WFC Kingdom toys now on their way to stores here

[griffin]

Kingdom is coming boys and girls.
For all of those people who bought Transformers toys from an Australian store in December, you helped make it one of the best years for the Brand, even with all of the Covid lockdowns and it being a non-Movie year. Stores have been cleaned out (at least one Kmart in Brisbane had ZERO Transformers toys left after Christmas), and it helped clear out the 2020 toys at Hasbro.

So, thankyou everyone for making it a great year for Transformers in Australia.


The good news is, as of today, the first wave of Kingdom toys is now on it's way to Australian retailers, which should mean they should start showing up in stores in the next week, depending on who wants them and how long they process the stock at their various warehouses. So keep an eye out for them, and let us know if you find them first.

Also... being sent out with the Kingdom toys this week, are the Studio Series 1986 toys. We had a small amount get an advance release just before Christmas to Kmart, BigW and Toyworld... but now they are being properly released to all retailers who sell Studio Series, in much greater numbers.


Now the bad news... it probably means that we might not see any more 2020 stock in stores, like the last waves of Earthrise now that Kingdom is released. Also, due to various issues and delays from the global pandemic last year, the Quintesson Pit and wave 1 R.E.D. toys are confirmed to NOT be coming to Australia. We were hoping they were coming here as they were on the Hasbro wishlist last year, but after all this time since their global release, we assumed that we missed them, and have now been told as much. Not sure if we might still get other waves of R.E.D. toys, as this is just wave 1 that we missed so far.

[kovert]

... it probably means that we might not see any more 2020 stock in stores, like the last waves of Earthrise now that Kingdom is released.

It is great to hear the new 2021 stock is about to arrive. What is extremely disappointing is retail stores always skipping a wave. With wave 2 being released only in the last few months of 2020, I thought this might happen.

[dirge]

It is great to hear the new 2021 stock is about to arrive. What is extremely disappointing is retail stores always skipping a wave. With wave 2 being released only in the last few months of 2020, I thought this might happen.

As griffin has informed us before, Hasbro AU can only order by size class. So... depending on when the retailers order more stock and then when they place orders, waves can be skipped.

Earthrise Wave 3 HAS popped up here in NSW, but only at some Big Ws and it flew. I was lucky enough to find them, but I had to quite a bit of searching as my first Runamuck was faulty - finding a second one involved checking man Big Ws, as the 3 closest to me never got the wave!

[SMHFConvoy]

It is great to hear the new 2021 stock is about to arrive. What is extremely disappointing is retail stores always skipping a wave. With wave 2 being released only in the last few months of 2020, I thought this might happen.

I'm quite forgiving because last year was unprecedented and at the same time keep an eye on chains like the reject shop, toymate or Casey's because they have on occasion gotten in waves that were skipped

[Sutton]

I might be naive or something, but I'm probably a lot less forgiving of this sort of thing - with technology and logistics where it should be at in 2021, there's not really an excuse for this sort of thing. There's a big enough chunk of Hasbro's business that goes towards adult collectors that they could try using a different delivery/supply model than the one from 1982.

Hasbro has made it VERY difficult to get some characters this year - soooo many exclusives. They go and make the definitive G1 CHUG Prowl and Bluestreak, but then make them exclusives? And then every seeker other than Starscream - if I wasn't so close to completing my collecting goals, I'd be considering getting out of the hobby altogether.

[dirge]

I might be naive or something, but I'm probably a lot less forgiving of this sort of thing - with technology and logistics where it should be at in 2021, there's not really an excuse for this sort of thing. There's a big enough chunk of Hasbro's business that goes towards adult collectors that they could try using a different delivery/supply model than the one from 1982.

Hasbro has made it VERY difficult to get some characters this year - soooo many exclusives. They go and make the definitive G1 CHUG Prowl and Bluestreak, but then make them exclusives? And then every seeker other than Starscream - if I wasn't so close to completing my collecting goals, I'd be considering getting out of the hobby altogether.

What really makes this difficult is that Hasbro US decides the exclusives... and while they may well be reasonably accessible in the USA, they're often an absolute pain to get here.

I wish the store exclusives were general store releases here, like Hasbro Asia are able to do in HK, Taiwan and the Philippines. Hopefully soon!

[JJJ]

So what I'm taking away from this (because most of Kingdom will not be for me) is that I should press the button on that Quintesson Judge that an Australian importer has because it is now almost certain that I will never see one on a shelf, right?

Done, and a good thing too, it was the last one in stock. And I've no idea where else in Australia I might have acquired one.

[Omega Metro]

So what I'm taking away from this (because most of Kingdom will not be for me) is that I should press the button on that Quintesson Judge that an Australian importer has because it is now almost certain that I will never see one on a shelf, right?

Done, and a good thing too, it was the last one in stock. And I've no idea where else in Australia I might have acquired one.

I feel better now that I bought Trailbreaker and Sunstreaker from Amazon the other day at slightly exorbitant prices.

[JJJ]

Yep, I got fed up with waiting for BigW to put out the rest of the W3 case (they put some Runamucks and Fasttracks out at the start of December, and have stubbornly refused to put any more stock, except Studio Series Leader Shockwave which turned up yesterday, out since - the section is horribly bare, as are a few other parts of their toy shelves), and bought those exact two deluxes from where I just grabbed the Judge.

[SMHFConvoy]

I might be naive or something, but I'm probably a lot less forgiving of this sort of thing - with technology and logistics where it should be at in 2021, there's not really an excuse for this sort of thing. There's a big enough chunk of Hasbro's business that goes towards adult collectors that they could try using a different delivery/supply model than the one from 1982.

Hasbro has made it VERY difficult to get some characters this year - soooo many exclusives. They go and make the definitive G1 CHUG Prowl and Bluestreak, but then make them exclusives? And then every seeker other than Starscream - if I wasn't so close to completing my collecting goals, I'd be considering getting out of the hobby altogether.

I'm taking the pandemic into consideration, it affected everyone globally and drastically reduced the workforce including people in logistics.