We probably should have seen this coming. When our initial shipment of G.I. Joe Classified Series Wave 1 Action Figures arrived, it had been shorted and we did not get all of our inventory. We were assured that more were on the way. At the same time, finding the figures at retail was extremely difficult. We managed to spot one here, one there, but never more than that.
Amazon launched an exclusive Storm Shadow that sold out within minutes. Target launched an entire exclusive line of “Cobra Island Special Missions” figures that sold out online in 2 minutes. We managed to find a handful of the Exclusive Gung Ho for our customers for the store launch, but even going first thing in the morning on launch day and going from store to store (we hit 7 stores that morning), the rest of the figures had been completely sold out (Baroness, Cobra Trooper, and Beachhead).
Wave 2 (Cobra Commander, Gung Ho, and Red Ninja) we were able to order the same time as Wave 1, only it was coming out in October instead of June. We have done very well with that set, too, and have been regularly ordering more figures as demand has warranted it.
So what should we have seen coming? We got word this evening that Hasbro has officially announced to the Distributors that the sets are short and have not been manufactured enough to meet the demand / vendor orders for them. The letter went on to say that the inventory the Distributor anticipates will not be nearly enough to fulfill all vendor orders.
For now, this is for the “sets” only, not the solid case lots. For Wave 2 specifically, we have solid case lots ordered because the wave itself was an uneven split between the three figures, so we ordered a handful of cases of the set, and the rest as solid cases. However, if the sets have already been announced to be shorted and orders will be cancelled, I wouldn’t be surprised if the solid case lots (which now have been bumped out to a January 2021 fulfillment date) wouldn’t soon follow suit (we experienced that with Marvel Legends X-Men Beast. The one figure was extremely popular and we had ordered cases of that figure alone in addition to the sets we had, but rather than release the cases, Hasbro discontinued the figure and all orders were cancelled).
To play it safe, even though we still should have extra figures on the way above and beyond our current orders, we have taken all of the G.I. Joe figures not in stock (other than the Exclusive Destro who was not included in this announcement) down from being able to be pre-ordered. We truly hope that we receive our inventory since the cases we’re waiting for had ben ordered months ago (and we have orders placed at 2 different distributors and as mentioned above, we’re not unwilling to travel from store to store to seek retail options to make sure our customers do indeed get their orders), and can then relist the items for sale with figures in stock. Until then, we will keep working to try and make sure we get at least enough to fulfill our pre-orders, and if we learn any more we will provide further updates.
