Our favorite toymaker, Martin A. can attest. He slides down the Mattel pole with his design team to the basement where the chocolate river goes past the truffle bushes and he meets the magical supermodel elves, and before they even have to speak*, they present them with dozens of beautiful diecasts made from ever lasting ding-proof titanium and covered in Ransberg red and gold dust. Martin smiles and nods and 100,000 CARS go shooting through the nationwide pneumatic tubes and CARS toys are on your store shelves in less than 10-minutes from a twinkle in Martin’s & his team’s eyes.

Oh wait, that was the toy industry in 1999.

The toy industry of 2009 … slightly different.

The first batch of haulers were ready around Christmas – a time when retailers usually will buy anything toy related to sell … it’s “Barbie With a Nail In It.” Okay, we’ll take 25,000 and the Barbie Hammer.

But after Christmas, they are a little pickier EVEN BEFORE a recession/economic meltdown … so to them the haulers are a secondary thought. To them, it’s a big freakin’ truck. They don’t get it. They don’t understand why we’d want 1 hauler, let alone 36 of them … hell, we’d even buy 43 of them (the other 7 hidden sponsored racers: Slight Moist Towelette, Wet Oil Soak, Engine Boil Energy Drink, EatMoreLead.com, Rainbow Smiley Bank (takeover by HTB), Donut Doughnuts & HighKarateMotor & Tranny Oil).

Part of it is based on past history – lots of people sell haulers but there not exactly runaway successes … so based on that – to them – haulers, m’eh … but as the Starwars of diecasts … I think it’s safe to say no one has watched two grown adults wrestle each other for haulers before … The amount of time the haulers sit on the shelf can probably be counted in minutes … I’ll bet if Target tracked when they hit the shelves and when they hit the registers, they’ll think there’s something wrong with the tracking system …

Compound that with WM’s tracking. Probably, they were counting on a few thousands haulers out on the shelf by late December – how many actually made it on the shelf? a few hundred? How many haulers are sitting in WM’s back storage areas?

So, based on past history, WM & Target just sees these as “accessories.”

They could not be more wrong and the only recourse really is just to buy up every living hauler you see laying around.

I see you’re one step ahead of me …

🙂

But for the time being, the haulers are only available as DIRECT IMPORT or as a portion of a Mattel rep email (from compassinfo) notes:

N5532-999B will not be coming in our warehouse domestically. Please contact me with any questions. Thank You!

I followed up asking if it was only case B, and this was the Rep’s reply:

So what does this mean – most Mattel product is shipped to their US warehouses-distribution centers where retailers or re-sellers can place orders and it’s them re-shipped. The price quoted by Mattel includes all of Mattel’s overhead including shipping from the factory to the port in HK to a port in the US and then by air/ship or plane to Mattel’s warehouses and then on a plane & truck to your store/storefront. Generally, your order will arrive in no more than about a week and usually in a few days. You can adjust your order on an hourly basis and if you don’t want to hold a lot of inventory, place another order tomorrow or in a few days …

Direct Import – pretty much means just that. It means Mattel offers a case assortment and has the following items manufactured. It gets palletized and gets pushed to the loading dock.

The rest is all you.

You arrange for the pickup and transport to the docks in HK. You arrange for shipping or air freight from HK, customs paperwork and who forwards your freight once it arrives in the US – and then of course – arrange and pay for delivery to you.

Oh and yes, there is a much larger minimum order AND you have to pay up to a month before they begin manufacturing. And of course, you can’t really change your order by much once you sign the contract.

Yep, party on, Wayne.

Basically, Mattel makes and then goes and watches TV. The rest is up to you involving paperwork, time, paperwork and a bank transfer … but hey, that’s the business end.

Mattel offers dozens of products this way and so do other toy companies … in effect, it can be a semi-exclusive … why does Mattel do it? In virtually all cases, it saves Mattel money and allows them to better gauge who really wants it … in other words, a variation on the money where your mouth is thing – only in this case, it’s – put your trust and money in Mattel’s hands a month before you see any merchandise and of course, decide exactly how much you want and no changing your mind (you can make adjustments but not drastic ones …) and no takeise-backsies …

So, this is what is happening with CASE B of the Haulers and the near foreseeable next cases. If you want them, you must step up into the Direct Import arena … and all that that entails.

As noted in an earlier post about finding haulers, ChildrensToyCloset.com agreed not only to Direct Import CASE B but also to air freight it in so CTC has them for sale posthaste. Did any other store/re-seller agree to Direct Import CASE B? And a) to air freight them in? or b) ship them in? If the answer is b, then it will take the ship another few weeks to arrive and the shipment to pass customs … but who else has Direct Imported CASE B?

Not a lot of others selling CASE B, right? Because it is a hassle and it takes extra effort … and the whole minimum ordering + money upfront drives a lot of people out of the picture … so behind the toy getting to shore involves a whole lot of paper and money already spent.

So, for the time being, haulers are a Direct Import item … and later down the line, the mainstream retailers could place enough of an order for them to get more/some … but it also might be that Target will continue to carry only their exclusive TEAM HAULERS?

Which is not a bad option for many – it’s a great looking box and certainly, we can guess at the next Team Haulers as the Leak Less & Trunk Fresh Pitty’s are already out … so those might be the next ones for Target but my guess is that’s months away … and for those collecting only the haulers or both, CTC will be Direct Importing the next cases …

And they are …

These are scheduled for about one per month – CASE C is scheduled for shipping around January 20th …

* They use email like any normal business, they’re supermodel elves not psychic supermodel elves … that would just be crazy.