Shelfwarmer
From Transformers Wiki
"Shelfwarmer"is the colloquial term for a toy that lingers in stores for conspicuously long periods of time, more than other toys from the samewaves... or from the same toyline as a whole... or evensubsequenttoylines. It's derived from the sports term "benchwarmer",which refers to players who seldom get to play during games, and are thus said to be" warming the bench "because they rarely leave it.
What causes a toy to be a shelfwarmer can vary. It can simply have failed to sell well compared to its contemporaries. Or perhaps it was over-produced, which would make "normal" (or in some rare cases "fantastic" ) sales numbers in other circumstances not enough to stop the toy from always being there at every store you go to for the next year or so. Depending on the retailer/market, the sales can actually be just fine even for the amount made, but the item shipped forso longthat it gives the appearance of not selling, most often seen in "discount" retailers where toy turnover can be relatively slow.
The phenomenon is of course heavily regional and the evidence largely anecdotal, as toys can linger in one area but sell briskly in others, especially in different nations where case ratios can be radically different. And of course, sometimes it canseemlike a toy isn't moving while it's still shipping but then suddenly be gone; making the call is (or at least should be) an exercise in hindsight. But there are plenty of notable examples widespread enough that most fans and collectors can agree... that toy just didn't sell.
The related term "pegwarmer"refers to toys packaged on cards, lingering unwanted for years on pegs instead of shelves.
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Shelfwarmers in Generation 1
Due to significant differences in the toy industry andfandomover the decades, it can be hard to demonstrate which toys were warming shelves in the 1980s. Unlike the modern era, where new waves of new product are released every couple months with older product being cycled out within a few waves (or even only shipping in a single assortment!), during the time of theoriginalTransformerstoylineit was very common for case assortments to stay pretty static over the course of an entire year. Sometimes there would be the occasional mid-to-late-year refresh adding new product in lieu of duplicates of earlier-released items, but the older toys more often than not continued to ship until the big changeover in the new year... and even then, toys carrying over into the new year was very common! Typically, any givenTransformerstoy would ship for about two years before being cycled out. And with there being far, far more retailers out there carrying toys and the general retail market being slower than today, individual toys could remain readily available for quite a long time.
Particularly popular characters could be kept in case assortments for even longer without any major/notable changes outside of packaging shifts.Starscream,first released in early 1984, could still be found in large quantities through 1986, but this was because his toy still got shipped throughout that period... and being Starscream, still got sold.Kennersold the originalStar WarsDarth Vaderfigure forseven years,just on different cardbacks as time went on. Certainly an outlier, as few toylines even lasted that long, but still, a useful example of the 80s toy retail environment.
And of course, also making recognizing shelfwarmers of this era difficult is the fact that that most people who were paying attention toTransformersat the customer level at the time were children of single-digit age, who generally did not get to go to multiple toy stores multiple times a week. And they didn't exactly have the means to share information about what was on shelves much further than a few other kids at the local playground.
However, there are still a few toys of the time that can be pretty safely declared shelfwarmers, with theJumpstartersbeing the go-to for "Generation 1". These were a perfect storm of things that can cause shelfwarming:
- They were produced in larger numbers since they were on the cheapest end of the boxedTransformersprice range, and shipped to a LOT of stores, including many that would generally not carry more expensive items (like drug stores).
- There were only two different toys in a case, meaning more of each got put out at once.
- The characters in question never appeared in thehit cartoon showand had no notablecomicspresence in the US (and not much more than that in the UK).
- The jankiness of the overall playgimmickmeaning kids would see their friends' toys not work properly and decide to spend their allowance on some other toy.
With all that against them, the Jumpstarters ended up in such low demand that pretty much to this day you can findmint in sealed boxspecimens for significantly less than their contemporaries.
Shelfwarmers inBeast Wars
Beast Wars,as the firstTransformerstoyline to be released after Internet access became widespread, was the first to really introduce collectors to the concept of shelfwarming. Toys that were noted for their abnormally high shelfwarming capacity inBeast WarsincludedInjector,Scavenger,Transquito,and even show characterInferno.(Apparently, kids don't like bug-bots.) It was not uncommon to see store pegboards that wereentirelyInjector, and there were reports of Transquitos still being on shelvesseven yearsafter the initial release. Nowthat'sa shelfwarmer.
In theUnited Kingdom,bothCybersharkandClaw Jawstruggled to sell due to being packed several per case in multiple waves and not featuring in the TV show.
Shelfwarmers in later series
Each series has had its own notorious shelfwarmers. In North America,Armadaclogged shelves with flocks ofLaserbeaksand fleets ofSmokescreens.Energonmade sure there was no shortage ofIronhide.Cybertrongave us unmoving armies ofMudflaps,who often stayed on the shelf long enough to sit beside theirredeco,the first movieMudflap(itselfa shelfwarmer). In theUniversetoy line,any of theCybertronredecos stayed on shelves for years on end, and you could still findDropshotson the shelf at some Walmarts years after its release.
With the2007Transformersmovie,the playing field was changed slightly. Suddenly, Transformers werebigagain. Toys were in short supply and any toys that stayed on the shelves for very long did so very conspicuously. During the Christmas shopping period following the 2007 movie,Payloadscould be found in hordes, even aseverythingelse Transformers (including leftoverCybertronandClassicsstock) was disappearing from shelves.
Supply vs. demand
Sometimes toys were in desperate demand in the fandom when they were difficult to get, but didn't do so well when released more widely. One online example of this phenomenon isBattle Unicorn.ThisBeast Machinestoy was part of the very lastwaveof that series's product and was thusbarely shipped to retailers.As such, it wasveryhard to get. It was so rare, in fact, that online storeBigBadToyStoremade a large special order for them from Hasbro — but despite thefandom's previous clamoring for the toy, they were stuck sitting on a lot of that stock for quite a long time.
The original releases ofAlternatorsAutobot TracksandMeister,which only shipped in twowaveseach, also demanded a high rise in aftermarket prices... until Hasbro decided to re-release them as part of a semi-relaunch of theAlternatorsline. Now, Tracks and Meister suddenly became major shelfwarmers.
A similar thing happened withAlternatorsNemesis Prime:In North America, he was released only at theSan Diego Comic-Conand via theHasbro Toy Shopwebsite for the few people who were able to get him from there, and so was very difficult to get. Fans of theAlternatorsline who desperately wanted the toy were furious about its release only at a non-Transformersconventionand complained at length about it not being easily available. Then suddenly the toy turned up in Australia. It hit the retail store Toyworld in massive numbers, and at half the price of usual Alternators. But... no one there wanted it. The American fans had gotten over it by that point, and no one in Australia gave a damn.
Boy, did that thing sit around forages.It was still available in some stores as of September 2009!
Another example is the25th Anniversary Unicronfigure. When it was released as anAmazon.comexclusive in the US, it sold out quickly and was subject to muchscalping,but when it was released to mass retail stores in Canada and South-East Asia, the demand wasn't as high, and there he warmed shelves.
Some toys that sell well in one country may become shelfwarmers in others. Usually this is due to a toy only being releasedin very limited quantitiesin Country A but getting more favorablecase ratiosin Country B.EnergonUltra Magnusis a rather infamous example of this.ArmadaScavengerand2007 movieSwindleandBonecrusherended up as prolonged shelfwarmers in many European stores because they were theonlytoys from their respectivesize classesthose stores would ever get from Hasbro. It didn't help that the latter two shipped after the movie line nominally ended.
Expensive toys
Sometimes, it doesn't matter how desirable a toy is if the asking price is too high! Large scaleTransformerstoys, such as Supreme Class and Titan Class figures, are often too expensive for parents to purchase lightly and are often reserved for special occasions. As a result, they tend to warm the shelves until the holiday season.
Masterpiecetoys are an interesting case. Despite being stocked in very small quantities, they are so expensive that they can still warm the shelves. WhileMasterpiecefigures of popular characters like Optimus Prime and Starscream are guaranteed to sell in short order,Masterpiecefigures of minor characters are unlikely to sell with younger fans who are unfamiliar with them.MasterpieceSkywarp wound up being marked down to $30 at Wal-Mart. Good luck finding aMasterpieceSeekerfor that price now!
In the mid-2010s, thePlatinum Editionline as a whole proved notorious for large quantities of shelfwarmers. The combination of a premium pricetag, a store-exclusive status, and consisting almost entirely of retools, redecos, and reissues, leaves a lot of its offerings undesirable to the average consumer or collector.
The Mudflap Conspiracy
For whatever reason, toys named "Mudflap"tend to end up as shelfwarmers regardless of the sculpt:CybertronVoyager ClassMudflap,the first toy using the name, started the trend, which was continued by hisredeco,MovieMudflap(thus accompanying hisCybertronpredecessor on many a store shelf).Revenge of the Fallengave us aMudflapcharacterwith multiple toy incarnations: Deluxe Class Mudflap generally moved more slowly than histwinbrother,Skids,from the same assortment. Likewise,Fast Action BattlersGrapple Grip Mudflap was easier to find than Missile Blast Skids, and things got even worse with the Deluxe Class Mudflap redeco, Tuner Mudflap, acolossalshelfwarmer. Presumably, the only reasonHuman AllianceMudflap didn't share the same fate was the fact that the toy was stocked in low numbers by stores in the first place, ironically making this particular toy hard to find.
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