Shelfwarmer

2011-11-06T10:40:29Z

72.93.85.62:

{{disambig2|toys from a long time ago that still haven't been sold|toys that have lots of [[kibble]]|Shellformer}}
[[Image:ShelfwarmersTRUGermany.jpg|right|300px|thumb|You ''know'' something is wrong when you see toys from no fewer than ''four'' different lines, released several years apart, all side by side on the same store shelf.]]
'''Shelfwarmer''' is the colloquial term for a toy or product that either fails to sell well or is over-produced, leaving residual quantities on store shelves for months or even years after its original release, generally far in excess of other toys from the same [[wave]]s. Just like a "benchwarmer" in sports, one who contributes nothing to the game except sitting on a bench and keeping it warm with his butt, a "shelfwarmer" does the same thing to a toy store shelf by sitting on it for prolonged periods of time.

A related term is '''pegwarmer''', used to refer to toys packaged on cards which thereby hang on pegs, rather than in boxes.

==Shelfwarmers and ''you''==
The inherent problem with just coming up with a list of shelfwarmers is that it varies drastically from locality to locality. Some toys will sell like gangbusters in one state or country, yet warm shelves forever in other places. On occasion, a toy that's considered rare and hard to find in the United States can very well end up as a shelfwarmer in other countries (''Energon'' [[Ultra Magnus (Energon)|Ultra Magnus]] is a rather infamous example of this.) Usually this is due to the toy being only shipped to US stores in limited quantities, often even getting [[Shortpacking|shortpacked]] while European stores get those toys in solid [[case]]s, with nothing but multiples of the same one or two toys.

Toys might even shelfwarm based on the store to which they're distributed, disappearing instantly in [[Target]] but sitting for months in [[Walmart]].

This all has led to some heated (or at least obstinate) debates online over which toys are/were vicious shelfwarmers. But even then, nearly everyone agrees that [[Injector]] just wouldn't go away until he was marked down to only a buck.

==Supply vs. demand==
As was touched upon earlier, there are some toys which were very hard to get in some regions but available so freely in others that they warmed some very cold shelves. Certain toys were in desperate demand in the fandom when they were difficult to get, but didn't do so well when released more widely. One online example of this phenomenon is [[Battle Unicorn]]. This ''[[Beast Machines (toyline)|Beast Machines]]'' toy was part of the very last wave of that series' product and was thus barely shipped to retailers. As such, it was ''very'' hard to get. It was so rare, in fact, that the online store Big Bad Toy Store made a large special order for them from Hasbro — but despite the [[fandom]]'s previous clamouring for the toy, they're still sitting on a lot of that stock.

The original releases of ''[[Alternators]]'' [[Tracks (G1)|Autobot Tracks]] and [[Jazz (G1)/toys|Meister]], which only shipped in two [[wave]]s each, also demanded a high rise in aftermarket prices... until Hasbro decided to re-release them as part of a semi-relaunch of the ''Alternators'' line. Now, Tracks and Meister suddenly became major shelfwarmers.

A similar thing happened with ''Alternators'' [[Nemesis Prime (G1)|Nemesis Prime]]: In North America, he was released only at the San Diego Comic Con and via the [[Hasbro Toy Shop]] website for the few people who were able to get him from there, and so was very difficult to get. Fans of the ''Alternators'' line who desperately wanted the toy were furious about its release only at a non-Transformers [[convention]] and complained at length about it not being easily available. Then suddenly the toy turned up in Australia. It hit the retail store Toyworld in massive numbers, and at half the price of usual Alternators. But... no one there wanted it. The American fans had gotten over it by that point, and no one in Australia gave a damn.

Boy, did that thing sit around for ''ages''. It was still available in some stores as of September 2009!

==Shelfwarmers in Generation 1==
The toy industry and the [[fandom]] were very different things during the original toy line's run. Due to the much much slower turnaround time on retail toy shelves in the '80s, any given toy could stay on the shelves for two, three, or even four years and this would be a sign not of shelfwarming, but of the toy's longevity and success. Toys like Optimus Prime and Starscream stayed on the toy shelves for many years because they '''were''' popular, not because they weren't, with chains getting new shipments of older product on a regular basis. This makes it hard to gauge if there were shelfwarmers compared to the toys in modern lines, which are only meant to have a shelf life of a few months.

That said, there certainly were some Transformers which stayed on toy shelves during Generation 1 for way longer than should have been expected. The most prominent example would be the [[Jumpstarter|Jumpstarters]], over-produced in such numbers that even today they are legion in the aftermarket. The smaller [[Insecticon (G1)|Insecticons]] were also seen to hang around on shelves long after they had ceased to ship. During the 1986 and 1987 Christmas shopping seasons, animal-based Transformers such as Sky Lynx, the Decepticon Headmasters, and the Predacons, were known to linger on shelves longer than their more popular vehicular counterparts.

==Shelfwarmers in ''Beast Wars''==
It was ''[[Beast Wars (toyline)|Beast Wars]]'' that stuck the concept of shelfwarmers in the fandom's head. The fandom was maturing, communicating thanks to the internet, and starting to notice these sorts of patterns. At the same time, the attitude of retailers (and the distribution system as well as a consequence) was changing and toys no longer had the multi-year shelf lives they had in the 1980s. Toys now shipped in multiple [[wave]]s per [[size class]] and toys that were on the shelves an entire year were suddenly unsuccessful.

Toys that were noted for their abnormally high shelfwarming capacity in ''Beast Wars'' included [[Inferno (BW)|Inferno]], [[Injector]], [[Scavenger (BW)|Scavenger]] and [[Transquito]]. Some reports even had Transquitos holding six or seven years after their initial release. Now ''that's'' a shelfwarmer.

==Shelfwarmers in later series==
[[Image:ShelwarmerTRUWheelie.jpg|thumb|150px|left|The same German TRU store as in the photo above, two years later. Generations? Hunt for the Decepticons? Why, buy ROTF Wheelie instead! Still plenty left!]]
As fandom became more aware of the concept of shelfwarmers, [[Hasbro]] changed its production strategies to avoid both the reality of toys sitting around for months, and the ''perception'' of certain toys as 'warmers. (Because any toy which clogs shelves must suck, right?) Toys had progressively shorter shelf lives, so Hasbro leveraged their [[mold]]s by adding [[redeco]]s and [[retool]]s, and by revamping lines and packaging on a much swifter basis to sell more of the same toy. ''[[Armada (toyline)|Armada]]'' had the "Unicron Battles" as a [[subline imprint]] with a new packaging style roughly halfway through its lifespan, and then the entire line became ''[[Energon (toyline)|Energon]]'' six months after that. Turnover times have become swifter and swifter.

Due to fans' impatience, the term "shelfwarmer" has started to become more specialized to mean "toys that stay on the shelves longer than their casemates," regardless of whether they've really been there a long time. That said, there are still some toys that just don't sell, even in the more recent Transformers franchises. In addition, as we said before, distribution is slightly different in other countries than it is in the USA so some toys don't necessarily ''have'' any casemates to be judged against. For example, ''[[Armada (toyline)|Armada]]'' [[Scavenger (Armada)|Scavenger]], [[Movie (toyline)|live-action movie]] [[Swindle (Movie)|Swindle]] and [[Bonecrusher (Movie)|Bonecrusher]] ended up as royal shelfwarmers in many European stores because they were the ''only'' toys from their respective [[Size class|size classes]] those stores would ever get from Hasbro. It didn't help that the latter two shipped after the movie line nominally ended.

Each series has had its own quintessential shelfwarmers. In North America, ''Armada'' clogged shelves with flocks of [[Laserbeak (Armada)|Laserbeaks]] and fleets of [[Smokescreen (Armada)|Smokescreens]]. ''Energon'' made sure there was no shortage of [[Ironhide (Energon)|Ironhide]]. ''[[Cybertron (toyline)|Cybertron]]'' gave us unmoving armies of [[Mudflap (Cybertron)|Mudflaps]], who often stayed on the shelf long enough to sit beside their [[redeco]], the first movie [[Mudflap (Movie)|Mudflap]] (''itself'' a shelfwarmer). In the [[Universe (2008 franchise)| Universe toyline]], any of the [[Cybertron (franchise)|Cybertron]] redecos stayed on shelves for years on end, and you can still find [[Dropshot (Universe)| Dropshots]] on the shelf at some Walmarts.

With the [[Transformers (2007)|2007 ''Transformers'' movie]], the playing field was changed slightly. Suddenly, Transformers were '''big''' again. Toys were in short supply and any toys that stayed on the shelves for very long did so very conspicuously. During the Christmas shopping period following the 2007 movie, [[Payload (Movie)|Payload]]s could be found in hordes, even as ''everything'' else Transformers (including leftover ''Cybertron'' and ''Classics'' stock) was disappearing from shelves.

Then the fickle movie hype ended. Toys which were incredibly popular months before suddenly were out of the public consciousness. This meant, depending on your region and availability, that some of the later 2007 movie toys might as well have been glued to the shelf, and in some cases shared it with their new 2009 counterparts. After all, would you rather have the original Leader Class [[Megatron (Movie)|Megatron]] or the super duper shiny ''new'' one from ''[[Revenge of the Fallen (film)|Revenge of the Fallen]]?'' Further, despite his starring role in ROTF, deluxe-class [[Mudflap (ROTF)|Mudflap]] and his "Tuner" redeco has been known to warm every peg in the Transformers section, like both Mudflaps before it. Meanwhile in a [[Toys R Us]] in Framingham, Massachusetts, there is a ton of [[Wheelie (ROTF)|Wheelies]], [[Bumblebee (Movie)/toys|ROTF Bumblebees]] and [[Mudflap (ROTF)|Mudflaps]], [[Mindwipe (ROTF)|Mindwipes]] and [[Optimus Prime (Movie)/toys|Defender Optimus Primes]] and having barely any new [[Dark of the Moon (toyline)|DOTM toys]] except Basic classed [[Human Alliance]] and [[Cyberverse]].

==Names commonly associated with shelfwarmers==
For whatever reason, toys named "[[Mudflap (disambiguation)|Mudflap]]" tend to end up as shelfwarmers regardless of the sculpt: ''[[Cybertron (toyline)|Cybertron]]'' Voyager Class [[Mudflap (Cybertron)|Mudflap]], the first toy using the name, started the trend, which was continued by his [[redeco]], ''[[Movie (toyline)|Movie]]'' [[Mudflap (Movie)|Mudflap]] (thus accompanying his ''Cybertron'' predecessor on many a store shelf). ''[[Revenge of the Fallen (toyline)|Revenge of the Fallen]]'' gave us a [[Mudflap (ROTF)|Mudflap]] [[character]] with multiple toy incarnations: Deluxe Class Mudflap generally moved more slowly than his [[The Twins|twin]] brother, [[Skids (ROTF)|Skids]], from the same assortment. Likewise, [[Fast Action Battlers]] Grapple Grip Mudflap was easier to find than Missile Blast Skids, and things got even worse with the Deluxe Class Mudflap redeco, Tuner Mudflap, a ''colossal'' shelfwarmer. Presumably, the only reason [[Human Alliance]] Mudflap didn't share the same fate was the fact that the toy was stocked in low numbers by stores in the first place, thus ironically making this particular toy hard to find.

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