After
years of growing dissatisfaction with service, selection, and pretty
much every other aspect of their business model; I am finally
quitting Walmart. They have crossed a line that I simply cannot
tolerate. As a business, they are attacking a facet of my lifestyle
that I hold dear and that defines my very character. Walmart has gone
too far and I absolutely cannot tolerate it any longer.
What?
You thought I was going to say they were persecuting homosexuals or
funding the Taliban or feeding black babies to demons in order to
secure their eventual domination of the world, which is secretly
being funded through their puppet government in China?
Bitch,
please.
I don’t care about any of that shit. But I am sick and fucking
tired of seeing nothing but Batmans and Clone Troopers because
Walmart can’t spare more than four feet of peg space for their Male
Action Figure aisle.
Every
time I go into Walmart the portion of the aisle that is devoted to
Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, Batman, and Spider-Man is smaller. I
can’t totally explain this, but I can sort of try if you can deal
with me rambling for a minute:
Walmart
caters to the lowest common denominator. Moms bring their twelve kids
in while they do their grocery shopping. Those kids want a toy, so
Mom buys them the cheapest Batman figure available. Or Clone Trooper.
Or whatever. So Walmart looks at this and says, “Well, damn. We
sold 87,000 of the five dollar Spider-Man figures last Tuesday. I
guess we need more of those. Drop those fifteen dollar Marvel Legends
and the ten dollar Ninja Turtles and order eight million more cases
of that Spider-Man figure that has one paint app.”
Then
Hasbro gets their order and decides that even though Target and Toys
R Us are doing well with the Marvel Legends, Walmart wants eighty
billion of that red Spider-Man with the blue blotch on its chest that
sort of looks like a spider and four points of articulation. So
resources need to be devoted to what Walmart wants. Because it
doesn’t matter that the shitty Spider-Man figure is going to sit
there taking up fifty-seven pegs in every Walmart across the nation
for the next four years, Hasbro will have sold them. Beyond that,
they don’t care. And Walmart doesn’t care because by the time
they realize they have a surplus of 973,000,000 crappy Spider-Mans
it’s been three years and eighteen movie-related toy lines later.
Meanwhile,
I can’t find a fucking Dani Moonstar.
What
you have to understand is that Walmart is the biggest toy retailer in
the world. It doesn’t matter that Toys R Us devotes an entire store
to toys – Walmart moves more. So every decision Walmart makes
regarding which toys to carry and how much space to devote to them
affects the toy industry as a whole. Walmart is the butterfly
flapping its wings in Chine that causes monsoons across the rest of
the world, only Walmart is fucking Rodan and King Ghidorah all
wrapped up in one.
I
doubt that explained very much, but what it boils down to is that
Walmart is the absolute worst entity that could possibly be making
decisions about what toys get made, but they are almost solely
responsible. And every time they shave another foot off of the space
they give male action figures, an entire line – possibly more –
dies. I don’t know exactly why they keep shrinking the aisle, but
they do. And I can’t support that any more.
Obviously
online retailers are one option for getting toys. The only real
problem with that is shipping. Toys are already very expensive, and
when you pile shipping – which has also gotten progressively more
expensive over the years – on top of that you’re talking about a
lot of money. Plus the fact
that many online toy retailers have to mark their stock up
considerably more than brick-and-mortar retailers. I suppose it’s
the price for being able to pick and choose what you buy at your
convenience, but it seems to me like online should be cheaper, as
they can’t have as much overhead. I dunno. Your best bets online
are either Amazon with their amazing Super Saver Shipping or Big Bad
Toy Store, who let you pile up your purchases and ship them all at
once to maximize your value.
Target
and Toys R Us are probably the most obvious alternatives to Walmart,
but they have their problems. Toys R Us just keeps getting more and
more ridiculously expensive, to the point where you could almost just
order online and pay shipping for what they charge. It’s pretty
fucking ridiculous and I’m not sure how they justify it.
For
example – the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sewer playset was
either $109.99 or $119.99 when it first came out. I really think it
was the former, but we’ll give TRU the benefit of the doubt and say
it was $120. That fucker is $139.99 now, less than three months after
it came out. As far as I know nobody else is carrying it – likely
because it is so huge – so I guess TRU can price it however they
want. Though I also suspect they’re pulling a Kaybee and will be
putting it on “sale” sometime between now and Christmas; possibly
for the original price.
Target
is generally pretty great about prices and they do seem to get a lot
of new toys first. But you had better be there when they arrive,
because they probably won’t get them back in for a very long time.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been excited to find a new
series or wave of figures at Target and then never seen them there
again. It often seems like Targets get a single case of something and
that’s it.
And
then there’s my new secret toy spot. The one that I just sort of
accidentally ran across. Actually, this might be my new favorite
retailer just in general – Fry’s Electronics. There’s been a
Fry’s on my way home for years now, but I never stopped in because
it’s kind of a pain in the ass to get to. But when the first season
of American Horror Story
came out on Blu Ray I saw that Fry’s had an amazing price on it
and went there to buy my copy. While there, I was absolutely amazed
at their pricing and selection. The DVD and Blu Ray inventory was
awesome. And then I found something that I have never actually seen
before – eight square feet of retail space devoted to Doctor Who.
And not just the new series – tons
of classic Doctor Who DVDs. From William Hartnell to Sylvester McCoy,
they had something from every Doctor. Not every story, mind you, but
an outstanding sampling. I knew I would be back.
The
very next time I visited I found another surprise – a toy section.
A toy section that had all of the new wave of Marvel Legends as well
as the newest line of Star Wars figures – the ones with the
awesome, retro-looking packaging:
Not
only that, their prices were fair. Not great, but fair. Star Wars
were $9.99 and Marvel were $17.99. Not as cheap as Target or Walmart,
but on par with or better than Toys R Us or other specialty retailers
like that music store in Discover Mills that sells Star Wars figures
for $18.99. I bought X-Force Deadpool, Mystique, Punisher, and Doctor
Doom. They didn’t have Moonstar or Blade. I think I’m taking
Punisher back because I’ve already got two of him. I didn’t buy
any Star Wars because the whole wave seemed to be Troopers of one
variety or another. They did have a new Bespin Leia, but her head
looked like a monkey. It was pretty bad, which sucked because I was
pretty excited about getting that version of the figure.
So
anyway, there are alternatives to Walmart and I will be using them.
Until they return the male action aisle to its full length former
glory, Walmart will not be getting any of my dollars. I already
stopped doing an grocery shopping there and other than just stopping
to buy odd combinations of items I only have one other reason to even
go to Walmart. And that’s going to be the big problem.
Walmart
gets most of the best Exclusive action figures and toys from Hasbro.
The
6” scale movie Avengers
figures were Walmart Exclusives, as were the Amazing
Spider-Man toys of the same
scale. Every year Walmart gets at least one amazing Star Wars toy
that you can’t get anywhere else. Granted, sometimes you can’t
find it at Walmart, either, but you know what I mean. It is going to
be very difficult to pass up those exclusives. But I’m going to do
it. Every time I go into Walmart I just get more pissed off at what
they’re doing to the toy industry. So I’m going to stop.
One
last thing, because I wasn’t sure where t put it amidst the rest of
my rambling.
The
other thing Walmart did to lose my dollars was to reduce their
operating hours. I work 12 hour shifts on alternating days and
nights. It used to be really nice to be able to hit Walmart and do my
grocery shopping at night. That was the main reason I went there. But
now that they close at 1 AM and do not reopen until 5 AM I just
haven’t been going there as much at all. For whatever reason, that
1 – 4 window happened to be a good time for me to get things done.
I
know I’m not going to make a difference. And even if I can convince
all three of my regular readers to stop going to Walmart it won’t
matter. But if you love toys and desire a marketplace full of new and
exciting products, I encourage you to consider spending your money
elsewhere.
PS - I'm seriously not going to Walmart anymore, but I don't expect anybody to take any of this seriously. I'm just talking, I'm not trying to start a movement or anything.
-Phantom
We are with ya bro!
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't get is how they deal with their exclusives. DC universe classics series 5 had a minimum of new tooling, but 5 of the 6 avengers figures are new sculpts (Thor may be reused, but he was a Wal-Mart exclusive in the first place.) It boggles the mind. And I agree with you boycotting Wal-mart, but I couldn't do it. They're my best bet for the Movie Masters Ra's Ah Ghul!
ReplyDeleteMy local Wal-Mart recently got their shit together. They started getting Marvel Legends, as well as Marvel Universe(took them long enough with this one). And I can't complain about the selection of the new TMNT stuff. They always were extremely short on their Transformers stuff, but have gotten a little better in that area. And they never had a single new Thundercats figure! They do still have about 15 pegs worth of those Amazing Spider-Man figures. There are 2 reasons I go to Wal-Mart, besides grocery shopping. First it's the closest store that carries toys(all others are at least a 40 minute drive). And on the chance I find something I want, it's usually the lowest price around. TRU has a great selection of figures, but their prices are a little too inflated. But I still buy a few things from time to time. If there was a Target closer to me, I would probably shop there. Target has decent prices(just a tad higher than Wal-Mart), and a much better selection. They also have stuff going on clearance pretty regularly.
ReplyDeleteTarget > Wal-Mart.