Zarkan Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 Something really strange is going on with my local Walmart. It's been over two weeks since Christmas, and yet when I went there today the lego aisle of the toy section was a complete messs. One half of the shelf was partially filled with a mixture of 2008 and 2009 sets, with no real rhyme or reason. What was more disapointing was that the entire other half was filled with dozens of Megabloks jr. bags - in fact there was probably more of those than lego sets! There were other problems as well. For some reason, Walmart has already discounted the Castle Dwarves Mine and Troll Warship, putting them in a clearance section (although the discounts weren't that great). And then there's fact that most of the other toy aisles were filled to the brim with toys. It honestly seems like my local Walmart is completely neglecting their lego section in favor of cheaper products, which really gets on my nerves. So, anyone else have any troubles with local stores? Quote
The Bricksmith Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I have noticed the same thing here in the PNW the last few weeks. There are some newer sets out but they are varied and there are some discounts on the sets you mentioned as well as the speed racer ones as well. Since this has been happening for a few weeks I do not think that the recent floods are to blame. Maybe sets are just taking longer to show up here because of a christmas backlog on production? Quote
Dadster Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I checked a local WM the other day. Same issues as far as the discounted stuff and slovenly shelves. Back in the gardening section were stacked pallets of still-wrapped boxes from various companies. Lego, Mattel, Hasbro, etc. The Lego boxes contained Power Miners and Darth Vaders TIE. Most of the boxes had street dates of early Dec. on them... I guess they figure the public will buy them whenever they put the stuff out. Quote
SWMAN Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I have noticed the same thing, but at S@H. There are at least 4 or 5 castle sets sold out or on back order. Quote
Yeow Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 (edited) I usually have to wait a good two-three weeks into January before Wal-Mart, Target or TRU restock anything. I've never figured out why they take so long, as it has happened for the past few years, but I assume it's simply a lack of shipments. Edited January 10, 2009 by Yeow Quote
Faramir Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I kinda know what you mean, my local Target got one shipment of Power Miners, but that's gone, so now there's just a few 2008 sets left messily on the shelves Quote
mania3 Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 Everywhere I've gone, be it LEGO Retail Stores, Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, and even LEGOLAND itself is extremely understocked. I was at LEGOLAND today and they only had two small selections of Power Miners. Two sets available was all, and maybe 5-6 copies of each at most. Quote
brickzone Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 Dunno about the US, but a lot of UK/Irish stores have cash flow problems - due to lack of credit/overdraft from banks. Businesses are holding off on paying bills, which means other businesses have problems due to not receiving that money, and so they hold of on paying their creditors, and so on... So I suspect that some retail outlets have problems finding money to restock. In fact, it is expected this side of the Atlantic that more retailers will go bust in the new year - not just loss-making ones, but ones with thin margins who can't balance the payments due to the "credit crunch". No sign of 2009 sets in stores here in Ireland. The local Tesco has only two shelves of Lego left (the unsold Magnetix and Megabloks spread out on what were the other empty Lego shelves) - a quarter of that is unsold Speed Racer. Quote
mrchris Posted January 11, 2009 Posted January 11, 2009 Noticed it around here too. Local Toys r us had hardly anything, about 1/3 of shelf space than before christmas and majority was star wars. Hamleys in London (tourist trap rip off!!) they have about 1/4 of the space. in the shelf marked up with lego city logos it has some cheap tat in its place. They seem to only have Bionicle and star wars, almost no city, brick buckets, Indy etc. Even amazon seems to only have 3rd party sellers with stock but they are charging 2-3 times for each set which really annoys me as a lot of people do not know the RRP so then think that lego is poor value (£130 for the pirate ship!) Argos should have some in the new catalogue, hopefully new sets but their range is lacking compared to when i was young and they had 4 pages, now its lucky to get 2. Quote
timbutnice Posted January 11, 2009 Posted January 11, 2009 I agree - in the London area in the UK the cupboard is pretty bare - my local TRU normally has around 15-20 feet of Lego space, yesterday down to around 4. Local department stores are almost completely sold out - my local Argos has nothing at all (I went through every -yes I am that dull- number in the catalogue yesterday). Even the Lego shop in Brighton was quite sparse - the shelves were full, but with multiples of the same sets, very few medium or small sets. I overheard a shop assistant in the Entertainer telling a customer that Lego had by far the worst distribution of any of their suppliers, and that they wouldn't stock it if it wasn't so popular - although he categorized popular as being 'everyone had Lego when they were kids' rather than 'its flying off the shelves now'. Could just be post Christmas issues, Lego may be deliberately holding back production (and hence supply) in the current climate - especially given their overstocking earlier in the decade, or (and this is my guess), they really are pretty poor at demand forecasting and supply fulfillment. This isn't supposed to be a 'bash Lego' comment - I really want them to succeed (I need them to ), but they aren't going to if they can't get goods into shops to sell... hope it gets better soon as I have saved-up-for-post-Christmas cash to spend! cheers, timbutnice Quote
greedo Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 in frankfurt, germany (galeria kaufhof) there is the same problem. They are the first in this area who have the new sets usually around christmas. 1 day before christmas they had the new indiana jones sets. (flying wing & shanghai chase); but only 5 each. 1 day later all sold out, now they have none and almost no star wars lego, apart from the older ones. construction lego: all the cheaper sets sold out. Quote
Erdbeereis Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 My local Target has just started getting sets in. They got a few random sets in before Christmas that I bought such as the Crystal Sweeper, Granite Grinder, Darth Vader's TIE and Cannon Battle, but they really only had one or 2. Just yesterday they got a small amount of each Star Wars set, and a large amount of the new Indy sets, but still a limited selection of Pirates and no Power Miners. The strange thing is that last year, Target had pretty much all of the new sets before new year's! I'm going back today to see if they stocked anymore... Quote
mrchris Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 Hopefully it was a good year for them, after all more sales = more sets and choice :) as long as people are buying what we consider good sets of course Quote
Commander_Blitz Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I was in Hamleys near the start of January, and I asked about the lack of anything that wasn't Mars Mission or bionicle. I was told they were awaiting the delivery of their normal order (city, star wars, etc) and didn't have time to think about new themes like indy and power miners... Quote
The Cobra Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I thought it only happened here in Italy... there's nothing except a few Bionicle on the shelves! (and Mega_you_know_what.) And, unlike in late 2007, in November and December what was gone was never to come back. No restocks! That was kind of shocking. And I remember in January 2008 I went to a local toy store chain shop, and they had plenty of sets, including AquaRaiders (let me remind you, AR were not available in Italian shops in 2007) I can hardly believe Lego has become every kid's favourite toy. What are shopkeepers the thinking? "You won't see a Lego set until we get rid of all this cr*p"? Quote
dieselboy m Posted January 14, 2009 Posted January 14, 2009 Everywhere I've gone, be it LEGO Retail Stores, Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears, and even LEGOLAND itself is extremely understocked. I was at LEGOLAND today and they only had two small selections of Power Miners. Two sets available was all, and maybe 5-6 copies of each at most. As I'm in San Diego also, I can add that the shelves at the Walmarts and Targets in the South county are still dry. I haven't really checked anywhere else within the past couple weeks, but I'd imagine they're pretty much the same. It's pretty disappointing, I'm itching to grab up some more 2009 sets. I'm just glad I was able to snag a few in the days before Christmas. Quote
Thee Pirate Posted January 14, 2009 Posted January 14, 2009 For what it's worth, it's like that in Florida too. There's 4 Wal Marts within a half hour of me and all of them are lacking in sets. They all have about a billion Indiana Jones Jungle Cutter sets, all marked down, and the shelves are left marked down for sets they don't have anymore... like that $45 police semi, which I actually kind of wanted to pick up. The local Target had 1 new IJ set (the fight on the flying wing) I bought it, and put it together, but it didnt have any shelf space marked for Shanghai chase. TRU is overstocked on everything but Lego, and Megaflops POTC sets are spilling over into the Lego section. This is the worst time of year to buy Lego sets Quote
Johnnhiszippy3 Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Today I stopped by the Lego store in Glendale, California hoping they had the Medieval Market...the only new sets they had were a couple Power Miner sets (a couple boxes, not a couple different sets) and a few of the new SW sets, and barely anything old. I was dissapointed. I then went to the Target in the same mall, and it had the new Indiana Jones sets, new construction sets, new Star Wars, and several older sets. Kind of strange..... Quote
Tinn-man Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Went to target today in Nashville, TN. They had no legos whatsoever. I went to another target a few days later and they had almost every new set excluding the SW battlepacks (the one thing I was looking for ) and power miners. Quote
Badsneaker Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Same boat here in New Hamshire. Walmart has nothing. TRU has nothing either except a few leftover new sets from Xmas. They actually have nothing compared to a few weeks before Xmas. Not a single Coast Guard set on the shelf. SAH looks like my best bet if I want something new. Nothing like that impulse buy when you are there in the store though. The nearest LEGO store is an hour away and they hase sales tax (we don't in NH), so I haven't ventured over there yet although I would love to check out their PAB wall. Quote
Norro Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Dunno about the US, but a lot of UK/Irish stores have cash flow problems - due to lack of credit/overdraft from banks. Businesses are holding off on paying bills, which means other businesses have problems due to not receiving that money, and so they hold of on paying their creditors, and so on...So I suspect that some retail outlets have problems finding money to restock. In fact, it is expected this side of the Atlantic that more retailers will go bust in the new year - not just loss-making ones, but ones with thin margins who can't balance the payments due to the "credit crunch". My suspicions were similar... God Bless, Nathan Quote
dieselboy m Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 I then went to the Target in the same mall, and it had the new Indiana Jones sets, new construction sets, new Star Wars, and several older sets. I went to another target a few days later and they had almost every new set excluding the SW battlepacks (the one thing I was looking for ) and power miners. This sounds like a good sign. I haven't checked any stores this past week ('cause I'm broke, haha), but it's nice to hear Target stores are finally restocking. Hope to pick up some more 2009 sets again soon. Quote
mrchris Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 new argos catalogue has some of the new indy, power miners and construction sets in, no pirates though. Quote
Dadster Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 WM's and Targets in the local area are restocking this week. Lots of empty spaces with new UPCs stickied to the shelf edges. Power Miners, IJ and, Star Wars (up the wazoo...). Quote
Yeow Posted January 17, 2009 Posted January 17, 2009 Most of mine have now re-stocked ..Target has a full blown Power Miners display set up, with the models in a case and everything. Quote
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