Jump to content

SDCC 2022 - Walmart Exclusive 6" G.I. Joe Classified Retro Collection, And Then There Were Eight


JayC

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, InspectorZartan said:

I’m not saying everything is ONLy the fault of the corporation or retailer so sure consumers can also share some blame for things that occur in the marketplace but implying that ALL (or even the majority) of issues with corporate priorities, performance and shortcoming (covering everything from inventory shortages, ineffective distribution, supply chain issues, on and on just to name a few). is the sole fault of consumers and more or less none of it has anything to do with larger issues that include changes in public policy, legislation, and most of all the decisions and priorities and practices of the corporation (who spend money lobbying to change the former) is…. well…. Leaning towards obtuse (And I mean this in as respectful of a way as possible—I’m just not sure how else to describe how that strikes me without going into a multi page counter point—again, in general, agree or disagree I appreciate you sharing your perspective and adding in the conversation so no insult is intended).  

lol no worries, and i do have a bias as ive spent more than half my life working in retail, never walmart tho. i will tell u that there is no ineffective distribution in big box and any store that has inventory shortage is generally done on purpose from a corporate level. all stores receive product amounts based on comp sales. if i want more inventory in my store of any product then i need to increase my stores sales. the more profitable the individual store, the more inventory they receive, and the more they can request as well. so like if u want your local walmart to expand the toy aisle, i'd start buying my groceries there and telling everyone i know to do the same. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Monstrous said:

lol no worries, and i do have a bias as ive spent more than half my life working in retail, never walmart tho. i will tell u that there is no ineffective distribution in big box and any store that has inventory shortage is generally done on purpose from a corporate level. all stores receive product amounts based on comp sales. if i want more inventory in my store of any product then i need to increase my stores sales. the more profitable the individual store, the more inventory they receive, and the more they can request as well. so like if u want your local walmart to expand the toy aisle, i'd start buying my groceries there and telling everyone i know to do the same. 

Sure thing.  it’s a complicated issue and there’s a lot of nuance to all of it.  
 

In my particular case shopping at a physical Walmart is a rare experience since I live in the city and thus the closest Walmart is an hour away from me (but I have a dozen Targets all within 30 minutes).  That said that closest Walmart (Burbank, CA) seemingly has a lot of traffic but I rarely find the products I’m looking for there (which as a result makes that hour long trip to it something I become less and less likely to do based on an unsatisfactory customer experience, based on the lack of stock for the products I’m looking for).  On the other hand when I travel to other parts of the country where there are stores serving way fewer customers with seemingly lower sales volume  I’ve had much better luck.  When traveling to other states and cities it’s funny how often I’ve seen things peg warm and go on clearance in one city/town that are completely scarce in the next town.  All this is anecdotal of course so not based on thorough data, but still it’s something I’ve casually observed.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, InspectorZartan said:

On the other hand when I travel to other parts of the country where there are stores serving way fewer customers with seemingly lower sales volume  I’ve had much better luck.  When traveling to other states and cities it’s funny how often I’ve seen things peg warm and go on clearance in one city/town that are completely scarce in the next town.  All this is anecdotal of course so not based on thorough data, but still it’s something I’ve casually observed.   

i see the same things, its wild how it happens like that. i make sure i visit target anytime im in a different city for that very reason. just never know what u can find. and yea theres no data that could used its just shopping trends in different regions i guess, but it is strange to walk into a target in the middle of nowhere and see pegs full of desirable items that u read about being hard to find and yet not a single movie bruce wayne or gorr lol

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Roadpigmaster said:

I received 4 boxes from Walmart and I pre-ordered 2 of each retro figures... I got back from a vacation trip so no time yet to open them!

IMG_20220731_083758.jpg

Hope they are minty!!!  
Let us know

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So just an update on the terrible Walmart situation with these carded figures.  
 

As I said, all 4 of these figures arrived this week from Walmart with completely damaged packaging (which makes them useless to me as I only bought them for the damaged packaging).  The Walmart nearest me is over an hour away but I happened to have a meeting this morning somewhat in that vicinity so decided today would be a good day to return them in store.  
 

Long story short WALMART REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE RETURN.  Walmart’s website generated a barcode to return them in store, the barcode itself said it was good until September, but upon walking in the store the barcode wouldn’t work.  The reason why they said the barcode wasn’t working and they couldn’t accept the return: because since they were a preorder they were ORDERED over 3 months ago—thus the 90 day return window has expired.  Now of course it should be irrelevant when these were ordered as normally that return window starts based on when the item SHIPS and when your credit card is charged (which was only a few days ago).  But despite the fact that these just arrived days ago the system refused to take them.  
 

Just to be clear when something like this happens it’s my firm belief that we shouldn’t blame the workers.  If Walmart’s system is screwed up that’s not the fault of the employees.  That said, the first person who was at the returns desk, seemed fairly oblivious, saying things like “well you should have returned it within 90 days” while I keep calmly pointing out that I literally just received it this week and it’s not possible to return something before you receive it—finally that seemed to sink in for them.  Then the manager came over and was instantly hostile for no reason, stating to me (the customer) within moments of being called over to help solve the problem “I don’t have time for this I have a store to manage”.  Then a third employee came over and actually tried to help.  She was not successful but at least she made the effort.  She said she’d seen this before with preorders but had no direct way to fix it but if I called the corporate customer support number they could maybe help.  So after a lengthy call they sent me “new” barcodes to try (which took 5 minutes to show up thus that phone agent had to hang up).  We tried them and likewise it did not work (I suspect they were just the same bar codes I already had).  Again the person I was working with now was nice and trying to help but wasn’t a manager or anything who could over ride the system.  At one point she scanned the figures to just look them up in the system to try and find a work around but hit a dead end as she said “yeah this isn’t even something we carry”.  
 

By this point an hour had gone by and I was going to be late to my meeting thus had to give up for the day.  So as of this writing an hour trip to the nearest Walmart, an hour spent in the store, and an hour spent coming back (so 3 hours total) proved to be a complete waste of time and as of this moment I’m still stuck with these damaged Joes and Walmart still has my money.  
 

Has anyone else here had a similar experience and/or has anyone else who received these figures in subpar condition been able to successfully get them returned to store?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, InspectorZartan said:

Has anyone else here had a similar experience and/or has anyone else who received these figures in subpar condition been able to successfully get them returned to store?  

that sux, sorry youre having this issue man. i know my local walmart looks to take back anything since 40% of the marvel legends figures on the shelf have the figures switched out and not even done clean like i see at target sometimes. maybe try a different walmart or see if u can return through the mail. that or u may have to settle for store credit and know to never order from walmart again unless its something u plan to open.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Monstrous said:

that sux, sorry youre having this issue man. i know my local walmart looks to take back anything since 40% of the marvel legends figures on the shelf have the figures switched out and not even done clean like i see at target sometimes. maybe try a different walmart or see if u can return through the mail. that or u may have to settle for store credit and know to never order from walmart again unless its something u plan to open.

These would be my suggestions. I haven't seen anybody talking about issues returning these over on other places dedicated to GI Joe, and I'm sure there would be a lot of chatter if it was a widespread issue.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Monstrous said:

that sux, sorry youre having this issue man. i know my local walmart looks to take back anything since 40% of the marvel legends figures on the shelf have the figures switched out and not even done clean like i see at target sometimes. maybe try a different walmart or see if u can return through the mail. that or u may have to settle for store credit and know to never order from walmart again unless its something u plan to open.

There are zero Walmarts in Los Angeles so that store (located in Burbank which is 60 minutes away from me in traffic) is the closest one and the only one I’d be likely to be anywhere near any time soon.  So going to another store isn’t a real option and if something is a Walmart exclusive then .com becomes the only real option for getting items.  On top of that once I selected in store return which generated the in store barcode that removed the option to generate a label to return it via mail.  It will get worked out and I’ll get it resolved but it’s just going to take time and be a headache which sucks as I’ve already more or less wasted a couple of hours.  
 

The bigger thing is if it ends up being a more system wide issue (which is what it seems to be) how many others are going to have similar issues returning these damaged cards.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Satam said:

These would be my suggestions. I haven't seen anybody talking about issues returning these over on other places dedicated to GI Joe, and I'm sure there would be a lot of chatter if it was a widespread issue.

Just curious have you seen reports of people successfully returning them in store?  Since they literally just started to arrive I’m wondering what percentage of people trying to take them back to the store have already done so (or attempted to do so).  
 

The only mentions I’ve seen were people who did online returns by mail—which without going into too much long winded detail I know from experience can also sometimes end up with problems getting a proper refund credited despite you returning it and them acknowledging they received it.  When there are “system issues” at Walmart I’ve seen it happen to where you send it back, they acknowledge they received it, but then the refund never gets credited back to your card because of these type of “system issues”.  IF that ends up being the case then those returning by mail may hit the same obstacle only it will be weeks before the customer finds that out or they just may never realize it if they don’t regularly check their transactions and notice that no refund ever shows up on their card (hopefully that’s not the case but I’ve seen it happen before).  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, InspectorZartan said:

Just curious have you seen reports of people successfully returning them in store?  Since they literally just started to arrive I’m wondering what percentage of people trying to take them back to the store have already done so (or attempted to do so).  
 

The only mentions I’ve seen were people who did online returns by mail—which without going into too much long winded detail I know from experience can also sometimes end up with problems getting a proper refund credited despite you returning it and them acknowledging they received it.  When there are “system issues” at Walmart I’ve seen it happen to where you send it back, they acknowledge they received it, but then the refund never gets credited back to your card because of these type of “system issues”.  IF that ends up being the case then those returning by mail may hit the same obstacle only it will be weeks before the customer finds that out or they just may never realize it if they don’t regularly check their transactions and notice that no refund ever shows up on their card.  

Sorry, I can't speak to that. TBH, I haven't really seen any talk about returns aside from, "This is completely ****ed up, and I'm returning it." These folks aren't the type to not speak up and let everyone else know about something going wrong, so I've taken the lack of chatter (good or bad) so far about return experiences to mean that most people aren't having problems.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Satam said:

Sorry, I can't speak to that. TBH, I haven't really seen any talk about returns aside from, "This is completely ****ed up, and I'm returning it." These folks aren't the type to not speak up and let everyone else know about something going wrong, so I've taken the lack of chatter (good or bad) so far about return experiences to mean that most people aren't having problems.

Hopefully that’s the case and my situation is just a random one off

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Find Action Figures on Ebay

×
×
  • Create New...
Sign Up For The TNI Newsletter And Have The News Delivered To You!


Entertainment News International (ENI) is the #1 popular culture network for adult fans all around the world.
Get the scoop on all the popular comics, games, movies, toys, and more every day!

Contact and Support

Advertising | Submit News | Contact ENI | Privacy Policy

©Entertainment News International - All images, trademarks, logos, video, brands and images used on this website are registered trademarks of their respective companies and owners. All Rights Reserved. Data has been shared for news reporting purposes only. All content sourced by fans, online websites, and or other fan community sources. Entertainment News International is not responsible for reporting errors, inaccuracies, omissions, and or other liablities related to news shared here. We do our best to keep tabs on infringements. If some of your content was shared by accident. Contact us about any infringements right away - CLICK HERE