Target post-christmas reset
The local Target store performed their after Christmas toy section reset today. I managed to be in the midst of it, and it really was a sight to behold - all things considered it seemed to go along very smoothly! The early morning stop found a bunch of associates breaking down the old Christmas decoration backing papers, and having already piled most of the existing product into 'overstuff' boxes, ready to go up in new arrangements. The most enticing thing, of course, were the numerous flat-carts piled high with new product, including a staggering number of Hasbro 'Toy Group' cases - you know the ones, with the great purple bar and small line of text as to the product and wave contained within.
Well, I managed to spot a case of the new Transformers AllSpark Battles 2-packs, as well as GI Joe comic 2-packs! It was very exciting and I was goodly enough to hunt down an associate instead of launching into the cart. The boxes were, of course, on the bottom, and while the employee had been happy to let me see the cases at first, when he saw where they were he nicely requested that I just come back in a few hours when stuff would be shelved. At 8am that seemed plenty reasonable, and I'm glad I took the high road and thanked him for his time instead of proposing alternate scenarios by which I'd waste even more of his time.
The only thing that burned me up a little was that the early morning scalper, who arrives around 8:20, walked in as I left. Visions of his ransacking the pallets distracted me until a lunch-time return, which found that the busy Target folks had completely finished the reset! Well, at least of the action figure isle. There was the nicely expanded GI Joe 25th section, with a full vertical of pegs for single carded figures, and another for the comic 2-packs, both full of product! The Star Wars and Transformers sections were still mostly bare, surprisingly, though were reset to their new configurations. One can expect that the product will flow into those place holders shortly. What was truly surprising was that, in the midst of this beautiful sight of a newly stocked and organized and cleaned toy department, mere moments after the product had been stocked, there was a small handful of beady eyed, silent, cart-pushing wraiths, one even sporting ratty pink bedroom slippers (while a snowstorm raged outside). They were pulling the best of the new product from the shelves almost as quickly as it showed up. In particular, I had noticed a full set of
Star Wars Mighty Muggs figures on the shelf, being some of the small amount of newly stocked SW product (along with the abysmal key chains). Not 2 minutes later, the pink slippered one had glommed the entire pile into her filled-to-bursting cart, and was continuing her slow cycle, round and round, of the new section. What a large number of very lucky children she must have at home...!
Since
The Uncle had awesomely secured a set of the first three GI Joe comic 2-packs only days earlier, and my other two sections were under stocked, the only thing of interest was that nice set of AllSpark Battles figures, alone on their two pegs in the Transformers section. With that I was out of there, though as is par for the course, not for long! Having forgotten something, back I went at 6pm, only to notice that of the initial 12 GI Joe comic packs, only one remained! I always hoped that my complaints about scalpers in my small town were unfounded, but today was a real eye opener!
Posted by charlie on January 3rd 2008
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