Mattel Disney Pixar CARS 2 Diecast: 90 Days of No Diecast & Fate of Ultimate Chase?
Mattel Disney Pixar CARS Diecast took a 90 day sabbatical. CASE C arrived around February 9, 2012 … CASE D arrived May 10, 2012.
So, what happened?
It was definitely not a normal situation.
You do not take 90 days off a major line.
So, what happened?
Walmart seems to have cut way on CARS diecast ordering. It seems Walmart is ordering about 25% of what they used to. Did that affect everyone?
Back in its golden age heyday, Mattel produced around 20,000 per singles case assortment. There were 18 CARS in each case. Presumably when they went to 24 CARS in a case (for CARS 2), they planned to drop down to 15,000 cases (same amount of total CARS sold in singles cases – just more in each case). So the plan for the ULTIMATE CHASE was maybe 1 in 5 cases? Or 1 in every 3 cases? Presuming some straight ratio of 1 in 3 cases or 5,000 CARS or 1 in every 5 cases, about 3,000 of each Ultimate Chase which sounds like a ratio you could call ultimate chase BUT did Walmart’s cutback throw that all off?
Walmart probably took about 50% of the allotment available, Target & TRU – about 40% total leaving about 10% for other resellers but did Walmart drop from about 7,500 cases to about 2,000 per month? And it seems that Target cut way back also? TRU seemed “normal” but with only 700 stores + online, they are probably buying only about 1,000 cases …
Which A) explains why the CHASE RAMONE is repeated in CASE D from CASE C?
Instead of selling around 12,000 cases to Walmart & Target, Mattel might’ve only sold as few as 3-4,000 of CASE C? Leaving plenty of CHASE Radiator Springs Ramone’s? Enough to pack 2 to the next case (CASE D? Shipping now?).
And B) Affecting the Ultimate Chase program? If you produced 3,000 Ultimate Chase but you only end up selling as few as 5,000 cases, consumers would certainly like it and appreciate a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio but it pretty much defeats the point of an Ultimate Chase. Of course, I have already pointed that the Ultimate Chase doesn’t make much sense for CARS as it’s not Hot Wheels and its common castings but that’s another matter.
In other words, WHAT IS HAPPENING!
12 May 2012
32 Comments
I’m mostly STILL stuck on the first 16 cars and wave1 2packs. Every once in a blue moon I will find cars I don’t have like Miguel,Leland,Mama Topolino,Sal Machiani and that’s about it for cars at my walmart. Thank Mattel for all this bull crap guys.
And on an unrelated note: Cars2 rocks and Take5aday and it’s members do too!
And Mattel’s distribution of Cars sucks!
THIS IS MATTEL’S FAULT. PERIOD THE END. RETAILERS CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO CONTINUOUSLY BUY PRODUCT THAT SITS ON THE SHELVES. NEW CASTINGS SELL, OLD REPEATS DON’T. AS LONG AS MATTEL CONTINUES TO PACK THE CASES LIKE THIS WE WILL ALL SUFFER.
All I can say is this: It is very sad Mattel have spoiled a gold mine and keep playing with fire will inevitably burn one day or another and I believe that day is not no far or have maybe alraedy happened and the plug may be on the edge to be fully removed from the socket…
Is Toon series will be the savior? Is surprisingly cases will start to mase sense stopping massive repeats…. Looks like Mattel and the Mayan calendar have something in common… They both will ends december 21st 2012! 🙂
Another sign of abandonement/overstocking:
Here in Canada, in the Greater Toronto Area, i spotted today at Marshalls the Zen pitty with moustache, for the nice price of $5.99 (or was it $7.99).
And,restocking of the Matty, Marlon, Mathew, Marty cases also at Marshalls here……………..go figure.
Heheheh i’m just going to laugh about this whole mess. Maybe we will wake up from this “bad dream”.
sorry wrong place to post but batt almost flat: ive fould Jeff and Carla Launchers in the UK! was hoping that Miquel camino would have been in that case but still no Miquel Camino in the UK (mattel) 🙁
What may have happened is the same thing Danbury Mint is going through.
No production due to dies and tooling being seized by the Chinese governments because their employees were not being paid.
Which includes several other “future releases” being delayed.
I have another question…how do the deluxe and two-packs fit into this story? The Pope and Popemobile are still really hard to find, and most people haven’t seen the Sal/Security Finn/Mama/Leland two-packs, though a few have. Have these come and gone, like Final Laps, and we’ll never see them if we haven’t already??
(MET: I think it’s the same scenario – Target/WM & TRU when it comes to reordering just look at their overall inventory for a master SKU. It doesn’t really matter to them it’s 90% Finn’s – it just shows as X tens of thousands of CARS singles or CARS 2-packs on their pegs. The Pope is scheduled in several boxes coming (configs may have changed) so you should more of those. 2-packs have also shipped to resellers so those should be available online – as for retail? Well, as noted, give us a shout if you see any).
Thanks Met…I hate to think we’ll never see so many of these in stores 8^(
So is this the weekend to search the town for Victor and Vlad? The cases have shipped, right? I don’t see a lot of folks anticipating the new case actually hitting store shelves.
I’m so ready for at least Victor…to tide me over till Kmart Day. Then maybe the dry spell will end???
more then likly not…
reason…
if you are a reseller mattel ships the case directly to your business and you have it in a few days and in hand ready to sell
if you are a giant retailer you have a warehouse/distriburion center, if mattel ships to your warehouse, the warehouse gets in a few day and have them in the warehouse, that warehouse has to then ship to regional distribution centers which if fasttracked could be another 2-3 days then that distribution center has to load onto truck to go to your local retailer and again if fasttracked could be another 1-3 days so at absolute best i see mid next week but not very likely, its gonna be a month before we start seeing these
make any sense?
always good to keep an eye out tho!
To add insult to the injury, look at that case! It is filled with Lightnings, Maters, and FINNs!! Not to mention a few other cars we already had good distribution on. I used to collect the Masters of the Universe line back in 2002-2003. They packed 6 figures per case. EVERY case was 2 He-Mans of some variation, 2 Skeletors of some variation, and then 1 each of unique characters that people wanted. The end result was the pegs clogged with He-Mans and Skeletors that no one wanted. Since those were still sitting on the shelf, stores didn’t order more. Line died. History repeating itself here, Mattel.
Leave it not to us to question the brilliance of the masters at Mattel.
This is bad news to see RS ramone again. i was really looking forward to hunting for some ultimate chases. hopefully they still show up sometime this year.
happy hunting
-flop
Sorry to derail the thread…
I’m not sure how long they have been out for, but I saw a 7 pack today which was based on the Radiator Springs race crew. It has Luigi and Guido as the Ferrari Fans but also had a hydraulic Ramone who had the paint job of the Chase Ramone. The others wer Jeff Gorvette, McQueen, Lewis Hamilton and the return of Sally!
Disney Store? Mattel?? Photos??? (LOL)
Second that comment.
The Mattel Hydraulic version of RS Ramone has been found loose in Asia by several collectors.
…”found loose in Asia by several collectors.”
Uh, is that a serious statement? It sounds like something out of an Obama speech. Instead of saying they were stolen in China by resellers we get the statement above. What a spin on the truth!
Jake:
You can choose to believe what you want.
A collector I communicate with found one in a shop in the Phillipines and posted a picture on CTT today.
Well if that isn’t the typical dodge statement I don’t know what is. Your collector friend openly stated they bought it at a store that sells back door toys from China. How you can possibly try to defend the theft, sale, and purchase of an non-packaged, unreleased item is completely unintelligible. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not surprised at all that things like this are being found. The only thing that surprises me with your apparent multitude of contacts is that you don’t have a few of your own listed on eBay, or are you still pretending that you don’t sell on there?
Jake, are you saying you have no backdoor items? So that Ransburg McQueen you offered in trade for the chase Luigi/Guido was an authentic 1 of 250 Ransburg McQueen? Get off your high horse.
What I do or do not have is not the issue and you have no idea either way so let’s not pretend that you have any basis for what you just said. But please refresh my memory on that supposed trade proposal because I surely don’t remember it. I do however, remember getting multiple Chase Luigi and Guido from the several Case Z Lenticular cases that I ordered directly from Mattel.
Let’s see: I offered a U.S. Chase Luigi/Guido up for trade. You contacted me saying you need it, let’s put our differences aside, yada yada- and offered the ransburg McQueen as part of the trade. I doubt you’ve actually forgotten about it, but if in fact you did I can reforward to you the email you sent to me with the proposal. And what you have or do not have is certainly at issue here seeing as how it makes you an utter hypocrite. Toodles!
Ahh, just like a henchman to jump out of the shadows, throw a few cheap shots and then run away. I’m sure I have all emails then because I keep everything archived. As far as me being a hypocrite, I have never purchased any “loose cars” from China, or anywhere in Asia for that matter. Simply owning a back door item is not the problem, particularly if it is something that was never released to the general public. The problem is that these items are being continuously plucked off the production line and people like your big sister over there are openly endorsing it and then putting a PR spin on it to make it sound like something completely different than what it is.
Lol. Justify it however you want, dude. Backdoor is backdoor. Your soapbox sort of collapses under the weight of your hypocrisy.
(MET: Hello. Hopefully, everyone has gotten their points off their chest … time to move on – thanks. I will leave the posts up for now but my delete key is strong and easy to see).
hey guys, please do not get too jealous on overseas collectors.. in case you do not know, singles here are priced around 8 to 11 dollars.. deluxe around 15 to 17 dollars.. and remain pricey even if it is already marked down in the US.. backdoor or not, its like everything is exclusive.. so a smile is automatic whenever we find loose exclusives.. still, you guys are lucky to spend not much like we do
What chain and what part of the country?
Found in Perth Australia at Target. There were quite a few so I will buy one today or Monday and hopefully I can get some pictures soon (with Met’s approval and all 🙂 )
Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it, and it all comes down to Finn McMissile. If you consistently put 4 to 5 of him in nearly every case then you get “Buzz & Woody Syndrome”. I remember seeing nothing but dozens of Buzz & Woody at each Walmart I’d visit, and soon enough Walmart stopped stocking Movie Moments. Now, unless a Mattel rep cleaned them out, all you see at most Walmarts are dozens of Finn McMissile. Walmart is only doing the sensible thing, unfortunately for us.
I agree completely, Francesco.
What is happening is that after not treating Cars collectors as real collectors and customers for year is that Mattel is getting bit in their assets.
Stores got burned with horrible case assortments from almost exactly one year ago… many retailers are still stuck with cases from May 16, 2011… Walmart, Target, and TRU might have been able to arrange returns and repacks… smaller retailers such as Meijer may not have the same ability… of the 100 singles on the pegs at the local Meijer, 90 are Finn, 2 are McQueen, 7 are Francesco, and 1 is an Acer… the only 3 packs are from case A (Francesco/McQueen, Mater/Zen Master Pitty, and Finn/Tomber).
Kmart has Lights and Sounds for $4.32, launchers for $9.59, and Pit Crew Mater for $4.79; prices good until May 28.
Mattel has come dangerously close to killing this can’t miss product line…
I completely agree with your closing statement; Mattel is rapidly “grasping defeat from the jaws of victory”, given the lousy distribution of the past year (which includes the final months of the original “Cars” series).
I visited our local TRU today and found the same assortment of 2-packs you described along with dozens and dozens (and even dozens more) of McQueens and some Finns on the singles pegs. There were probably over 60 McQueens !
Most of what I have purchased in the past 6 months have been from the Disney Store, which, in my opinion, has had far more variety than Mattel’s line. As an opener (Chase Cars excepted), my Cars 1 collection is over 99% complete but I don’t believe I will attempt to achieve that number for Cars 2. It is and will most likely remain a hybrid collection of Disney Store and Mattel and not necessarily every aberration of every character; just the ones I feel like getting.
Sorry, Mattel, but you need to do better! A whole lot better!