ATTN HABSRO:  Please Provide A Path For Carded Collectors And Walmart Exclusives

Hello, everyone. My name is Chris. I am a carded collector. I am also a loose collector. Both aspects are equally important to my enjoyment of the hobby. The reason I enjoy collecting carded is that I'm a sentimental old fool. Nothing connects me to the memories within the hobby more than the packaged product. It's why I've maintained some well curated POTF2 carded figures despite the fact that they are largely worthless to the rest of you. Seeing those carded samples takes me right back to those amazing times in the mid to late nineties.

It's an important and enjoyable facet of the hobby for me, and a great many other collectors. That is why nothing sends a shiver up our collective spines like the phrase "Walmart exclusive.” For you lucky souls who open all your figures, your woes end with the ordering process, which seems to have gotten much better after the Din Djarin with Child debacle. For carded collectors, that's only half the battle. We have to hope some of our orders survive the unkind shipping process from a retail behemoth whose world view is that product packaging is only meant to protect the item in transit, and therefore does not matter. From their perspective, as long as the figure arrives intact, their role in the transaction is complete. To be honest, that's not wrong in the grand scheme of things.

Before we continue, let's make some things perfectly clear with respect to Bantha Skull's stance on this:

• We are not advocating for the end of Walmart exclusives. That would be the ultimate example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. We know that the massive buying power of Walmart (and the other big retailers) is an invaluable resource in the battle for more.
• We don't expect Walmart to change their practices. As I've said before with respect to this, the man don't change the mountain. The mountain changes the man. TVC collectors versus Walmart is not David versus Goliath. It's the partially desiccated gnat stuck to the rock in David's slingshot versus Goliath.

The impetus for this article is the recent delivery of Walmart's exclusive LFL 50th figures. It really feels like their handling of the product has regressed mightily. The specifics of my personal experience are at the bottom of the article.

Hasbro: Given that Walmart exclusives must continue for the health of the line, and given that Walmart is an immovable object with respect to improving their adult collectible shipping practices, we must lean on you for a solution. All we're asking for is a path to decent carded samples for these exclusives. When things are a general release, we have that path. We can order from the specialty collector outlets like site sponsor Entertainment Earth, or others such as Big Bad Toy Store and Dorkside Toys who ship the items understanding that the packaging is the product for some collectors. When the items are the sole province of indifferent big box retailers, there is a feeling of hopelessness, especially with Walmart. Ideally this path would be one that does not inconvenience collectors who do not care about packaging, and we carded collectors can bare all the burden of our mania.

The ideal option, as we mentioned before HERE, is to make these items available to Fan Channel outlets once the big box retailer's run with the product has concluded. Another option is the "box in a box" solution you recently employed with the Black Series Amazon exclusives. Third, as has been suggested by our friend Victoria from Victoria's Cantina, ask the retailer to provide a second SKU where the collector can order by the shipper case instead of individual items. This seems like it would also offer a convenience to your retail partners. Fourth option…anything you can come up with. Anything that will allow those of us with the wicked compulsion to collect packaged products to have a viable option for acquiring decent samples. The current paradigm with big box does not. This isn't an "I told you so moment," but we pointed this out in the January 29th Q&A where we said that Walmart's treatment of these items borders on "willful damage" at times.

Please just give us a viable option, even if it hits us in the wallet. Now, it's time for my personal tales of woe with this most recent round of Walmart LFL 50th figures. Most of my orders were shipped in bubble envelopes. The bubbles were all crushed, so much so that some were coming off the card. The cards themselves were all mangled with creasing that broke through on both sides.



I did get an Endor Leia in an oversized box, but for some unfathomable reason, Walmart crammed and creased the card into a smaller box inside. Bizarrely, we've received multiple reports of this exact same thing happening to other collectors, but it's only with the Endor Leia:



Finally, what was supposed to be my final AT-ST driver came in a massive box. This gave promise that I might actually get a decent sample, but when I opend the package, it contained the wrong item:



Our friends at the Star Wars The Vintage Collection Group have done a great job of aggregating the shipping issues with this recent round of deliveries. If you're a member of the group, you can view the thread HERE.

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