Sansweet's lame answer on how to get stores to carry more SW product.

[Turbowars]

What can be done to encourage stores to stock their shelves with new Star Wars materials? What to do? You can go to the managers of your favorite stores and tell them you'd be spending a lot more on Star Wars if they only had the latest items in their stores,

UMMM, sorry Sweet's, we all have been doing that for years. The managers can give a rats....

[SirSteve]

And a lot of managers (at least department managers) are the ones getting first crack at them.

[JediTricks]

Tell me! I've actually seen some of those managers at the local weekly toy show! So annoying, and a lot of the time, corporate HQs don't give a carp. Sansweet could at least have mentioned Tycho's letter-writing campaign or something like that instead of going with the easy answer. But then again, doesn't Sansweet shop in a pretty rural area where this sort of thing isn't as much of a problem?

[Anakin Palpatine]

I live in Chicago and it's always hard to get stuff. I find if you throw an employee at the right places a $10 once in a while they will help you out. Some guys even call me on my cell. I know I may as well just buy them off the internet if I'm going to do that, But it beats waiting for the mail.

[jjreason]

Im thinking Sansweet doesn't have to shop for anything. This answer is pretty generic.

[Turbowars]

Oh yeah, I bet Hasbro sends him a fresh case every couple of weeks. I think some people that are wealthy lose sense of reality. I'm sure the guy is catered to.

[Boba Fetish]

Oh yeah, here's another perspective. Why should managers could give a rats @$$ when scalpers will pay managers extra money to give pieces of merchandise to them out the same way they came in, out the back door. It's the reason why some stores out where I live have never seen action figures newer than a year old hit the shelves.

This is where I become a little preachy. The only reason why scalpers still do this is because there are collectors out there that stoop to paying exorbitantly high prices for them. Have faith, you will complete your collections with patience. Join a collector community on-line. This is how I have been able to score some really hard to find pieces for my collection, and I have been able to do the same for others. What comes around goes around.

Also, just to keep others from getting a bad rep, those people who charge a little extra for collectibles because they do it as a business are fine by me. I see some businesses barely break even doing this because they are providing collectors a service that enables them to save time and money which those particular businesses are having to eat in order to supply their goods and most of the time they are collectors themseves. In that case I don't see paying an extra buck or two a crime, but I still love the thrill of the hunt and that's my preferred way of collecting.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting this Holiday Season.

[JediTricks]

If a small-timer orders direct from Hasbro or indirect through Diamond, then I have no problem with people buying from them even though the prices are higher, that's reasonable. It's the scalpers who buy off the same shelves I'm trying to find this stuff from, buying from them is ultimately a losing proposition because you end up rewarding them to make it harder for you to find your figures in the first place - artificial market tampering like that IS illegal, this is why you can't go to an arena, buy 75% of the tickets, then stand across the street and sell those tickets. But enough about that.

There are 2 things that toy managers seem to not understand when they let scalpers buy whole cases:
A- the reason those toys are there is to entice buyers to come in for those toys and then be tempted to buy other products as well;
B- when the items in these cases get unpopular, which often is very soon, these same scalpers end up returning the unsold products for store credit, so now the store is stuck holding the bag on this old stuff.

Greed and shortsightedness seem to be the key factors in this, though they can be exclusive of each other since some toy managers who allow this don't take a nickel, they just enjoy the fact that they pushed a bunch of product out the door all at once.

[Jayspawn]

Sansweet gets cases from Hasbro. I'm sure he makes some store runs to see what is showing up in terms of general merchindise.

[Turbowars]

If he went out to Target to see what's out there he wouldn't have a clue. If he reads these forums, then he will know whats in the stores. The guy isn't in reality with that kind of reply to a big question such as that.