This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection 26 26

[Buzzetta]

2 minutes ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

Thanks for the heads up. I have an appointment on thursday so all the info i can get ahead of time i appreciate it. 12" vaders arms are off. I may try to fix that some how. Unfortunately IG88s hands are broken

Do you know what that piece of fur cloth is for? I thought it might have been an ewok hood but those all seem to be vinyl.

Yoda's jedi robe / jacket thingy. 

[Buzzetta]

@STORMSHADOW_80 wait... is it a jacket or a skirt like article of clothing that can fit over a waist?

If it is the skirt like piece then that goes with Klatuu.  

Also the Wampa and Taun Taun look to be in excellent shape.  It is hard to find a non yellowed Wampa or Taun Taun. 

[STORMSHADOW_80]

3 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Usually someone made a mistake by putting things like this out.  Then the space where they were in the stock room is shuffled about or filled in so bringing back an endcap of product is not an easy task since all the other shelves around it have been adjusted to accommodate that product. 

If stores sell items before the street date there actually can be penalties for the vendor.   When I worked for Disney they actively went after people that violated street date rules.  I remember there even being rewards if you had a dated receipt that showed you bought a particular video or DVD before the street date. 

The thing is in this case the vendor hasbro made a public post on their twitter and instagram page they were releasing them early because of the preorder fiasco.

[STORMSHADOW_80]

3 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

@STORMSHADOW_80 wait... is it a jacket or a skirt like article of clothing that can fit over a waist?

If it is the skirt like piece then that goes with Klatuu.  

Also the Wampa and Taun Taun look to be in excellent shape.  It is hard to find a non yellowed Wampa or Taun Taun. 

Thanks. I'll have to check it out. It looks like it could be his skirt/kilt lol.

[fantastic_four]

17 minutes ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

The first set of troopers i got off the pegs and made sure to self check out as i heard sometimes the cashiers would see that 8/14 street date and not want to sell them even though it's not register locked.

My current understanding is that Target's system has two dates that can be attached to an item--a shelf date and a street date.  The shelf date is the date they're supposed to put it on the shelves, and the street date is the first date it will successfully ring up in the registers.  In my experience if employees are familiar with either of these dates they don't know the difference between them and may refuse to fetch and/or sell them to you because they think the shelf date is a street date, so yea, if either is attached to an item the self-checkout registers are best.  If there's a street date your only option if you don't want to lose an in-demand item you get your hands on is to take it to customer service and see if they will hold it for you until the street date hits.  I've never done this myself, but I've heard tales of others doing it.

If you ask employees to let you look at the smartphones they all carry most will freely let you look at the screens of their inventory system.  I've seen both of those fields in their system when an employee let me review the screens.

[fantastic_four]

21 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

I've never understood why they put them on the shelves if they won't sell them

When that happens I assume it's the employees doing the stocking paying no attention at all to shelf or street dates, or seeing them and knowing about them but just not caring.  Most of the time I'm sure they don't notice they're even there since most items at Target don't have those dates.

[fantastic_four]

29 minutes ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

The thing is in this case the vendor hasbro made a public post on their twitter and instagram page they were releasing them early because of the preorder fiasco.

That's what I heard too, that Target originally had a street date but later removed it due to this.  But there's still a shelf date, and as always there's roughly a 50/50 chance any given employee won't know the difference between the two.

So at the local Target that has a case the ideal situation is I find an employee who pays no attention to the dates and just fetches them for me.  If I hit an employee that doesn't know the difference I might try another employee or just try again a day or two later and hope to hit a helpful employee, and keep repeating that until I either cycle through so many who either won't help or confuse the dates that I just give up.  Since none have been put out in my area yet the stores are mostly wiped out I assume other collectors have already tried to pull them from the one store that still has them but failed.  Meh, that's just how it goes.  Sometimes you have to try several employees to get it, sometimes you can't get it at all.

One good thing about this is that as far as I've been able to tell Target employees switch roles and departments a lot.  I've seen stores where one employee tends to works toys a lot, but not often.  I think most stores just randomly plug someone to work any given department for any given day.  That's an advantage with toys in the back--if you can find someone who will go look back there eventually you can probably find one who either ignores the dates or knows what a street date is.  I've had visits where I asked four different employees walking through the general area of toys to go check for something in the back.  Some will say they don't know where stuff is, some won't want to do it at all, some are helpful.  In general though you can try almost any Target employee, not just the one or two you see working specifically in toys that day.  I've had employees working nearby in sporting goods or even the food section fetch toys for me.  Usually the electronics employees will do it though so they're the first I try if no employees are in the toy section at a given time.

You can also do all of this via the phone by connecting either to Customer Service or Electronics when you call.  If you get lucky with this they may hold it for you at Customer Service.  If you don't you tend to have better luck in the store.

Edited August 4, 2020 by fantastic_four

[ADAMANTIUM]

39 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

Usually someone made a mistake by putting things like this out.  Then the space where they were in the stock room is shuffled about or filled in so bringing back an endcap of product is not an easy task since all the other shelves around it have been adjusted to accommodate that product. 

If stores sell items before the street date there actually can be penalties for the vendor.   When I worked for Disney they actively went after people that violated street date rules.  I remember there even being rewards if you had a dated receipt that showed you bought a particular video or DVD before the street date. 

This is especially true of Gamestop, who has to work with providers. Last I remember Nintendo was the big stickler about releasing, and it always seems to change. Being paid up or reserved seems like a good option that the game store has taken, wonder how other's would feel about the same being offered at retailers like Target or Walmart etc. might create somewhat a hassle, but it would make sure that enough product was ordered at the same time, which also may affect the market  

Just kind of thinking out loud, perhaps it's good the way it is, the bemoaning with so many items and outlets hasn't "reached the heavens" yet   

[fantastic_four]

27 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

That's what I heard too, that Target originally had a street date but later removed it due to this.  But there's still a shelf date, and as always there's roughly a 50/50 chance any given employee won't know the difference between the two.

So at the local Target that has a case the ideal situation is I find an employee who pays no attention to the dates and just fetches them for me.  If I hit an employee that doesn't know the difference I might try another employee or just try again a day or two later and hope to hit a helpful employee, and keep repeating that until I either cycle through so many who either won't help or confuse the dates that I just give up.  Since none have been put out in my area yet the stores are mostly wiped out I assume other collectors have already tried to pull them from the one store that still has them but failed.  Meh, that's just how it goes.  Sometimes you have to try several employees to get it, sometimes you can't get it at all.

One good thing about this is that as far as I've been able to tell Target employees switch roles and departments a lot.  I've seen stores where one employee tends to works toys a lot, but not often.  I think most stores just randomly plug someone to work any given department for any given day.  That's an advantage with toys in the back--if you can find someone who will go look back there eventually you can probably find one who either ignores the dates or knows what a street date is.  I've had visits where I asked four different employees walking through the general area of toys to go check for something in the back.  Some will say they don't know where stuff is, some won't want to do it at all, some are helpful.  In general though you can try almost any Target employee, not just the one or two you see working specifically in toys that day.  I've had employees working nearby in sporting goods or even the food section fetch toys for me.  Usually the electronics employees will do it though so they're the first I try if no employees are in the toy section at a given time.

You can also do all of this via the phone by connecting either to Customer Service or Electronics when you call.  If you get lucky with this they may hold it for you at Customer Service.  If you don't you tend to have better luck in the store.

One other thing to note...this sounds like a lot to keep track of, but at least Target employees will try to help you.  Good luck getting ANYTHING out of a Walmart employee.  In my area specific Walmart employees are assigned to the toy section, but if you can't find that one person then nobody can or will help find anything at all.  I know who two of my local Walmart toy managers are, but I RARELY see them.

A big part of the reason Walmart employees don't help you is because they simply can't.  If Walmart can sell something it's out on the shelves, and if they can't it won't be.  So employees can't really help with that.  Walmart is far quicker about putting things out.  Usually when they get something in it goes to the shelves within hours, or 24 hours at most.  So the moment you see a Popfindr or Brickseek count go up at Walmart it's probably already on the shelves.  The usual cycle is it comes in overnight and gets stocked early morning.

[STORMSHADOW_80]

Picked up some more troopers just now. I still need to find Beach Head

[F For Fake]

2 hours ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

You just have to self checkout. Eazy peesy

And the computer doesn't stop you? That's what I ran into before, but if not, that's great!

[fantastic_four]

I just called the one Target showing 6 in my area, switched to Electronics, and asked him to check the DPCI.  He said there were 2 on the floor and 4 in the back, but that he couldn't sell them to me because they were street dated.  I told him that my understanding of Target's system is the shelf date/street date thing and that these figures were shelf dated but not street dated.  He claimed he was seeing a street date in the system, but he said he'd try to ring one from the floor up.  He did, and it let him.  So I'm betting he was actually looking at a shelf date.  He said he'd put all 6 at Customer Service for me and I should be able to come get them in an hour or two.  

I still only give it a 50/50 shot they're actually there when I get there.  I've had this fail before, and usually it's because they weren't able to find it in the back.  I also had a Legends Red Hulk mysteriously sold from the back an hour after I had asked for it to be held a few months ago.  I suspect foul play from one of the employees on that one, but who knows, they're not well paid so I don't hold grudges against Target employees.  It's still light years better than blindly visiting a store and hoping you find what you're looking for on the shelf...that method results in DOZENS of dry runs.

Edited August 4, 2020 by fantastic_four

[fantastic_four]

One note about shelf date versus street date--when a Target employee showed me those dates (I explicitly asked them if I could look at their inventory screens and they didn't mind) they were on two completely separate screens in the system.  I bet if they were both on the same screen the employees wouldn't confuse the two.

Edited August 4, 2020 by fantastic_four

[fantastic_four]

26 minutes ago, STORMSHADOW_80 said:

Picked up some more troopers just now. I still need to find Beach Head

Grats!  How many you going for?

I'm not sure how many I want yet.  I'll open one and figure it out from there, but with extreme in-demand items like this I prefer to buy first and figure out how many to keep later.  I've currently got 7 Legends Hydra troops and 6 Legends AIM troops.  Hasbro is about to release an X-Men Hellfire Club goon troop building figure that I bet I buy at least three of depending upon how customizable they are.  The goons are shown on the cover below...these specific goons were sliced and diced by Wolverine and later became Reavers, who were also the guys featured in the "Logan" movie who were trying to catch X-23.

Edited August 4, 2020 by fantastic_four

[STORMSHADOW_80]

21 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

And the computer doesn't stop you? That's what I ran into before, but if not, that's great!

Yep i just self checked out again. I didn't want to take any chances.

[fantastic_four]

I've watched five reviews of the Cobra trooper now and they're ALL glowing.  Two of those put it somewhere in the top three figures of the year.  The design of the goggles looks REALLY good...apparently it will go either over their eyes or also over the helmet.  Lots of room for customizing looks.

I've only heard three consistent complaints:

• The guns have huge pegs on them to port them into the figure's back.  Porting them in is great, but out of the back the huge pegs look dumb.  Minor gripe there.
• The vest significantly hinders articulation and you can barely use the ab crunch.
• You can't take the vest off without cutting it.  If the vest were removable you could both use the ab crunch and customize trooper appearance better in having some troops with the vest and some without.

[STORMSHADOW_80]

7 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

Grats!  How many you going for?

I'm not sure how many I want yet.  I'll open one and figure it out from there, but with extreme in-demand items like this I prefer to buy first and figure out how many to keep later.  I've currently got 7 Legends Hydra troops and 6 Legends AIM troops.  Hasbro is about to release an X-Men Hellfire Club goon troop building figure that I bet I buy at least three of depending upon how customizable they are.  The goons are shown on the cover below...these specific goons were sliced and diced by Wolverine and later became Reavers, who were also the guys featured in the "Logan" movie who were trying to catch X-23.

Thanks. I'd like to keep 7 or so. I got a couple for my buds. These extras I'll probably use to trade someone for Beach Head for me and my boys.

[STORMSHADOW_80]

1 minute ago, fantastic_four said:

I've watched five reviews of the Cobra trooper now and they're ALL glowing.  Two of those put it somewhere in the top three figures of the year.  The design of the goggles looks REALLY good...apparently it will go either over their eyes or also over the helmet.  Lots of room for customizing looks.

I've only heard three consistent complaints:

• The guns have huge pegs on them to port them into the figure's back.  Porting them in is great, but out of the back the huge pegs look dumb.  Minor gripe there.
• The vest significantly hinders articulation and you can barely use the ab crunch.
• You can't take the vest off without cutting it.  If the vest were removable you could both use the ab crunch and customize trooper appearance better in having some troops with the vest and some without.

It's a very awesome figure. You should run to your target where they are holding them before someone else gets a chance to complain about you getting 6.

[Buzzetta]

According to online inventory searches, there are six Beachheads at my Target... as I took the car out a tree fell and landed across someone else's property which was a shock... so I turned around and came home to find my grill and patio set turned over in my yard.  Yeah... I'm good and will stay put.

Winds are dying down but they are still blowing over stuff that already cracked during the stronger winds a few hours earlier. 

[reptilekingdie]

Haven’t bought Funko pops in a while but needed to get these for sure, just missing Dave Lombardo baddest drummer ever. Damn I miss Hanneman! I will be adding a Hanneman piece to the back eventually!

Edited August 4, 2020 by reptilekingdie