Around the Toy Aisle: Pre-Holiday Edition

12-4-2011

Today we're going to take a look at local stores pre-Christmas to see what's out and about and what's not.  We'll be back with a follow-up article around New Years to see what cleared out for the gift giving season and what's on clearance.

This toy run started Thanksgiving weekend and ended yesterday with a look at stores in Ithaca and in and around Binghamton, NY.  We stopped at three Walmart stores, two Targets and a Toys-R-Us.

Toys-R-Us

We're starting with the Johnson City, NY Toys-R-Us store because this was the stop we were most looking forward to.  In September, Tropical Storm Lee dumped a load of water on this area of NY and for the second time since 2006, Toys-R-Us was flooded with as much as six feet of water.  Miraculously, they had the store opened the week before Thanksgiving.  We stopped in on Wednesday, November 23rd to check out the store and to see how they had recovered.

The store was completely redone with an entirely new layout and fresh paint and flooring all around.  It looked great.  The stock situation was excellent also.  The store was filled to the brim with all the toy lines you would expect, including the newest exclusives and hottest toys for the holidays.  The employees all seemed to have smiles on their faces and even in the afternoon when we were there, the store was full of customers.

We stopped in the Star Wars section first and found that we'd missed out on the newest waves of both Vintage Collection and Clone Wars.  They had plenty of Starfighter vehicles, Class I Fleet Vehicles and role play items.  The exclusive Trench Run pack was on the shelf for $75 as were the exclusive Clone Wars Battle Pack and Vintage Y-Wing.  There was also what we'd call an overabundance of the exclusive Clone Wars Stealth Ops Clone Trooper.  But we did spot two of the Rebel Transport Speeder with Rebel Tech sets, but they were mixed in with probably 8 - 10 of the Geonosis Warrior with Speeder packs that shipped with it.  We found a lot of the new Star Wars Spy Gear by Jazwares along with some plush, cups and a few other miscellaneous items not made by Hasbro.

In the new layout, GI Joe was just across the aisle from the Star Wars toys and that was our next stop.  It's also when reality sunk in in the form of a new pricing structure.  The basic figures were scanning at $8.49, Bravo vehicles for $29.99 and the biggest jaw dropper, $49.99 for the Sky Striker.  It was a huge disappointment as the shelf tags had the regular price for the figs and Bravo vehicles ($7.49 and $24.99 respectively) and they had some stuff we were interested in.

We noticed this price issue on a couple other action figure lines, some of them also from Hasbro, and at that point we decided we weren't going to be spending much money there.  We're not sure if this marks a new pricing structure for all of Toys-R-Us or if this store did it to recoup the money spent on the remodel or just because it's the holiday season and they thought they could get it.

After walking around the store to see the rest of the remodel, we hit the Lego section and saw the new 2012 Ninjago sets but nothing else from 2012 had yet made an appearance.  After scoring the bagged Lego Vulture Droid (30055), we headed out the door.

Walmart

Over the same weekend we stopped in both Walmart stores in the Binghamton area as well as here in Ithaca.

The smaller of the two Walmart stores, in Johnson City, didn't have much to speak of.  No GI Joe toys, packed pegs of older Star Wars figures and Transformers and some of the Hasbro Marvel movie lines.  We didn't spend much time there as the store was busy, in some disarray and we were in a hurry.

On Black Friday we hit the Vestal store and while we did spot some GI Joe figures (first Renegades wave on the shelf) we were disappointed in the Star Wars offerings.  They had well over a dozen cases of figures in the store but they were all waves 5 and 6.  That being the re-paint wave with ANH Luke Skywalker, R5-D4 and Gree and then the General Lando and Fi-Ek Sirch release.  We didn't see anything that made us believe they had received newer cases of Clone Wars figures and other than spotting the role play toys, we bolted the toy section before looking at anything else.

Ithaca had a new case of wave 5 about two weeks ago, which has mostly sold through now, but that's it besides the new Clone Wars Ultimate Gift Set which they had at least a dozen of.  That's the only new Star Wars stock this store has had in several months.  The Hasbro Marvel movie lines are also dead and the DC lines don't seem to move either.

The worst news out of Walmart, for us, was that the Ithaca store, which had stocked GI Joe toys even when most others had stopped this summer, has now dumped the line.  After completely empty pegs for two months, the pegs were replaced with Marvel Universe labels and stocked with about 4 cases of the newer assortment.  Good for Marvel fans, bad for Joe.

Target

The Vestal Target was not in much better shape than the local store when it comes to Star Wars figures and toys.  They had some older Vintage Collection figures and while it looked like they may have had some newer Clone Wars, it was nothing to write home about.  They had the standards; role play items, Starfighter vehicles, the Attack Shuttle and some of the Battle Packs. 

The GI Joe section had some of the first wave of Renegades figures and the Sky Striker, which is about all the commitment the store is making to Joe at this point.  We were there on Black Friday and our spin through the toy section was quick, we didn't pay much attention to the Hasbro Marvel lines, Transformers or Lego.

Locally, Vintage Collection has been stagnant for months.  Even though Hasbro issued a recall on VC Sandtroopers and Revenge of the Sith Clone Troopers earlier in the year, our store was never cleared.  That clogged the system till about two weeks ago when one case of Wave 5 showed up.  Since then we've seen one case of the new Revenge of the Jedi figures but that's been it.  Clone Wars has fared better and we've seen up to the Kit Fist and Seripas wave.  Everything else has been as expected; exclusive 3-packs, Landspeeder and Tauntaun sets, Starfighter vehicles, Battle Packs and role play all have adequate stock.

GI Joe has moved a couple restocks of the first wave of Renegades figures but the Sky Striker has been a slow mover.  Marvel Universe is the only superhero line from Hasbro that's been moving any stock.  Captain America, Thor and Iron Man have been dead for months.  We have seen one or two newer Captain America figures at Walmart, but they've been scattered in over the last month or two and nothing new seems to have hit in the last week.

Lego has been a consistent mover, especially Harry Potter, which has repeatedly sold out all of the midrange sets.  The large Hogwarts Castle (4842) set moved during a $99 sale last week but has been the slow seller along with, oddly enough, The Forbidden Forest (4865) which is the cheapest set out now (not counting Target's bagged The Lab 30111 set).

The biggest surprise seller for us has been the Tron line.  Although Target cleared a lot of this earlier in the year, they continue to stock the 4" action figures, die-cast vehicles and the Light Cycle.  They've sold through at least two restocks of the Quorra wave of figures and multiples of the die-cast.  The pricing has come down on them since they were first released, which helps, and we've seen on two different occasions shoppers actually riffling through the pegs and buying figures.  We called this line dead months ago and then were surprised to see it move as much as GI Joe has been.  So, good on Spin Master.

Wrap-Up

Other than the Johnson City Toys-R-Us, one thing that seems to be consistent through the other stores this year is moderation.  None of the stores has stocked the toy aisle heavily, at least not yet.  Target, in the past, has added overhead shelving during the Christmas rush but didn't this year.  Restock on some lines has picked up a little bit, but as can be seen with the Star Wars lines especially, the stores are not stocking the pegs with the full load of action figures they could handle.  We're not sure if that's indicative of stores playing it safe or if we really are seeing a distribution problem from Hasbro's end.

There are still three full shopping weeks until Christmas which is on a Sunday this year, giving last minute shoppers a chance to hit stores on a Saturday.  We don't think we're going to see a lot of new toy stock hitting during those two weeks, but would expect at least one if not two restocks on some lines that have sold, if not through, at least to the computerized reordering point.

With Hasbro changing lines and assortment numbers in January to accommodate the Episode I movie push, we expect to see quite a bit of clearance pricing, at least at Target, after the holiday.  We'll have a follow-up to this report just after the new year to see how things shake out.