A Stark Reminder That “Better” Is A Relative Term

This particular Walmart store has been frequently featured here as it's a bit of an anomaly. It was one of the few Walmart stores in the region to actually stock the Vintage Collection during "Wookiee Weekend", and except for a momentary blip on the radar, has had allocated space for the Vintage Collection since. It was also the first store in the region to correctly label its solitary Vintage Collection peg.

That initial stock of wave 1 resulted in this store retaining 3 likely unsalable figures. Since April, this store has had two Jyn figures and one Snoke figure on its peg. Brick Seek would accurately reflect this with an inventory of 3. Then came news ttat wave 2 made its way to the east coast, and I once again checked Brick Seek. This store's inventory jumped from 3 to 7. I knew what that meant. Wave 2 arrived and the four new figures sold immediately, leaving behind the four toxic carry forward figures. I drove out to this location and confirmed it. In addition to those three figures that had been there for months, there was a freshly pegged Kylo, Rey, Snoke, and First Order Stormrooper all with the telltale wave 2 tape-less bubbles.

This past Sunday, the Brick Seek inventory jumped again to 15. Those 7 figures, plus a fresh new case which most assuredly would be the highly desirable wave 3:



When the inventory still showed 15 today, I decided to make the trek knowing in advance that this likely meant that new inventory was never stocked. Sure enough, I was greeted with the same solitary peg stocked out to the end and headlined by the same Jyn figure that is fast approaching a half year on the peg:



Scanning the fully occupied peg reveals the sinister seven of 2x Jyn and Snoke, and 1x Kylo, Rey, and the First Order Stormrooper:



We have a familiar and unfortunate situation. This store likely has a case of eight desirable figures rotting in the storeroom that, given the chance, would sell quickly thus demonstrating the Vintage Collection's viability. But unless something changes, those figures will never see the light of day because of the 7 absolutely unsalable figures blocking their way. Now this store's takeaway will be that the Vintage Collection does not sell.

There are only two solutions. The easiest is if Walmart increases their Vintage Collection footprint so that the salable figures are not choked out. This is almost assuredly going to happen as most stores (as does this one) still have nearly empty pegs dedicated to the defunct Black Series 3.75" line that one has to assume will eventually be reallocated to the Vintage Collection. In this specific store's case, that will mean growing TVC from one peg to three. But that's really more of a temporary fix. Unsalable figures are still going to be unsalable, and when footprints contract after the holidays, those same figures are likely going to choke out 2019 product and the cycle continues. The only real solution is a familiar one. Hasbro needs to send reps out to Walmart and Target to remove this toxic inventory. I would feel bad, but when every single customer was warning them that the launch wave was disastrous (including myself in person at two different events) and they then double down on those terrible selections via carry-forward, well, a little penance is in order.

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