One of the people at the Queen St Mall store told me last year they used to know dates and would get excess stock in because they knew they would sell it, but now they don't get told what's coming, when its coming, they're rarely told about new lines, and they're generally only able to get one or maybe two boxes to a store. Hasbro is behind part of that, apparently.
Most staff at stores are generally very lazy now.
Years ago, staff used to gladly phone if figures turned up.
Years later the new batch of staff wouldn't do it unless I offered a bribe of sorts.
Now they just look at me with glazed eyes and say "I don't think we get that anymore" or "have you looked on the shelf? "
If I ask for anyone to have a look out back for anything, you would swear I had just taken their Xbox away from them. The one guy that did go out back just walked through the plastic curtain, pulled out his phone and started playing with it not knowing I was watching through the curtain, and then he came back out and said he couldn't fine anything. I couldn't even be bothered arguing with him.
In my time as a collector, I have lost so much faith the staff of stores. No one cares about their job anymore. No pride in anything.
Sorry for the rant, I really hope its just my town and not like this everywhere.
To be fair, as an ex-retail employee, I completely see where the staff is coming from.
It's easy not to have pride in your work when you get paid next to nothing (I was lucky to get $400 a week. No lie, that was what I considered a "good week"), have no rights (because you're only casual and the SDA is the most useless union in Australia- case in point, you can sue for unfair dismissal, but if your boss decides to keep you on and simply never ever give you a shift ever again, that's OK), and you're expected to take all sorts of verbal abuse from people because an item scanned at the correct price (the amount of times I was screamed at, literally screamed at, because some idiot customer looked at the wrong price tag is staggering).
If you wanna blame anyone, blame management. They're the ones who created the kind of work environments where it was more practical to not care rather than work hard.
Kmart Helensvale had "Temporarily out of stock" tags up, and empty shelves .
They do have a ton of Dragonstorms on clearance though.
On the lookout for MISB Headmaster Highbrow, Takara or Hasbro. I'm sure I could make you a sweet deal!
Today at Mr Toys Toyworld Burleigh, Gold Coast
Titans Return:
Hot rod, Kup, Wolfwire, Hardhead $30
Galvatron, Astrotrain $50
Soundwave, Blaster $90
Wheelie, Roadburn, Brawn, Gnaw $23
Plenty of titan masters $9
Combiner Wars:
Scattershot, Onslaught $50
Platinum Edition:
Optimus Prime (clear and bronze colour) $169
Toys r Us at Garbo was doing some restocking today. Seems to be RID randos, a bunch of those giant TLK Dragonstorms/Megs, and TR Broadside, and lots of him.
Nowhere else at Garden City has bothered restocking since Xmas, completely missing out on prime "kids flush with Xmas money on school holidays" time.
Nowhere restocked before christmas either from what I saw.
Big W MacArthur Central has been restocking their toys for the past few days. Seem to have finished now, and not a single new transformer figure to be seen.
Toyworld Helensvale says (on phone, but he seemed confident) that they haven't had any new Transformers in months. I'm going to give up hunting and will try next week. I really want Optimus!
On the lookout for MISB Headmaster Highbrow, Takara or Hasbro. I'm sure I could make you a sweet deal!