Interesting insights, but I disagree about where it all starts

Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
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I can't believe I ended up spending all day on this. It started out as quick email to Major Retailers, to query their reason for all skipping the Generations Line
To be honest I would first question whether the Major Retailers were even offered the main Generations Line here in Australia. From what I recall, Generations was not brought to toyfair for the last couple of years. I think Hasbro has failed to bring the Generations line here. If major retailers were wholly responsible for mismanagement of their toy market then surely you'd see negative impacts across ALL brands not just Hasbro.

However this is plainly not the case, the LEGO Group are having the time of their lives at the moment: a veritable golden age despite higher than ever retail prices and even a slight downshift in product quality. What I see in LEGO is a well oiled machine that is beating Hasbro in shelf presence, design & innovation, marketing/tie-ins, video gaming and even in licensed products. They've also 'protected' their customers (retailers, not us consumers) by banning parallel importing where they can.

While I do believe that retailers still have control over how much shelf space they allocate to a particular brand it is my opinion that they are favouring other brands over Transformers and particularly the Generations line, perhaps even by the advice of Hasbro Australia themselves based on past sales figures and percieved saleability.