$70 Platinum Edition Trypticon at ToysRUs

[griffin]

From what I understand its unfortunately not by who orders first but rather by which store your online order is placed with and how efficient they are in filling that order. For those who ordered online, there was quite a varied postage cost which would be due to which store the order is being filled by.

Getting the order in is one thing but having it fulfilled is another as the stock in each store is limited so online orders have to be filled from what's on the shelf and in the back which means if your order went into store with 5 units and before someone is able to get around to fulfilling the order (physically taking the item off the shelf/back) those 5 units are either sold in store then the online order can't be finalised from that store hence the out of stock email.

The same thing happened with Masterpiece Soundwave, after too many people ordered one online than their nearest stores had in stock (I think the website was showing a national inventory, but would only fulfil orders that stores in your area could handle... if the stock wasn't missing).

We got a really good price here for Soundwave (which is very rare for us), and everyone was trying to order it on their website (it was one of the first collector items they sold online)... but since there is no central warehouse for their stock (the orders are charged first and then sent to the nearest store to you that "should" still have stock). People were kept waiting for days without answers, because their nearest stores either didn't have any left, or were missing... so the order then gets bounced to the next nearest store, up to a certain distance (probably just within your state).
As such, some stores can still be seen by members here to have stock, but you might get an out of stock notice due to it no longer being in stock in the stores in your (cheap postal) area.

It's awesome if you were lucky to get one, but if you missed out, error or not, in the end it's just a plastic toy in a fancy box. It might really suck if you missed out or thought you got one (I've been collecting long enough to have experienced it myself a few times), but life goes on and there's nothing we can do to change it.

[Mythirax]

I ordered a single one online shortly after this post went up. It came in the mail in a giant box today, a stupid amount of bubble wrap and giant air pockets. The box is pretty much perfect. I'm really shocked at how they did this for toysrus. Usually I get something trashed to no end.

[SuspectimusPrime]

The same thing happened with Masterpiece Soundwave, after too many people ordered one online than their nearest stores had in stock (I think the website was showing a national inventory, but would only fulfil orders that stores in your area could handle... if the stock wasn't missing).

I think a lot of established retailers are using older systems that are only updated to HQ at the end of the day, and the website will be drawing data from it. This was the case when I was working as a casual during uni - sales data was not sent until 30 mins after COB. I've noticed BP does this as well, however at midnight because they're 24/7 (sorry to digress - my card got double changed when I bought petrol within 10mins of midnight and their team explains that it was something to do with the midnight data upload). I think there is little immediate incentive to update to newer systems with live updates unless online sales becomes a substantial part of their business, or unless they get a new leadership that strongly believes in online/omnichannel as the future.

[Megatran]

No one acts like a village idiot when its Bumblebee.

[Trent]

Loving all the tin hat wearers with their conspiracy theories on this. The assumption that someone at TRU head office was watching this sale and the stock vanishing and pulled the sale to put the price back up is gold. Thy probably think that the CEO himself was in on it

[GoktimusPrime]

Loving all the tin hat wearers with their conspiracy theories on this. The assumption that someone at TRU head office was watching this sale and the stock vanishing and pulled the sale to put the price back up is gold. Thy probably think that the CEO himself was in on it

This assumes that TRU actually have working knowledge of their stock...

[Trent]

This assumes that TRU actually have working knowledge of their stock...

Exactly.

[philby]

when I was at TRU in chaddy the other day I saw they still had 1 trypticon in the cabinet. I asked how much it was out of curiosity as there was no sticker and the girl scanned it and said $200. So not quite $70 but still a bit cheaper than the original price. did that 'memo' say it was supposed to come down to $170 though? what a schemozzle....