And they wonder why retail stores are suffering. I live in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, & I've STRUGGLED to even FIND certain waves at retail.
I regularly visit TRU just to browse & clear my head, but it makes less & less sense to actually buy from there. When I did succumb to an impulse buy last year, it turned out that I had foolishly bought approximately 3/4 a Superion & 1/3 of a Menasor.
I checked back relentlessly for MONTHS at several TRU stores just so that I could COMPLETE the damn gestalt figures, but after actually speaking with TRU management, I finally discovered that Combiner Wars Wave 2 was being completely bypassed! Apparently they had no intention of EVER stocking that wave, so in the end I had no other option but to buy online to complete the sets!
When I next checked TRU, just the other day in fact, there were still one or two token Wave 1 shelfwarmers remaining behind the new stock, which was essentially half a Bruticus & a pile of Hotspots (no other Protectobots; ready to screw over the next poor sap to buy an incomplete set).
Masterpiece editions I NEVER even CONSIDER buying from bricks-and-mortar stores. Ultra Magnus is still on sale here for $299 AUD, with (unsurprisingly) plenty in stock many months after release. Now they're saying Tracks is here & I should what, celebrate? I purchased Tracks online months ago for about $60 AUD with free postage; it arrived from Asia within 4 days of placing the order.
With all that in mind, what possible incentive is there for me or anyone to buy off the shelf? Aside from charging almost triple the price, I have to consider the prospect that NOT buying online as soon possible after a figure is released may result in me missing out on that figure entirely.
By the time TRU informs customers as to whether or not they will even bother to stock an item, that item may already be sold out online & thus impossible to obtain - this is exactly how I missed MP-10 Optimus Prime, even after the bastards at TRU ASSURED me they'd be receiving stock (thankfully, HAS/TAK did another production run, so I could dry my tears &... STILL not see it available at retail). Again, if I hadn't bought MP-10 online, I'd have missed him a second time.
Anyway, in conclusion to this arbitrarily (unintentionally) long, whining, tantrum/essay, TRU management should stop circle jerking around their $100-bill-used-as-kindling campfires & give me what I want. If they want to have sadistic exclusivity when it comes to Transformers, at least give the customer OPTIONS. And reasonable prices. And a sandwich. A beer wouldn't be bad either.
"Megatron is the proof that tyranny is the finest form of government, under the right tyrant."
