8720 replies to this topic

[Nevermore]

My suggestion for collector packaging would be something like this, minus the plastic windows:



That way, the packaging can stay closed as per default, but can still be opened easily to check out the toy.

[Sean Whitmore]

In blocks of ice. Toys are now in the frozen food section next to the fish sticks.

 

When you order a Bumblebee, once guy hacks it out with an ice pick, tosses it to another guy across the room who wraps it in newspaper, and then he tosses that to the cashier, who is lazily chewing on a toothpick and looking at you with undisguised disdain.

Edited by Sean Whitmore, 21 August 2019 - 05:52 PM.

[Blot]

Yeah, but what will be different?

[Sean Whitmore]

Free newspaper.

[NICK NEMESIS]

Wood and nails.

[Xellos]

My suggestion for collector packaging would be something like this, minus the plastic windows:
81F0pChR-hL._SL700_.jpg 810jnteqxvL._SL700_.jpg
91CXyOR60pL._SL700_.jpg A1UzQ53wKzL._SL700_.jpg

That way, the packaging can stay closed as per default, but can still be opened easily to check out the toy.

Then the problem is the pilfering of pieces.  I worked retail enough that, no mater what it is, from bikes to Razor scooters to fans to kitchenware sets to landline phones to toys, if it is in a box that you can not see in, people will open them up.  And if they end up buying one, it is usually an unopened one.

 

I foresee lots of missing pieces and more toy switching with this. 

 

Probably good that I usually get stuff online now anyways.

[Adam16bit]

 

My suggestion for collector packaging would be something like this, minus the plastic windows:
81F0pChR-hL._SL700_.jpg 810jnteqxvL._SL700_.jpg
91CXyOR60pL._SL700_.jpg A1UzQ53wKzL._SL700_.jpg

That way, the packaging can stay closed as per default, but can still be opened easily to check out the toy.

Then the problem is the pilfering of pieces.  I worked retail enough that, no mater what it is, from bikes to Razor scooters to fans to kitchenware sets to landline phones to toys, if it is in a box that you can not see in, people will open them up.  And if they end up buying one, it is usually an unopened one.

 

I foresee lots of missing pieces and more toy switching with this. 

 

Probably good that I usually get stuff online now anyways.

 

 

Some wouldn't surprise me - I've seen people tear in the boxes to look at toys at Walmarts a couple of times a year.  It is kind of amazing to see.

 

 

This is probably getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but who here is older than dirt and remembers stores like Service Merchandise, BEST, or LaBelle's?  (This is going somewhere.)

 

Amazon has been fond of its "frustration free" packaging as they can just ship it as is - SIOC, ships in own container.  For the online store with a run-of-the-mill customer, it's great - it's brown, you open it, it breaks down, it goes in the garbage.  If you sell to collectors or to a retail shelf, it's undesirable.   It's also where Hasbro is already going with its Transformers Selects line, which just needs to drop the plastic insert to get to its goal of cutting out plastic since the window is already gone.

 

Back in the 1980s (and presumably before, I'm only slightly older than dirt) stores like Service Merchandise and their ilk were part retailer and part "catalog showroom."  That is, you go up there and tell them what you want, and someone sends it out from the back on a conveyor belt - this way you can see video games, dishes, electronics, and other doodads on the store shelves without devoting as much floor space to pegs and shelves of product that can be fondled and otherwise abused.   It wouldn't stun me if some store concepts return to this - Target and Walmart are both already doing something similar by bringing customer orders directly to their cars.

 

Instead, you'd get a display like we sometimes saw at Toys R Us or Target of a tableaux of LEGO or robots or whatever - and then someone gets you your cardboard box.  This would allow for manufacturers to use that rotten blank brown box in more venues, instead delegating "try me" to video displays or a demo unit chained to a shelf.  Nerf has already rid itself of a lot of the plastic with its open-box models, plastic is still used to keep the darts visible and secure though.

 

My hunch - by running over the press release with a magnifying glass - is we'll see a continued reduction in plastic in packaging, but not a complete elimination.   Authentics and 1-Step Changers Cyberverse toys have just a tray, not the traditional outer bubble.   Selects are in a plain cardboard box, with a plastic tray - and that can be changed.   Blind bag toys are  jam-packed with plastic as it is, the Deadpool Chimi Surprise and Littlest Pet Shop Lucky Pets fortune cookies each have a minimum of 4 plastic bags/wrappers per toy.   I can barely imagine how you could secure action figures with small accessories in a package that's not weak to theft, but simple wear-and-tear.  If enough kids fidget with a toy in a store, something could be dislodged and kissed goodbye forever.

[LiamA]

Doesn't matter what the packaging looks like you still won't be able to find them in the stores.

[Sean Whitmore]

Hasbro could change all of their packaging to plain brown boxes with the Amazon smile on them, and I wouldn't know the difference.

[Jackpot]

[Undead Scottsman]

I saw elsewhere on the web that cellophane was biodegradable, but I'm not sure they could make it thick enough.

[Powered Convoy]

 

 

This is probably getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but who here is older than dirt and remembers stores like Service Merchandise, BEST, or LaBelle's?  (This is going somewhere.)

 

 

 

 

Me! 

 

Last thing I got there was a red eyed Cheetor.  Back when any Cheetor was a rarity (before the green eyed re-release).

[Spark]

I saw elsewhere on the web that cellophane was biodegradable, but I'm not sure they could make it thick enough.

You wrap a box in 12 yards of it from every direction and you'll probably be covered.

[NOIP]

 

 
This is probably getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but who here is older than dirt and remembers stores like Service Merchandise, BEST, or LaBelle's?  (This is going somewhere.)
 
 
 
 

Me! 
 
Last thing I got there was a red eyed Cheetor.  Back when any Cheetor was a rarity (before the green eyed re-release).

Last thing I got at Service Merchandise was G1 Gears and Windcharger. This was probably in 88 or 89, and I found them on the pegs. They had probably been gathering dust in the back somewhere. Seems like the store closed not too long after that.

[Walky]

Found Rattrap at a Service Merchandise in about 1998 or so in Bloomington, Indiana, long after he should have been on shelves.  Was pretty stoked.  I started collecting Beast Wars late.

[Sabrblade]

I honestly don't remember what I last got from Service Merchandise, but I wager it was either a Beast Wars toy or something from one of Fisher-Price's Great Adventures toylines (anyone remember those? They were like the precursors to the Imaginext toylines with a knights-themed line, a pirate-themed line, and a Wild West-themed line).

[ZacWilliam1]

I only remember getting one toy from Service Merchandise. Ours was a weird empty cube with a desk at one side and some little windows cut in the walls and small displays in them. No pegs or racks or toys to look through. It always seemed the weirdest store to me as a kid. Anyway I had to go there with my Grandma once and she bought me the figure of the black guy from the Rambo Cartoon Toyline. I assume I picked it out of a catalogue. Only Rambo toy I ever had.

-ZacWilliam, and that's my Service Merchandise story...

[LV!]

I got BW Inferno there, because that was where Inferno first showed up, for some reason.

[MrBlud]

I saw a G1 Blitzwing there around 89-90.

Parents wouldnt buy him for me though.

[Echowarrior]

I don't think I ever bought toys from Service Merchandise. I don't think I bought anything from Service Merchandise.

 

I do remember those commercials they had towards the end of their existence with Lucy and Herman Munster, though. Those were neat.