I Wonder?

[DennisW22]

i was just wondering if Hasbro's decision to make the nemesis series a wal-mart exclusive and the Red Hulk series a target exclusive was planned or made up a couple of weeks ago.

 

ok at first it sounded like both waves would be widely available but no one even saw the exclusive thing coming, so maybe this was decided on a couple of days ago or so. to me it seems like they had too many lines coming to stores near the same and they split it up amongst them to avoid the lines crowding on each other and to prevent to push back of some of the lines.

really, in a perfect world, they would have 3 different marvel lines out at one time, the hulk ones, red hulk series, and the nemesis series,plus the 2 packs and the new iron man movie toys, so did they split it so that only 2 ML lines would be there at once?

 

i think its very plausible but i think ultimately we wont see the nemesis series until january just because of how crazy it gets during holiday season.

 

anyone else share this view?

[pvbvillegas]

yeah, i think that's quite the case... but heck, i'm starting to hate them for making HML4 and 5 exclusives...

[CLAM]

its obvious what happened. Marvel Legends weren't selling!

 

They weren't selling and the retailers were getting ready to back out.

 

Thats why Hasbro said the reason why wave 4 was pushed back was because they are "still learning" and they needed to take a look at how they are doing things @lol@

 

what that really means is tha wave 3, theFF wave, and the Spidey Wave are still clogging the pegs... and the retailers decided to cut their orders of wave 4... I bet ML was very near getting canned if they continued as they were.

 

Walmart gets the wave 4 series and Target gets that red Hulk series because they wouldn't have ordered them any other way. Target knows that by having a series as an exclusive, it makes them much more successful to them because you have to go there if you want them... same with WM.

 

Basically, lets say 100 people are still collecting Marvel Legends. All the stores carry Marvel Legends and only 20 people come in to Target to buy them. That's not so good for Target. Now, if they get a series that ONLY they can sell, then 100 people have to come in to buy them at Target.

 

 

The only losers in this deal is Hasbro. Because now they are making two series as exclusives. Which means that they are having to pay to produce twice as many figures (I mean the sculpting, tooliing, development) as before and they probably won't sell that much more than they normally would have. I mean, (assuming HML stuff actually sold) if HML4 was a widely released line, ALL the stores would have ordered it. Then ALL the stores would have ordered HML5, and so on and so on. I don't think that the total of figures that Target will order for their exclusive set + the total of figures WM will order for their exclusive set will = the total number of figures that ALL stores would have ordered for both series if they weren't exclusives.

 

think about it. Target orders 100 of their set. Walmart orders 100 of their set. Thats only 200 for TWO sets of figures.

 

now, if they weren't exclusives... lets say Target orders 50 for each, WM orders 50 for each.. thats 200 for TWO sets... PLUS TRU and everybody else would get to order them.

 

ah... Im no math or economic major... but I think the fact that they had to make these two lines exclusives is only bad news for Marvel Legends.

[nagauthier]

I'm not entirely sure about that logic. My understanding of retailer exclusives was that the manufacturer makes more money off the product because the retailer pays them a higher premium for having the exclusive. I get where you're coming from with the arguments about Hasbro wanting to make the retailers happy and keep the line going, but it would probably make more business sense for them to just let the line die and focus on other products than to give Walmart and Target bargain basement deals on exclusive lines.

[Dagger]

My thought is that they are costing so damn much that other competitors can't buy enough of them so they threw them to the two giants. KB Toys and Toys R US are in financial trouble so it's hard to keep up to date with all the figures coming out. Just my two cents.

[deprave1]

I'm not entirely sure about that logic. My understanding of retailer exclusives was that the manufacturer makes more money off the product because the retailer pays them a higher premium for having the exclusive. I get where you're coming from with the arguments about Hasbro wanting to make the retailers happy and keep the line going, but it would probably make more business sense for them to just let the line die and focus on other products than to give Walmart and Target bargain basement deals on exclusive lines.

 

Making a product a store specific exclusive is a money making concept. Think of the iron Man exclusive figures, what does it say on the front of each Figure. Wal-mart Exclusive. Target Exclusive. Trust me, it must take some money from the Stores to pull that off. Also, In order to get a display or a section of shelving, requires the manufacturer to buy it. I worked for Target, still have nightmares from my experience, but that is how it works. I too am kinda dissappointed that they will be exclusives, and am worried I won't get the figures I want, but what can you do about it. It has been decided. and for those of you that think this will be the end of ML, I don't think it will. Remember, the two packs, the Hulk line, they will be available everywhere.

[tarot]

i really don't think they planned this. maybe after something happened to beast that the store got sick of waiting and complained so hasbro sold the selling right to walmart. not that it matter to the US but it a balls for forgeiners. of course if you don't have a credit card by now collecting action figure is going to be hard now. especially when everything going to be sold on the net in the next decade.

[ARROW]

If it was a plan, it was one of those "best laid plans of mice and men".

[LegendsCollector07]

i was just wondering if Hasbro's decision to make the nemesis series a wal-mart exclusive and the Red Hulk series a target exclusive was planned or made up a couple of weeks ago.

 

ok at first it sounded like both waves would be widely available but no one even saw the exclusive thing coming, so maybe this was decided on a couple of days ago or so. to me it seems like they had too many lines coming to stores near the same and they split it up amongst them to avoid the lines crowding on each other and to prevent to push back of some of the lines.

really, in a perfect world, they would have 3 different marvel lines out at one time, the hulk ones, red hulk series, and the nemesis series,plus the 2 packs and the new iron man movie toys, so did they split it so that only 2 ML lines would be there at once?

 

i think its very plausible but i think ultimately we wont see the nemesis series until january just because of how crazy it gets during holiday season.

 

anyone else share this view?

 

 

I agree it looks like Hasbro is making better business moves so that more of thier products will sell. Wave one and 1.5 of the Iron Man figures have all summer to get sold then, they are bringing in new product little by little to assure that we are not overwhelmed, also the Nemesis wave will problably be in January after the fall prodcuts get wiped out by holiday shoppers. It is really a better business move on Hasbro's part.

[CLAM]

I'm not entirely sure about that logic. My understanding of retailer exclusives was that the manufacturer makes more money off the product because the retailer pays them a higher premium for having the exclusive. I get where you're coming from with the arguments about Hasbro wanting to make the retailers happy and keep the line going, but it would probably make more business sense for them to just let the line die and focus on other products than to give Walmart and Target bargain basement deals on exclusive lines.

 

 

neither wm or target are getting a "bargain basement deal" I am sure. They might be paying slightly higher for these figures because they are exclusives... but its still better for them because they will sell better than normal waves would in their stores.

 

 

as for other examples... I can remember more than a few times when an item from a toyline was proposed at toyfair but not picked up... then one of the major chains says "well, we'll take it, if u give it to us as an exclusive"

 

(I mean, we do realize that everything shown at toyfair is to try to promote and sell the line to retailers, not for us to see)... sometimes things don't sell before they even get to the shelf.

[Stevy Maximus]

This thread has two of the scariest posts I've ever seen from clam: both are reasonable, thought out explanations/opinions about Hasbro's Marvel Legends line. And I agree or support both.

 

Someone hold me!

 

@loll@

 

But yeah, I don't know what happened with ML (and we could debate endlessly on that subject, and I doubt it was any one thing but a combination of factors), but the fact two new waves of figures are ending up store exclusives are very good sign that ML (as it stands at this point) is on its last legs and we'll have to see how things run over the next year.

[ARROW]

But yeah, I don't know what happened with ML (and we could debate endlessly on that subject, and I doubt it was any one thing but a combination of factors), but the fact two new waves of figures are ending up store exclusives are very good sign that ML (as it stands at this point) is on its last legs and we'll have to see how things run over the next year.

 

 

Why would any retailer in their right mind want an exclusive offering from a toy-line on its "last legs"????

 

Why place support behind something that is supposedly failing????

 

You go and think about the logic of that.