Hasbro Toy Shop
The Hasbro Toy Shop is a Hasbro-owned online store that sells a large variety of toys by Hasbro and its subsidiaries, among them numerous Transformers toys. Occasionally, the Hasbro Toy Shop also offers exclusive toys.
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 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 of 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.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a></sup>
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 cancelled lines). Many of them are 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.
List of exclusive toys
- Astrotrain (2005)
<div style="width: 90%; margin: 0 auto .2em auto; background-color:#efefef; border: 2px solid #eeeeee; padding: 2px; text-align: left;">Note: Astrotrain was originally intended to be released as part of the Toys "R" Us exclusive Commemorative Series IX together with Ricochet, but was initially not released due to the unexpected cancellation of the line by TRU. The already produced stock was later offered as the first exclusive toy for the Hasbro Toy Shop, serving as a test to see whether exclusives were a viable option for the store.</div>
- Nemesis Prime (2006)
- Rodimus (2007)
- Pepsi Optimus Prime (2007)
<div style="width: 90%; margin: 0 auto .2em auto; background-color:#efefef; border: 2px solid #eeeeee; padding: 2px; text-align: left;">Note: This toy was also given away as a prize for winners of the Pepsi-sponsored Transform Your Summer contest. It was also sold at BotCon 2007.</div>
- Nemesis Prime (2008)
- SE-01 Optimus Prime (Special Edition)
- SE-02 Megatron (Special Edition)
- SE-03 Drag Strip (Special Edition)
- SE-04 Overkill (Special Edition)
<div style="width: 90%; margin: 0 auto .2em auto; background-color:#efefef; border: 2px solid #eeeeee; padding: 2px; text-align: left;">Note: According to Hasbro, the "Special Editions" were originally intended for the Australia and non-Japanese Asian markets, but were offered to American fans via the Hasbro Toy Shop website as well.</div>
Footnotes
<ol class="references"><li id="cite_note-0">[#cite_ref-0" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.hasbrotoyshop.co.uk/ HasbroToyShop.co.uk's announcement of closure.]</ol>
