ATTENTION TARGET AND WALMART:  Why bother?

I'm not going to lie. I'm equal parts shocked and miffed that the nation's two largest big box retailers are apparently perfectly happy foregoing any sales the Star Wars section might generate this holiday season.

Before we dig deeper, we need to publish another reminder on who deserves the blame with respect to product at brick and mortar:

Blame Walmart and Target for what you find on the shelves at Walmart and Target. This has nothing to do with Hasbro. If you think Hasbro is willfully choosing to leave large open orders unfulfilled, your grasp on reality is tenuous.

This isn't even strictly a Vintage Collection issue. Despite having ample floorspace dedicated to both Vintage Collection and Black Series, Walmarts and Targets appear to be perfectly content generating zero sales from those pegs during the busiest shopping time of the year. It boggles the mind. Both retail outlets seem to be intent in cramming every other aisle with product to the point of becoming a fire hazard, yet were unwilling to order enough product to stock one of the most frequented aisles during the holiday shopping season. Again, this is almost a "no words" situation.

And it's not a case of the product selling quickly. Online inventory checkers allow us to "check" the aisles around the clock. My local stores have not received a speck of regular (i.e. non-exclusive) inventory in over a month. OVER A MONTH! DURING THE BUSIEST SHOPPING TIME OF THE YEAR!

It's a sad testament that I'm more inclined to make an incidental stop at Game Stop or Best Buy than I am at Walmart or Target. And the latter two are supposed to value foot traffic more than anyone else. I guess they don't value my impulse purchases of tasty Milano cookies.

At the onset of the Vintage Collection campaign, we were adamant that getting the attention of the big box retailers was critical. It seems we haven't moved the needle enough. If you haven't done so, we urge you to to sign the Vintage Collection petition. We are thrilled to have 8500 signatures, and consider the petition a massive success already, but we still think 10,000 signatures is the statement number. Big box is one of the targets of the campaign, and we would like them to see that statement.

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