOTM stocked on shelves/pegs
yet at 5:00 am est.

don't head out super early your gonna find nothing DOTM stocked on
shelves/pegs/endcaps


I left my house at around 4:33 am EST & drove to my local walmart
that's 45 miles away round trip.


I arrived at the Walmart at around 5:00 am EST.


I grabbed a shopping cart & headed towards the toy aisle.


To my utter surprise,their was no DOTM toys stocked on the store
shelves/pegs yet. their was nothing stocked on the end cap. I walked
all around the toy department checking other aisles & other end caps.
GUESS WHAT NOTHING.


ANOTHER SURPRISE,no space was cleared out in the TF section for the
newer DOTM toys. no end caps were cleared out. no stickers/labels were
placed on the shelves/pegs yet.


I did noticed about 50+ store employees running around with pallet
jack with wooden skids attached to them. apparently all departments
were getting stocked & not the toy department.


I then asked a store employee to locate me a manager so I can talk to
see & see what was going on.


A manager showed up 2 minutes later saying the following: The manager
told me the DOTM toys were in the back stock room. he said the toys
can't be put out yet because the toys have to get scanned before they
can arrive on the sales toy floor.


I then asked the manager when all this was going to happen. the managr
told me the following: were waiting for the 8:00 am manager to arrive
to take charge of this,scan everything in,set up the shelves/pegs/end
caps. put label prices on the shelves/pegs. a crew to assist the
manager & so forth.


I'm no rocket scientist. but It's probably going to take the walmart
managers & crew at least a couple of hours to clear out the
space,clear out the end caps, print sticker labels for the shelves.
scan all the DOTM toys in,stock the shelves. my guess is if their
waiting for the manager at 8:00 am to arrive. they'll first take a
coffee break,eat come donuts/bagels, have a meeting. then head towards
the back stock room around 9:00 am. the time they ripp open the brown
assortmnt boxes & scan evetything in,that could take easily a hour. my
guess is they'll be another crew clearing shelves/pegs/end caps while
the other crew is in the back stock room.
Then various crews have to pend up to one hours plus placing stickers
labels & promo signs on the shelves/pegs/end caps. then all the crew
members & manager will stock the shelves/pegs/end caps. depnding how
slow/fast they are,this whole process can easily take over 3 hours to
accomplish. the DOTM toys will most likely be ready for customers to
buy around 11:00 am.


After hearing all this I figured perhaps this store was
slow,behind,didn't have a full night crew & so forth. I then asked the
manager for the other 2 walmart stores that were both 30 miles away
from each other.


I called the other 2 walmarts & they told me the same exact story the
first walmart night crew manager told me.


I then got a bit upset & told the manager off on the phone. I asked
him if their was any hidden agenda in not placing the DOTM toys on
shelves/pegs/end caps at 12:01 am on may 16,2011. he said no,either he
was clueless or didn't want to give out company information.


I then got more upset & told the manager on the phone. what's the
point in being a 24 hour store if your not going to take advantage of
the 12:01 Sreet release dates. I told the guy,why wouldn't walmart
want to get the jump on its competitors like target,kmart by having
the dotm toys on sale at 12:01 am. THE MANAGER TOLD ME OTHER SECTIONS
ARE HIGHER PRIORITY & TOYS ARE LOW PRIORITY. after hearing that I told
him these TF movie toys sell out & makes stores high profit like the
starwars episode 1 thru 3 movie toys. why exactly isn't a higher
seller toy like the TF movie verse toys not high priority. the manager
was clueless again.


I then told the walmart manager on the phone. was this all done to
thwart the scalpers/collectors efforts at arriving early,buying all
the DOTM toys & leaving nothing later in the day for parents/kids. He
said no but he was clueless.


I then got more upset & told the manager on the phone. why didn't you
guys at the very least clear out the space needed to place the DOTM
toys on. why were no sticker labels placed on the shelves/pegs/end
caps caps yet. I told him,you guys had litteraly 6 weeks to prepare &
clear out space as the DOTM stock piles were sitting in the back stoxk
rooms for 6 weeks.


I then told the walmart manager on the phone,thanks for your time,good
bye.


MY PERSONAL OPINION ON THIS MANNER. their must have been some sort of
wamart company meeting. to thwart the scalpers/collectors efforts from
buying up all the DOTM toys early in the morning & leaving nothing for
the parents/kids. APPARENTLY CHAIN STORES THINKS ALL COLLECTORS/FANS
BUY STUFF TO SELL ON EBAY. This decision to put the new DOTM toys on
shelves at 11:00 am or later was most likely done to give everyone a
fair chance at arriving to the store & buying the toys.


I wondering if this is a regional,state or nationwide walmart DOTM toy
release problem. I suspose feedback from those going to walmart super
early in the morning is needed in this thread.


NOW i'm wondering what target & kmart will do. regarding putting DOTM
toys on shelves/pegs/end caps today on may 16,2011.


My target hates scalpers/collectors/fans. so sometimes they'll stock
street release stuff on shelves a day or 2 afterwards. my target likes
to stock toys on shelves on Tuesday around 12:00 pm up to 2:00 pm.
they stock the shelves late in the day to thwart the early scalpers/
collectors efforts from buying up everything early in the morning.
they do this so everyone can get a fair chance to buy the toys.


Who even knows what kmart will do regarding putting DOTM toys on
shelves/pegs/end caps on may 16,2011. as their more behind the game
compared to walmart & target.


since target & kmart close at around 10:00pm. will these 2 stores
stock the DOTM toys on pegs/shelves/end caps the night before??
or stock everything later in the may 16 day like walmart?


EITHER way,call the retail stores on the phone & ask them if the DOTM
toys are stocked on the shelves/pegs/end caps yet. don't waste your
gas & time & run into the situation I did at 5:00am EST AT my walmart
today

ITT: Deathy pretends he knows more than managers of retail chains.

DOTM is not going to "sell out." The Star Wars toys didn't "sell out" either; in fact, they haven't in literally years, and I can personally attest to this.

Also, it can't be a company-wide thing because my Wal-Mart broke street date, at the latest, yesterday--possibly before, since I hadn't been there in over a week. (Also, it looks like they finally got rid of that ROTF Leader Megatron that'd been sitting there. I was really hoping I'd be able to pick him up. Damn.)

Whether you believe it or not, toys are, in fact, a low priority for Wal-Mart. I'm willing to bet you were the single, only person in the world who called a manager over this.

Meanwhile, guys like Walky simply went to an employee with a DPCI and politely asked an employee if they would see if there's any in the back. Walky's had the guys for a week. You're complaining about things on the Internet.

Target is very inconsistent on this sort of thing.

The Target near where I live is really good about *trying* to find stuff in the back. If they have the man-power and time, they check. (Granted, they usually do not find much. But, I give them full points for trying.)

On the other hand, another Target, perhaps 4 or 5 miles away (and almost certainly on the same distribution route), has shown the kind of anti-collector bias that Tiger mentioned above. \


Dom
-and given how bad distribution has been for the last year, selling our is a real possibility.

My local Wal-Mart didn't have anything out today, but all three Targets and TRU were filled to the gills (along with Green Lantern, Captain America, and Cars 2, so there was apparently a big reset today). Only things I didn't see that were allegedly supposed to be there were Cyberverse Megatron and Deluxe Crankcase, and apparently everyone's having trouble spotting those ones (could just be misinformation about what's in what cases). This was all at different times of day that I saw this, btw, but the *main* Target in our area had them when I went there around ten am, while another Target was just putting them on shelves around twelve. So it's sporadic. Don't sweat it though, Tigermegs, you know these things are gonna be choking all the stores within a week, then we'll all be complaining that the other waves won't come in.

As a side note, none of my local stores broke street date, save for one Target putting out a few of those stupid Robo Power pop-up fighting game things.

BWprowl wrote:Only things I didn't see that were allegedly supposed to be there were Cyberverse Megatron and Deluxe Crankcase, and apparently everyone's having trouble spotting those ones (could just be misinformation about what's in what cases).

Misinformation my ass: http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/prod ... ode=retail

Crankcase is 1 per case, like everybody else except flippin' Bumblebee.

Well problem one is that you went to Walmart. Walmart sucks. I hate Walmart. This is one reason why, their toy aisles are always loaded with crap thats shelfwarming everywhere. And their staff is fucking useless. But I find that everywhere. It's one of the reasons I'm getting sick of "the hunt", brick and mortor stores rarely have the toys I want and the employees don't help at all so what's the point? Especially when I can just point and click and someone will deliver it to me. Then I also don't have to deal with the scalper issues. As for Walmart's attitude towards scalpers I know for a FACT it's not company wide as we have some lady in my area that goes around to all the Walmarts helping employees open the cases and buying the ones she wants on the spot.

As for the movie toys selling out... really? You're kidding me right? My WM STILL has tuner Skids and Mudflap from ROTF hanging around so the movie toys definitely are NOT selling out. There may be some figures that do, but there's some figures from every line that sell out more than others and generally speaking the last movie line shelf warmed epically.

Wal-Mart was actually the promised land of new toys back around the Universe 2.0 era (they were the first/best at getting Animated in too). But I haven't actually bought a toy there in ages, Target and TRU have been getting everything in first for a while now. I may break that habit with DOTM, since Wal-Mart has a couple exclusives I want (let's hope they're still there in a week), but otherwise they're still lagging behind Target. The fact that there's only one easily accessible Wal-Mart compared to THREE Targets is a big factor too.

I also need to reiterate that these 24hr Wal-Marts you guys (and other places) talk about are completely mythical to me. Mine opens at like eight and closes at eleven, and even that seemed excessive to me until I recently learned that people in other parts of the country could go out and buy a toy at 2am if they wanted to. 24 hour department stores are a totally alien concept in my mind. So it was kinda physically impossible for me to get upset because my Wal-Mart didn't have DOTM toys on shelves at 12:01am. Now granted, they didn't have them on shelves at all yesterday, but I pretty much had everything I wanted by the time I went there, so.

It seems I'm in the minority in that I had no trouble finding DOTM toys and getting almost everything I wanted yesterday. Hopefully I can turn up a Crankcase and a Ratchet next week, but that's my only woe.

I know we have at least one 24hr Walmart in my area and I have actually gone and got a TF at 2am. Pretty much just because I could. Not sure about the other WMs in my area. I dunno, I just don't like WM mostly because of the people there and it always looks and feels dirty. And everything's always messed up and then there's the scalping issue and... yeah, I just don't like WM.

When I was going to college, the Wal-Mart there was very consistantly stocked--every Thursday night. Our Anime Club was that night, and that ended around 10, and then we would usually hang out until 11 or so, and then I would typically head over there and wait until someone stocked the shelves. Then I'd buy what I wanted. Mostly, I did this because there was either a scalper in my area, or it was full of collectors--both equally plausible--and if I didn't buy them that night or early the next morning, usually one or two of the figures I really wanted would be gone after my classes were done.

One time, a nice old stocker lady opened a case for me and let me buy Universe Ironhide from it.

Now that I think about it--has anyone ever had a collector run-in that was negative? I mean, I'm sure we've all had it--we go to the aisle, someone else is there, and either we or they strike up a conversation. But have you ever arrived and been both after the same figure, and there's only one? I imagine the only appropriate response there would be Roshambo.

Onslaught Six wrote:Now that I think about it--has anyone ever had a collector run-in that was negative? I mean, I'm sure we've all had it--we go to the aisle, someone else is there, and either we or they strike up a conversation. But have you ever arrived and been both after the same figure, and there's only one? I imagine the only appropriate response there would be Roshambo.

I've met a few other collectors mid-aisle, but it's always been pretty positive (though I'm not the type who likes to chit-chat with somebody for long periods of time in a store, and they usually ARE, so I tend to feel awkward after more than five minutes of talking and want to leave without hurting their feelings, but that's a whole 'nother thing). I've never encountered someone who was after the same thing that I was with only one left, so I dunno. If they seemed cool I would probably let them have it, unless it was something I *really* wanted. If they were an asshole I'd just Marty McFly them and take off running with the toy.