Here's something I've been thinking about for a while:

 

Hasbro ship their toys sorted by size/price classes, i.e. they ship, say, a case of nine Basics, or eight Deluxes. One Basic case will contain 3x Basic toy A, 3x Basic toy B and 3x Basic toy C.

The next case will include the new Basic toys D, E and F, sorted maybe like this: 1x Basic toy A, 1x Basic toy B, 1x Basic toy C, 2x Basic toy D, 2x Basic toy E and 2x Basic toy F. The next wave might either phase out toys A, B and C for toys G, H and I, or do something differently... anyways.

 

Now here's the problem.

 

A store can't order individual toys. They can only order full cases.

 

Now think about the following: We take store X, located in city Y. For the new toyline Z, store X is ordering an average amount of cases for the first wave of toys. For Basics, that means they order, say, ten cases, with a total of 30 pieces of each toy.

 

Now they stock their shelves.

 

Now, imagine the best case scenario: Toyline Z is a hot seller, and the store is quickly running out of Basic toys.

 

What do they do?

 

They order more Basics.

 

Now comes the problem: The company don't have wave 2 Basics ready for shipment yet.

 

What do they do?

 

They ship more cases of wave 1.

 

Now comes the problem: The customers of store Y have already bought all wave 1 Basics. Therefore, the restocks are clogging the shelves while wave 2 is coming... and going. And wave 3 is coming... and going. And store Y is still sitting on unsold wave 1 Basics and wondering why toyline Z isn't selling anymore.

 

In the worst case scenario, they might now drop toyline Z altogether. Even though there would be many customers willing to buy more toys... if only store Y would stock something other than wave 2!

 

In the best case scenario, store Y would put the wave 1 Basics on clearance after a few months and then FINALLY order more cases of Basics... Which would already be at wave 4 or 5 at that time.

 

As a consequence, store Y completely missed out two or more waves just because they were shipped the same wave again.

 

And that's only part of the problem.

 

The stores often can't tell a Battle Ravage from a Signal Flare. They just think of them as "Energon Basics". If some of them don't sell, they won't think "meh, that Battle Ravage sure is a shelfwarmer, but at least that Signal Flare is selling like hot cakes." They just think "Energon Basics" are shelfwarmers.

 

Add to the "shelfwarmer" problem the phenomenon of "shortpacked" toys, which only ship in one or two waves... and in the other end of the stick, toys that ship in like 4 or 5 waves despite already being shelfwarmers to begin with. Stores can't order more of the "rare" toys. They can only order more cases. Which might not even include any of the "rare" toys to begin with!

 

So I was thinking... Would it help if Hasbro stopped shipping toys in mixed cases, and instead shipped them like one case of 6x Battle Ravage, one case of 6x Divebomb, one case of 6x Signal Flare etc.? That way, a store could a) better observe which toys are selling good and which are not, and b) order more of the "rare" toys instead of just ordering "blind packed" cases.

 

I don't know for sure how Takara are doing this. Are they shipping individual cases for each toy?

 

And could this system work for Hasbro at all? Or is the "case assortment" system better suited for the American/international market?

I'm not familiar with store computer systems.  How easy would it be for them to keep track of which items sold?  If it's simple to do, I think the only problem would be repaints like "energon battle ravage" not getting distributed because "battle ravage" is a shelf warmer.

 

What if stores were just limited in the number of assortments they can buy per wave?  Hasbro may lose money at first by denying sales, but they would make up for it by selling more wave 2, 3 ect.

 

Or I am missing something there?

You're not missing anything ES, Hasbros case distribution is bad for retail altogether. Energon Megas never got restocked around here because everywhere I went kept restocking piles and piles of Energon Ironhide or Jetfire and then the retailer wonders why they aren't selling. Over last weekend I was in a Superstore in Winnipeg and they had boxes and boxes of shelfwarming Wave 1 everything. TRU was a little bit better IMO. Alongside new releases of Cybertron they had countless Sixshots, and one Alpha Q in the assortment. A bit slow but eventially they get there.

 

Alts are as bad as a worst case senario can get. Around Christmas last year Superstore had ordered in massive cases of Silverstreak, Sideswipe, and Hound which I finally got but on the flip side Tracks, Miester, and Grimlock were already realeased in the states as were the repaint Decepticons but nobody anywhere I've been to have brought in further than Hound. Surprisingly the only one I've actually seen at TRU is Smokescreen warming the shelf from early last year. Moneysaving yes, frusterating yes. :tdown

 

Purposely making a toy in any given wave rare is really bad for the retailer, and Hasbro altogether because if Wave 1 toys aren't selling when Wave 3 or 4 are out already why should the said distributor be motivated to bring in anymore if they have to clearence everything to begin with. Walmart here has now delayed on putting out Cybertron because now Wave 3 and 4 Basics, and Deluxes are warming the shelves nearly half a year after there initial release. In the end Hasbros distribution methods are basically screwing over everyone from collector to distributor.

 

Though that's the way it is here I understand most people in the States are much more fortunate. :thumb

Another suggestion was to stop that "wave X.5" crap. No more leftovers from the previous wave mixed into the following wave. One wave consists of 3 toys, the next wave consists of 3 more toys instead of 2 toys from wave 1 and 2 new ones or something like that.

This reminds me of how we in Singapore were short on Armada Skywarps due to their confusion that the particular wave was Thundercracker (with Scavenger, thought to be Overload). At least Overload came in the next wave, but now without Skywarp. Fast forward to Energon, we totally missed out on Dreadwing, Quickswitch AND Omega Sentinel.

The reason why they don't distribute all the same figures to a case(sans really large figures like Starscream) is this, it's just not producttive. They used to do it waaay back when, hower the current method creates more revenue mainly because of this. Transformers only has a small section in most TRU's if you notice Cybertron has taken this fact and reduced the box side for the larger toys(prime and megs both come in robot mode). Therefore the smaller the space the more variety you need. You need stuff that will try and appeal to everyone, therefore a mixed case ratio is the answer. If you stack 6 of the same figure instead of 6 mixed figures you lose out on the people that may have wanted some of the mixed ones.

 

Armada was distributed better than Energon though, The only Omega Sentinel I saw was the one I bought. I missed out on quite a few figures because of the shortpacking...

 

 

However Cybertron seems to be more evenly packed similar to Armada

Well, are straight cases working for Takara's distribution?

The reason why they don't distribute all the same figures to a case(sans really large figures like Starscream) is this, it's just not producttive. They used to do it waaay back when, hower the current method creates more revenue mainly because of this. Transformers only has a small section in most TRU's if you notice Cybertron has taken this fact and reduced the box side for the larger toys(prime and megs both come in robot mode). Therefore the smaller the space the more variety you need. You need stuff that will try and appeal to everyone, therefore a mixed case ratio is the answer. If you stack 6 of the same figure instead of 6 mixed figures you lose out on the people that may have wanted some of the mixed ones.

 

Armada was distributed better than Energon though, The only Omega Sentinel I saw was the one I bought. I missed out on quite a few figures because of the shortpacking...

 

 

However Cybertron seems to be more evenly packed similar to Armada

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

:pfx

 

I thought the same thing last time I was in TRU. They had a pretty even amount of all the Basics, Deluxes, and Voyagers but for some reason or other Ultra class was nowhere to be seen anywhere. The same was reported elsewhere. Though distribution for Cybertron looks better/more even overall my main complaint was distributors are still reeling from the badly distributed Eneron which is still clogging up shelves in excess amounts delaying Cybertron everywhere but TRU.

It's really frusterating when the town you live in has both a Walmart, and a Superstore but you have to basically drive two hours out to find anything recent. :tdown

Well, are straight cases working for Takara's distribution?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Takara needs to do the same thing

 

They have less space to work with, they also have more competition in the Giant Robot area...

The reason why they don't distribute all the same figures to a case(sans really large figures like Starscream) is this, it's just not producttive. They used to do it waaay back when, hower the current method creates more revenue mainly because of this. Transformers only has a small section in most TRU's if you notice Cybertron has taken this fact and reduced the box side for the larger toys(prime and megs both come in robot mode). Therefore the smaller the space the more variety you need. You need stuff that will try and appeal to everyone, therefore a mixed case ratio is the answer. If you stack 6 of the same figure instead of 6 mixed figures you lose out on the people that may have wanted some of the mixed ones.

 

Armada was distributed better than Energon though, The only Omega Sentinel I saw was the one I bought. I missed out on quite a few figures because of the shortpacking...

 

 

However Cybertron seems to be more evenly packed similar to Armada

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I don't think that's what people are asking for. I think what's bothering a lot of people is when they send out a new wave but only have a couple of the newer figures and most of the same figures that were in the previous wave.

 

By this time, most people have already bought the previous wave of figures so while the newer figures in the case that were shortpacked sell fast, the leftovers that were also part of the previous wave now end up clogging shelves for a long period of time, and most stores won't restock until most if not all of them sell.

 

If anything it should go like this (using basics as an example): wave 1 comes out. Most of them sell and get restocked once or twice before wave 2 hits. By this time, most people already have wave 1's and stores probably still have cases of them leftover in their warehouses somewhere. So if wave 2 has 3 new figs, same as wave 1, then wave 2 should contain only the 3 new figures...or at best only 1 of each figure from the first wave mixed in. As it is, they shortpack the new figures in with a bunch of the wave 1 figures that are already starting to clog shelves and that's what's causing all the problems.

 

Alternators case ratios have been insanely bad. Why they pack a case with only one each of the new figures is just horrible! New figures should be easier to find when they first come out, and then get harder to find as time goes on...not the other way around!