The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Wardah on June 16, 2018, 04:37:16 AM
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Just wondering if anyone has seen the baby Hippogriffs in stores yet?
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They were in New Zealand and Singapore some months ago, apparently.
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Nope, I've seen nothing new in some time.
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Nope :( I got mine from Ebay
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No Baby Hippogriffs for me either. I was sure they'd be in stores by now.
Ponyfan
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Nope. Maybe check Hasbro's website?
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I recently saw one in a Belgian Supermarket. I didn't pay further attention as I don't collect them, but I know I saw one. Hope that helps.
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Oh dear, that has me worried. I really want these guys. I guess I should start keeping an eye on eBay.
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I have generally assumed the line discontinued and thus not being distributed. I expect if they appear in the UK it will be at Christmas when mysteriously very old stock or not yet sold stock from previous waves magically appears from stockrooms at Entertainer and Smyths...
They do come up on ebay but be careful. I saw some auctions recently and they had clearly borrowed images from another seller to list them at a slightly cheaper price.
They aren't showing up a lot though, which suggests there are still stocks somewhere.
The ones that appear on ebay (both being sold from the UK legitimately months back and more recently) appear to be from NZ or Singapore because they have dollar prices on them which are clearly not US$ and I know at least one New Zealander on here has found them in stores there some time back...the packaging looks like US packaging, which may suggest US stock has ended up there or may just be a coincidence?
I asked Hasbro UK about them and they didn't have a clue what was happening. Also I know the merbabies here come up now as discontinued.
I haven't seen any in European packaging yet.
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Nope not a single one here in the states, distribution is at an all time horrible low. :pout: :(
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I've never seen them listed for sale on Hasbro Toy Shop or seen them in stores and I've been looking for them since the movie baby sea ponies hit the stores. I thought they looked cute with their little cloud homes and insect pets. :)
Some of the Wave 1 baby sea ponies are still sitting. on the shelf at my local Target (mainly Lilly Drop and Bubble Splash) and I'm beinging to wonder if that's a factor in the US not seeing the baby hippogriffs by now. Is Hasbro less willing to send new products to stores if the stores day there's still a lot of old toys on the shelves?
Ponyfan
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I've never seen them listed for sale on Hasbro Toy Shop or seen them in stores and I've been looking for them since the movie baby sea ponies hit the stores. I thought they looked cute with their little cloud homes and insect pets. :)
Some of the Wave 1 baby sea ponies are still sitting. on the shelf at my local Target (mainly Lilly Drop and Bubble Splash) and I'm beinging to wonder if that's a factor in the US not seeing the baby hippogriffs by now. Is Hasbro less willing to send new products to stores if the stores day there's still a lot of old toys on the shelves?
Ponyfan
It is a factor, but it's the retailer who's in control there. They're less likely to order more stock when there's still existing stock hogging the shelves. It can be a real problem, especially if there's bulky items shelfwarming (like, last year, my local Targets never got any of the later-wave Transformers: Titans Return Leader-class figures in because the Turbo Changer Dragonstorms from the movie line had not only spilled over into the shelf space for them, but weren't selling at all).
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Here's what my Target store looked like last week. It's hard to see in the pic but the baby sea ponies are behind some of the All About ponies. The Singing Songbird has been on the shelf for ages as well as mini/blingbag pony set.
I think this might be what's happing with the Tempest wave of the All About ponies as there are a lot of All Abouts on the shelves in my area but there are no Songbirds or Tempests.
Ponyfan
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I just saw the second wave of baby seaponies at my local Fred Meyer, so they do have them in brick and mortar stores in the US. Maybe there’s hope for the hippogriffs.
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Nz did indeed have hippogriffs last dec as I got one for my daughter, I go them from a major retailer. Just now more have popped up at a smaller store in nz but no major store has been carry any. All stores have the mermaid babies (both waves) and have done for some time. I would imagine they will keep infrequently popping up here in smaller numbers like the wave 3 pearly ponies did.
I do think hippogriffs where short packaged or something similar as from what I have seen numbers of them are always far fewer than with the baby seaponies
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I forgot about these guys!! I hope they're more widely released soon. :(
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I bought mine from Amazon from a private seller. I haven't seen even a tiny hint of the things being released in the USA at any major retailer. I'm betting they would have shown up at TRU if it hadn't gone bankrupt. The most likely place for them to show up now are discount stores(Dollar Tree, Big Lots, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, etc). That's the usual dumping ground for anything that Hasbro's horrid distribution does this to. If they end up there, I'd expect them in the next 6 months or so, maybe up to a year.
I don't know if this is still the case, but I knew someone who tried to create a small online store for the G3s back in the day. She told me some very interesting information about how Hasbro runs things that could explain why the distribution for later waves of many sets is so bad.
According to her, each set got its own unique product number. However, each wave within that set did not. When she ordered from Hasbro directly as a retailer, she could choose, say as an example the Butterfly Island "Sunny Scents" ponies, but she couldn't specify which wave of them. Sometimes she got lucky, and got what she wanted. Sometimes Hasbro sent her old stock instead, and she was stuck with it. Hasbro has a fairly large minimum order for small retailers($5000), and you can't send anything back, so every time she ordered it was a risk.
Again, I have no idea if they still do this, or if the rules are even the same for the big retailers. It's entirely possible that when you're ordering $300,000 worth of one set for national distribution that Hasbro lets them do whatever they want. It's also possible that Hasbro changed its policies and distribution system in the last 10 years. However, it could explain the wide distribution of the first waves of any given line, and then the shrinking distribution of all waves that come after.
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There's a shelf tag for the baby hippogriffs at my local Meijer, but I've only seen it stocked with baby sea ponies. It makes me think that they were at least expecting to carry them, but their MLP section is still choked with old stock like the hairbow assortment so... :huh:
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In my part of America it's hard to even find the baby merponies, let alone the baby hippogriffs! I have only ever seen the baby merponies at Target and that was only once so I'm not very optimistic about the baby hippogriffs coming here soon :(
At my local Walmart, the shelves are mostly lined with these (also forgive me for not knowing the proper names of the sets):
That really big Princess Celestia that I think lights up or something like that
A bunch of the ponies with the fabric merpony tails
A whole bin filled with the all-about ponies and blind bags
A couple of the sets that include Twilight and Songbird, Pinkie and hippogriff Skystar, and Rarity and that cat dude
A couple of the pearly sea ponies, wave 2
A weird Rainbow Dash head hair styling thingy
A bunch of the seaquestria playsets
The section for ponies has gotten much smaller over the years so there's not much room for new products :(
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There's a shelf tag for the baby hippogriffs at my local Meijer, but I've only seen it stocked with baby sea ponies. It makes me think that they were at least expecting to carry them, but their MLP section is still choked with old stock like the hairbow assortment so... :huh:
We had those tags here in the UK too - but apparently the official name for the set includes hippogriff even for the baby sea ponies, so it might just be referring to them. Wave 3 is a bit confusing as it seems to include both some wave 2 baby sea ponies and the 2 hippogriffs...
I will pick them up if they ever appear here, such as around Christmas - but if they don't, I'll just live with it and move on :)
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I bought mine from Amazon from a private seller. I haven't seen even a tiny hint of the things being released in the USA at any major retailer. I'm betting they would have shown up at TRU if it hadn't gone bankrupt. The most likely place for them to show up now are discount stores(Dollar Tree, Big Lots, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, etc). That's the usual dumping ground for anything that Hasbro's horrid distribution does this to. If they end up there, I'd expect them in the next 6 months or so, maybe up to a year.
I don't know if this is still the case, but I knew someone who tried to create a small online store for the G3s back in the day. She told me some very interesting information about how Hasbro runs things that could explain why the distribution for later waves of many sets is so bad.
According to her, each set got its own unique product number. However, each wave within that set did not. When she ordered from Hasbro directly as a retailer, she could choose, say as an example the Butterfly Island "Sunny Scents" ponies, but she couldn't specify which wave of them. Sometimes she got lucky, and got what she wanted. Sometimes Hasbro sent her old stock instead, and she was stuck with it. Hasbro has a fairly large minimum order for small retailers($5000), and you can't send anything back, so every time she ordered it was a risk.
Again, I have no idea if they still do this, or if the rules are even the same for the big retailers. It's entirely possible that when you're ordering $300,000 worth of one set for national distribution that Hasbro lets them do whatever they want. It's also possible that Hasbro changed its policies and distribution system in the last 10 years. However, it could explain the wide distribution of the first waves of any given line, and then the shrinking distribution of all waves that come after.
I know all about Hasbro's distribution practices, which seem to be the industry standard for anything that comes in waves (I wasn't able to find the second wave of the last series of Shopkins thanks to TRU vanishing). I was just hoping maybe they popped up somewhere else. The Holly Dash wave only appeared in the US at a chain that only exists in Texas but meanwhile I find plenty of the 3rd wave of pearlies at Family Dollar and Dollar General after people were finding them months earlier near them.