Target:  Feast or Famine

It's been feast or famine with Target recently. Sunday, I ventured out in the Pahonix night to pick up some items my wife needed, and took a detour to the toy aisle. I was shocked to find almost a full case of the Bo-Katan wave. Seems that someone picked up ol' Bib Fortuna before I got there. It's possible there were more cases that got picked through, no way to tell. And it comes on the heels of me finding multiple cases of the Emperor wave at a couple of Targets around the central part of town. I didn't see it with my own eyes, because I wasn't searching, but I understand that there were sightings of the Ahsoka wave as well. This is obviously great news, and shows signs of life at brick and mortar.

In the category of "maybe good/maybe bad" news," Target also recently released their exclusive Antoc Merrick / Blue Leader X-Wing. Many TVC collectors struggled mightily to find this item upon it's initial release. I happened to find one at this same Target within a couple of days of first reports of sightings. I've been a fan of Target during my time as a collector because I find their exclusives easy to track down. Even with limited quantities, the DPCI system has aided me in finding many exclusives over the years. I also find the staff their to be generally friendly and helpful. (As opposed to Walmart, where the answer is usually "Whatever we have is on the shelf, now please die." Plus, Walmart is gross. But recently, it seems that more X-Wings have found their way into collectors' hands. As usual, patience is the key to success. I happened to notice this same store restocked recently, and I ordered a 2nd one for pickup. As of today, that same store shows 8 in stock (although I couldn't find them yesterday on the shelf, possibly because there was no spot for them, which might explain why they are lingering so long in the back room.)

And as for potential bad news, the Droids exclusive figures (C-3PO, at least) are shipping to some folks who were lucky enough to successfully pre-order them during the very short window of opportunity. My order had change from "Pre-Order" to "Pre-Order December 19th" about 2 weeks ago or so. Today, I see that the status changed again to "Backordered-December 19th." I'm not sure exactly what that means. Maybe mine are still coming in a later shipment after the initial one sold through. Or as a friend warned me, it could mean that cancellation is imminent.

So the Target in-store experience seems to be improving with the at least the last 3 waves appearing on pegs, which is awesome. The Merrick exclusive did not go online for pre-order, and it looks like your mileage may vary with what you are able to find in stores. But the online pre-order experience is still not nearly what it should be. The micro-window is laughably small, and it remains to be seen if more will go up, or if these will even appear in stores at any point.

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