Triple-Force-Friday Fail

[James Kenobi 1138]

Remember when new SW toys would come out and you'd line up at midnight outside of Toys-r-Us/Target/Walmart on the release day to get your hands on the newest collectibles along with a good sized group of other collectors?

I did that once in 1999 with the EP1 stuff but I haven't since. With the internet/ebay it's too easy now to get whatever you want and not have to stand in line, fight anyone for the last action figure, or be disappointed if you didn't get what you wanted.

So I was not at a store last night at midnight, but I do leave for work early in the morning so I thought I'd swing by Walmart early (like 5am) and see what was available and if there was anything I wanted I'd go ahead and grab it before all the stuff I might want got bought up and was gone.

Walmart #1 had ZERO new SW toys out. Nothing on the shelves, no display, nothing. I asked a few different crew members who were stocking (including one person who was stocking toys in the toy dept) and they had not heard anything about 'Triple-Force-Friday' or anything about new SW toys. There was a huge 'Loin King' toys display still set up outside the toy isles. I checked all over toys, electronics/collectibles, and walked down all the wide isles and at the front of the store on both sides and no Hasbro TFF display. One of the employees said they only stock the shelves, if it's a special/separate display an outside promotion company comes in and set those displays up, said they would probably be in to set it up later in the morning.

So I left, and there is another Walmart on my way to work so I tried that one too. Walmart #2 was the same story. Big fat nothing.

Kinda disappointed that Walmart, who has special WM exclusive SW merchandise, didn't have their displays set-up by midnight on the release date, especially for new SW toys ahead of the new movie coming out in just a few months.

Did anyone else go out and buy stuff last night or today? Did your stores have stuff when you went in?

 

[Solos blaster]

You mean that they’d have to rebuild the Star Wars displays they took down?!?!

Seriously though, I’m not really surprised since both of the Walmart’s near me have almost no display room for SW stuff and only a few figures out.
But, I did think they would’ve gone all out for Ep9.

I really never thought I’d see the day when WWE mercy has half an isle and SW had maybe a 2x6’ strip. Almost feels like when the POTF was just being released in the 90’s...only in reverse.

 

[CT1138]

You mean that they’d have to rebuild the Star Wars displays they took down?!?!

Seriously though, I’m not really surprised since both of the Walmart’s near me have almost no display room for SW stuff and only a few figures out.
But, I did think they would’ve gone all out for Ep9.

I really never thought I’d see the day when WWE mercy has half an isle and SW had maybe a 2x6’ strip. Almost feels like when the POTF was just being released in the 90’s...only in reverse.

My local Walmart's stock in toys for just about every major brand except Lego has gone down the tubes. They've been favoring cheaper, off brand toys in favor of toys by Hasbro and Mattel.

 

[division 6]

I went to work (Target) at 6am to help put up the large Frozen 2 set at the front of the store, they where also setting up all the new Star Wars toys in the toy dept.
Not sure what was put out since I only walked by it while it was still being worked on.

 

[Kylash]

My store had one small aisle prebuilt display, only had 4-5 figures from each line. Had already been picked over by midnight.

 

[B-Movie Zombie]

The Walmart I went to after I got off work Friday morning had nothing out also.

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

I stopped by the same 2 Walmarts on the way home from work.

Walmart #2 still had nothing when I looked all over the store and the toy area. The associate in charge of the toy dept was there and I was able to talk to him. I asked where the SW toys were and he started to give the isle and I said “There aren’t any”. I explained about TFF and said how surprised I was there wasn’t a big display with all the new SW toys. His response was classic: “Oh yeah, I haven’t had time to set it up”. He said they had some stuff in the back and went to look for me. When he came back he said all the stores either got 2 promotional displays- Star Wars or Frozen 2- and they got Frozen 2. He said their store wasn’t going to get the TFF stuff, he had 1 case of Black Series figures and 1 case with 2 Jabba’s palace play sets. I was able to grab a BS Rey TROS figure.

Walmart #1 did (finally) have their TFF display up and it was sad. Tiny with barely any merchandise. I was hoping for new BS lightsabers and T-shirt’s along with new figures and toys. I was able to get the gold Darth Vader figure and that was it.

I didn’t have time to check Target but I’m going there on Saturday.

Such a disappointment.

 

[division 6]

At least my store has an 8' section in line and a 3 face endcap.

No one has bought any of the frozen 2 stuff at my store and we set at least 6 large pallets of the stuff in 5 areas, most of it right at the front entrance.
I think the SW section is already shopped out.

 

[dkaniel]

On Friday I went into my local Target in the afternoon and the only STAR WARS stuff I found was the new Lego Sets and that was it! I was a little shocked that nothing else was up.

 

[jusdrewit]

Remember when new SW toys would come out and you'd line up at midnight outside of Toys-r-Us/Target/Walmart on the release day to get your hands on the newest collectibles along with a good sized group of other collectors?

I did that once in 1999 with the EP1 stuff but I haven't since. With the internet/ebay it's too easy now to get whatever you want and not have to stand in line, fight anyone for the last action figure, or be disappointed if you didn't get what you wanted.

So I was not at a store last night at midnight, but I do leave for work early in the morning so I thought I'd swing by Walmart early (like 5am) and see what was available and if there was anything I wanted I'd go ahead and grab it before all the stuff I might want got bought up and was gone.

Walmart #1 had ZERO new SW toys out. Nothing on the shelves, no display, nothing. I asked a few different crew members who were stocking (including one person who was stocking toys in the toy dept) and they had not heard anything about 'Triple-Force-Friday' or anything about new SW toys. There was a huge 'Loin King' toys display still set up outside the toy isles. I checked all over toys, electronics/collectibles, and walked down all the wide isles and at the front of the store on both sides and no Hasbro TFF display. One of the employees said they only stock the shelves, if it's a special/separate display an outside promotion company comes in and set those displays up, said they would probably be in to set it up later in the morning.

So I left, and there is another Walmart on my way to work so I tried that one too. Walmart #2 was the same story. Big fat nothing.

Kinda disappointed that Walmart, who has special WM exclusive SW merchandise, didn't have their displays set-up by midnight on the release date, especially for new SW toys ahead of the new movie coming out in just a few months.

Did anyone else go out and buy stuff last night or today? Did your stores have stuff when you went in?

I preordered my carbonized Mandalorian figure only to be emailed the next day they had ran out, and finding out every Target within the next 150 miles was sold out of that figure. I then tried 2 Walmarts, both out. Lastly, in desperation I tried a Gamestop, and they had one Mandalorian BS figure behind the store counter and i got it, but it was crazy.

 

[tubachris85x]

Growing up in South Florida, during the POTF and Action Fleet days, I could reliably find a plethora of Star Wars toys en mass to make anyone jealous nowadays. Unfortunately, be it the fact I am living in a horrible location now in Northern Virginia, none of the local Walmarts near me EVER have Star Wars items, one not even carrying the Hot Wheels branded ones. This was the case as well for Walgreen stores locally.

And then I see friends and others post from their cities about all these amazing finds and displays, etc, and I really feel like there's some parallel universe I'm living in. I don't get it.

I was lucky that (unwittingly really) our first day at Disney World was Force Friday. We hung out at Downtown Disney as our flight got in stupid early and in trying to figure out what to do first, we ended up at the Galactic Traders store as we were gonna chill out at the Starbucks across the way. Just happened to be a few minutes before they opened and there was like 5 dudes (pretty sure they were Disney employees) waiting for the doors to open. Sure enough, as soon as they did, they bombarded a center display that had a basket full of figures, one of them grabbing easily 8 of them, not even bothering to even look at them first. Fortunately, I looked to my left at the backwall which not only had all the Black Series figures you'd ask for but had the white "1st edition" versions that all these people didn't even notice until after I walked over.

So yea, I had that going for me, but trust me when I know exactly the stupid pain you feel when your local stores quite literally carry nothing. I got back this morning from Orlando and may swing by Target on the way back, but when I was last there I had asked one of the employees and he didn't even know what I was talking about. Oh well

 

[niennumb1]

Sorry for the quality (it was 1999 and VHS was the affordable format back then), but my friend shot coverage at our local Toys R Us on that first Midnight "Mania" and the vibe was a lot more excitement and community involvement. It was more for personal documenting, but doesn't look like many ever caught this event on video, so thought i'd share anyway....

Of course times have REALLY changed with online availability and people not needing to go through as much trouble to get what they were looking for, so it's very probable if all those things were in place then like now perhaps the crowds wouldn't have been like this.

The store wouldn't allow us to take video of people's faces (with exception to friends with us), so you're going to see a lot of camera aiming down shots, but you can see people were pretty excited back then.

 

[division 6]

Back when I lived in the SFBA my friend and I would start at TRU in Marin (near Lucas Arts) and hit every store down to San Jose when ever a new wave of figures came out.

 

[doppelganger]

Every Disney store here in the U.K. had requested for our 501st and Astromechs to attend stores to celebrate Tripple Force Friday (on Saturday of course....). It was 3 months in the making and had all been worked out arranged by alot of hard working people. Then on Thursday they just said "oh we don't want you now, head office has cancelled it all" well thank you very much. It left alot of people pretty miffed to say the least.

Thanks Disney

 

[division 6]

We had that happen with Lucas Film for the Ep 1 premier in San Fransisco.
A few of us where invited to the after movie party (no costumes) but the party was totally dead.
Ep 2 we where out on the red carpet.

 

[vader45]

Hmm. I really don't think Star Wars is losing popularity. Vader and OT related toys sell pretty good. All of the ST stuff had collected on shelves and the retailers saw that and reduced their Star Wars section. My Walmart did. It's the faceless characters we have in the ST is why SW toy sales have dropped.

I watched my Walmart very close. Any Vader figures sold fast. The 40th and BS 6" had no shelf time. But all of the post Disney figures collected dust on the shelf. I watched the section gradually shrink to two pegs of 3.75" vintage collection figures all mostly ST characters at that too.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Sorry for the quality (it was 1999 and VHS was the affordable format back then), but my friend shot coverage at our local Toys R Us on that first Midnight "Mania" and the vibe was a lot more excitement and community involvement. It was more for personal documenting, but doesn't look like many ever caught this event on video, so thought i'd share anyway....
...

Thanks for sharing!!! This is an important document about Star Wars collecting!

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

My Walmart that barely had any TFF SW toys got the Frozen 2 center isle display and I swear that thing looks like it’s a city block long. Easily 100 different individual Frozen toys ready to purchase.

The paltry SW section that barely had a dozen items has never been restocked since TFF. I’ll probably just order the other few items I want online but I much prefer getting them at the store.

I did find the Walgreens exclusive Obi-Wan Clone Wars figure yesterday so I can cross that one off my list.

 

[Solos blaster]

I have so little interest these days...I did pick up the case with Dr. Aphra trio, Chopper, Ezra, and TPM Obi-Wan. Since then I've only picked up Cal, the sister because idk...and The Mandolorian that I found yesterday(at a Gamestop, that I stopped in on a whim, believe it or not lol). Haven't been excited about any of the ST stuff since I got the Poe, TK Finn, and that BF TIE fighter that yes, they reside in lol.

But, I only collect what I like anyways. I'm not a completionist by ANY measure of the word lol.

 

[frosty]

I decided to stick to online ordering for my stuff, star action figures here in the uk had the exclusive carbonised Mando, and on force Friday at midnight they were due to go live, they did and the site crashed due to high demand, spent the next hour and a half pressing refresh to get on and order, got one finally, left the rest for a few days later and snagged what I wanted, I miss going in store for my stuff, but at least online you know your sorted