Transformers Prime First Edition, Come and gone and staying gone? Options

[Master Fwiffo]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif)

Prime's doomed, isn't it.

[ExVee]

BBTS could, in theory, at least make good to their customers on this somehow. Other than pretending to be K-Mart and automatically switching everyone's orders to stuff they don't want.

BBTS has no way of knowing their customers don't want the new pre-orders. At least until the mass cancellations get noticed. But, instead of "somehow", why not suggest a specific action you'd like BBTS to take? Replace your preorders with Takara equivalents? Okay, if you're willing to pay out the difference in price, that might be fine. Except they don't have any slots available to offer you or anyone else. So, what else would you suggest them to do except give whoever is interested in it first crack at RID?

[CORVUS]

"in theory" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-megs.gif)

[ChessPieceFace]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif)

Prime's doomed, isn't it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-primal.gif)

[Nanite]

This really is Internet-Awesome, all things considered:

Leaks from Toyfair UK to complain about.

Toyfair NY soon.

And a whole line of canceled Transformers to go Batstuff nuts over.

Good time, good times.

[NightViper]

BBTS could, in theory, at least make good to their customers on this somehow. Other than pretending to be K-Mart and automatically switching everyone's orders to stuff they don't want.

BBTS has no way of knowing their customers don't want the new pre-orders. At least until the mass cancellations get noticed. But, instead of "somehow", why not suggest a specific action you'd like BBTS to take? Replace your preorders with Takara equivalents? Okay, if you're willing to pay out the difference in price, that might be fine. Except they don't have any slots available to offer you or anyone else. So, what else would you suggest them to do except give whoever is interested in it first crack at RID?

Close the pre-orders, send an email saying that they are about to cancel the existing orders in X amount of days. Suggest that people either cancel the order themselves or take up the offer to switch to the RiD figures if they want. On the last day, send another email saying it's the last day to switch. Then just flat out cancel the remaining straggling pre-orders and send out a third email saying that all of the outstanding, defunct pre-orders were canceled.

More work for the exact same results, but far fewer assumptions made that could piss off customers who are already irked about the situation.

[Master Fwiffo]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif)

Prime's doomed, isn't it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-primal.gif)

Don't you roll your eyes at me!

I was right about Animated. THE END IS NIGH.

[ShinRa Inc]

BBTS could, in theory, at least make good to their customers on this somehow. Other than pretending to be K-Mart and automatically switching everyone's orders to stuff they don't want.

BBTS has no way of knowing their customers don't want the new pre-orders. At least until the mass cancellations get noticed. But, instead of "somehow", why not suggest a specific action you'd like BBTS to take? Replace your preorders with Takara equivalents? Okay, if you're willing to pay out the difference in price, that might be fine. Except they don't have any slots available to offer you or anyone else. So, what else would you suggest them to do except give whoever is interested in it first crack at RID?

BBTS knows it's customer base; collectors. They may not know for sure what every individual customer wants, but they can't be ignorant that a heck of a lot of them want those molds, not the Mass Retail stuff they'll see clogging shelves for the next six months. I haven't heard a single person say they're going with the new Preorders, have you?

As for specific action, I already did suggest; Order more from Takara, offer a reasonable discount to their customers who had preorders. And the only reason I suggest that is because they created the hype that led to people sticking with their preorders, even when Wave 1 showed up at TRU. And even when the rest showed up in Canada. If they hadn't made such a huge deal about them being THE way to get this product, many of us would've bought when other opportunities arose.

I'll reiterate; This is hugely on Hasbro, but BBTS has not handled this well at all. After working to get their "Buy from us, no one else will ever have it!" message out to the fandom, at least as much effort should be going into informing us what's going on (promptly!), and making some effort to mitigate the lost opportunites to their customers. Instead, we just get K-Mart style e-mails telling us "Oh, you're getting this stuff instead. Hope you don't mind."

[Phlis]

The mistake here was BBTS wasn't able to get pre-orders to Hasbro early enough. Hasbro sent all of Wave 1.5 and the Voyagers to Canada, and if they had any over stock there, maybe they offered it to BBTS and TFSource and such who declined paying shipping from Canada to the US. But thats just a theory.

No offense but I'm pretty sure you don't understand how pre-orders and stock delivery work. BBTS has had preorders up since, I don't know, October? Earlier, maybe? And no, Hasbro didn't send stock to Canadian TRU stores and then offer the leftovers to US retailers.

I'll repeat, the only thing in Canadian TRUs that have had US packaging were the Entertainment Packs. Everyone else, Deluxe and Voyager, have had the usual Canadian packaging.

So unless you're keen on suggesting that they shipped everything to Canada, then paid someone to open the thousands of leftovers and repackage them into US packaging, that theory just doesn't work out.

Did we see any entertainment packs in US packaging? Like, At all? Link me to a picture, that isn't an NYCC or SDCC display. Also, November to early December isn't enough for preorders except for overstock from stores, and the reason I asked what the general lead time from Production line to Store shelf is. The figures are packaged in China, at least a week on a boat and some time in customs. BBTS would have been ordering as the figures were coming off the line, and they were ramping up the RiD line production, and with the quickness RiD has come out they were probably already producing RiD in November. The production numbers are probably determined by the major retailer's order numbers, plus some extra. If TRU Canada were the only ones to order 1.5, the entertainment packs and voyagers, then that is where they would all be shipped. If any were shipped to america at all, they would have ended up on BBTS, TFSource and HTS. But they didn't. They're in canada, and none of those stores want to pay the shipping cost to get them here.

And yeah it's all conjecture with nothing backing it up except wild ideas, and yet, what other reason for none of the US based online shops not getting their orders filled is there? Hasbro didn't produce enough, or they're in Canada.

[Powered Convoy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif)

Prime's doomed, isn't it.

I love you Fwiffo, don't ever change. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-hotrod.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-fire.gif)

Randy

[NightViper]

The mistake here was BBTS wasn't able to get pre-orders to Hasbro early enough. Hasbro sent all of Wave 1.5 and the Voyagers to Canada, and if they had any over stock there, maybe they offered it to BBTS and TFSource and such who declined paying shipping from Canada to the US. But thats just a theory.

No offense but I'm pretty sure you don't understand how pre-orders and stock delivery work. BBTS has had preorders up since, I don't know, October? Earlier, maybe? And no, Hasbro didn't send stock to Canadian TRU stores and then offer the leftovers to US retailers.

I'll repeat, the only thing in Canadian TRUs that have had US packaging were the Entertainment Packs. Everyone else, Deluxe and Voyager, have had the usual Canadian packaging.

So unless you're keen on suggesting that they shipped everything to Canada, then paid someone to open the thousands of leftovers and repackage them into US packaging, that theory just doesn't work out.

Did we see any entertainment packs in US packaging? Like, At all? Link me to a picture, that isn't an NYCC or SDCC display. Also, November to early December isn't enough for preorders except for overstock from stores, and the reason I asked what the general lead time from Production line to Store shelf is. The figures are packaged in China, at least a week on a boat and some time in customs. BBTS would have been ordering as the figures were coming off the line, and they were ramping up the RiD line production, and with the quickness RiD has come out they were probably already producing RiD in November. The production numbers are probably determined by the major retailer's order numbers, plus some extra. If TRU Canada were the only ones to order 1.5, the entertainment packs and voyagers, then that is where they would all be shipped. If any were shipped to america at all, they would have ended up on BBTS, TFSource and HTS. But they didn't. They're in canada, and none of those stores want to pay the shipping cost to get them here.

And yeah it's all conjecture with nothing backing it up except wild ideas, and yet, what other reason for none of the US based online shops not getting their orders filled is there? Hasbro didn't produce enough, or they're in Canada.

I think you misread. The Entertainment Packs in Canada ARE the US packaging.

Everything else isn't. It's the typical tri-lingual packaging that never shows up in the US. So there is no shipping the Deluxes and Voyagers to Canadian stores and then to the US. That has never been done before and would not have happened here.

Now...Was there enough product made for the US that had to be switched to Canada/elsewhere before they reached the packaging stage? Maybe. Canadian stores are still receiving stock (and blowing through it like crazy) almost on a weekly basis. But again, any diversion from US distribution has to have come BEFORE they reached packaging. The "leftovers" theory does not float.

[shellspark]

As for specific action, I already did suggest; Order more from Takara, offer a reasonable discount to their customers who had preorders. And the only reason I suggest that is because they created the hype that led to people sticking with their preorders, even when Wave 1 showed up at TRU. And even when the rest showed up in Canada. If they hadn't made such a huge deal about them being THE way to get this product, many of us would've bought when other opportunities arose.

I'll reiterate; This is hugely on Hasbro, but BBTS has not handled this well at all. After working to get their "Buy from us, no one else will ever have it!" message out to the fandom, at least as much effort should be going into informing us what's going on (promptly!), and making some effort to mitigate the lost opportunites to their customers. Instead, we just get K-Mart style e-mails telling us "Oh, you're getting this stuff instead. Hope you don't mind."

I'm...confused. When it became obvious they weren't THE way to get this product (such as when they started showing up at TRUs all over the place), why not explore those avenues? And to this day, I don't understand the uproar about the BBTS's preorder announcement. They sent out a poorly worded email; Transformers fans did what they do best - panicked, and convinced themselves the world was ending in the two hours following the announcement; and BBTS sent out a clarifying email. What's the theory, that they were maliciously trying to lock everyone into ordering with them, knowing that once they had all that money, people would be helpless to go elsewhere? I suppose that would work if not for the fact they don't charge anyone until stuff comes in and people are free to cancel their preorders at will.

[ExVee]

Close the pre-orders, send an email saying that they are about to cancel the existing orders in X amount of days. Suggest that people either cancel the order themselves or take up the offer to switch to the RiD figures if they want. On the last day, send another email saying it's the last day to switch. Then just flat out cancel the remaining straggling pre-orders and send out a third email saying that all of the outstanding, defunct pre-orders were canceled.

More work for the exact same results, but far fewer assumptions made that could piss off customers who are already irked about the situation.

It's more work for zero added benefit. Now, if BBTS was filling pre-orders for FE with RID product without telling anybody based on the idea "it's all the same", that'd be an entirely different situation. BBTS is switching people over automatically and giving them time to decide if they want to keep the new pre-orders or not. They're doing exactly the right thing based on the situation they've been put in to.

BBTS knows it's customer base; collectors. They may not know for sure what every individual customer wants, but they can't be ignorant that a heck of a lot of them want those molds, not the Mass Retail stuff they'll see clogging shelves for the next six months. I haven't heard a single person say they're going with the new Preorders, have you?

No, and that's not the point. You assume BBTS has the same degree of understanding about the differences between these toys that we do, where they would even know from the start that it's not just an apples-to-apples swap. It's very easy to sit back as an informed collector and declare that they made a glaringly obvious, and apparently insulting to judge by some reactions, mistake in offering to replace lost pre-order A with new pre-order B. But nobody without those specific circumstances is going to immediately see what the problem is with it.

As for specific action, I already did suggest; Order more from Takara, offer a reasonable discount to their customers who had preorders. And the only reason I suggest that is because they created the hype that led to people sticking with their preorders, even when Wave 1 showed up at TRU. And even when the rest showed up in Canada. If they hadn't made such a huge deal about them being THE way to get this product, many of us would've bought when other opportunities arose.

I'll reiterate; This is hugely on Hasbro, but BBTS has not handled this well at all. After working to get their "Buy from us, no one else will ever have it!" message out to the fandom, at least as much effort should be going into informing us what's going on (promptly!), and making some effort to mitigate the lost opportunites to their customers. Instead, we just get K-Mart style e-mails telling us "Oh, you're getting this stuff instead. Hope you don't mind."

And again, malicious intent is being assigned where none existed. BBTS went a little far in how they capitalized on the circumstances, though I can't say I'd have done any different if I had a store and could carry a product line that 95% of brick and mortar retail was never going to see. And while you keep comparing them to K-Mart, K-Mart doesn't ask first. They just send you whatever is on hand from a given pricepoint. BBTS is grandfathering everyone in to these pre-orders, but everyone also has a choice to cancel them. The only reason you or anyone else has any problem with this is because you've already decided these are toys you don't want. You think they should replace these with Takara preorders, but it's not as easy as saying "order more". They can only get what their supplier can give them, and with these Japanese toys that gets less and less with every week following release. Unless you'd like them to run pre-orders based on the assumption they can find more of them and still charge the same price? But I don't really think you, BBTS, or anyone else would like to take the chance of having a bunch more pre-orders not being able to be fulfilled. BBTS has all the Takara FE toys they can source right now, and they're all taken up in standing pre-orders. There's nothing they can do about that.

Finally, the assertion that BBTS is not handling this well is absurd. Everyone who had an outstanding pre-order for FE is being put at the head of the line for RID. If it's not something you want, that's fine. But it's a lot more than BBTS is obligated to do considering they are not at fault in any way for the FE toys not being made available to them. It's not just hugely on Hasbro, it's entirely on Hasbro, and BBTS is going out of their way to offer their customers SOMETHING to make up for it. It's not the offer that you think they should be making, but just because they aren't meeting your expectations doesn't automatically mean they're not dealing with this crappy situation well.

[ShinRa Inc]

That is your opinion. Mine differs. Enjoy your thread. -shrug

I don't assign any maliciousness to BBTS. But I do see a series of somewhat minor poor choices that unfortunately piled-up into a much larger problem.

I shop at BBTS, and pay their generally higher prices, based on their reputation and my experience of generally outstanding customer service. In this issue, however, I'm not seeing that generally outstanding customer service.

This post has been edited by ShinRa Inc: Jan 30 2012, 03:58 PM

[The Doctor Who]

Well, I just got my E-Mail (I re-pre-ordered the deluxe pack in vain hope). On the one hand, I won't be getting the FE versions... on the other hand, they're honoring the FE 4-pack price. Supposedly.

So, instead of paying $64.99, I'll pay $59.99. That's... nice? Hm. I wonder if that works out in my favor... anyone know off the top of their heads how much the deluxes are running at retail?

It includes both Soundwave and Wheeljack in the converted version, but also the hideously sub-par Bumblebee and the so-so Cliffjumper. Maybe someone would be willing to buy the Bumblebee off me. I know a few people have expressed a liking for him.

So... yeah, I'm a little irked that BBTS had all that bluster about exclusivity, but... I mean, I never actually paid for the figures. So... I can't really get too angry. And they're going to honor their 'original' price, meaning it could actually work out in my favor, especially if someone would like to take the Bumblebee off my hands. So... yeah, I can't really hate BBTS too much.

We've known for a while now that there was something up with the FE line, although not exactly what. There has been poor choices and bad communication all around this whole bloody mess, but I aim it mostly at Hasbro, which really should have made an announcement a lot sooner, if they were planning to just outright cancel the line like this. The retailers, on-line or otherwise can only do so much, if the people at the top drop the ball.

This post has been edited by The Doctor Who: Jan 30 2012, 04:18 PM

[ChessPieceFace]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-screamer.gif)

Prime's doomed, isn't it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-primal.gif)

Don't you roll your eyes at me!

I was right about Animated. THE END IS NIGH.

I remember. You were wrong over and over again until you were finally "right." Please don't start again.

[Alpha Omega Trio...]

Just came home, saw the email in my inbox about the voyager Prime being replaced with the RiD version, promptly jumped to ebay and bought the cheapest buy-it-now, which wasn't cheap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-ball.gif)

[Mako Crab]

*checks 1st Editions on Ebay*

GODDAMMIT!!!

[Galaxy Magnus]

I guess I get to save a lot of money now. I was going to buy all the FE stuff but now that it is cancelled I will buy none.

[Mecheon]

You guys are going to have to ask at Botcon what in the heck happened here

I wasn't really interested in Prime stuff to begin with, and now not being able to get the ones I want without paying an arm and a leg really doesn't make the whole thing tempting in the slightest