MV5 Toys Are Coming

[Zobovor]

I took some price changes for the Last Knight toys today. They're listed in the Walmart computer as TRA MV5, which is consistent with what they've done in the past. Also, just like the placeholders they were using for character names for the last movie toy line (substituting character names from the Rocky series like Paulie, Adrian, etc.), this toy line is also using code names to describe the characters. All the price changes I took today were for characters with celestially-themed code names like Gas Giant, Jupiter, Lunar Eclipse, etc.

I guess this is Hasbro's way of obfuscating the existing toy assortments to make it impossible to know who is actually planned for each price point. At this point, they might as well not provide retailer solicitations at all. Or list every single product in the computers as Surprise 1, Surprise 2, Surprise 3, etc.

The good news is that the Deluxe-class toys are going to retail for $15.97, not the $20 that was the original reported MSRP.


Zob (what can I say, except you're welcome)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

Curious how Hasbro benefits from hiding this info? Does Walmart (and other retailers) really pick and choose toy orders by character? I mean, I am sure you might... but figure most wall mart/target/etc retailers don't know a transformer from a go-bot. I imagine that Walmart and Hasbro have some contract to purchase x millions of dollars of product each year and individual characters are in the noise.
Also, isn't all this info out there on the interwebs? I am sure they do it for a reason, just curious why.

-Banzaitron

[Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.]

Best Buy does the same with computers, but they don't change the names upon release making a lot of confusion in their system. nowhere on one box does it say Starlord, just as nowhere on another box does it say Eggroll. But it comes up on receipts, and orders are requested by these names that don't appear anywhere on the device.

If you want me to say thank you, mark them down to $4 then buy some for me.

[Zobovor]

On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 7:40:29 PM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> Curious how Hasbro benefits from hiding this info? Does Walmart (and other
> retailers) really pick and choose toy orders by character? I mean, I am sure

> you might... but figure most walmart/target/etc retailers don't know a

> transformer from a go-bot. I imagine that Walmart and Hasbro have some
> contract to purchase x millions of dollars of product each year and
> individual characters are in the noise. Also, isn't all this info out there
> on the interwebs? I am sure they do it for a reason, just curious why.

They did this with the Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys, too. The electronic R2-D2 was in the computer as "hero droid." The Chewbacca role-play weapon was listed as "alien sidekick weapon." All the action figures had descriptions like "secondary villain" and "tertiary hero." It was kind of obnoxious. They did it with the LEGO sets, too. Made it really hard to stock the shelves when the actual building sets had names like Rey's Speeder and Battle on Takodana, but the shelf tags didn't reflect this.

You mention contractual obligations and I think that actually might be the key. I remember reading somewhere that Walmart had the exclusive licensing rights to a lot of the Force Awakens toys, but that they were legally required by Lucasfilm not to disseminate information about the movie, like which characters would be making appearances. So, maybe it's the studio and not Hasbro. Even if that explains who is responsible, though, it doesn't explain why they're doing it.

Ironic that we live in the age of information and can communicate with each other instantaneously, so this is how we subvert it.


Zob (tertiary villain-in-training)

[Dave Van Domelen]

In article <6ad4e522-6742-4351...@googlegroups.com>,

Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>The good news is that the Deluxe-class toys are going to retail for
>$15.97, not the $20 that was the original reported MSRP.

There seems to be an initial batch of "Premiere" Deluxes and Voyagers
that have better paint and nicer boxes and $20 for Deluxe, but the rest of
the regular Deluxes will be $16.

Dave Van Domelen, eating lunch and can't think of something witty to put
here.

[Zobovor]

On Friday, April 21, 2017 at 12:05:08 PM UTC-6, Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> There seems to be an initial batch of "Premiere" Deluxes and Voyagers
> that have better paint and nicer boxes and $20 for Deluxe, but the rest of
> the regular Deluxes will be $16.

Walmart has the Premier versions for $15.83.


Zob (didn't buy any... movie fatigue)

[banzait...@gmail.com]

Impressed with your restraint. Gives me hope of passing on them as well.

-Banzaitron

[Zobovor]

On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 7:33:06 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> All the price changes I took today were for characters with celestially-
> themed code names like Gas Giant, Jupiter, Lunar Eclipse, etc.

Ha! Minor victory for me. And, by extension, the fandom.

So some of the Legion-class toys weren't recognized by the Walmart computer system. Depending on who you ask, this could be Hasbro's fault for not supplying correct UPC codes, or it could be Walmart's fault for not uploading the information correctly. Not really important.

The point is: I fired off an e-mail with the usual "hey, these items aren't linked to the prime UPC" message (I write several of these a week) and while I was messaging them, I also mentioned that the POS descriptions were all wrong (I was kind of playing dumb) and suggested they be changed from Four Moons to something like TRA LEGION BUMBLEBEE.

Well, they actually did it! And now I'm thinking about asking them to change the descriptions, not just for the Legion toys but for all the movie toys, because calling them Gamma Ray and such is just dumb.


Zob (retail justice warrior)

[Gustavo Wombat]

It would be better if they just fixed the packaging to match the POS
descriptions. Four Moons sounds way better than "old legends bumblebee with
a new crappy paint job" or whatever it says on the toy packaging.

--
I wish I was a mole in the ground.

[Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.]

If they were accurate, they'd call it MV4Bumblebee. Maybe then they'd clearance it out and we'd get something better.