In a perfect world, the Wal Mart endcap would have gone up with …

2 Oversized CASE N5531-999A & 6 Singles CASE M1054-999W

… all at once on a specific day. Or 24 Oversized CARS and 108 (18 x 6) mainline CARS.

This is the same world where people just buy one or at most two of each CAR and never sully a website comment with the words FIRST!

Here is the full list of CARS that were in M1054-999W.

Axle Accelerator
Brand New Mater
Bug Mouth McQueen
Charlie Checker
Chick Hicks
Dexter Hoover
Dirt Track Lightning McQueen
Doc Hudson
Dudley Spare
Ferrari F430
Ghostlight Ramone
Hamm
Leroy Traffik
Lizzie
Pit Crew Member Guido
Roman Dunes
Sally with Cone
Spinout Lightning McQueen

Again, in a perfect scenario, there would be 108 CARS on the pegs and 6 of each CAR. But of course, it’s understandable that the three new CARS be immediately sold (Spinout, Sally with Cone & Dexter), And of course, Axle, Roman Dunes & even Leroy Traffik are both pretty new and it’s the first appearance of Lizzie on a WOC card so it’s entirely understandable if those are all sold off pretty quickly. Plus, Brand New Mater hasn’t appeared too often so you can probably presume he will sell quickly also.

in theory, leaving the bulk of the older CARS as this:

Bug Mouth McQueen
Charlie Checker
Chick Hicks
Dirt Track Lightning McQueen
Doc Hudson
Dudley Spare
Ferrari F430
Ghostlight Ramone
Hamm
Pit Crew Member Guido

So, from this list, we can drill down further. Of the remaining, your best clues are probably Hamm & Charlie Checker. If you can count more than two of each, you can probably presume that the W case has been set up and that’s all that’s left … however, the newly introduced problem is that some WM’s received the endcap in separate pieces and may have not have put out out all the singles … so you will have to wade through this list and use your judgement.

For instance, of this “older CARS’ list, do you see ANY Hamm, Charlie Checker, PCM Guido, Ferrari F430 or Dudley Spare? It would seem unlikley that they would have sold out of ALL 6 of these CARS also … some, sure but all 6? Again, there are no firm and fast rules and ultimately, you’ll have to use your judgment.

If it’s any consolation, in 10 of my 12 Walmarts, I found no conclusive evidence they got all four components of the endcap (display box, oversized CARS, mainline CARS & banshee). There are WM’s with ZERO banshees … and of course, employees are of no help in these stores. We might as well be wearing the blue smock.

What’s up with this you ask? Well, again, the issues are complicated. The bottom line is that with any retail store, your quality of employee will vary. You would think a toy department manager is keenly interested in toys? Not always the case, sometimes there is an opening and if you want to be promoted – even if you’re much more interested in yarn or hunting, you have to take what’s available so that’s why some stores toy departments can look like TRU Jr. while others look like Walgreen’s Jr. That’s just the way it is – just like if you ask a manager (usually there between 7 AM and 4 PM) – you will get a wide degree of answers and interest … from indifference to extremely helpful. Some care a lot and some care not a whit … probably wouldn’t hurt to complain politely and professionally to each store … individually, you might not make a difference but if 10, 20 or 50 people complain about the toy department within a specific store?

And again, Mattel might not be 100% blameless in that they’re not making a better sales effort or that there are some distribution issues but the bottom line is that the retailer ultimately decides what they want to carry and how many they want to order – so you should point that out to them if stock is insufficient or out of whack in your store you want to shop at … figuring out the specific store number is useful so they don’t have to look it up but use their website or their 800# to lodge a compliant they don’t have enough product on the shelves or if you can cite specific examples of a store in which you have direct evidence of employees buying up everything, drop me an email.

If we only had a van with some pesky kids & a dog to help us solve this mystery.

So, happy hunting and good luck!

Here’s a brief roundup of where to look for what this holiday season …