Missing Warbird is *killing* me, and now I’m regretting not grabbing an overseas preorder: looks like Star and Robot Kingdom are sold out now. Grr. Missed Carnage too, and VERY worried about Venom.
I'm guessing Ryan was just thinking they'd split the new Venom and Carnage up between retailers--Target gets Carnage because he's red, Walmart gets Venom because he's slightly blue.
Honestly, I believe for awhile now Target has shifted emphasis of their store exclusives to store shelves and in-store purchases. They stopped putting some product up for pre-order at all and with their exclusives I believe they truly want them to drive foot traffic, not just online sales.
So I think they put a very small allotment of their exclusive for pre-order on the site and the figure will be findable in-store.
It makes sense if you think about it. For a long time we've been told that action figures in general aren't a profit center for Target and Wal Mart but they stock them to draw people to the store to buy other stuff. On-line pre-orders really defeat that purpose. So they'd rather lose out on some on-line sales to drive more people into their actual stores where they are much more likely to purchase additional items.
Honestly, I believe for awhile now Target has shifted emphasis of their store exclusives to store shelves and in-store purchases. They stopped putting some product up for pre-order at all and with their exclusives I believe they truly want them to drive foot traffic, not just online sales.
So I think they put a very small allotment of their exclusive for pre-order on the site and the figure will be findable in-store.
Yep they've been doing that for years now. I'm MORE than fine with it--I enjoy going to Target or Walmart every once and a while--as long as they don't screw their inventory control up, and the most common way they've done that in recent years is they never even list some figures on their web site at all. When they're not on the Target site the third party inventory checkers like Popfindr can't get info about those figures. They did that with both of the X-Men '97 waves, and it was really, really irritating to not have any idea if the figures would be in the store when making a trip out to them.
Black Widow did have a target.com listing so it was easy for me to figure out when she was in my local stores, and the same appears to be true with Warbird. But I'm definitely slightly concerned enough that they'll screw something new up that I'll be watching inventory in my local stores like a hawk once we get within a few weeks of the July 21 release date.
The Warbird situation was my biggest toy disappointment during the outage. I had all the parameters set to narrow the search and started refreshing before 9am and I still didn't get her. I was on Target's website, not sure if it is better to search in the app? Maybe my phone and work Wi-Fi is too slow.
I ended up buying her from Star Action Figures in the UK. It will work out to about $14 more than finding her in store at the regular price.
Some kind soul found the URL ahead of time and shared it on one of the figure subreddits, so I was camped out refreshing on that page. I always struggle finding new products just by searching.
The more I think about it - the more I'm confident that Target deliberately allocated a very small allotment for pre-order to create a bit of collector panic about the figure and drive FOMO so that when it does hit store shelves people snatch it up rather than say "hmmm, I think I'll wait for clearance".
I missed Warbird too. I has already missed Carnage, and I was annoyed, but I'm not a huge symbiote fan, and I have a few good Carnage figures already, so I wasn't really put out by that so much. I figured, I'd re-learned that Target likes early morning pre-orders, and at least I'd be ready for Warbird.
So I'm on the West Coast, and I leave home for work around 6 am, so I was comfortably in the zone to check online at that time. And I'd set a few alarms so I would be ready to be ready when I needed to.
6 am arrives (9am eastern time), and I could not find Warbird's listing. I was trying both the app and the website. All on my phone, so maybe I'd have had more luck on a desktop. I didn't get to the right page until I checked marvelousnews, which had a link to the page.
Great. Clicked the link. Add to cart, go to cart to checkout and she's sold out already. It couldn't have been later than 6:03.
I agree that she should be pretty easy to find when she's finally released to the stores. But the bottom line is that Target likes to play games with these pre-orders, and the more I have to rely on them for exclusives, the more I grow to despise Target. Even Wal-Mart is better at pre-orders, and I had to slap my own face as I wrote that because of the existential contradictions the statement calls into being.
Thanks for letting me take a minute to rant. Fwoosh therapy.
Didn't care about Carnage, but I am interested in Warbird. Hoping she's easy to get once she's actually in stock. I didn't have a problem getting Black Widow online.
I am worried about Venom because he's a Walmart exclusive. I've been able to get most of them, but I just think back to the time I preordered animated Spider-Man and it sat in my orders saying "delayed" for an eternity. It might still be there, honestly.
Edit: just checked and animated Spider-Man is STILL in my orders as delayed. It's been almost two years 🤣
The more I think about it - the more I'm confident that Target deliberately allocated a very small allotment for pre-order to create a bit of collector panic about the figure and drive FOMO so that when it does hit store shelves people snatch it up rather than say "hmmm, I think I'll wait for clearance".
This feels right to me. I could be way off base, but I just feel like she won't be that hard to find.
The whole reason for these loss leaders is to create foot traffic. They don't make much money of the product itself. Ironically the free shipping over $35 orders has made me order toothpaste and laundry detergent multiple times. I even had some laundry detergent pre loaded in my cart the evening before but I missed the 150 second window like everyone else.
I missed out on Warbird (and apparently a full day’s worth of the forum reopening) so I’ll have to rely on in-person hunts. That worked out for me with Black Widow, but I had to get the Tracksuits from BBTS. I’m not worried yet.
I missed out on the Warbird preorder, but I'm sure I'll be able to find her once she hits stores. I didn't see Black Widow too often in stores (and definitely not during the Great Target ML Purge pricing), but I did see her a couple of times. Can only assume Warbird will be easier to find than BW.
Speaking of Carol, I'm surprised we haven't seen Hasbro take another crack at her Captain Marvel solo book look. The Faster Farther (or whatever her motto is) one which was part of the Odin wave. It's such a great modern-classic design and inspired her movie look. I imagine we'll see Hasbro release an update of that figure in the near future.
I'm not so sure about that. After the first Captain Marvel movie did a billion at the box office Carol was pushed as the new face of Marvel.... but now that The Marvels lost money at the box office and has one of the lowest critic and fan scores of any MCU film I think they may take the foot off the gas a little in terms of pushing Captain Marvel as the face of Marvel. Maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a slow down on the push for Carol related merch for a minute.
Carol's modern Captain Marvel look is one of the best redesigns they've come up with this century. A figure with updated articulation and sculpted costume details would be phenomenal.
I'm not so sure about that. After the first Captain Marvel movie did a billion at the box office Carol was pushed as the new face of Marvel.... but now that The Marvels lost money at the box office and has one of the lowest critic and fan scores of any MCU film I think they may take the foot off the gas a little in terms of pushing Captain Marvel as the face of Marvel. Maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a slow down on the push for Carol related merch for a minute.
I know Marvel's big Carol push coincided with their loss of the X-Men film rights, but there are like 10 X-Women who are more interesting than she is. Storm, Jean, Rogue, Kitty, and Magik would all make for better faces of the brand than Carol.
Marvel seems to have finally gotten the hint, though. Storm has been front-facing and incredibly badass since the Krakoa era started.
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