Star Wars Black Series

Can't speak to the wider whole, but the couple of Walmarts near me that I have been in recently seem to be moving the Black Series figures fairly well. I think the troopers, especially the AT-AT Driver, are the ones I see the most. Everything else doesn't seem to be selling as much. One Walmart already put the RC AT-AT on sale for $20Cdn off (from $90).
 
Around me, they're selling decently well. I think I've only seen Ward once or twice in person. Same with the deluxe Mando/Grogu pack. There may be an AT-RT Driver or Remnant Trooper sprinkled in there, but it's mostly the AT-AT Driver and the Target Remnant trooper (the poopy trooper). I know it's not part of the wave proper, but Pagodon Mando sold pretty well too.

Oh, and Bazil. Poor Bazil will be warming the pegs for the rest of time.
 
I can't remember the last time I saw Black Series figures at a Walmart in my city. Maybe a year ago?
 
Damien said:
I can't remember the last time I saw Black Series figures at a Walmart in my city. Maybe a year ago?
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Did any of your Walmarts get that little black cardboard display piece? It came with a bunch of SW stuff, but only one or two cases of Black Series (the black boxes and the white boxes are what I have seen).
 
canprime said:
Did any of your Walmarts get that little black cardboard display piece? It came with a bunch of SW stuff, but only one or two cases of Black Series (the black boxes and the white boxes are what I have seen).
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Not that I saw.
The only displayers I've seen for action figures of any sort were the Mario one and, super surprisingly, the new MOTU one.
 
Damien said:
Not that I saw.
The only displayers I've seen for action figures of any sort were the Mario one and, super surprisingly, the new MOTU one.
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Yeah that is strange considering SW still has a big enough draw for retail that they never really have left the shelves even when Black Series was gone.

As to MOTU, I have yet to see that shipper display anywhere around me so far. Could be the whole thing where certain stores/regions get stuff and others don't.
 
canprime said:
Could be the whole thing where certain stores/regions get stuff and others don't.
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The Walmarts across the entire city here, and even outside the city, seem to have largely just abandoned action figures besides WWE stuff and -maybe- Transformers. Everything else they have seems to be the same stuff they've had for months and months; stragglers from earlier stuff that never sold through like Stranger Things and some of the kid-focused Marvel and Star Wars stuff. Besides that, they got in loads and loads of Mario movie product. And with them getting in the MOTU shipper - my guess is the local Walmarts here are focusing solely on whatever has an immediate tie-in and a displayer.

I don't think there's a Mando movie displayer, so apparently they'll just throw up their hands and go 'whatever, we've got some Star Wars toys and that's good enough.'
 
Damien said:
The Walmarts across the entire city here, and even outside the city, seem to have largely just abandoned action figures besides WWE stuff and -maybe- Transformers. Everything else they have seems to be the same stuff they've had for months and months; stragglers from earlier stuff that never sold through like Stranger Things and some of the kid-focused Marvel and Star Wars stuff. Besides that, they got in loads and loads of Mario movie product. And with them getting in the MOTU shipper - my guess is the local Walmarts here are focusing solely on whatever has an immediate tie-in and a displayer.

I don't think there's a Mando movie displayer, so apparently they'll just throw up their hands and go 'whatever, we've got some Star Wars toys and that's good enough.'
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The closest ones to me are weird.

For the longest time they were a desert, but in the last year+ they have become less a desert and more a mirage. I have been finding single cases of a lot of more recent releases in ML and Classified. Also a little bit with BS. I have seen the Lifeline wave and the Monkeywrench wave, along with the Mindbender Retro wave once or twice (again only one case). Though no sign of the Wet-Suit wave. Same with ML, but mostly the Retro stuff. I just saw the latest Spiderman Retro wave (Hypno-Hustler, etc). I have also seen the Animated Chameleon wave. Not really any of the recent BAF stuff. BS is the same. Outside of the new Mando stuff I have seen the ANH Luke wave, the one-armed Jedi/former Jedi guy wave, etc.

So it seems like when they want Walmart can give us a bit of shelf presence, but they just don't seem to care enough to do it regularly. I will be interested to see what happens with MOTU as I haven't seen the shipper display yet, but I did find a Merman and Trap Jaw recently.
 
canprime said:
So it seems like when they want Walmart can give us a bit of shelf presence, but they just don't seem to care enough to do it regularly.
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The fact that they CLEARLY don't prioritize stocking the toy section with current toys is a big part of why I think we're safe in assuming that toys just don't sell like they did even several years ago. The economy has crippled this kind of nonsense luxury purchasing for the middle class.
 
Have we gotten a Jabba's Palace Luke without the big belt buckle and with a non-pinned / butterfly shoulders body? Or do we just have the Light Cruiser and end-of-ROTJ versions?
 
GrumpyMatt said:
Why should they move fast? They're mostly repaints and, as I understand it, most of the figures out there appear for the first 10 minutes and aren't seen again. Thankfully, I guess, they could pop a subpar sculpted head on a pilot body and have at least one major character as a standard release.

It used to be that there was some effort put into movie waves, with major characters, new sculpts, etc. There was barely any effort put into the Black series releases this time around.
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I agree - this wave is a disappointment to me. Which is why I was curious if it was doing well anywhere.

I sure hope Hasbro cut distribution short on Wv1 - with Mando not even being part of it - and only one speaking character (I guess technically two since one of these pilots had a line). Wv2 at least has characters with names and some color. It's drab, though.
 
Obviously Black Series are aimed at collectors, but I'm sure there's also a part of Hasbro that was banking on new buyers as well- the people who are being introduced to Mando- or even Star Wars- for the first time, and want to go out and pick up a trooper or two. I mean, yeah, they're not exactly leading with their best foot forward; I think even your average joes are still gonna want some named characters over a bunch of faceless troopers, but you never know.
 
joshsquash729 said:
Obviously Black Series are aimed at collectors, but I'm sure there's also a part of Hasbro that was banking on new buyers as well- the people who are being introduced to Mando- or even Star Wars- for the first time, and want to go out and pick up a trooper or two. I mean, yeah, they're not exactly leading with their best foot forward; I think even your average joes are still gonna want some named characters over a bunch of faceless troopers, but you never know.
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First thing people tend to want is the main character. The second thing people tend to want are people for the main character to beat up. Everything else is tertiary. My understanding, after not yet having seen the film, is that Mando fucks up a lot of regular trooper guys very early on, and it's likely Hasbro was banking on fans (kid and adult) wanting to re-create that on their living room floors.
 
Good point. I'm sure Disney's secrecy with things didn't help either, so they were probably limited on who they could put out right away. Not that I think it would really help all that much, but I do wonder why Hasbro doesn't do more cross-sell on the back of the boxes? Getting some of the MOTU movie figures recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see the other figures in the wave on the back of the box. I know companies tend to skip such things on more "collector-focused" items, since most collectors probably already know, but I think it could only benefit them, especially as more folks jump on to the brand. I feel like I've heard even somewhat seasoned collectors recently say "I didn't know they made a figure of so-and-so!" Don't they do it on the back of the Vintage Collection boxes, or am I thinking of something else?

On another note, I think Pulse just charged me for Lord Starkiller. That'll be sweet.
 
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