How are sales at your Targets?

[hedrap]

So what happens to the stores that aren't getting squat out to the endcaps?

[Werewolf]

Duck Tales has a new audience and blessed with an incredible adult following hungry for product, heck even I like Duck Tales.

I'm not surprised as well that Duck Tales is selling briskly. It's a beloved 80s property that has been thankfully given a fantastic update. Considering how incredibly popular 80s cartoons continue to be its sadly actually rare for a property to be treated so respectfully in an update. There's an absolute hunger for 80s toons and the demand really isn't being met. Ignoring 80s cartoons is my biggest frustration with new MEGO. If they can get KISS they can get Thundercats.

[wise guy]

The 3 stores that have end caps in my area have 3-4 of most of them . I go to Target
every week and have been checking the numbers to see if there selling. So far it looks
like Dracula , Sulu and Chekov have less stock and the 14'' are not moving at all with
8 Wonderwomans,and Harleys on one end cap. Some areas of the U.S might be selling better but right now these could be on clearance before Christmas here in Cen-Cal

[palitoy]

You would expect NECA and Ducktales to be doing better than Mego, no doubt, but I wouldn't necessary want it to be such a wide breadth in sales.

I believe you that is wide right now, Mego wasn't allowed to speak until less than 60 days before launch and product reveals were insanely short.

Duck Tales has a new audience and blessed with an incredible adult following hungry for product, heck even I like Duck Tales.

NECA has been steadily promoting the new product to an audience feeling the TRU vacuum, they both had great head starts.

Mego Corp has less then 300 twitter followers right now, most people think the Museum is behind all of this, that's really needs to build.

While that seems discouraging, we're very early in the game, that's all i'm saying. I've got people writing things like "I sincerely doubt we see wave 2" and well, unless a boat sinks, we're getting wave 2.

I can't predict the future with data either but I also can't do much with less then three weeks sales. It's a taste but it's hard to see the trend. The big shopping weeks are coming, the traffic of the non collector will make or break this. I think Wave 2 being filled with less "second string" characters (and Target's insistence to launch with some b-list was odd, even to me) will be the best indicator of it having legs.

. To me, I'm seeing some red flags, but I certainly don't want to argue about it or make it seem like I'm trying to poo-poo the line. Lord knows I've been championing it in lots of places and trying to push the merits of Mego's comeback as a whole.

Well, that's the most important thing you can do, spread awareness, we as a group won't move the needle sales wise, making others aware that this is a thing is really key.

I'm still encountering every day people tweeted or DMing me "What, Mego is back? Where?" so keep talking about it.

Just an aside, and this purely anecdotal, one of my team does a very good job, creeps into a location like clock work, fills the display quietly and leaves, perfect VMI. I ran into one of his managers one day on a tour, he said to me "I swore nothing ever sold because the display looked the same, week in, week out, you're lucky i checked the POS numbers before I tossed you guys out!". The bottom line is, he should have left an empty peg once in a while.

[MIB41]

I can say without question the Target closest to me has been restocked at least once and that existing stock is moving. I know because I watched it sell down to no 14 inch figures and two Jeannie double packs with no individual Trek, Hendrix, Fonzie, or Dracula figures. A couple of days later it was completely restocked. From what I've read about the shipments, stores are receiving enough volume to keep those end caps stocked through at least one cycle. My buddy Chris is across the bridge in Indiana and he saw essentially the same thing occur. So I wouldn't assume that your local Target put out everything they had available and every time you go in you're seeing the same figures you saw before.

I have five or six Targets in town and I've made several trips around to see what they've had and not all of them are getting them in at the same pace as the one closest to me, so it's been difficult to gauge response there. I'll check them again this week and report back. From what I have read on the Ambassadors page allot of people spent the first couple of weeks just trying to find them, so it sounds like stores are just getting them fully stocked or in some cases like mine, restocked. When you consider there are 160,000 plus figures out there between the eight and 14 inch, it's pretty incredible that inventory has moved at any noticeable pace this quickly.

Will there be some peg warmers in that lot? I think it's reasonable to assume given the assortment of licensing. But when you consider the level of complaints from people who couldn't find them a couple of weeks ago (and sadly running to the scalpers) it's a bit of a leap to conclude the line is suddenly bombing because they're finally in stores. I would let these end caps sell for at least another month before drawing any conclusions about wave one. When you consider they have scores of movie related figures growing roots on their respective shelves from having been there since late Spring, Mego figures look relatively healthy by comparison. I feel good about the initial response. It was far better than I ever could have imagined.

[palitoy]

Here is what to do when you have no POS data and this what I make my own team do everywhere they go.

Pick the day you visit the targets, count the inventory (maybe separate by 8", 14" and two packs).

Return each week and count, if it goes up, you'll have to factor in that they've replenished but otherwise, you'd get a solid picture of weekly turns and shrink. The more stores, the more we can establish an average.

If I didn't live two hours to the closest target, that's what I'd be doing. I even have the software for it in my handheld.

It's conjecture but I'm inclined to believe sales will climb as awareness grows and while clearance is inevtible (spoilers it's factored in) , I doubt we'll see many discounted Draculas, Wonder Women or Trek people.

[theSamurai]

Agreed, but I didn't think it was an apples to apples comparison, nor do I think I said it was. If it seemed that I implied that, then mea culpa. But I do think you can extrapolate some info based on what you see in store, (and in this case several stores in a decent sized area) including, but not limited to comparing other items, even if they are not direct comparisons. You would expect NECA and Ducktales to be doing better than Mego, no doubt, but I wouldn't necessary want it to be such a wide breadth in sales. To me, I'm seeing some red flags, but I certainly don't want to argue about it or make it seem like I'm trying to poo-poo the line. Lord knows I've been championing it in lots of places and trying to push the merits of Mego's comeback as a whole.

I hope my rather gloomy predictions are wrong, but I do see several trends developing at the local level that eerily match other lines, including Target exclusive ones, that went about the way I described in the past. Of course even really good scientific and concrete data can be wrong when predicting the future, so I realize my local observations and trend following has plenty of birth to be wrong. Only time will tell. I appreciate the input.

I would tend to agree on this. I've traveled to probably a dozen or so local Targets to look for items I collect (not just MEGO) monthly. I've been doing this off and on for almost 40 years. As a collector, I have just as much experience (more sometimes) and knowledge on how certain stores manage their shipments, and restocks, than some of their youthful employees do. Years as a collector can be just as important towards learning what's what in terms of the toy world and developing fairly sharp observation skills, or feelings, on what's going on with various toy lines.

BTW - in my travels to and fro to these stores, this week specifically, I've seen some with fully stocked MEGO end-caps, others that look almost bare and some in the middle with enough (MEGOs) to look well stocked but were obviously picked over a fair amount to trigger a restock. They were all still stocked on end-caps too. Time will tell, but I'm certain wave 2 will show up as planned .. but hopefully some adjustments can be made to get a balance of characters that sell well along with proper quantities to prevent peg warming for extended periods. Sell thru windows in stores these days are very short (3 months or so) which can determine a toy lines future health and longevity .. units sold and all that.

Best.

[ODBJBG]

My mileage is my experience and training. You personally have no data (nor do I) and just compared an established brand with a huge social media presence and following to one just reintroducing itself to the retail landscape. I can tell you what right now, that ain't apples to apples.

Nobody said you had to bury your head in the sand but there is no need to connect your local observations to such specious reasoning.

Show me a velocity report and I can predict the future, other wise, it's all eye balling and not useful.

Agreed, but I didn't think it was an apples to apples comparison, nor do I think I said it was. If it seemed that I implied that, then mea culpa. But I do think you can extrapolate some info based on what you see in store, (and in this case several stores in a decent sized area) including, but not limited to comparing other items, even if they are not direct comparisons. You would expect NECA and Ducktales to be doing better than Mego, no doubt, but I wouldn't necessary want it to be such a wide breadth in sales. To me, I'm seeing some red flags, but I certainly don't want to argue about it or make it seem like I'm trying to poo-poo the line. Lord knows I've been championing it in lots of places and trying to push the merits of Mego's comeback as a whole.

I hope my rather gloomy predictions are wrong, but I do see several trends developing at the local level that eerily match other lines, including Target exclusive ones, that went about the way I described in the past. Of course even really good scientific and concrete data can be wrong when predicting the future, so I realize my local observations and trend following has plenty of birth to be wrong. Only time will tell. I appreciate the input.

[boss]

You’re talking to Target management?

[hedrap]

Five stores within 20 mintues, haven't seen any on the shelf but I know they're in the storage. Two of them are going to have more space when they clear the liquidation rows and endcaps. My questions is if wave 1 isn't put out until September, what about wave 2 in October? Would they be put out at the same time or will the delay kick wave 2 back. If that happens, Wave 3 won't make the holidays.

[TrekStar]

Target wanted an exclusive, then they guarantee that space on the planogram. I negotiate this stuff all the time, I'm pretty sure that the Mego staff is competent enough to have the same clause.

I work with major retailers every day on inventory, it is silly to predict these worst case scenarios after two weeks in the summer, so let's stop predicting failure based on zero data.

Zero data? my info is based on what the Target employees and management is telling me what the data is at this particular location which is practically in my back yard, I was just sharing the info here, it's not that big of a deal, if I want any of the new megos I'll just go online and take my chances, the store would have been more convenient.

[tmthor]

No Targets around me have them yet.

[palitoy]

My mileage is my experience and training. You personally have no data (nor do I) and just compared an established brand with a huge social media presence and following to one just reintroducing itself to the retail landscape. I can tell you what right now, that ain't apples to apples.

Nobody said you had to bury your head in the sand but there is no need to connect your local observations to such specious reasoning.

Show me a velocity report and I can predict the future, other wise, it's all eye balling and not useful.

[ODBJBG]

Closer to 4 weeks in these parts and multiple stores. So zero data is inaccurate. Granted, it's anecdotal, but at least grounds for a hypothesis. Absolutely, only time will tell and I'm hoping for the best, but I'm also not going to bury my head in the sand to trends I'm seeing locally. Certainly I'm open to the fact that it may be different in other markets, though. I know some people have reported more robust sales. Which is encouraging. But this is far from my first rodeo and you certainly can compare similar trends. NECA's entrance to Target is a great example. At least locally, most of my stores are either completely wiped out of product or drastically reduced. I'm certain the coupon code they had helped with that, but it's still worth noting that there's been a pretty stark difference in how the two companies were able to move product in a similar time frame. Similar results with Ducktales, though they started to show up a week or two before Mego.

I've just not necessarily seen the sort of movement I would have liked. Maybe Target is happy. Maybe Mego is happy. I can't say for certain. I can only comment on what I've seen and what in my decades of experience usually sets the groundwork for trouble. Your mileage may vary.

I'd love to hear some other folks reports from the ground.

[palitoy]

Target wanted an exclusive, then they guarantee that space on the planogram. I negotiate this stuff all the time, I'm pretty sure that the Mego staff is competent enough to have the same clause.

I work with major retailers every day on inventory, it is silly to predict these worst case scenarios after two weeks in the summer, so let's stop predicting failure based on zero data.