Hasbro America is practically giving away ROTF toys now

Looks like the new mid-year range of Transformers (and Star Wars) toys is leaving Hasbro with a lot of unsold old stock - they have a special promotion in America for the next 2 months that has Hasbro sending out 3 free Deluxe ROTF toys to people who send in a proof-of-purchase for over US$25 of Transformers toys (the offer ends before they are supposed to have the new stuff released, so really just applies to ROTF toys).
Since their ROTF deluxes are about US$13, a US resident probably only needs to buy 2, to get 3 free Deluxes, and they don't even have to pay for shipping. Five toys for the price of two!

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...veaway-169812/

Usually, stores will try to clear out old lines before buying the new stuff, so if the suppliers have stock left 3-4 months before the new stuff is released, they have a problem, and tend to offload them cheaply to certain stores (or non-US countries if stock is still at the factories).

On a side note, it could mean we might be seeing a lot of ROTF toys 'dumped' on our shores, like we've been seeing done with the Animated toys in the last few months. Even if they are offloaded cheap to stores, too much of stock that isn't being promoted, could put off stores from ordering more of the newer products until their inventory levels come back down.

Further proof that the Americans aren't going to get anything new released until August - Hasbro website has listed an official release date of Leader sized Starscream as August 9th. A very specific date, suggests that they definitely don't intend to release the mid-year range any earlier than August.
http://www.seibertron.com/transforme...release/18721/

Good news for us I guess, as the lower-than-expected prices of PCC and Deluxes in some stores could actually make it worth buying up and exporting them to desperate Americans. (their RRP of the 2-packs is US$10 plus tax, which is a bit above AU$12 at the current exchange rate - but our cheapest price of AU$16 at BigW is about US$13 - that's close enough to be 'worth it', but then you have shipping which would effectively double the price)

Based on those calculations, the recent drop in exchange rate makes this the closest we've ever been to the converted Retail price of the toys in America.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO this is not fair at all.