Good news for Mexican fans since Titans Return Clones 2-Pack Was Spotted In Mexican Stores.
Thanks to Comunidad Transformers Mexico on Facebook for reporting that this 2-pack with Clones Wingspan and Cloudraker was found at Jugueterías Julio Cepeda in Monterrey by Ricardo PazyPuente for 459.90 Pesos which is 24 US Dollars approximately. This 2-pack was already spotted in Taiwan and Canada while it’s expected as a Walgreens exclusive in the US.
Happy hunting for all Mexican fans. Keep reporting your sightings all over the world at the 2005 Boards!
Nevermore
Minor side note, but keep in mind that there is evidence that Hasbro's original plan was to have continuing Generations assortments rather than separate Combiner Wars and Titans Return assortments. The Hasbro product code numbers suggest that these were the original plans for the Legends and Leader waves:
Legends wave 6: Wreck-Gar, Stripes and Rewind
Legends wave 7: Rumble, Ravage and Wheelie
Legends wave 8: Laserbeak (plus possibly more, potentially unreleased)
Leader wave 6: Blaster
Leader wave 7: Powermaster Optimus Prime
Nevermore
Importing from Asia is what I meant.
RKillian
OK, in what context do you mean import? Importing from another country or importing from other areas of your own country? It's anecdotal but it's very hard to believe that such a premium is being paid for Hasbro retail product.
Second, you're fighting years of collectors being told they're a rounding error and nothing they do is even a blip on anybody's radar.
It's an interesting theory but I don't think importing is the culprit. Wave one overordering is a force of nature. Like failing up and government contractor fraud.
Nevermore
This has been dicussed for many pages in the other thread. The listing was discovered a while ago, people kept rushing to their stores only to return empty-handed. Other people have explained that the "in stock" option means jack shit, nobody read those explanations, lather, rinse, repeat.
RodimusDawg
Don't believe it. It's counting their already stocked deluxes in the instock count.
Wackimus Prime
Not sure if anyone saw but this is listed in Walgreens.com. It says out of stock online but in stock at local stores. I haven't been there to check yet but I will tomorrow. I have a feeling its just Brainstorm and not this set.
Transformers Titans Return | Walgreens
Nevermore
What doesn't help either is adult fans being both impatient and completely forgetting how the whole wave thing has been working for the past two decades, resulting in a lot of people importing wave 1, the one wave GUARANTEED to be shelfwarming everywhere in a few months anyways, because they "don't want to take risks", and then complaining when wave 1 shelfwarms. Well DUH.
Every time someone complains about wave 1 figures shelfwarming, ask them if they bought their wave 1 figures at retail. If their response is "No, I imported them because I didn't want to wait", tell them they're part of the problem.
Online retailers are in a dilemma here. On the one hand, it would be smart to skip wave 1 which will exceed the demand easily. Just start with wave 2, let the customers get their wave 1 toys elsewhere, that way you don't end up with too many obvious shelfwarmers and can start with the less common figures. On the other hand, if you don't stock wave 1, customers might get the impression that they shouldn't do business with you because you don't have a complete selection.
iacon45
I am almost tempted to save some hassle and buy a set from eBay if they were not a bit too pricey for my wallet at the moment and also knowing my luck, they would start hitting Walgreens in droves the very next day after I'd get one from eBay.
Thelonicon
As much as I want to solely blame Hasbro for it's crappy distribution and case ratios, I feel like retailers also share blame thanks to their stocking/shelving practices. They allocate shelf space to items, and then order enough cases to fill the shelf space.
Unfortunately this shelf space allocation tends to be bigger at the beginning of a line so they order a bunch of wave 1 cases. People who are interested buy the ones they want, which is great. Unfortunately since the retailer stocked so many wave 1 figures the supply far exceeds the demand and so those remaining figures shelfwarm. The inventory systems of the store tell corporate/distribution that they are well stocked so subsequent waves aren't ordered.
Occasionally when they do sell enough figures to order more or a holiday reset happens, the overstocking situation is at risk of occuring again with a later wave. Hence why we see a number of stores skipping waves.
Note: The fact Fort Max ended up at a closeout store isn't surprising since only a few brick and mortar retailers (basically just Toys R Us) will even bother stocking a toy that big and expensive. For comparison Metroplex ended up arriving by the pallette load at Costcos for $70. The real surprise is that Ollie's sold him for such a low price since they could have priced him a lot higher and still sold through them pretty quickly. But I think they ultimately priced him for a low margin and quick return since he didn't fit in the dedicated toy aisle.
Disclaimer: I know that budgeting, retail manufacturing, and logistics can be extremely complicated and all parties are trying to do their best (literally, everyone involved depends on this fact to make the best profit possible.) I'm just a layman using my own observations and if someone with more knowledge can correct me or fill in some gaps, that would be appreciated.
YoungPrime
Crazy thing is that the only one I need from this set is Cloudraker since I've pre-orded Takara's version of Pounce and Wingspan and already have Fastclash from that Velocitron TRU set.
heltskelt
Yeah, it looks like retail demand ran out of steam due to an overstock of figures from the first waves. Then, Hasbro had to reallocate figures from the exclusive sets into regular releases or single exclusives. Probably sacrificing the costlier figures in the process out of fear of not getting an adequate return.