Tag Archives: Retail

Last week COTY, a manufacturer of luxury perfumes, with Calvin Klein being one of their brands, sued German discounter ALDI. COTY didn’t want ALDI to sell several of their perfumes anymore and a court found that COTY is in the right. The presentation and retail environment at ALDI stores hurt the brand image and thus the court ruled that ALDI has to stop the sale of COTY perfumes.
Now, what does that have to do with Star Wars? Very simple, whatever is going on with Star Wars toys at the moment, figures for $2.99, figures for $0.03, toys found at Ollie’s or Five Below are nothing that Hasbro would have to accept, unless they are ok with it.
Click through for a very brief primer on distribution and my own thoughts about how Star Wars toys should or could be distributed in the future.

Star Wars Toys at Ollie’s

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Everybody hates Chris, but no one more than me today. My good friend relayed to me in a conversation yesterday that wave 1 is hitting en masse all over Walmarts and it’s taking over the country. I had no clue because I am indifferent to Star Wars collecting at the moment. Also, I can’t remember the last time I entered a Walmart store, So my insatiable curiosity got the best of me and would only be quenched with a (gasp!) toy run. Well, to my utter disgust, wave 1 was indeed falling off of the pegs. There are so many figures hanging now that it looks like how the Solo line look launch should have looked in April. AND IT’S DECEMBER! (more….)

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We have an anonymous writer (i.e., NOT me) who gives his thoughts on Hasbro’s case assortments: what’s wrong, what’s right and what needs to change. This guy has years of experience in the selling industry and knows his stuff. (more….)

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All of our individual retail store reports are anecdotal at best. From these experiences comes discussions so we can compare and contrast what others are seeing as well. But when it comes to the TARGET exclusive “Return Of The Jedi” three-pack, I have seen some interesting trends. In three of my local stores, this set has completely sold out. I haven’t witnessed an exclusive selling through this quickly since before The Force Awakens (and these are only 5POA figures). I can’t help but think that longtime collectors who grew up with the Original Trilogy are still a strong buying market when it comes to Hasbro toys. I constantly hear from those that think they know all about Hasbro’s stats that collectors are not a significant portion of the buying public for Star Wars toys, yet I am constantly reminded that the opposite of this is true with experiences like this. Again, in my local TARGET stores are seas of Rey (Jedi Training), Kylo Ren, Jyn Erso, Imperial AT-ACT Driver, Rogue One three-packs and a ton of Forces Of Destiny products. But the only Original Trilogy-focused set has sold through in three of my local stores. How can anything against this be argued? I think Hasbro needs to reevaluate their market. Hasbro, get more Original Trilogy stuff into stores and you’ll see sell through again like we did during the Golden Age of Collecting (2006-2012).