What Is Walmart Thinking With Their Vintage Collection Deluxe Orders?

This is another one of my highly anecdotal articles about brick and mortar. I’m basing this discussion on my one local Walmart store, so take it for what it's worth. This doesn’t necessarily project to the state of brick and mortar as a whole, though looking at social media, it might not be far off. My store got a case of eight deluxe IG-12 figures a few weeks ago. They quickly sold six. Two straggled until they sold this past weekend, and then this store stocked a second case of eight for a grand total of sixteen IG-12 figures. I'm willing to bet that the first eight satisfied most of the demand in the area, and the second eight are clearance fodder walking.

If this were a regular case assortment, my Walmart decided it needed eight cases worth of IG-12 (assuming it would have been packed at two per case). The last time this store stocked that many cases of an assortment was 2021 when, over time, they rolled out nine cases of the infamous Lando wave (and yes, all the Lando figures eventually sold). I honestly can’t remember the last time this location stocked a case of basic TVC figures. It certainly extends far back into last year. This means they have eschewed blockbuster figures like the recent Luke and Anakin, in order to double down on IG-12.

So, in the purchasing manager’s opinion, they needed zero Lukes and a dozen plus four of IG-12’s. What the heck are they thinking? Of course, the answer to that question is that they’re not. By the time I finished typing out the subject line of this article, I had put more thought into the subject of TVC at Walmart than the entire Walmart corporation has done in the past year. Trying to analyze this at the character level is like trying to analyze why my dog tried to eat the dime that fell out of my pocket. In both cases, reasoned thought does not apply.

Walmart wouldn’t know if these cases had eight IG-12 figures, or four Swimming Jar Jars and four half-eaten tuna sandwiches. Likewise, they probably don’t know that the Wave 1 case contains two Lukes and two Anakins. Walmart’s annual TVC gross sales is statistically zero percent of their total gross sales. It would be borderline irresponsible of them to dig too deep into this. All they see is a SKU, an MSRP, and a cost. At best they know the codename, and would probably be shocked to see the name “IG-12” instead of “Ooga”.

To us, it seems illogical. They're willing to take a product that some of which will likely be taking up residence on the clearance pegs at some point, over a product that is virtually assured to sell through. I could also argue that the same goes for a lot of TBS product. A good percentage of it seems to never sell, yet it meets very little resistance on the way to brick and mortar, while TVC basic figures face massive headwinds.

In both the case of TVC deluxe and TBS, the answer to their easy path to store shelves likely lives in that higher MSRP, or more accurately, better margin. This is purely my conjecture, but I have to imagine with things that are largely unimportant to their bottom line, Walmart doesn’t give two flips about maximizing upside. They only care about minimizing downside risk. The better margins afforded to them by the higher MSRPs on TBS and TVC deluxe allows them to clearance the unsold product without taking on too much loss (if any).

Managing the slimmer margins of TVC basic figures takes more intimate knowledge of the product. I think that explains why we’re seeing a continued migration of TVC basic figures to the more boutique corners of e-tail. I don’t love it, but it is what it is. I almost wonder if the four “all channel” waves we seem to be getting each year even make sense. Maybe TVC’s brick and mortar offerings should just be “greatest hits” which offer a little more safety from the clearance aisle.

As a postscript, the one way that TVC seems to easily hit Walmart sales floors these days is with special shippers like last year’s Dark Side shipper. Yak Face brings us good news that Baylan Skoll and his wave-mates appear destined for this year’s “Power of the Force” shipper.

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