How Do We Get Brick And Mortar To Care About The Vintage Collection Again?

You're going to tempted to TL;DR this one, but please don't. If you love the Vintage Collection, I implore you to read this and provide feedback in the comments.

As we reported on Saturday, I found the Mandlorian wave at at local Target thanks to a tip from our friend John from the Vintage Collection Facebook Group. This is great news and in no way do I mean to diminish that, but there was an underlying warning sign that cannot be dismissed: Despite the fact that the store had three Vintage Collection pegs which contained no TVC product, I had to ask for the product to be brought from the back. Furthermore, two of these Vintage Collection pegs were on the high profile Star Wars feature end cap and were adorned with non-Star Wars product. Lastly, this was early afternoon on a Saturday, when foot traffic was at its peak. Despite all these factors, this particular store had to be alerted to bother putting the product out.

How do we get Target to care enough to put out their backstock of TVC figures? Presumably, if the pegs are empty of inventory, there must be some trigger in their system that tells the team members to put new figures on the sales floor. I bought that case of Mandalorian wave figures which constituted their entire stock. It amounted to a $104 sale. That sounds like a decent transaction for a store like Target, where the average customer might buy a greeting card, a package of toilet paper, or a Blu-Ray. So again, why do they seem to not care? Is there something that tells the team it’s a slow seller? Is it de-prioritized for some reason?

In a second anecdote, my local Walmart store didn't stock the Vintage Collection Yavin Luke Skywalker figures until 8PM on December 23rd of the past year. They probably received these figures around the time of Black Friday. Had they put them out in a timely manner, they would have sold (I personally would have bought multiples). They apparently couldn't be bothered, and finally did so with roughly 10 hours left in the holiday shopping season. Eleven of the twelve figures remain to this day, which effectively ends this store's prospect of getting any more Vintage Collection product THIS YEAR! Furthermore, this my only local store to get this figure. Had they been spread around, they easily would have sold.

The hows and whys and whose fault it may be as to how we got here are irrelevant. We've already started assigning that muti-factorial blame back in 2011 (yes, 2011) when TVC's first warning signs emerged, and continued through 2013. Continuing to belabor that point isn't productive. It never solves the problem.

So how do we fix this going forward? How do we prove to retail giants like Target and Walmart that Vintage Collection is good business? I am of the opinion that getting some sort of brick and mortar presence for the Vintage Collection is critical to growing our numbers and getting more than a handful of newly tooled figures per year.

Or am I wrong and brick and mortar is a dinosaur? A collecting paradigm from a bygone era that no longer matters? Can TVC thrive without Target and Walmart? Am I fighting the wrong battle?

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