Pony Talk > Pony Corral

Pony Availability in Your Area/Does MLP Sell?

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Ragamuffin:
Wondering what everyone's pony aisles are looking like ATM.

I was thinking about making a post like this for a while, because it seems like G5s have weird availability. Decided to make it today because they aren't selling well in my area. They were selling decently before the movie came out, and now they haven't moved any it seems. I go to Walmart twice a week and check every time, and nothing ever moves. Today, Black Friday, the shelves looked totally normal, how they always look! It doesn't look like anyone bought ANY ponies! Spirit toys were picked over and every Care Bear-related item was sold out, except for Wish Bear. MLP? Not a dent. Plenty of plushes, plenty of castles, plenty of styling Zipps, Pipps, and Sunnys, a couple of styling head Izzys.

Not G5, but my friend found the Amazon-exclusive Mane 6 seapony sets at a store, but they couldn't sell them, so they resorted to cutting the box open and selling each individual pony for $1 or so each, they had tons and tons and tons of Explore Equestria ponies too. This was about a month ago, but they're probably still there.

What's the deal with MLP nowadays? Why doesn't it sell, why doesn't anyone care about it? Back during the G4 days I never saw little girls carry around ponies nor saw them in the pony aisle, they didn't care about ponies the way they did with Shopkins. When Toys R Us was closing here, they had huge bins full of Seaquestria castles they couldn't sell. Target had a single Songbird Serenade plush they couldn't sell for over 2 years. I never saw any FiM Collection sets after the Apple Family themed sets because they couldn't sell them. The clearance bins were full of Apple Family ponies for a long time. No one could sell the Capper and Rarity sets, I never saw anyone buy the Power Ponies sets, no one wanted the pirate ponies, Five Below had an entire wall dedicated to a certain release of Princess Celestia. Even local listings like Facebook Marketplace, whenever I try to look up MLP stuff, there aren't a lot of offerings-- you can't sell ponies if you never bought them to begin with!

I'll probably update here with how the pony aisle is holding up whenever I go to Walmart. Not necessarily something for the "Out Now and Coming Soon" thread, just... updates as to whether things are moving.

One positive I can say, when G5 stuff *was* selling, Zipp was more popular. :biggrin: Her and Pipp's plushes were selling and every time I went into Walmart there were less and less. Sometimes I would see a misplaced Pipp on the other side of the store, and I even saw a girl in the checkout line with one. :) Sunny and Izzy are another story, they weren't really selling.

Wardah:
People can't buy what they can't find. There's certain MLP sets I wanted that weren't on Target or Walmart's sites and I'm sure weren't in those stores either. I was able to find two of them on Amazon and another was only spotted in a chain that exists only in the midwestern states. Honestly the G5 sets on Amazon have been frequently going out of stock. I wouldn't be surprised if with the pandemic a lot of parents switched to buying toys online since taking kids into stores isn't fun.

Taffeta:
I can't comment on G5 because I have literally not been to a shop that sells toys since G5 came out, not in person.

But regarding previous gens, they did all sell here and pretty well as far as I remember.

G1 had patchy distribution in some areas, although I know from the carbooting years that we actually had a really wide range here in this area. I suspect some of it was TRU, which I never went to as a child, not accessible.

G2 did okay as far as I recall, but my memory of that is a bit hazy.

G3 sold very well here. Carbooting also backs that up.

G4 depended a lot on the characters. For example, mane 6 from sets often shelf sat, different characters from sets vanished really fast. This was especially true with the rainbow power and the pearly set. Entertainer still has some G4 stuff but it's all GOH or M6. GOH didn't seem to move very fast here at all. But individual ponies, especially ones that weren't the M6, they went really fast.

It was also really common to see kids clutching ponies when out, wearing pony clothing, hugging pony BAB while they were available (we have a BAB in town) and so on. I haven't carbooted in this area much since G4 so can't comment on it that way.

Down in London I can only speak for G4 and the retros, the latter of which sold very well, the former of which again depended a lot on the characters. But distribution especially in South London of G4 was kind of out of date in some of the stores. Which was a direct contrast to the retros.

G4 carboot presence was very strong but seemed like a quick turnaround from store to being resold. A lot of ponies still in stores showed up there.

I think John Lewis gave up on G4, too. By the time I left London in 2019, the only pony stuff they had in my JL was retro G1. I also never saw anything other than retro G1 ponies in JL in Birmingham.

mopthebunny:
I've been out a lot this year to the toy shops (and just shops that sell toys) and I can say that the precious few G5 toys they put out sold extremely quickly - especially the smaller poseable ponies. I can't find them anywhere now.

BlackCurtains:
I don't know about them selling, but my Walmart has a lot of G5 stuff. I'd say, a good third of one aisle was just pony stuff.

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