Are we jumping the gun just a bit on the G.I. Joe toy recall hype?
I posted a few things on Twitter about this, but I wanted to talk about it a bit on the site here, too, just because I know not everyone follows me on Twitter. Over the past few days I have been reading lots of anger and lots of hype about G.I. Joe: Retaliation toys and the likelihood of a widespread product recall from Hasbro.
To this I just have to say not so fast, my friends.
Let’s just think about this a bit and consider how realistic this scenario really is.
- Product recalls are an extremely expensive proposition and are generally only done in the case of danger or potential safety hazard
- Product recalls are, by and large, reported to the federal government, and end up on Recalls.gov (specifically the CPSC portion of the site), and there is no indication that this has been done as of yet.
- According to many brick & mortar and online retailers, Hasbro sent them communications allowing them to break Street Date last week, prior to the reported date, most likely as a reaction to the movie delay. Why would they then send communications just a few days later telling retailers that they are recalling their product?
- In the same vein, Hasbro issued a press release specifically stating that G.I. Joe is a consumer brand and that items would be available for sale. Why would they then issue widespread product recalls two days later?
- Keep in mind within this two day window, there were also a couple of days of a three day holiday weekend.
- According to several online retailers, including Kokomo Toys, and Adam from Entertainment Earth, Hasbro has issued them no recall orders whatsoever. A Twitter friend of mine named Kenny reports the same lack of a recall notice for Target, and another guy on Twitter, Caped_Crusader has been hitting Targets all morning and finding product on pegs or in stock rooms in every one.
- Many fans report contacting retailers and being told that product was being recalled or was not available for sale. Do not forget, most of these phone calls occurred prior to the previously established street date. If some stores did not receive that communication about street dates, isn’t it possible they were simply referring to the street date as a reason why product could not be sold?
The one outlier in all of this is the reports from Rescuer about Dollar General potentially recalling figures. First of all, I’m sorry, but I simply cannot be convinced based off on one forum message from one person that this is an actual occurrence. Normally I try to maintain benefit of the doubt, but until I hear this from more sources or see more evidence of this, I’m going to chalk this up to miscommunication, especially considering the fact that these are not even movie product.
Granted, I’m not saying this is impossible, I’m just saying the problem is likely being overblown. Perhaps Hasbro is offering an olive branch to certain retaliers? I don’t know, but I’m sorry I’m not taking this all that seriously based on a few scattered forum posts and a random Variety article. Time will tell, but before freaking out, I think we need to at least wait for the street date to come and go and see where things go over the next couple of weeks.