Woah!
Granted, I’m one of the lucky ones who grabbed the full set of four of these from eBay last week, but this is just crazy. Just as the Rise of Cobra was morphing into the Pursuit of Cobra, a number of items were solicited, and some items were destined for the dustbin of history, including the final wave of Target Exclusives. Initially this wave was slated to come with the Trubble Bubble w/ Elite-Viper, Twin Battle Gun w/ Range-Viper, Air Assault Glider w/ Capt. Ace, and the RAM w/ Sandstorm.
These items have sold for upwards near $300 on the secondary market, and now you can get them for six bones a pop at your local Ross stores.
At least, I’m assuming some folks have these locally. Myself? The nearest Ross is 350+ miles away.
If anyone gets their hands on a few Twin Battle Gun w/ Range-Vipers, feel free to let me know. I’d love to have a little squad of these babies, but I’ve got no Ross stores locally. I will be getting my eBay one this week, and at least this makes my decision to open them much easier. Reviews will be coming!
Check out some mirrored images below, and a huge thanks to japanX80 of HissTank.com for the info.
no images were found
Luke: *seeing Obi-Wan stagger* Are you okay?
Obi-Wan: It was as if a small cadre of collectors cried out, and then fell silent.
I am SOOO glad I was never tempted to pay secondary market prices for this set of repaints. Wow…
*twitch* Grrreeaaat….just great. What the heck is a Ross? OF COURSE they’re on sale at some place I’ve never heard of. Damnitdamnitdamnit…now I’m gona try and hunt these down. I REALLY wanted that Range Viper set. Why couldn’t these have just stayed unreleased?
I wouldn’t mind obtaining a twin battle gun or two, and several RAMs. No Ross store nearby, though. That I know of.
Hahha, I feel your pain Alexx. We don’t have any Ross stores by me. Hopefully we can find someone to hook us up.
Good point. If they’re just 6 bucks a pop then shipping won’t hurt so bad. I’ll have to keep my ears open for folks willing to pick some up. Thanks for reminding me!
Uhh, I never found the PoC hisstanks at Ross. But these were heavily mass produced and I see all those exclusives at ROSS and Marshalls.
Like the Gi joe wave 4 vehicles, these might be easy to find. I want that damn range viper.
I was at 2 Ross’s, 2 Marshall’s, and a Sam’s Club yesterday. No $30 AT-AT, no canceled exclusives, no $12 Hisses or Furies. Nada, zip, zilch. It is bad enough trying to track this stuff down, now you have to battle the holiday shoppers too.
2 RAMs and 3 Whirlwinds today for me. I’ll check another Ross on my way home to see if I can find more for folks. I’m satisfied, so if anyone wants me to scour, let me know.
Nas, that would be most excellent. I’d buy a Whirlwind and a Flight Pod off of you for Cost+Shipping+A little extra for your time.
Ebay is gonna be saturated with them eventually due to the mass produced amount of them. The price will drop in time. I couldn’t make it to downtown SF tonight due to having to attend a previous engagement.
I’ll check tomorrow.
@Crosshair – went scouring tonight for Justin, who shot me an email. Only found one Whirlwind, but a few Trouble Bubbles. Didn’t see your post till tonight, and I have another Ross to check tomorrow, so if I can’t find a Whirlwind for you, do you still want a TB? Post up if so, and I’ll check here before I go hunting at lunch. (I didn’t get a TB yet, so tomorrow may prove fruitless – sorry I didn’t see this earlier…)
I’m looking for as many Whirlwinds as I can find, but Justin hit me first for 2 or 3. If I find a motherload (hopefully!) I’ll let you know.
Peace and carrots,
-Nas
I hate Hasbro! Why the heck can’t they put these up on the Internet to give everyone a shot? I’d gladly pay them the retail price on these. I really wanted the Whirlwind and the RAM repaint. Same thing with the Stinger and Arctic HISS, I would have picked up another 1-2 of each at full retail price. ARGGHHH! And if they can’t do that, why is it always Ross, which doesn’t exist in half the country? Why not TJ Maxx/Marshall’s which seem to be everywhere around here? All we get at TJ Maxx is the lame RoC stuff that was shelf warming everywhere. Nothing decent.
@Nas – Not sure how many Ross’s you have around you, but a Flight Pod (Trubble Bubble) would be excellent. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you find a Whirlwind as well 🙂
Thanks!
@meyerc13: Let me quote from an informative post from HT:
“HTS selling these would mean = sending from China to a warehouse in the US, stocking, distributing, managing online sales, fulfillment, sorting, pulling & packaging, shipping, use tax & sales tax accrual.
Ross selling these would mean = one time / ship from asian factory / storage to end-client via coastal import / container load, paid with Net 30 (standard).
This is a no-brainer. This is a big liability for Hasbro. These were Target exclusives, booked on the financials as a 1 time sale paid by the end-client, no storage / housing / marketing required. The margin is not available to sell these at HTS, which is guaranteed to have limited resources / space and under planned constraints already.
If an item is going to HTS, it starts it’s life with that objective, is slated for and designed to go there from the factory, or would be in such limited quantity / high dollar that the margin is available for online sale (SDCC exclusives). All retailers look at the final Landed Freight Cost (LFC) when buying and determining sales. If you ship from the factory direct to the client, you have a stronger margin. If you ship from the factory to your distribution channel, you dilute your margin and now add distribution to your profit loss margin. You lose money, even if it means selling at a higher individual unit price than what you sold to the end client discounter.
This is simple, very basic good business practice.
Booked as a sale to Target, after ROC stagnated and was clearanced out they canceled the sale, which in all probability required extensive procurement negotiation to do so since Hasbro had already made the product, and prepped for shipping. Either Target stuck it to the vendor, screwing Hasbro as happens in the industry every day (and the vendor is stuck with the product on the loading docks, left w/ the bag, but nothing they can do since this isn’t going to affect the relationship w/ a major market buying franchise like Target), or someone on the procurement legal side of the house at Hasbro really screwed the pooch on a bunk contract.
This is how it goes. This is the result of a sale gone bad, in all reality this product should never have been produced. It was premature by the vendor, or poor by the end-client on a contract follow-through.
Why to Ross? Simple. It needs to clear the books before year-end. There is no way this would be allowed to sit on the books and get taxed as such at the calendar year end waiting for sales on HTS.
No way.
It would cost them more to keep it, the hit would KO the sales initiatives for further exclusives.
Ross has shown positive sales w/ joe product, they have made a nice niche picking up Joe exclusives and clearing product in a matter of days / short weeks. This is a good thing for us.
So in a nutshell, why send this to Ross rather than letting it sit on HTS for a few months? Lets back this up to November, and you’re the inventory control manager at Hasbro. You have 100+ pallets of this cancelled exclusive on the docks in China; you’re paying monthly storage fees, you’re about to get a massive tax loss for having this on the books come December 31, you’re missing sales quotes because it is inventory that is unsold, and it is a MASSIVE inventory liability from a loss prevention factor.”
@Nas – Looks like you’ve got your hands full with “orders”, and it seems like you’re not finding the pack with the Range Viper easily. Regardless – if you can find time after taking care of the guys who came before me – you mind seeing if you can get two of those Range Viper packs for me?
@Alexx – I don’t mind at all. Also, to all who’ve asked – I’ll keep an eye out for restock as well. Again, no guarantees, but you never know. These were (allegedly) mass produced, so I expect Ross has ’em all, and doesn’t want to hold on to them. We can hope!
Since this thread might drop off by the time that happens, if you guys are HISS Tankers, I go by Gigamach there, so find me and drop me a line so we can have more direct communication.
Also, Justin needs a forum. 😉
I could use a Whirlwind & Range Viper too! Then a trubble bubble as a secondary want.
Oh and Ross http://www.rossstores.com/ is TJX’s major competition. http://www.tjx.com
There seems to be no Ross stores in the midwest.
I hope these hit the Targets and TJ Maxxes in my area. I REALLY want those Range Vipers and that bike.
HEY NAS! I’m not a part of HissTank, but I checked and can’t find your email there, so I just gotta hope you see this soon though: I got another guy offering to help and he’s got his hands on some stuff already. I’m striking myself off your list, and of course, if you’ve already bought what I asked for, I’ll pay for ’em – not gona leave you hanging like that. I’ll keep checking back here to make sure you got the message. Thanks again for your help, though!