Today, we had a Q&A session with Jing Houle and Chris Reiff from the Hasbro Star Wars team. We would like to thank Jing and Chris for taking time out of their busy schedules to hold these Q&A sessions.
Typically there is enough time in these sessions to ask 4 or 5 questions, but time ran long today and we only got in 3 questions.
Hasbro Q&A
Q1) Now that The Black Series Plastic Free Packaging has been showing up at retailers, a lot of our readers have voiced issues and concerns. First up some people are getting scammed at local retailers because someone has purchased a new figure, then stole / swapped out the figure with something else and returned it back to the retailer for a refund, which gets put back on the shelf for sale again. If you are a boxed collector and don’t open your figures this is a big concern. Second is quality control, now that there is no window to physically see the figure, there is no guarantee that the figure has no defects i.e. paint applications and etc.
Because of this some collectors are no longer buying the Plastic Free Black Series figures. Is this a concern for Hasbro and is there any chance to change back to a clear window box?
Answer: Hasbro – Jing:
Ya first off, like thank you for sharing the feedback from the community and things like that. We always appreciate hearing that for sure. I think first and foremost if there are issues from the community like swapped heads or things along those lines please reach out to our customer care team, thats what were are hear for, we track it and try to fix it and do our best to try to be as helpful as possible, so if there is any instances of that please do reach out to us, we definitely want to hear and appreciate the feedback, so thats for one.
In terms of the new packaging, its something that we heard, its a balance on both sides, in terms of like the posed out renders on the front of the packaging being really cool, but we will always and constantly as we do in Hasbro with everything we do, just always keep an eye out and listen to the community and overall I think we will continue to keep an eye out.
Answer: Hasbro – Chris:
Fan feedback and stuff from your sites is critical to that, so keep it up and we are listening.
Answer: Hasbro – Jing:
But reach out to customer care for sure, if there is any issue like that we definitely want to hear from you.
Q2) In regards to The Vintage Collection 3.75-Inch AT-ST With Chewbacca Set. We have seen this AT-ST 3 or 4 times previously at a much lower price. We understand that you went back and fixed the AT-ST Vehicle joints to help it stand better, but why not give us a new Carded Chewbacca figure and maybe a Ewok? A lot of people are finding the $89.99 price a bit hard to swallow.
Answer: Hasbro – Chris:
The adjustments to that to help it didn’t hurt the price at all, that was just all stuff to tune and improve the joints and make it a more pleasurable experience to work with that toy.
The decision to go with a non-carded Chewbacca in that set was straight up to help manage the cost of that thing. I mean putting a figure on a card, while its cool it adds cost and trying to be sensitive to the ever increasing costs of toys and product in general, we all know how much a 12 pack of eggs cost now verses what it costed 2 years ago, its insane. The fact that we been able to mitigate as much of that inflation as we have is huge props to the team that works on that stuff, but anything we can do like that, leaving Chewbacca off a card, that a decision, its more then just that, but thats a added benefit of keeping off the card is helping to mitigate the costs a little bit. Because its important, we know and are sensitive to how much things cost. We are constantly trying to get costs down on things figures, vehicles and all of that. Sometimes we can do more than others.
Answer: Hasbro – Jing:
And when we want Chewbacca standing on top of the AT-ST, to replicate that scene as much as possible…..
Answer: Hasbro – Chris:
Ya, and Hopefully at some point in the future, we will do a fun new Chewbacca and have him on a Card Back and do all sorts of great stuff
Q3) Whats going on with Walmart and their Hasbro Star Wars Exclusives? They are taking preorders for them months in advance, then when the release dates roll around they are sending out massive amounts of cancellation emails to customers stating sorry we had to cancel because we can’t get the product from the manufacture. This has happen multiple times in 2022. These Exclusives rarely show up at local Walmarts as well.
We know that Hasbro did offer some of the Walmart Exclusives to some Fan Channels, which was awesome. It was nice to actually receive these product and have them arrive undamaged in a shipping box and not a envelope. Any plans to continue this and allow Fan Channels to sell “all” of Walmart’s Exclusives? This would be great for collectors.
Answer: Hasbro – Jing:
Ya, I mean you know Entertainment Earth, they do a great job. I guess First off, so sorry for the frustration and to the community for the frustration. Like obviously we can understand how that is not the ideal situation. We know that Walmart understands how important collectors are, these figures are for collectors and we are constantly talking and working with them in terms of getting, you know making sure there is limited cancellations, our understanding was it was very limited, but there was some cancelations, and hopefully they will try and limit that more going forward.
We are always working close with the retailer and on the other flip side, just to show how much they do understand they have shared with us as well they are looking to protect the packaging more starting later in 2023, so its something that is great news to have, so ya starting in about the middle of 2023, but they are making the steps and we are having those conversations and its absolutely great to understand from both sides how thats going to impact the collector community in the future because we know how important those packagings are and so do they.
We give retailer exclusives, their exclusives and if they chose to share it, that is at their discretion to share it, its not up to us to share it more broadly then that.
