New Hot Wheels cases have become 3-part features here at Lamley. It starts with the Case Report, then moves to the Highlights, and then the Unboxing. I need to do a fourth, which is feature photos from the Lamley Studio. I’ll get back to it.
For now, here is the Unboxing. The bins are hitting now, so go have a look:
Awesome F Case unboxing video congrats. 👍 I will be on the hunt for all of those and I can’t wait to add all of those to my hotwheels collection. 👍
Are you kidding, we haven’t even seen the D cases yet? What’s up with Mattel !?
I’m frickin waiting for E cases, but I haven’t seen all of the remainder of D cases though. I don’t know if it’s Mattel or the big box idiots who control Mattel??!!
I love it when certain cases get skipped or don’t even make it at all!
Are there any processes in place to ensure the big box stores get new cases immediately upon release? I don’t know the inner workings, but I’m guessing no. I suspect it goes something like this.
Let’s say Mattel releases a new case, let’s call it case F, February 1. Your neighborhood big box retailer has sold X amount of Hot Wheels in the last week of January and requires restocking. Corporate HQ reviews end of week on-hands for this location (along with all stores in the chain) and orders enough inventory from Mattel to restock their stores. I can only assume Mattel will fill this order with the new F case along with any remaining D or E case inventory they still have. I’ll estimate 10 day fulfillment from Mattel to your local big box distribution center. From the local DC, I’d give a few days to a week turn around to truck out to their local stores, including yours. Your local store then unloads the truck and pushes product out to the sales floor (or leaves it on a pallet in the back for a few more days or a week). Running through this process, it is now February 15th and congratulations, your local store has just stocked case D and you’re left grumbling for case F.
I’m guessing the ordering process happens weekly, but of course your local store may not sell down enough every single week to generate a reorder every week. This, along with the approx. 2-week lag time is how there are ebbs and flows and gaps in inventory and fulfillment, as well as the occasional missed case. Again, this is just me speculating on how all this goes down.
Leave a Reply