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 same waves... or from the same toyline as a whole... or even subsequent toylines. 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 for so long that 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 can seem like 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 and fandom over 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 the original Transformers toyline it 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 given Transformers toy 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. Kenner sold the original Star Wars Darth Vader figure for seven 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 to Transformers at 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 the Jumpstarters being 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 boxed Transformers price 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 the hit cartoon show and had no notable comics presence in the US (and not much more than that in the UK).
- The jankiness of the overall play gimmick meaning 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 find mint in sealed box specimens for significantly less than their contemporaries.
Shelfwarmers in Beast Wars
Beast Wars, as the first Transformers toyline 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 in Beast Wars included Injector, Scavenger, Transquito, and even show character Inferno. (Apparently, kids don't like bug-bots.) It was not uncommon to see store pegboards that were entirely Injector, and there were reports of Transquitos still being on shelves seven years after the initial release. Now that's a shelfwarmer.
In the United Kingdom, both Cybershark and Claw Jaw struggled 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, Armada clogged shelves with flocks of Laserbeaks and fleets of Smokescreens. Energon made sure there was no shortage of Ironhide. Cybertron gave us unmoving armies of Mudflaps, who often stayed on the shelf long enough to sit beside their redeco, the first movie Mudflap (itself a shelfwarmer). In the Universe toy line, any of the Cybertron redecos stayed on shelves for years on end, and you could still find Dropshots on the shelf at some Walmarts years after its release.
With the 2007 Transformers movie, the playing field was changed slightly. Suddenly, Transformers were big again. 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, Payloads could be found in hordes, even as everything else Transformers (including leftover Cybertron and Classics stock) 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 is Battle Unicorn. This Beast Machines toy was part of the very last wave of that series's product and was thus barely shipped to retailers. As such, it was very hard to get. It was so rare, in fact, that online store BigBadToyStore made a large special order for them from Hasbro — but despite the fandom's previous clamoring for the toy, they were stuck sitting on a lot of that stock for quite a long time.
The original releases of Alternators Autobot Tracks and Meister, which only shipped in two waves each, also demanded a high rise in aftermarket prices... until Hasbro decided to re-release them as part of a semi-relaunch of the Alternators line. Now, Tracks and Meister suddenly became major shelfwarmers.
A similar thing happened with Alternators Nemesis Prime: In North America, he was released only at the San Diego Comic-Con and via the Hasbro Toy Shop website for the few people who were able to get him from there, and so was very difficult to get. Fans of the Alternators line who desperately wanted the toy were furious about its release only at a non-Transformers convention and 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 for ages. It was still available in some stores as of September 2009!
Another example is the 25th Anniversary Unicron figure. When it was released as an Amazon.com exclusive in the US, it sold out quickly and was subject to much scalping, 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 released in very limited quantities in Country A but getting more favorable case ratios in Country B. Energon Ultra Magnus is a rather infamous example of this. Armada Scavenger and 2007 movie Swindle and Bonecrusher ended up as prolonged shelfwarmers in many European stores because they were the only toys from their respective size classes those 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 scale Transformers toys, 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.
Masterpiece toys are an interesting case. Despite being stocked in very small quantities, they are so expensive that they can still warm the shelves. While Masterpiece figures of popular characters like Optimus Prime and Starscream are guaranteed to sell in short order, Masterpiece figures of minor characters are unlikely to sell with younger fans who are unfamiliar with them. Masterpiece Skywarp wound up being marked down to $30 at Wal-Mart. Good luck finding a Masterpiece Seeker for that price now!
In the mid-2010s, the Platinum Edition line 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: Cybertron Voyager Class Mudflap, the first toy using the name, started the trend, which was continued by his redeco, Movie Mudflap (thus accompanying his Cybertron predecessor on many a store shelf). Revenge of the Fallen gave us a Mudflap character with multiple toy incarnations: Deluxe Class Mudflap generally moved more slowly than his twin brother, Skids, from the same assortment. Likewise, Fast Action Battlers Grapple Grip Mudflap was easier to find than Missile Blast Skids, and things got even worse with the Deluxe Class Mudflap redeco, Tuner Mudflap, a colossal shelfwarmer. Presumably, the only reason Human Alliance Mudflap 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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