Small Scale Military Headquarters

Although there are a number of you that may disagree with me as of yet, I think that the last few months have seen a tremendous boost in the avaliability and distribution of our small-scale military products. 21c is now avaliable not just at Wal Mart and online, but at TRU as well. BBI products are now being sold for cheap at Target, in addition to TRU and online. This is all very good news for us

Further, I think we have also seen hard evidence of just how crappy Wal Mart's distribution really is. Now, I have found most the new items and re-releases at Wal Mart this summer. However, in some cases it took over a month for them arrive and some items still have not shown. When the new stuff did arrive, it was scattered out over the 7 Wal Marts within a 30 mile radius of my location, not making them easy to find.

Contrast this with Toys R Us and Target. Toys R Us gets in the new stuff. My local stores did take their time, but still within 10 days of the first sighting, at least one of my stores had the new 21c items! Further, the items were not contained to one area of the country as Wal Mart products usually are. They have now been seen from the East Coast to the West Coast in under a month. Amazing!

Target is the same. It has only been a few days since the first sightings, but Targets from Florida to California have gotten in the BBI products. Heck, two Target stores in my area on the same street and seperated only by 3 miles have identical large selections of BBI products! Hows that for effective distribution?

Again, there are many who will disagree, but I still think that having 21c and BBI at TRU, Target, and Wal Mart is a great help for us. This summer has been one of the more "productive" summers for me as far as finding small-scale military products at mass retail. There were no wild goose chases like I had to make last year for the Avenger (still waiting for those in the Fresno Wal Marts ). I get the idea it has been the same for a number of other boardmembers as well!

Respond to this as you like, but I just had to share my positive thoughts

tmanthegreat wrote:Although there are a number of you that may disagree with me as of yet

* Raises hand.

But you get a gold star sticker for effort Tman!

My wife is a major Target addict, plus I don't mind going there. Plus, they are way more convenient for me to check. So having BBI there is a major, major bonus. Then, I'd much rather check TRUs for XD than deal with Walmarts. So, I'm with you Tman. Things are looking alot better on the 1/18 distribution front.

As an added bonus, I haven't been in a Walmart to check for anything in almost three weeks. That's good in itself.

I agree that this is a good thing however my biggest worry will be shelfwarmers, Target is great for pulling lines that sit on their shelves too long, I also noticed they mark down larger items right away ( star wars shuttles and snowspeeders), and TRU will clog the shelves for years with them (there are still Valor vs Venom in Orland Park)

sluff wrote:(there are still Valor vs Venom in Orland Park)

Wow, I spent hours and hours wandering around the Orland Park TRU back when I was a kid growing up in Worth back in the 80's! Glad to see they are still there! My Mom and Grandparents sure gave them enough of their money!

Totally agree. The availability of XD and BBI items at the other major retailers and on-line dealers make it more satisfying when looking for the newer items. Sure glad I don't have to scour all the different WM's now just to find stuff. On a side note, however, when I did visit a WM store today, I did find 3 Hotwheel cars from the 1997 and 1991 years which I thought was quite strange. Wonder where they got those cars from. Couldn't pass them up so I picked up all three of them. Also, one of the WM's clearanced out all their XD 1/18th figures including the new D-Day figs and the 1/32nd vehicles and playsets so I picked up some additional figures as well including several more artillery spotters.

I'm starting to think you people must live in some parallel dimension where merchandise actually gets delivered to stores.

With all this great news on distribution don’t mean a crap to me, I don’t live near a TRU and the closest target does not carry much in the toy department, so I will still have to either go to Wal-Mart or order online.

And lately it seems some of the web stores have started to inflate their prices a bit higher recently.

The overall trend is good. Still nothing new at my local TRU or Target stores, though. And it would be nice if they'd sell the same items at TRU.com and Traget.com (I know it will never happen at WalMart.com!).

VMF115 wrote:With all this great news on distribution don’t mean a crap to me, I don’t live near a TRU and the closest target does not carry much in the toy department, so I will still have to either go to Wal-Mart or order online.

Ha! Your lcuky man! I don't even live in the states so whay do TRU, Targt and WM carry in terms of toys? Nothing, zip,nada, zilch! The only time I can get my XD/1:32 fix is when I pay inflated prices and shipping online and when my family goes on vacation in the states (every 6 months). And when we do go we only go to some dinky lil border town with nothing there!!! Pant Pant Pant. Okay my rant is over. But still you guys should be thankful you live in a country where they have that stuff