[Joebros]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1

.......As to the rest of your statement, yes, I agree the Pandemic swelled the scalper ranks because a lot of people found themselves out of work. As the recovery rolls on we'll likely see less of it as those folks (hopefully) go back to steady or semi-steady jobs. Generally speaking I've rarely had too much trouble finding Target Exclusives until the past year and a half or so, and bluntly I don't think we're that far off from being back in that state of affairs (Though admittedly, I have a metric shit-ton of Targets in semi-reasonable driving distance).

Yes, hopefully. I think some might find toy reselling easier or more enjoyable than their normal jobs. And some may decide to remain on unemployment and use the free time to make extra "under the table" money.
I, also, have several Targets fairly close by (2 I could walk to), but so do the other 2 million people in my area, so I have a lot of competition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1

Most shoppers in their stores don't get treated like anything at all...good, bad, or otherwise, because they get in, get what they want (not talking about collectible toys here, just general goods) and get out. If you're getting treated like dirt by a retail employee, my experience has been that you're either being an a-hole yourself, or you have the misfortune of arriving after they've had to deal with a bunch of a-holes already.

Yeah, in the latter case they shouldn't take it out on you, but they're only human, and they generally don't get paid enough to "suck it up" and let themselves be harassed and abused. I've never been a believer in "the customer is always right." Not applying any of this to you personally, you seem like a reasonable person. But I've definitely witnessed collectors/scalpers that...aren't. Though a fair bit of that may go back to the Pandemic really. Folks that are scalping toys as a way to stay afloat are probably a little more uh...desperate.

Of course people in stores that don't interact with employees won't have bad experiences. I'm not even saying most people that do are treated bad. I'm saying *I* have been, and in reading these threads since Classified came out, others have, too.
Employees are *paid* to help guests and act professional. If they can't do that, they need a "come to Jesus meeting" with the manager or become a life coach. If Target employees stereotype everyone asking about toys as a [email protected]$$, Target needs to hire better people.

And when I say "dirt", I mean lied to, given the run-a-round and getting a "no" without even checking. Not the guest service a potential customer should receive. And I ALWAYS asked nicely (these are TOYS, fer Pete sake. I'm not an animal). Only once (maybe twice) did I ask to talk to a manager, and that was after 2 other employees couldn't/wouldn't help me.
One store actually had to give me a gift card because one of their employee's, when asked "do you have this in the back?", scanned the tag, said no and walked away without even looking at me.

At another store I asked at guest services if they could check an item for me and showed them a picture of the price tag. They said "don't have it." "But the store system says you do." "Well, if you don't see it out, we don't have it."
So I go ask someone in electronics. They go in the back and bring out TWO figures.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1

Believe me, I don't think the way Target is handling this is the best way they could have done it (as opposed to, I don't know, ACTUALLY SETTING ASIDE INVENTORY FOR PREORDERS), but I don't think it's nearly going to be the catastrophe some people are making out. At worst it's simply going to be pretty much the same, as you point out. At best the scalpers aren't going to want to waste gas money for potentially-fruitless trips either (and may start to thin out some over time as I pointed out above).

Thinning out the scalpers would be great.
But as I mentioned, a lot of them work in "crews" or have connections at Target (or even work there) that we don't have.

The whole scenario was/is bad for everybody:
Collectors were dealing with Target's street date foul ups, scalper scum getting our toys, reading all the different stories on this board and other online forums of guys finding or not finding or asking various employees to finally get a figure, etc. So some of us (I know I did) would walk into stores already worked up about the entire situation, just *ready* for the showdown with employees.

Employees were dealing with dozens of people, some not so nice, all day long asking for this new toy that some website said they had or were supposed to have, and managers had to get involved, etc. Hearing other employees talk about the weirdos and the jerks, how they bought the hot figures before anyone else could, etc.

Totally sucked the joy out of collecting for a few days, and those that were happy at their Target job no doubt had a rough few weeks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breakerfan

Not to be contrary, but I had the worst luck with popfindr. I can't count how many times a store said something was there only for it to not be. Funny enough, a couple times at the store I found things that popfindr said was not there, so I guess it balances out...

For me it was weird; for Viper and FF, I was 2-2. For wave one, there were way more ghosts than hits.
And not always small numbers. Sometimes the system would show 8-10-12 figures, and nobody knew where they were.