Hasbro Toy Shop
The Hasbro Toy Shop was a Hasbro-owned online store that selled a large variety of toys by Hasbro and its subsidiaries, among them numerous Transformers toys. Occasionally, the Hasbro Toy Shop also offers exclusive toys.
It was replaced with the relaunched Hasbro Pulse.
History
Hasbro's first attempt to sell toys online directly was the "Hasbro Collectors" online store from the late 1990s, which only offered exclusive toys (in the case of Transformers, imported Japanese toys originally released by Takara). In 1999, Hasbro's UK branch partnered with the venerable United Kingdom toy retailer Hamleys to operate Funstore, a Hasbro-run, Hamleys-branded online retailer that dealt with Hasbro toys and even products from Hasbro's competitors.
The current Hasbro Toy Shop site was officially launched in May 2005. Unlike the old Hasbro Collectors site, the Hasbro Toy Shop concentrates on toys that are also available at general retail in the United States, with exclusives being the exception rather than the rule.
The current site shares its database with Hasbro's public corporate website, which means that all toys currently offered by the Hasbro Toy Shop are automatically also listed at the Hasbro website (and thus at the official Transformers sub-site too).
In February 2009, HasbroToyShop.co.uk, the United Kingdom's version of Hasbro Toy Shop, closed down.[1]
History of exclusives
Most exclusives from recent years are also offered at the Hasbro Toy Shop booth at San Diego Comic-Con (intended to promote the shop) and are later offered online. Initially, this resulted in a lot of scalping at SDCC, coupled with the online store's database being unable to handle the massive customer request volume, which in turn resulted in temporary database errors and the exclusives selling out before most customers even had a chance to order them. With each succeeding year, the Hasbro Toy Shop staff seems to learn from past mistakes, resulting in larger production runs for the toys, better database performance, longer availability of the toys, no more rapid sell-outs and more satisfied customers.
Most Hasbro Toy Shop exclusives are either redecos of previously released toys or an outlet to sell already produced toys originally intended for a mass retail release (usually from canceled lines). In the past, some of them were also released as non-exclusive mass retail releases in Hong Kong and other Asian countries, and occasionally also as exclusives to other stores in Australia. In more recent years, some of them were made available (with minor changes to the packaging and sometimes also to the figures themselves and/or their accessories) at conventions in Asia, such as Animation-Comic-Game Hong Kong.
List of exclusive toys
- Astrotrain (2005)
- Nemesis Prime (2006)
- Rodimus (2007)
- Pepsi Optimus Prime (2007)
- Menasor (2007)
- Skywarp (2008)
- Nemesis Prime (2008)
- SE-01 Optimus Prime (Special Edition, 2008)
- SE-02 Megatron (Special Edition, 2008)
- SE-03 Drag Strip (Special Edition, 2008)
- SE-04 Overkill (Special Edition, 2008)
- Optimus Prime Mighty Mugg Special Edition (2009)
- Soundwave with Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw and Ratbat (reissues, 2009)
- Prowl Mighty Mugg (2010)
- Autobot Blaster with Steeljaw, Ramhorn and Eject (reissues, 2010)
- Ultimate Optimus Prime (2011)
- Starscream Skystriker with Cobra Commander (2011)
- Shockwave H.I.S.S. Tank with Destro and Constructicon B.A.T. (2012)
- Jetfire Skystriker and Hound VAMP with Ravage, Snake-Eyes, the Baroness, and a "samurai robot warrior" (2013)
- Matrix of Leadership Optimus Prime (2011)
- Bumblebee and Arcee with Raf Esquivel and Jack Darby (2011)
- "Rust In Peace" Terrorcon Cliffjumper (2012)
- Optimus Prime Barricade RV-10 Nerf Blaster (2011)
- Fall of Cybertron Bruticus 5-pack (2012), contains:
- Combiner Wars Devastator "Special Edition" 6-pack (2015), contains:
- "Combiner Hunters" 3-pack (2015), contains:
- "Titan Force" (2016), contains
- Titans Return Fortress Maximus "Convention Edition" (2016) contains:
- Arcee and Ultra Magnus Pack (2017), contains:
- "Primitive Skateboarding" (2017), contains:
- Shockwave's Lab (2013), contains:
- Dinobots Generation One 4-Pack (2014), contains:
- Premier Edition Voyager Class Optimus Prime with Western Tire piece
- Metroplex (2013), includes:
- Scamper
- Orion Pax robot and vehicle mode figurines
- Megatron robot and jet mode figurines
- Bumblebee robot and vehicle mode figurines
- Thundercracker robot and jet mode figurines
- Trailcutter robot and vehicle mode figurines
- Hoist robot and vehicle mode figurines
- Titan Warrior 5-Pack (2013), contains:
- Knights of Unicron 6-pack (2014), contains:
- Optimus Prime
- Megatron
- Smooth Jazz
- Soundwave
- Laserbeak
- Ratbat
- Power Bank Optimus Prime
