My Little Pony Isles Ravaged after Holiday Shopping

[brighteyes]

Well, if you were concerned about the ongoing success of the MLP line, worry not!  It is as popular as ever, at least in NW Indiana.  My daughter got some gift cards for Christmas and wanted to buy some shopkins.  These creepy little things (I'm not a fan of them, can you tell?) are in the same isle as MLP so I thought I'd see if there were any deals to be had.  Almost everything was gone in all the stores we went to.  Target had a few singles, but ALL the FS were gone, zero equestria girls, no blind bags, no power ponies.  The only thing they had were like 8 pose-able ponies (coco pommel I think), a Sugar Cube Corner set and the singles.  Meijer was the same way except the had some of the Sweet Apple Acres singles and pairs and Wal*Mart had even less than Target.  It was like a tornado went through there!

Other things that were almost gone were the American Girl knock-offs at Walmart and Target, Shopkins (Midi didn't find any of the ones she wanted) and Monster High.  There were still lots of those Legos for Girls, Lalaloopsy, Barbie and Barbie-like dolls and animatronic toys like the Panda and singing birds.  It's interesting to see what toys really sell this time of year and which ones are shelf-warmers.

[kestral_kitsune]

heh we still have the ponies from the crystal line warming shelves at our walmart mixed in with some of the kind of new? stuff only new thing in our walmart pony wise is the apple acres thing.


and sad thing is they probably going to the ones that will put them up on ebay or other auction sites. my sister's friend does this for a living and her extra room is full of toys she's planning on selling on the net.

[Al-1701]

Something to consider is how full the shelves were to begin with.  Though, being the Christmas season, I suspect they were full until recently.

Kind of worried to know the singles are what remained.  They're supposed to be the bread and butter of the brand.

And I didn't know stores had islands.

[brighteyes]

They were definitely very full prior to Christmas.  We were shopping earlier in the week for last minute gifts and saw the toy isles then.  It is kind of worrying that the singles were still there.  It was mostly the core pony singles that seemed to be sitting around.  I forgot that There were also stuffed ponies still sitting there as well.  I'm so surprised the EGD were all gone. 

[Al-1701]

Equestria Girls get new characters regularly, and this is only their third year.  The pony singles are too much Mane 6 for the market to move anymore.  I'm hoping they make more Starlight Glimmers and Pursey Pinks in the new line to account for the fact some kids will already have the Mane 6 and are looking for new characters as well as new customers looking to get the main characters.

[Wardah]

Something to consider is how full the shelves were to begin with.  Though, being the Christmas season, I suspect they were full until recently.

Kind of worried to know the singles are what remained.  They're supposed to be the bread and butter of the brand.

It sounds like the singles that were left weren't brushable singles but were the blind bag style ones.

[zombienixon]

During the Buy one Get one Free sale last week at TRU, in a period of 4 days, the MLP aisle went from well stocked to almost completely barren.  The brushables were completely gone and nearly all of the newer EqGs.  Several stores were putting out last year's castle playset since they were out of Canterlot Castles and Carousel Boutiques.

I went over to Charlotte to see Star Wars with some friends and stopped at 3 other TRUs on the way and it was the exact same for all of them. No brushables, old castle playsets, a handful of EqGs in a corner and a good stock of FiM collection figures (they have been popular, so I guess they must have stocked more of them).

For that matter, the MLP aisle at Target was pretty bare. The Power Ponies seem to have been a success.

[sd_dreamcrystal]

I just went to our Walmart today and here is what I saw as far as mlp..
No EQG on the shelves except for some stragglers that ended up on other shelves elsewhere in the toy aisles.. The Apples Story sets didn't look like much got bought, Singles were the same boat but looks like more of them had been bought... I really can't say mostly because everything was a mess... only thing that was really noticeable was no EQG on the shelves

[Judhudson]

I went out to Walmart today too.  The MLP aisle was wiped clean.

[ponyqueen]

Need to get groceries tomorrow- kinda scared to go to the store the first couple days after Christmas.