In your Experiences...

[GizorDellso]

What store has the best overall selection you have ever seen? No place around here ever updates there stock but i have seen and bought the Force Unleashed line and at the Gordmans(!) i found a Darktrooper.So what is the best place to buy in your opinion.

I live in Central illinois FYI

[Dark Marble]

I have always liked Target the best. Most of the things in my collection have come from Target. I am in Boulder, Colorado and the several Targets around me have always been good.

[mtriv73]

For the past several years, no store has had a great selection around here (in Maryland.) You either stumble upon a case the day it's put out or you miss the wave entirely (or at least part of it.) There are a couple McQuarrie figures from last year that I still haven't seen in "the wild." Most of the time we have had nothing but empty pegs or multiple pegwarmers like Lott Dodd, Nemiodian guard, and Moff J.

To combat the empty pegs problem, Hasbro introduced the saga legends line knowing that no one really wanted these figures again and thus ensuring that there is always something (collecting dust) on the pegs.

I started buying online a few years ago to avoid the hassle (and gas wasting) of looking for new figures. Usually, I just pick up extras at brick and mortar stores.

I highly recommend one of Steve's fine sponsors to fill the holes in your collection. (How's that for sucking up to the ones who pay the bills?)

[Mad Slanted Powers]

It kind of goes through phases here. Over the years, I've had the best luck at Target, but they've been kind of lagging on putting out new stuff lately, or I'm just missing it. I've seen Force Unleashed at both Wal-Mart and Target, but have yet to find the Jumptrooper and EVO Trooper. Wal-Mart has had more pegs the last few months.

Ever since I moved close to a Fred Meyer, I've been able to get more stuff there because I can check it more often. Both of the ones we have here haven't been getting new stuff for a while.

K-Mart is hardly worth checking anymore. This started with ROTS. When everyone else had the big opening day of figures, they didn't even seem to be carrying them. Ever since then I usually don't see much there.

A Kohl's opened here where Mervyn's used to be. They've had figures but I don't usually check because they were $9.99 for basic figures. However at the end of last year they were on sale a lot and I was able to find a couple things like the Concept Snowtrooper.

[Neuroleptic]

Here in Manhattan Kansas, you only have three choices.

Target is usualy the best, but lately they havn't been re stocking the star wars figures for some reason, so the last time I went they only had 4 of some alien I wasn't ineterested in.

Walmart is still cramed full mostly of late 2006, early 2007, first wave of TAC, and a few figures for the last wave of 2007 that no one seems to want. Walmart also dosn't seem to be in a hurry to sell them either . . .

K-mart, which is either nearly empty, or over priced (8.99) and somehow never seems to have figures anyone wants anyway.

I usualy turn to E-bay at the very end of the year and pick up the few figures I actualy want. And I don't activly go places just to look for star wars figures anymore. Gas is too expensive to do that, so I only look when I have a reason to be in Target, Walmart, or even rarer, K-mart.

[Kidhuman]

Its a toos up between Target and WM for me

[Jedi_Kal-El]

The Targets and Wal-Marts here seem to alternate each year on who gets the newer stuff first and most often.

[2-1B]

Frank and Sons is the go-to place in my town, that's where I score most of my collection.

[StarWarsMom]

I've had the best luck at a local anime shop. Unfortunately they jack the prices up on their figures. I normally wouldn't pay that much for a figure, but they've gotten stuff in that I have never found at any of the TRU's or Target's in my area.

[Tycho]

The answer will be one of 3 stores, but as others have said, never the same at the same point in any fiscal year:

1) Wal-Mart
2) Target
3) Toys R Us

What happens could be any combination below:

a) customers hide stuff. The computer inventory registers a case in stock, but the pegs are empty, yet 12 figures are still in the store hidden somewhere. The stashers forget where they put stuff, or don't need it, or don't regularly shop there, but the computer doesn't know where the stuff is. It just thinks it doesn't have to order more. If that happens at 1/3 stores, then the other 2 will become better places to shop.

b) the store buries stuff in backstock. Saga Legends took up too much pegspace and there is no room to stock TAC. Employees who don't care that much see both cases as "just SW figures" and don't distinguish any difference. The TAC goes in the back, gets outdated, while at the same time, the stock doesn't move unless SL is purchased - in which case the computer orders more stock of SL. The other 2 stores become better.

c) the above happen at the other 2 stores. Somebody has a clearance sale or a Hasbro Rep visits and does a good merchandising / stock shifting job. That retailer then pulls ahead.

I think in the course of collecting history, I've had my best finds at Target, though any Midnite Madness at TRU kicks the tar out of everything else. But Wal-Mart's stock-up during movie years can be awesome.

As of right now, 2008, Target is my WORST store however!