I disagree with a lot of the stuff regarding demand posted a week ago.

Hasbro clearly does not have a good analyst team in place to properly forecast manufacturing runs and supply issues for the most in-demand figures.  I have no idea how you could not know that 90's X-men are insanely popular and deserve much larger print runs, and wider, time-spaced distribution.  One of their biggest problems is 'everything all at once'.  Then there's either a glut of nonfactor figs or else they're a flash in the pan. 

Hasbro is still recovering from two years of subpar picks and a complete failure with windowless paper boxes that caused everyone to not want to buy their products.  That choice, in and of itself, showed a massive disconnect with their audience. 

There has hardly been a single good figure at the store in over a year.  All this tertiary crap.   They continue to fail at delivering Evergreens. 

Iron Spider and Iron Man WHATEVER are available at stores and that's fantastic. But it took two decades.

A friend texted a photo of their office to a group thread and my response was "needs more toys" along with a photo of the nearest figure-covered surface near me. They said they'd add some toys to their shopping list.

Here is that photo:

It hit me that only ONE of these figures was actually available everywhere and two were available at either Target/Walmart. That's... less than ideal.

It's time to consolidate, and focus on the 50-60 figures each year that more people want.  

Leave the special-order, obscure stuff to Pulse or something. 

I was thinking, and I hope that before they start releasing figures of the team's new uniforms, that they at least release the main team remaining member in wave 3:

A good line-up would be:

Beast

Jubilee

Morph

Sunspot

Bastion

Mr. Sinister

It would cover the main players of season 1. 

If I don't Cable from the show then forget anything else.  For me anyway, and I don't have a ton of confidence.

I also think rereleases are like a drink after surviving alcohol poisoning.  Hasbro is fortunate the show and line got hot after repeated failures recently.  I wouldn't push it, but rather hype whatever Wave 3 is and depending on that then maybe consider it.  Or if they want to make some characters (like Cable) and can't slot him in a wave then 2 packs.  Rogue and Gambit as Death together or something.  Wolverine and Young Apocalypse or Cable.

There's ways to get them back out there, but no hurry.

@nothing they may or may not have a grasp of what's in demand or not. Specific to this brand though, they probably had a solid idea how they would perform based on sales of the VHS figures. And a solid portion of the first wave hit clearance at big box retail so it wasn't necessarily underserved. They just got screwed by Disney pushing the show to 2024. Had it dropped when it was supposed to then those figures probably would never have hit the discount rack. They would have sold well and better than expected given that wave 2 pretty much sold through, but that's not a bad problem. They were easy to preorder and get for awhile so I think, at least in this instance, Hasbro did fine with its distribution.

Posted by: @misfit

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And a solid portion of the first wave hit clearance at big box retail so it wasn't necessarily underserved.

Did Walmart clearance these out? I'll always argue Target clearances waaaaayyy too quickly in favor of having zero stock on their shelves, so that doesn't necessarily count.

I believe so for wave 1, but there weren't many left when they did.

Posted by: @schizm

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Posted by: @misfit

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And a solid portion of the first wave hit clearance at big box retail so it wasn't necessarily underserved.

Did Walmart clearance these out? I'll always argue Target clearances waaaaayyy too quickly in favor of having zero stock on their shelves, so that doesn't necessarily count.

I never saw a single one of these figures at Walmart. 

Posted by: @schizm

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Posted by: @misfit

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And a solid portion of the first wave hit clearance at big box retail so it wasn't necessarily underserved.

Did Walmart clearance these out? I'll always argue Target clearances waaaaayyy too quickly in favor of having zero stock on their shelves, so that doesn't necessarily count.

Clearance is clearance, I don't think there's much use in deciding if it "counts" or not. Once a major retailer like Target puts something on clearance, Amazon and Best Buy typically follow due to price-matching algorithms I assume they make use of. I don't know what Walmart does.

Posted by: @misfit

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@nothing they may or may not have a grasp of what's in demand or not. Specific to this brand though, they probably had a solid idea how they would perform based on sales of the VHS figures. And a solid portion of the first wave hit clearance at big box retail so it wasn't necessarily underserved. They just got screwed by Disney pushing the show to 2024. Had it dropped when it was supposed to then those figures probably would never have hit the discount rack. They would have sold well and better than expected given that wave 2 pretty much sold through, but that's not a bad problem. They were easy to preorder and get for awhile so I think, at least in this instance, Hasbro did fine with its distribution.

They were never in stores here.

Most customers don't shop from Pulse or BBTS for entire wave cases, on pre-order. 

Some Targets got several boxes of Magneto and Bishop.   Gamestops stores received three figures each, all different.  That was it.  Walmarts here didn’t get anything.  That is not even remotely in the realm of 'good distribution'. 

I saw all of both waves at my Walmart and Gamestop. I don't think that I ever saw them at Target, though. The 2nd Magneto and X-Cutioner were on the pegs for a long time at my Walmart but are gone now. My Gamestop still has several of these figures but I don't necessarily remember which ones. They probably still have 6-8 total figures from these waves left but not the most popular ones (Wolverine and the first Magneto). From memory I think that Bishop, Jean, 2nd Magento and X-Cutioner are still there. Can't remember who else. Maybe Nightcrawler? That Gamestop has got a lot of stuff that has been clearanced out most places like the last D+ wave, X-Men training suit 3-packs, 20th anniversary Toad, Wolverine 2-packs, Avengers anniversary figures and stuff like that --- all still at full price.

@nothing not every region has the same demand. Maybe more customers should buy online? BBTS, EE, Amazon - the first wave was readily available on all three for those who couldn't find them in-store. Only figure that seemed hard to find after the initial preorders were sucked up was Wolverine. I'm not a Hasbro apologist and most would probably label me a "hater" when it comes to that company, but they made these available and demand went up once the show hit. That's a good problem to have. Hopefully they capitalize on the popularity of the show and manufacture and ship more of the figures people are looking for.

I saw every figure except Wolverine of wave one in stores a few times. I saw Wolverine and Rogue on various retailers site for months after the initial release. The only figures from wave 2 that I saw in store was X-Cutioner and Magneto.

I don't know why some people try to rely on physical stores for action figures in this day and age. This isn't the 2000s or early/mid 2010s. Just preorder figures as soon as they become available. 

@blackcomicnerd I didn’t want to collect this whole subline and normally want to see these figures in hand to see if they’d mesh well with other non-tv likenesses so from the first wave I only wanted Bishop and Wolverine, but it was really difficult to find Wolcerine at retail so I preprdered who I wanted from wave 2;  lesson learned!