Target SW action figure recall

[ryan123]

This is my first time posting. I was wondering if anybody knew what was going on with the Star Wars action figures at Target. I went into Target tonight like I always do to look if there was any new action figures. To my surprise they were wiped completely out. I thought they were all gone because the lowered the prices on the action figures to $4.99, but then I went to another Target to find the same thing. Surely there would be at least two or three that nobody wanted? I asked the employee that was near by what was going on. He informed me that there had been a recall on them. He told me he didn't know much else, maybe I could find something on the internet. I searched and searched and I couldn't find anything. That last wave did sit on the self for an incredibly long time, maybe that could be a possible reason? I don't know. Thoughts anyone?

[YAK_Chewie]

Hey Ryan, and welcome to the forums - glad to see you posting here.

I know you're not alone in seeing this as a couple other members reported it today as well:

I'm not sure why but the Target by me has pulled down every single basic carded star wars figure.

This is odd, checked mine today and the same thing. Anyone know what's going on?

I'm not sure exactly what it is, whether it's something internally at Target at this point or if there's some sort of direction coming from Hasbro. It's happening here in St. Louis too as some guys at http://www.coreplanets.com have also brought this up. I also have heard that some reps were taking back figures from TRU... but entire stock at Target? That's surprising...

Kind of weird when you consider that most of what has been on pegs lately has been anything BUT Legacy... didn't Hasbro pretty much blame collectors for lackluster sales with the Legacy line? Seems to me like it's been Clone Wars the past several months not moving - everywhere I've gone (and traveled some to various states), I've seen the same group of figures warming pegs at various retail chains. And the same thing is being reported by other collectors.

I don't have proof, but just giving my opinion here... I think it's as simple as Hasbro was too zealous with demand on the Clone Wars, and there's been a bottleneck with getting the later waves out. The same thing Hasbro claims happened to Legacy appears to be happening now to Clone Wars, at least from my perspective... maybe Hasbro is pulling these figures with some sort of reimbursement to the retailers, going to package them as BOGO's or something, then hope it makes room for the last couple waves of Clone Wars? Who knows.

So what's Hasbro going to do in light of what appears to be happening? Scale back on Clone Wars? That seems doubtful seeing all the repacks and sort we're seeing Hasbro have on tap for this Fall - and I think they're going to have some major problems considering a lot of what we see coming back out on the pegs has been pegwarming this past year. Yet they can't get the highly sought after EU wave back into the mix? How convenient.

It will be interesting to see what Hasbro comes back with as a response to the imminent inquiries about what's going on now, but I can't say that I really expect to see them give us answers that make much sense from our viewpoint. I know there's a growing sentiment this past year that they're not being honest with us, or are just not as good as they think there are in judging market demand (a lot of that has to do with character selection and case ratios; which I think they've regressed on since TAC).

Anyways, that's my two cents. No secret really as to how I've felt Hasbro has handled things the past year or so. Not just with the regular line, but Comic Packs too. Talk about some really bad business decisions. We've seen major miscalculations on their part with other lines too such as Indiana Jones, GI JOE, Iron Man, and Transformers to a lesser degree. So it's not just the Star Wars line... actually I don't think it's Star Wars at all; the license is still popular it's just a matter of handling it appropriately. Every few years we seem to see some bad marketing plans on their side, but also some great ones in other years. Hopefully we're in for a good stretch starting this Fall.

[zedhatch]

I have said it before but it bares repeating, I have seen this marketing ploy over and over again with GI Joe (Saturate with one wave and then bottleneck the others) and then of course its "The customers fault" But now it seems to be getting worse (Indy, Iron Man appears to be it as well, even wolverine origins, just try to find Colosus from that line).

But it appears to finally be biting them at last. My hope is that this bite is so strong they rethink thier stratagies (and quit bringing out 5 waves in one month).

[Lindsey]

It will be interesting to see how this progresses, my guess is they are trying to clear all the old style cardbacks out so when they bring out the new style they don't have the fancy new blue/black design clashing with the white and red style. Of course the pegwarming issue remains the most likely but I'm just thinking from a stylistic standpoint.

[Dressel Rebel]

I say whatever the reason, good riddance!!!!

I think I speak for just about everybody when I say how sick I was of looking at all of that pegwarming crap on the pegs. What an awful distribution year, I have never seen anything so bad in all of my years collecting, and I've been going on weekly toy runs for 15 years.

[Jedimaster-c]

And yet Hasbro ha never quite explained why some figures pegwarm and others are short packed.I lookeda the case assortment for the vintage line.The fist assortment has 2 Vaders in it.

[Bosskmr]

I don't have proof, but just giving my opinion here... I think it's as simple as Hasbro was too zealous with demand on the Clone Wars, and there's been a bottleneck with getting the later waves out. The same thing Hasbro claims happened to Legacy appears to be happening now to Clone Wars, at least from my perspective...

I don't think it's bottleneck of Clone Wars figures as the current waves shipping are all re-mix waves and those do not seem to sit for long on the pegs. The only CW figure that pegged warmed is Admiral Yularen. I think it's just a clean up process of getting out the new Blue carded figures

I've seen 1 Target (Natick Ma) completely cleaned out of ALL Star Wars figures from Hasbro. A different Target was cleaned out of just CW figures and a few SL (Plo Koon...etc). A TRU had a bunch of stock pulled as well

[YAK_Chewie]

You could be right, as I know different areas sometimes see different figures warming pegs.

I can say though, that I've seen the following Clone Wars figures for months on end now at many various retailers:

- Yularen
- Jawas
- ARF Trooper
- Whorm Loathsom
- Clone Trooper Echo
- Clone Trooper Denal
- Obi-Wan Kenobi (Space Suit)
- Padmé Amidala (Adventure Gear)
- Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid

Notice how most of those from the Clone Wars are all in early red card waves? Those seem to have been produced too heavily and sitting on pegs; hence why I think there could be some retailers shying away from ordering the later waves in the quantity that Hasbro expected. Those later waves are selling well when they hit, but are they really hitting in good quantities? Perhaps so in your area, but not really in the midwest.

I'd go so far to say that some of those would rival the notorious pegwarmers from Legacy:

- Ugnaught
- Bail Organa
- Pons Limbic
- Breha Organa
- Captain Needa
- Yarna d'al Gargan

Regardless of what it is, there's certainly a problem when here we are just a couple months out from an all new line launching and the last three waves of Clone Wars are still not showing up in decent quantities. Not that it affects me much as I don't collect that line anyway, but I don't think things after Christmas have panned out for Hasbro with the Clone Wars line like they expected. I could be wrong though, and really doubt that even if if this theory was 100% spot on that Hasbro would admit it.

[Bosskmr]

- Yularen
- Jawas
- ARF Trooper
- Whorm Loathsom
- Clone Trooper Echo
- Clone Trooper Denal
- Obi-Wan Kenobi (Space Suit)
- Padmé Amidala (Adventure Gear)
- Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid

Notice how most of those from the Clone Wars are all in early red card waves? Those seem to have been produced too heavily and sitting on pegs; hence why I think there could be some retailers shying away from ordering the later waves in the quantity that Hasbro expected. Those later waves are selling well when they hit, but are they really hitting in good quantities? Perhaps so in your area, but not really in the midwest.

I agree with you that they're pegwarmers however there is always room on the pegs for lots more figures even with a few pegwarmers from the CW line. Even if the pegs do get filled they quickly sell out of CW figures. The wave that has these in it ( Yularen, Jawas, ARF Trooper, Whorm Loathsom, Clone Trooper Echo & Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid) also had Mace & Gree in it. They were shipping heavy during the holidays then stopped. I thought they were long gone then about 2 months into 2010 they started showing up again.

Denal & Super Battle Droid have started showing up in a new re-mix case at Targets which has these as well (R2-D2, Cody, Rex, Destroyer Droid, Dooku, Cold Ankin, Cold Obi, Anakin, Obi & Ahsoka)

I really think hasbro is eager to have all the White & red cards wiped from retail and get the new blue/black cards out ASAP. All the sudden we've had price cuts on figures from TRU, Target, Walmart & HasbroToyShop.com....I think Hasbro sent them the word "get rid of your old stock NOW!!!"

[zedhatch]

I think Wal-Mart just jumped in on this too. I went a few towns over on business and stopped there looking for Iron man figures. Anyway this WM I stop at once a month at least and generally I know the patterns of stocking, but it was wiped out of everything besides the latest CW wave (only one set) this had Needa and Ugnaughts for months (nevermind all the CW stuff, loaded). This is also a collector free zone apparently cause I tend to find hard to find Items there.

So on the way back home I stop at the next towns WM (One I visit more frequently about once a week maybe) and same thing, they were loaded last week as well now same exact thing, a few legacy from the latest wave and a few CW from the latest wave. I move on to my local WM (which I had stopped at just yesterday) SAME THING, I wouldn't have called it loaded but pretty thick with CW stuff yesterday, today just latest wave (barely one set if that) and some odds and ends of Legacy.

Something is afoot.

[YAK_Chewie]

- Yularen
- Jawas
- ARF Trooper
- Whorm Loathsom
- Clone Trooper Echo
- Clone Trooper Denal
- Obi-Wan Kenobi (Space Suit)
- Padmé Amidala (Adventure Gear)
- Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid

Notice how most of those from the Clone Wars are all in early red card waves? Those seem to have been produced too heavily and sitting on pegs; hence why I think there could be some retailers shying away from ordering the later waves in the quantity that Hasbro expected. Those later waves are selling well when they hit, but are they really hitting in good quantities? Perhaps so in your area, but not really in the midwest.

I agree with you that they're pegwarmers however there is always room on the pegs for lots more figures even with a few pegwarmers from the CW line. Even if the pegs do get filled they quickly sell out of CW figures. The wave that has these in it ( Yularen, Jawas, ARF Trooper, Whorm Loathsom, Clone Trooper Echo & Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid) also had Mace & Gree in it. They were shipping heavy during the holidays then stopped. I thought they were long gone then about 2 months into 2010 they started showing up again.

Denal & Super Battle Droid have started showing up in a new re-mix case at Targets which has these as well (R2-D2, Cody, Rex, Destroyer Droid, Dooku, Cold Ankin, Cold Obi, Anakin, Obi & Ahsoka)

I really think hasbro is eager to have all the White & red cards wiped from retail and get the new blue/black cards out ASAP. All the sudden we've had price cuts on figures from TRU, Target, Walmart & HasbroToyShop.com....I think Hasbro sent them the word "get rid of your old stock NOW!!!"

And of that wave, Mace and Gree sold pretty good. Other figures did not.

And I don't disagree one bit that Hasbro wants to have the older cards wiped out at retail in preparation for the new line in August - my whole thing is, the exact same thing that haunted Legacy last year appears to be haunting the Clone Wars now.

Certain Clone Wars figures have been sitting around for months on end that just aren't in demand; which mirrors a similar situation with Legacy from 2009. When that happened last year, Hasbro took it as a cue with Legacy that there was a dimishing level of support from collectors. Will they view this the same way with Clone Wars in that there is a diminished level of support from kids? Or will they instead see it as a combination of shoddy distribution, bad case ratios and overproduction of less desireable figures as being the actual culprit?

[TB9153]

even after reading this it was still weird to see all empty pegs at my super target. It seems that in my area legacy figs were peg warming 10 to 1 compared to clone wars figs. This also sucks for the reason that TRU already put their prices back up, but targets were still listed at 4.99

[darthmadonna]

My target was cleaned out today. They had a lot of legends pegwarming, handful of clone wars and about only 3 legacy.

[StooperZero]

Or will they instead see it as a combination of shoddy distribution, bad case ratios and overproduction of less desireable figures as being the actual culprit?

WINNER!!!!





The same thing is happening around here. No restocking and only peg warmers are here ( bail/breha/Ugnaughts)


IMHO just making space to drown us in 100's of "Vintage" figures that we'll get sick of seeing in a week.

As for COllecting, Just a few I want that are coming out and getting the AT-AT. That's it for me UNLESS they bump out more larger scale vehicles.

[YAK_Chewie]

I'm looking forward to the vintage line - not just for the nostalgia of some old school cards (that I'll open anyway), but as a continuation of the quality of figures we saw in most of Legacy.

I just hope we don't see the retailers have something like 12 pegs for Clone Wars, 8 for Legends and 4 for Vintage. I can totally see that happening.