Ugh. This ain’t good.

September 3, 2017

Question: Who DOESN’T like encountering a fresh side shipper at their local Walmart?

Answer: Anyone who encounters this one:

Oh come on Walmart. Again?

Is this a dust accumulation experiment? To see if a shipper full of the same Fast & Furious model will gather more dust than the Ecto-1 or Star Trek Enterprises you experimented with earlier?

Walmart wants what Walmart gets, and if they want Mattel to produce a mass amount of one Entertainment model they think will be popular, Hot Wheels most certainly will do it, just as much as they will happily cash the check. But I have no idea why Walmart thinks this is a good idea.

Surely Walmart, and their plethora of retail experts/buyers/focus group facilitators/etc know more about retail than me. And more than all collectors. I have made the argument many times that we collectors like to think we have it all figured out, and we most assuredly do not.

But when it comes to a collector-aimed model like this, that retails close to $5 each, I think we can say with great surety that these won’t sell. And yes, they will take up room that could be used on something else.

It doesn’t matter how popular a model is. This many is too many. That was proven with the Ecto-1, which was popular, when it was more limited. I could argue even a model like the current R34 Skyline that everyone wants would hang if there were this many. It might work at $1, but not $5.

So yes, like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 models, or Camo, or Spiderman, welcome to the pegs FnF Charger. Make yourself at home.

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18 responses to “Ugh. This ain’t good.”

Don
September 3, 2017
Still sitting on a bunch of Star Trek and Halo stuff that has been there for eons. Haven seen much of anything else that passes through the Lamley desk. We might see it after the reset following christmas…. (March?)

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Bill Flanagan
September 3, 2017
Well they could try shipping in a couple sidekicks of mainlines, like M case, or N case or P case. But no. This crap

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Adam Watson
September 3, 2017
I’ll get 1, maybe 2. It’s a very nice car. But sending each walmart 2 of the R-34 was just mean. I check daily but still missed them.

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Jason Bilsky
September 3, 2017
How much and what Walmart stocks never fails to confuse me. New mainlines, nope. Superhero peg warmers, yep, got plenty of those! Some are old enough to vote!

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BlackWind
September 3, 2017
They could have at least put other models with the Charger like the R34 or something, but just a dozen of this car? And only this car? This is beyond stupid.

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ahmad
September 3, 2017
i will take them all, its like $20-25 each now in my country 😂

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Glenn
September 3, 2017
The same thing is happening with all the Star Wars, Looney Tunes, and Candy series stuff. Series such as these are not auto enthusiast-centered. I think they’re attempts by Mattel to reach customers beyond traditional diecast collectors. I have no other explanation. I can’t see parents buying this stuff for their kids when they can get the cheaper mainline for them to play with and possibly destroy. And I sincerely hope Walmart isn’t directing Mattel in series ideas/designs as to what they think would sell.

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Jeffrey Funk
September 3, 2017
IMO the whole F n F thing is WAY over done I’m sorry but, Hollywood beat this to death with too many movies and now with the merchandising ..Not to mention the Star Wars stuff which I saw marked down to sell at Targets. .C’mon Mattel…NEW IDEAS PLEASE!!

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Zach Charles Regalus Schuller
September 3, 2017
My Wal-Mart is SLOWLY phasing out their exclusive ‘Spiderman’ themed Hot Wheels for their equally exclusive Camo-themed Hot Wheels. All I can say is at least the latter has an ’83 Silverado and a Blazer 4×4.

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Connor McCollum
September 3, 2017
Instead of getting new P case mainlines or even Q case (which is where we should be at this point), Walmart gets this crap! No wonder it’s such a hated store! Luckily our Walmart never got the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 sidekick when new but I have a funny feeling they might get this one. Just so it can sit at the back of the aisle for god knows how long virtually untouched until it eventually gets a clearance or something.

I also thought of this, instead of getting the exclusive Lamborghini cars that I and many others never found (a several month old set and never saw even a hint of once, how sad is that?) or the exclusive Forza set of 8 cars (which is looking to be a similar fate to the Lambos) they get this crap! Way

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Wheaterz
September 3, 2017
Well said, well said!

But you know.. I think us collectors do have it figured out because we know what we want.
You’d think the “plethora of retail experts/buyers/focus group facilitators/etc” working under WM’s payroll would at least study auction sites or blogs to see what new releases are hot. Why on earth would WM release the same casting (yes, for $5) over and over and over again? One that’s not in demand for that matter.

I still see Retro Ent. Star Trek packages left behind along with the Ecto diecast merchandise , which hasn’t been popular since the latest Ghostbusters release summertime of last year. Why?

Take the smokin’ hot blue Retro Ent. Nissan Skyline GT-R.. have yet to find that model or any other ones from that line on any WM shelf! At least have a Snoopy or two for God’s sake!

I just pasted a comment on WM’s Facebook page (before I read this posting actually) about how stores in my area which lack the latest diecast inventory, esp. Hot Wheels. I’ll probably never get an answer.

But here’s my gig .. why is it that one of the most popular vehicles, the Skyline GT-R .. as rare as the Holy Grail and never to be found, but there is a cookie cutter overload of an unpopular model soaking up shelf dust because the talented, high paid upper crust of Walmart are so blind they can’t see what their customer wants???

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Raul james
September 4, 2017
in eastern europe you don’t even get a car like ecto-1.also the distribution is the same here,meaning the same case is put on the pegs,all year,so it’s much more worse than in US.

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Corza Mc
September 4, 2017
Hot wheels distribution is at an all time low, surely this Walmart store didn’t order the same model, as far as I know case’s are always mixed
….I don’t get it…..something has changed recently no new mainline case’s in ANY large store for a long time and I can see 2018 stuff will start showing up without even a single 2017 case since j mix. I’m sadly loosing interest in a hobby I been enjoying for over 30 years…sooo sad…:(

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1. JBH6666
  September 5, 2017
  I have found the same to be true in SE Michigan- not only at WalMart, but at all the other big box stores and Toys R Us. The distribution is so bad, I am forced to buy almost everything I want online
  
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Craig Tetlow
September 4, 2017
Its exactly the same here in the U.K. and I dont just mean Wal-Mart owned ASDA either. Most of our big retailers are way way behind on basic Mainline batches and when they are available they arnt in any decent quantities and not replenished as often as they used to be. It seems there is higher profit in these HW cartoon/comic themed sets as they are priced at double of a Mainline here yet surprise surprise they are vastly over ordered and remain peg warmers for several months!!

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Tran
September 4, 2017
This is awesome. Who doesn’t like a gazillion peg warmers? Samuel Ace and I will be on the hunt for this one. High five!

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Randall Carlisle
September 5, 2017
Well, walk on down to the movie section and see how many iterations of FNF there are on Blu Ray and DVD. WM put in a big order with all the tie-ins they could. Probably some walMarts in the films as well? Last week at our WM, we had a bunch of B case, couple of N case cars and lots of the race series. M2 had a couple Drivers ( I got those), an auto world Montego, bunch of titanium M2s. Camo matchbox filling the pegs. So you can compare that with your local and see how you;re doing compared with a small town in NC.

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Joakim
September 16, 2017
I wish these were possible to get to Sweden! Would look good in my F&F die cast collection!

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