FF:NZ Hasbro New Zealand: Are they doing a good job?

We started this thread off in the old forum I've just tranfered it over with the first few replies that were made.

SWNZ is conducting a poll / petition to see what you the collector and Star Wars Fan think of the current situation as far as availibilty of merchandise in New Zealand is concerned.
We would like you to post your honest thoughts and feelings to the following questions.

1) Do you feel Hasbro New Zealand are doing an adequate job in making merchandise available to the general public?

2) What would you like to see Hasbro New Zealand do?

3) Do you feel that part of the blame should go to retail stores because they aren't ordering the merchandise we want?

4) Do you feel the collector is to blame as we are small in numbers, in a small country, and the market for Star Wars merchandise is not justifiable for Hasbro.


Thanks for your time, please take part and answer honestly.

Cheers


SWNZ


------------------
SWNZ
starwars@zfree.co.nz

Star Wars New Zealand
www.star-wars.co.nz
-------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here are the comments we have so far from the FanForce forum.


Sith Lord Dunno
Jedi Knight posted 11-27-2000 03:12 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the main problem has been the fact that the market was flooded with figures when the movie was released and of course the price of those figures being to high for the average childs pocket money etc. This resulted in the retailers having to discount stock quite heavily which meant most of our local retailers are not going to be stocking anymore in the future. The fact that they have no control over what figures they do get has been a prob for both retailer and collector. I think from a collectors point of view it would be good if new figures turned up at a rate that allowed collectors to buy 1 or 2 per week and not a whole heap at once. Or perhap being able to order from retailer some of the figure that are harder to get (some of the lesser known)
IP: Logged



Buzz Bumble
Jedi Knight posted 11-27-2000 10:26 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Do you feel Hasbro New Zealand are doing
an adequate job in making merchandise
available to the general public?
Hasbro NZ are doing the best they can, it's Hasbro US that see us as too small a market to really bother with.

Also, shops like The Warehouse and K-Mart importing stuff themselves before Hasbro NZ receives them doesn't help. They also import a lot of stuff and so they can undercut Hasbro NZ's prices (as seen with the Episode I figures) because they are able to put a wide variety of stuff in the one shipping container.

2) What would you like to see Hasbro New
Zealand do?

Convince Hasbro US to send more stuff?!?

I doubt there's much they can do.

It would be good if they did mail order too - that's probably asking too much (it would take a lot of extra time on their part), but it was great when I could just walk in to their offices and pick up my 'mail-away' Mac Windu and Muftak & Kabe figures. In order for this to work properly. They would then also need to run some sort of NZ Star Wars Club so we knew what was available and when.

3) Do you feel that part of the blame should
go to retail stores because they aren't
ordering the merchandise we want?

Mostly (as above) it's those that parallel import stuff causing the major problem, not ToyWorld and others.

Having said that, it doesn't help when they all jump onto the bandwagon for the latest craze and totally overstock.

It also doesn't help that many manufacturers are now doing the same - I saw figures for the Shaft movie today, how many kids are going to buy those?!?


4) Do you feel the collector is to blame as
we are small in numbers, in a small
country, and the market for Star Wars
merchandise is not justifiable for Hasbro.

How can we be to blame?? We can't help how many of us there are.

 

the joys of parallel importing:/

 

It doesn't look like we're going to get much more here (at least until Episode II is released). Someone from The Warehouse called Star Wars "yesterday's news" in a Women's Weekly article about this year's toy trends. (

Those new Power of the Jedi figures must have been Hasbro NZ getting rid of the stock that ToyWorld, etc. didn't want.

 

Yep that's about right, and for me i'm seriously considering temporarily giving up collecting, I can't see too much more coming into the country in the next while and it's just too costly to buy in from overseas.
So I might just wait, be patient and ride the next hype wave that comes through.

 

If any of you are interested i run a star wars figure news site in Australia if you have some time stop by. Even kiwi's r welcome lol j/k
http://www.geocities.com/figurefreeze

hope hasbro NZ get their act together for you, it was hasbros fault for flooding the market and now collectors have to suffer the consequences.

 

1) Do you feel Hasbro New Zealand are doing an adequate job in making merchandise available to the general public?
No, I don't. They simply aren't getting in enough new stuff - I know we're a small number, but if Hasbro really did care about their responsibility to the New Zealand collectors, then they would get in new product. Heck, might as well have integreated Hasbor NZ with Hasbro Australia if they were going to do that - cater for a larger collector number.

2) What would you like to see Hasbro New Zealand do?
Prove they think we're worth something, and get in the new lines of stuff.

3) Do you feel that part of the blame should go to retail stores because they aren't ordering the merchandise we want?
Yes, that's true. They really should let the collectors dictate what they want ...

4) Do you feel the collector is to blame as we are small in numbers, in a small country, and the market for Star Wars merchandise is not justifiable for Hasbro.
Not at all. We can't help being small in numbers, can we?

 

I to am really disappointed in Hasbro NZ and are having a small (I hope) break from collecting SW figures. One good thing is it allows me time and money to pay attention to other fields (outside of Mr Lucas's world)of collecting.

 

Heck, they did such a bad job that I turned to Starship Troopers instead!
(Okay, it happened because I like the show a bit more, buuut hey ...)

 

This "new" batch of figures turing up at Warehouse branches shows that it's not really Hasbro NZ's fault.

Hasbro NZ has got (SOME) of figures, but the main toy shops just don't want very many (or any) of them, so the Warehouse buys them all up cheap(er). Although, I must admit that I did manage to buy most of these "new" ones quite a while back at the "proper" toy shops.

 

I am going to try my luck and hold off buying any of the POTJ figures from the Warehouse until their boxing day sale. I think that there will still be some left as nobody is buying them down this way. I even over heard a little boy telling his mother off for thinking of buying some SW figures for a relation saying they are boring. So I gave him a good old hiding there and then (just kidding)but just goes to show the battle that collectors are facing in regards to the Hasbro Issue.

 

I think Hasbro NZ are doing reasonably well, other factors are the problems. Most toy stores aren't that big, and SW simply doesn't sell enough...SW toy collecters are a tiny percentage of the toy buyers in New Zealand, and allocating a lot of shelf space is simply not good business.

And if no stores want the products, there's not much point in Hasbro importing it. As much as I'd like to be able to walk into a store and see a new SW figure, I just don't think Hasbro can get the product out there (and I haven't been able to buy SW toys a lot, only now do I have enough money). Merging with Hasbro Australia for SW might be good, but I'm really not sure if it would work for the rest of Hasbro's products.

And I'm unable to buy things online, so unless the Warehouse keeps getting stock in, I'm going to have to wait until 2002 for new merchandise.

 

The problem is mainly shops not wanting to stock Star Wars toys, so merging with Hasbro Australia won't make any difference here.

BUT, it might allow the Warehouse to get hold of more unwanted Star Wars stock via their new Australian stores - although they should be able to do that anyway, maybe that's even where some of these "new" figures have come from.

 

I hear the new POTJ waves have arrived and sitting in a warehouse just waiting for store shelves( Thanks for the news SWNZ!!!) and The 300th figure boba Fett is coming too!! can't wait...I take back some of the things said about Hasbro.
Oh yeah, and JediGecko, go Roughnecks!!