I Have A Bad Feeling About This

Wave 2 of the "Orange" assortment of The Last Jedi Force Link figures contained a repack of the Jedha Jyn Erso figure from the Rogue One product line. That Rogue One figure shipped heavily, and is still plentiful at Toys R Us stores. This time the figure included the Force Link chip, so it was mildly upgraded. Despite shipping months ago, and in less quantity than the TLJ launch figures, this figure persists on the pegs. It has survived the holiday shopping frenzy and weeks of "clearance". To be fair, $5.00 isn't exactly a steep discount for a 5 POA figure. Regardless, this is troubling because of the commonality with the Vintage Collection relaunch wave.

As you all know, the relaunch wave of the Vintage Collection contains a repack of the Black Series Sergeant Jyn Erso figure. The parallels are numerous:

• The TBS Jyn Erso figure shipped heavily.
  
• The TBS Jyn Erso figure is still available on deep clearance.
  
• The re-release will be mildly "upgraded" via the Vintage Collection packaging.
  

Predicting a glacial sales pace for the upcoming Vintage Collection Jyn Erso figure hardly takes any forecasting skills. It's going to happen. Reports of "I walked into store x and all they had was Jyn," are definitely coming.

Here's the key: As long as the relaunch wave doesn't ship too heavily, we can survive this. However, if stores get multiple replenishments of the relaunch wave, it's 2012 all over again. We're immediately falling back into the retail death grip. For every figure that will sell, stores will also be acquiring a Jyn figure that might never sell. It's tough to trigger the replenishment of future cases when "immovable" figures are stockpiled.

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