US Economy, Prices and Lego

[Mikael Willberg]

(This comment was originally intended for "A sad day in Canada...." thread, but maybe this will generate more thoughts here)

The US markets seem to on high demand of Lego. There has been many reports of empty shelves and numerous discounts. In normal markets those should not happen all the time, it looks like the laws of supply and demand are getting discarded there.

The annual report of TLC groups so big market areas together that it is less usefull, as the lack of "units sold" values. And that makes analyzing the US market hard. If there is a better source for detailed data, I would like to know it:

http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=annualreport

In the current light it should not be so far away when the US markets will get smaller for Lego too and propably TLC starts to complain how hard it is to survive *boo hoo* Maybe then it would be the time to get the prices right globally and stop feeding insanely underpriced products semi directly to eBay which is just what TLC in US seems to do. It feels that US prices are separated from rest of the world and eBay has more real market values for products.

To me TLC tries to show itself as a "Premium Toy", but I see it more like a sell-by-a-truck-load (US) vs. extreme audiophile products (Europe). I just find it so hard to accept that difference.

I have tried to understand US markets for some time, but they seem weird for my understanding. I have managed to create only one reason for US prices: if the consumers stop spending the services sector will get hurt a lot. Because 80% of the economy is depending on it, sales and credit are tried to keep going on as long as possible even with tiny profits, but multiplied by high volume. I cannot see any way of keeping that thing together for much longer:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b84/bonddad/savings.png

Mig

[voltio]

(This comment was originally intended for "A sad day in Canada...." thread, but maybe this will generate more thoughts here)

The US markets seem to on high demand of Lego. There has been many reports of empty shelves and numerous discounts. In normal markets those should not happen all the time, it looks like the laws of supply and demand are getting discarded there.

Mig

I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on the sustainability of the USA's low savings rate, but I can provide perspective on the first part of your post.

It is true that demand for Lego products in America has increased in 2006, and even more in 2007 (a quick internet search for "lego profit 2007" turns up numerous articles to this effect). But based on my personal experience, the "numerous discounts" are harder to find now than in the past. Kmart, Target, and Walmart no longer hold 50% off Lego sales (Kmart's biggest Lego sale of 2007 was 33% off, and only for a few hours on the day after Thanksgiving. Target and Walmart did not have any.) True, discontinued sets sometimes turn up for over 50% off, but finding deals like these on desirable sets (not, say, minifigure-scale Bionicle) is rare.

I also disagree with your contention that buyers on Ebay are willing to pay more than MSRP for current Lego on Ebay. We have all seen the intense appreciation of some discontinued sets, like the 7666 Hoth Base or 4501 Mos Eisley Cantina, for example. But when most Lego sets are available, that is, not discontinued, they sell for MSRP or less on the secondary market. For example, I won a brand-new 7661 Jedi Starfighter on Ebay that cost me $40 including shipping. MSRP for that set is $50. And while some people are willing to pay $200 for a 4504 Millennium Falcon that has been discontinued, those people likely make up a relatively small portion of Lego's customer base. Most parents who see Lego in a store would not pay those prices, and Lego would lose market share to MegaBloks or another cheaper toy.

The empty shelves production at that time. Also, stores are pretty chaotic during the holiday season (Nov-Jan), and stphenomenon is/was mostly a supply-chain or seasonal issue, IMO. I saw a lot of empty shelves in early 2007, but TLG was in the midst of outsourcing ocks of most good toys are depleted.

And, I believe Lego IS a "premium toy" in America. Even though it is comparatively cheap here, compared to Europe (I feel your pain, and sympathize :-( ) , other toys/gifts are far cheaper. For example, for the price of the latest City gas station, a parent could also buy a giant Hotwheels toy car track set, a Nintendo Wii video game, or a very nice pair of Reeboks or Nike shoes. During the latest "made in china" quality scare, many parents viewed Lego and Duplo as safe, trustworthy alternatives because of their premium image.

[snefroe]

a newspaper in Belgium claimed exactly the opposite concerning lego sales in the US though. Lego wasn't particularly selling all that well. And last week Jan Beyer said that the EF line was doing really badly, so I wouldn't think Lego has had such a brilliant year because we like the sets of 2007. The reason why they're having empty shelves is because of a very crappy distribution system. Lego just doesn't know how to get goods at the shops in time. To give you an example: a toyshop here can only order Lego once every 6 months. For that, lego sends the shop the catalog and the pricelist. Unfortunately, Lego was kinda late sending the list for the sets of the first half of 2008. The shop got the list on january 10th, the goods will be delivered around August, so the shop will be getting sets for the first half of this year quite a bit late and they won't get supplies for the sets that are in the shop right now, so at some point, the shop will just not have any good selling set left. In a period like Christmas, a worse case scenario for many shops are empty shelves. not because lego is selling in a fantastic way, but simply because lego doesn't supply in time.

Many people were surprised when i told them Lego wasn't doing all that great. However, if you think about, it's quite normal that 2007 cannot be as good as 2006. Life has become very expensive in this last year. All basic goods have seen increased prices, the price of petrol is quite high. Many people in Europe and the US are scared of a recession, buying a very expensive toy just is not really on their mind right now, and if they do want to spend lots of money, it's on traveling, on stuff that gives them experiences, not goods...

It is true that the big discounts are gone though. 2-3 years back, when Lego had to relaunch itself with city sets, they gave discounts, now i'm hardly seeing anything. Sure, 2 or 3 actions in a year and a discount for sets the shops just can't get rid off, but nothing realy worth my while. so maybe that is just part of lego's global policy.

[Shadows]

LEGO, like most companies, doesn't disclose detailed enough information to completely determine what the market looks like, so all we can really do is speculate.

I know that when I came out of my dark ages at the launch of the Star Wars line, I never paid full price for anything. Buy one get one half off was about the worst discount I would take, and especially as the first waves were reaching their end, I was snapping up sets at 75% off without any difficulty.

As time passed, that mostly ended. Of the entire SW line, I've only missed a few sets, and they all came in 2002-2003 when I couldn't find a discount on anything and then one day I would walk in a store and everything would be gone. If they were discounting, I was missing the right moment. As a result, I lost out on good sets.

Vowing not to let that continue, I started making more frequent stops at the stores, watching closely to see that I wouldn't miss out, and hopefully still pull some kind of discount.

Those discounts dried up quickly, and now I almost don't try. I've been stuck in a full price cycle for a while now, only getting discounts on duplicates (mostly ordered directly from S@H). Exo-Force had to die, it was the one theme I could count on never paying over 50% for. :-|

Walmart, which used to be a great place to find sets at bargain prices, has significantly cut their discounts locally. I know of 3 stores with large portions of the 2007 line just shelfsitting at full price. I don't know what they plan to do, but I'll keep waiting to see if I can bulk up my dupes eventually, since I have at least one of each already.

I don't think that the US market for LEGO is bad, but I do think that the public, especially the AFOLs, became accustomed to discounts. Stores got tired of that and sales have slowed.

It's important to realise that this isn't a LEGO only problem. Before this, I collected massive amounts of Hasbro SW products, and can vividly recall the days of $5 figures marked down to $1 in huge bins in every Walmart, or Target throwing them all on endcaps at $2, etc. Then one day, it just stopped. The shelves weren't packed anymore. The bins weren't full of discounted figures. The figures themselves went up to $6+, and haven't come down.

Did they suddenly improve the product so much that people were willing to pay more? No. They just took a temporary loss to teach people to stop expecting a discount and pay full price or miss out.

Fortunately, SW LEGO came along to bleed me dry instead. I get a lot more enjoyment out of piles of LEGO than I ever did out of hundreds of carded figures.

I'll add this. If LEGO corporate distribution is as bad as Shop @ Home, it isn't going to get any better soon.

Worst thing LEGO could do at this point is to raise prices in the US. They clearly need to address the high prices elsewhere, but not by trying to bring the US up to that level. It simply won't work. Unfortunately, even with their good name and history, they don't have a strong enough market here to convince buyers to pay a lot more for their product. Megacrap will roll right in and do here what they have been doing in Canada, taking over shelf space, and it will cost LEGO a lot more in the long run.

The one thing they could do to raise profit a bit would be to fix Shop @ Home. They make a lot more without the cost of a retailer involved, but I'm barely dealing with them directly anymore after all of their shipping issues. That's how you really lose money.

[blueandwhite]

I suspect that LEGO like many other companies simply feels that US consumers will not buy their products at a premium.

From what I understand, international manufacturers are having a hard time making any profit in the US due to the weak economy. Many are simply staying the course to maintain brand recognition in the world's largest single market. The irony of course is that the weak US dollar has a ripple effect in other markets as it becomes difficult to compete with cheap American products that are now produced for far less owing to the weak dollar. Simply put, a car produced in the US today costs significantly less to make on the world market because the dollars autoworkers are being paid in are worth significantly less. This is putting the pinch on regions with stronger currencies as the relative price of labour in those regions hasn't changed.

I very much doubt LEGO is happy with its situation in the US. That being said, I bet that they are very weary of moving prices for fear of losing the US market entirely to clone brands like Mega Bloks. Smaller markets like Canada, New Zealand or Australia simply don't register on LEGO's radar, and Europe has traditionally been accustomed to paying premium pricing. I really don't expect anything to change in either the US or the rest of the world. The fact that Walmart has challenged them and LEGO has subsequently pulled its products from store shelves in Canada says that LEGO will stand firm on this issue.

[gylman]

I agree with the comments above.

LEGO in the US, long term, will have trouble:

1) It is a premium toy compared to all other brands of building blocks and construction. The quality of the bricks does not sell them to most buyers, except to the few who are knowledgeable about these things, and care.

Right now LEGO succeeds in the US because it is seen as a "smart toy", has huge name value, and now the generation of people who played with it has children.

2) The ongoing competition for kids' time. Kids don't really have the time to play with LEGO the way they used to, and this can only get worse over time. TLC has tried to fight this, and is hanging in, but it is a brutal battle.

3) Market saturation. There is little or no room to grow when you are the biggest and best by far. The only market TLC can grow in is girls, and they have tried and failed several times.

The future for LEGO is Asia. It has huge popularity as a premium toy, and as China gets richer, that's where future growth will come from.

http://416-777-7777.com/News/World/article/285750

As for the comments about the LEGO distribution system, and Shop @ Home..... OMG don't get me started. They have outsourced all this to a third party, and it's a total mess.

I remember 2 weeks ago calling in to complain about a beaten up 10148 Town Plan I received. I was put in touch with a phone person who clearly knew nothing about LEGO, and in the background I could hear someone else selling airplane tickets. It was very disturbing and disappointing. At least in the past when i had called S@H I felt like I was speaking to TLC.

http://www.dmnews.com/Lego-outsources-dist.../article/93958/

[JINZONINGEN73]

I know that when I came out of my dark ages at the launch of the Star Wars line, I never paid full price for anything.

, I was snapping up sets at 75% off without any difficulty.

As time passed, that mostly ended. Of the entire SW line, I've only missed a few sets, and they all came in 2002-2003 when I couldn't find a discount on anything and then one day I would walk in a store and everything would be gone. If they were discounting, I was missing the right moment. As a result, I lost out on good sets.

Those discounts dried up quickly, and now I almost don't try. I've been stuck in a full price cycle for a while now,

Walmart, which used to be a great place to find sets at bargain prices, has significantly cut their discounts locally. I know of 3 stores with large portions of the 2007 line just shelfsitting at full price.

, but I do think that the public, especially the AFOLs, became accustomed to discounts. Stores got tired of that and sales have slowed.

Fortunately, SW LEGO came along to bleed me dry instead. I get a lot more enjoyment out of piles of LEGO than I ever did out of hundreds of carded figures.

Sounds like my story, except with Bionicle.

And AMEN to that last line.

3) Market saturation. There is little or no room to grow when you are the biggest and best by far. The only market TLC can grow in is girls, and they have tried and failed several times.

Most "boy" toy lines are insanely clueless in this area. If they had any brains, they'd realize that one half of a line can be marketed in the boy's aisle while the other half, in different packaging, could be marketed in the girl's aisle.

Imagine GI Joe or Transformers figures of different sexes, but in different aisles, the packaging being nearly identical save for minor indicative alterations.

Nothing comes to mind where this strategy's been used in any way as described... but I have a HARD time thinking it's not feasible. Having Robotech action figures in the male aisles with poofy-haired, Barbie-sized Robotech dolls in the female aisles don't count lol.

NEITHER DO CLICKITS or BUTT-UGLY BELLVILLE FIGURES.

[larry marak]

Ask independent toy dealers in the U.S. and they'll tell you product shortage is deliberate TLG policy. Production contracts are for Target and Walmart....toys stores get supplies 5 months later, if at all, and are severely rationed.

Gylman is right that Asia (and Central-South America) is the growth area for the Lego market. But to sell these, in these countries where per capita income is so low, they need to manufacture and sell inside China or India, so that they can sell for one 8th of what they retail for in the EU. Currently Enlighten (which has been manufacturing since 1963 and its 4 or 5 mainland China competitors {I've been doing a research project on this very topic} produce and market boxed 150 element sets for 3 dollars or less). That is the price point TLG needs to strive for in order to enter these expanding markets.

[Tyrant]

Sounds like my story, except with Bionicle.

And AMEN to that last line.

Most "boy" toy lines are insanely clueless in this area. If they had any brains, they'd realize that one half of a line can be marketed in the boy's aisle while the other half, in different packaging, could be marketed in the girl's aisle.

Imagine GI Joe or Transformers figures of different sexes, but in different aisles, the packaging being nearly identical save for minor indicative alterations.

Nothing comes to mind where this strategy's been used in any way as described... but I have a HARD time thinking it's not feasible. Having Robotech action figures in the male aisles with poofy-haired, Barbie-sized Robotech dolls in the female aisles don't count lol.

NEITHER DO CLICKITS or BUTT-UGLY BELLVILLE FIGURES.

If what I have read on this topic is true, then Hasbro (the company who makes both GIJoe and Transformers) isn't really the one to blame. Stores (i.e. WalMart) have a large say in what gets manufactured and what doesn't. Ever wonder why Batman toy lines are filled with endless variants of Batman and maybe one villain every two waves if you're lucky? It isn't the people making the figures that make that call. Wonder why GIJoe or Star Wars pegs aren't filled with the Troop Builder types and "personalities" are the hard to find figures? Again, it isn't Hasbro making this call. WalMart, based on god only knows what, believes that for GIJoe to sell, there must be a DUKE/Cobra Commander/Snake eyes in every wave. If you have all 3 it will be a knockout. Their ideas are quite flawed, but if Hasbro desires to sell their toys there, then they will do what Wal Mart asks. Both GIJoe and Transformers have female characters. Transformers has far less than GIJoe, but they are there. This, again, is due to Wal Mart's "research" that says boys won't buy figures of girls. Going with that train of logic, they will never try to sell figures of the female characters striaght to girls. Your idea isn't bad. It's just that Wal Mart is operating on a whole other level than apparently anyone who follows the toy lines. Toys R Us has figured out what sells in GIJoe. They have sets of nothing but Cobra Troop Builders and they are sold out in no time. Their only failing is that they don't order enough of them. They also, occasionally, make the mistake of making them have 1 or 2 named characters in there, which hurts sales. With the upcoming movie and the return of the 12" figures, GIJoe could make a push into the girl's isle. Transformers would need a miracle to do anything over there as their female characters are rare and not prominent parts of their media. Unlike GIJoe where a few main team members of both sides are female. Thankfully, some of these companies are slowly coming around to the idea that adults are buying some of these toys as much as children. Adults tend to prefer diversity. Hopefully this will evntually have the ripple effect of getting more female characters out there which in turns gets more kids used to the idea.

[highlandcattle]

Can you still get G.I.Joe's you can't in europe :(

[Tyrant]

Can you still get G.I.Joe's you can't in europe :(

At some point last year, Hasbro started up a new line of 3 3/4" figures. They are 25th anniversary figures. So far, they have almost entirely been remakes of the 82-86 figures. They are far more detailed and articulated than the older figures. More or less like miniature Marvel Legends figures. They are difficult to find here as they aren't being distributed all that well. Most of the time, if you find them in a store you need to buy them right then and there if you want them. There are only 2 or 3 peg warmers so far, and that is across 5 waves. Even those pegwarmers don't clog the shelves. If you see them, there are usualy no more than 2 of that figure. With the movie now officially in production, they will eventually switch to movie figures. At some point really soon, they are going to bring back the 12 inch figures. Vehicles for the smaller figures also come out some time this year. Again, they are remakes. They also seem to be taking the comic packs seriously going so far as to make new issues tha tfit between issues of the Marvel run. They have made one or two figures that never had figures. Scarface and the Cobra Air Trooper are two of them. I am overall impressed with them.

[blueandwhite]

If what I have read on this topic is true, then Hasbro (the company who makes both GIJoe and Transformers) isn't really the one to blame. Stores (i.e. WalMart) have a large say in what gets manufactured and what doesn't. Ever wonder why Batman toy lines are filled with endless variants of Batman and maybe one villain every two waves if you're lucky? It isn't the people making the figures that make that call. Wonder why GIJoe or Star Wars pegs aren't filled with the Troop Builder types and "personalities" are the hard to find figures? Again, it isn't Hasbro making this call. WalMart, based on god only knows what, believes that for GIJoe to sell, there must be a DUKE/Cobra Commander/Snake eyes in every wave. If you have all 3 it will be a knockout.

While adult collectors and a few wealthy kids may flock to rarer figures, for the average consumer this isn't an option. Most kids don't want troop builders when they don't even have many of the main players. The minor characters that collectors love don't necessarily appeal to kids who still haven't picked up a Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, or in the case of Transformers and GI Joe; Optimus Prime, Megatron, Duke, or Cobra Commander.

And every few years a new generation of kids comes along. While you've seen these figures and their hundreds of variants hit the racks, these youngins are only getting their first crack at these toys. Walmart (and other retailers) aren't asking for these figures to spite collectors; they ask for them because they know that certain products are easier to push than others. Moving a large quantity of Darth Vaders is probably alot easier than moving an obscure EU character that most kids haven't even heard of.

Their ideas are quite flawed, but if Hasbro desires to sell their toys there, then they will do what Wal Mart asks. Both GIJoe and Transformers have female characters. Transformers has far less than GIJoe, but they are there. This, again, is due to Wal Mart's "research" that says boys won't buy figures of girls. Going with that train of logic, they will never try to sell figures of the female characters striaght to girls. Your idea isn't bad. It's just that Wal Mart is operating on a whole other level than apparently anyone who follows the toy lines.

Again, Walmart isn't in this to sabatoge Hasbro or any other toy company. At the end of the day they are simply looking to push product as fast as possible. I'm sorry to say it but as far as I can tell, female figures have never been popular with younger boys. You can mock the market research of Walmart if you like, but to suggest that Walmart doesn't know the marketplace is pushing it. This is a company that while brutal, does everything it can to understand and control pretty much every market it enters into.

Toys R Us has figured out what sells in GIJoe. They have sets of nothing but Cobra Troop Builders and they are sold out in no time. Their only failing is that they don't order enough of them. They also, occasionally, make the mistake of making them have 1 or 2 named characters in there, which hurts sales. With the upcoming movie and the return of the 12" figures, GIJoe could make a push into the girl's isle. Transformers would need a miracle to do anything over there as their female characters are rare and not prominent parts of their media. Unlike GIJoe where a few main team members of both sides are female. Thankfully, some of these companies are slowly coming around to the idea that adults are buying some of these toys as much as children. Adults tend to prefer diversity. Hopefully this will evntually have the ripple effect of getting more female characters out there which in turns gets more kids used to the idea.

Right now GI Joe isn't exactly a kids toyline is it? The licence while popular with older folk who remember the good ol' days isn't exactly familiar to alot of kids. There was a push a few years back with Sigma Six, but how popular is the line with children? It would seem to me that this product is aimed more towards you collector types who already have their fill of Cobra Commanders and Snake Eyes. That being said, with the movie you can bet that you will see alot more Cobra Commanders and Snake Eyes figures in the future. The fact that Walmart doesn't cator to the collector's market probably won't change anytime soon. Adult collectors may make up a good portion of some productline sales, but with the exception of a few lines like Star Wars I very much doubt that adults will ever constitute a majority of sales for most toylines. Toys R Us is simply picking up a smaller segment of the market that Walmart doesn't want to waste shelfspace on.

[Tyrant]

While adult collectors and a few wealthy kids may flock to rarer figures, for the average consumer this isn't an option. Most kids don't want troop builders when they don't even have many of the main players. The minor characters that collectors love don't necessarily appeal to kids who still haven't picked up a Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, or in the case of Transformers and GI Joe; Optimus Prime, Megatron, Duke, or Cobra Commander.

I am quite aware of the theory that drives this decision. However, I frequent a number of stores, read what other collectors say online, and watch Ebay. The facts don't support the theory at all. These figures that make it into every line are always the last to sell (if they don't end up at clearance). They have no value on the secondary market (meaning they aren't flying off the shelves). The mains clog shelves after the others have been picked over. Even as a kid, I understood I wanted 1 Storm Shadow (or whoever) because there was only one. I wanted lots of the nameless soldiers because that's how they are portrayed, in massive numbers. The way Hasbro is starting to arrange the cases of GIJoe figures shows they know this. Each case has twice as many of the troop builders as any other (in most situations) and they are still the hardest figures to find.

[

And every few years a new generation of kids comes along. While you've seen these figures and their hundreds of variants hit the racks, these youngins are only getting their first crack at these toys.

Every few years, sure. Every time a new wave is released (there are several waves per year) is ridiculous. Once a year would do fine. Not 8 times a year.

Walmart (and other retailers) aren't asking for these figures to spite collectors; they ask for them because they know that certain products are easier to push than others. Moving a large quantity of Darth Vaders is probably alot easier than moving an obscure EU character that most kids haven't even heard of.

So, that would be why Darth Revan is more or less the hardest to find Star Wars figure at the moment. He has been since release and shows no signs of interest in him declining. The Evolutions set featuring Darths Bane, Nihilus, and Maul has started hitting Ebay and they are clearly the most sought after of that batch. Again, theory and reality simply don't agree in a lot of cases involving these lines. Star Wars is driven in very large part by collectors. In all probability, it is collectors who make up the majority of the purchases. This is a fairly undisputed fact in most circles that discuss these things.

Again, Walmart isn't in this to sabatoge Hasbro or any other toy company. At the end of the day they are simply looking to push product as fast as possible. I'm sorry to say it but as far as I can tell, female figures have never been popular with younger boys. You can mock the market research of Walmart if you like, but to suggest that Walmart doesn't know the marketplace is pushing it. This is a company that while brutal, does everything it can to understand and control pretty much every market it enters into.

Brutal though they may be, this isn't the first (and won't be the last) time their policies conflict with making a profit. DId you by any chance ever see the LotR figure line by ToyBiz while the movies were out? If you did, you might have noticed one glaring absence. There was no Balrog figure. This wasn't because ToyBiz didn't want to make one. I have seen pictures of the prototypes. Wal Mart didn't want to sell a figure of a giant "demon". Since Wal Mart moves more toys than anyone, it didn't get made. That was playing to religious ideals, not business. One demon toy (in a store that sells Spawn figures and god only knows how many movies on the topic no less) isn't going to get people to stop buying at your store. They didn't want a demon toy, so it wasn't made. Any company willing to make those kinds of decisions doesn't get my vote being sensible business people in any and all areas. They clearly let their own ideals influence policy as much as market research. If you read about enough of these situations, you get the picture pretty clearly. They think they are right and have no intention of listening to aynone else. Toys R us gets Troop builder style exclusives from Hasbro and they always sell out when they are nothing but troops (no personalities). They sell out online in less than a day in most cases. This evidence, coupled with pegs full of named characters that are also devoid of nameless characters, tells me their research is flawed. Argue all you want, it won't make it true.

Right now GI Joe isn't exactly a kids toyline is it? The licence while popular with older folk who remember the good ol' days isn't exactly familiar to alot of kids. There was a push a few years back with Sigma Six, but how popular is the line with children? It would seem to me that this product is aimed more towards you collector types who already have their fill of Cobra Commanders and Snake Eyes. That being said, with the movie you can bet that you will see alot more Cobra Commanders and Snake Eyes figures in the future. The fact that Walmart doesn't cator to the collector's market probably won't change anytime soon. Adult collectors may make up a good portion of some productline sales, but with the exception of a few lines like Star Wars I very much doubt that adults will ever constitute a majority of sales for most toylines. Toys R Us is simply picking up a smaller segment of the market that Walmart doesn't want to waste shelfspace on.

So, you're argument is that the GIJoe line (which is in teh toy isle and suffers to a degree the very problems I am discussing) isn't a kids toyline? The one which stands as an example of the very problems I am talking about? If it were purely a collectors line, these problems wouldn't exist. Each case would be 7 Cobra Vipers to 1 Duke until collectors were choking on Vipers. This isn't happening. They are choking on Cobra Commander, Duke, and Snake Eyes figures. In wave after wave. Given the tremendous diversity of characters in the line (it ran from 82 to 94, and then 97 to 05) it is absurd for there to be that many variants of those 3 characters, yet there they are. Star Wars I at least understand somewhat. There really are only a few "core" characters. Anyone beyond the core (Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, the droids, Obi Wan, Yoda, Vader, and Palpatine) is mostly a bit character. The prequels gave us a few more (Padme, Jar Jar unfortunately, Mace I guess) but still they are either important or they aren't. This isn't the case with the Joe line. Even the original team had 13 members. Even the cartoon focused on other people like Flint, Scarlett, Lady Jaye, the Baroness, etc. They are doing some things right. After all these years they are finally making a Lady Jaye figure that looks like she did in the cartoon. They are also making comic packs with characters that never had figures and figures that are right out of specific cartoon episodes. These are all slated to come out later this year and are obviously a reaction to how well these are selling and a desire to meet the demands of adult collectors. However, we still get comic packs that have Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes together (despite having at least 3 of both of them in roughly 7 waves of figures). don't get me wrong, from my wallet's standpoint I would rather have those 2 together so I don't have to worry about buying either one to get the other figure. Hasbro is clearly learning, but they are also still having problems communicating what they are learning with Wal Mart.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Tyrant