So Flashbacks Pretty Much All Store Exclusives Now?

...because most (nearly all) sellers charge over retail price to begin with: then add onto that international shipping fees (which aren't cheap) and more often than not a customs charge too - it all adds up.

Eg. I've been trying to get the TNF Earthquake and Typhoon figures for a decent price, but haven't been able to find them for under £30 each (approx. $40 USD), when adding shipping etc. So I'm looking at around $80 for 2 figures that are pretty easily available/warming shelves in the US... great(!).

Not to mention, most people prefer going into stores themselves and picking the best boxes/paint-jobs etc.

Yup, we here in the UK get shafted by the US retailer exclusives whether it is Target, Walmart, RSC or whomever. Ultimately with postage we tend to have to pay  £30-40 odd (at current exchange rate that is nearly $53 USD at the top end) that is before potential import fees. Are many US collectors willing to pay $40/50+ for a figure readily available at retail? I doubt it. If this continues Mattel are making it easier for collectors overseas to spend their money elsewhere, Flashback collectors doubly so.

I can easily say that if that’s the price I had to pay per figure in the US, I’d be done collecting. Or I’d cut back tremendously. It would price me out of collecting because I’m not willing to spend that much to collect.

Not entirely store exclusives. FBs are appearing in about every other mainline series too. I wish that the store exclusives also made these figures easily obtainable online as well. TRU is typically good with making their figures available online. Target is hit or miss. Jerry Lawler never appeared online but the other 3 popped up regularly. Walmart rarely has their figures available online. I don't enjoy the hunt as much as I used to and would like to be able to buy whatever figure I want whenever it's released without the hassle of driving around everywhere hoping that they (1) have the series (2) actually stocked the series on the shelf and (3) still have the particular figures I want in that series.

Sucks for overseas collectors but if it's this or no flashbacks, this is the way to go. Clearly seems like Bill has found a way to get us some of these flashbacks that we want when maybe there weren't other options that retailers were willing to take on.

I'd much prefer non-exclusives because even for us in the U.S. they're a pain to find. I'll probably end up buying them online at a mark-up instead of hunting one store time and time again, so it's not that different for me personally than if I were overseas. Can't win 'em all.

I sympathise here gizmo, we are lucky with standard lines in the UK due to the likes of Smyth's. In some cases we are even better than standard retail in the US because of the patchy distribution. That said if Mattel could label the retail exclusives as exclusive to retail in the US and offer them online to the rest of the World they may be on to something. They could also cut out the middle  men and profit. Obviously that would involve a massive step up in Mattel offering figures direct to buyers online,which in turn would help to solve the distribution issues if they offered the standard elite lines like this in the US.

This makes me sad

Hate to be that guy but I hope so, I want Wendi Richter very bad but I don’t want to have to pay for lita and Sasha.


I hope Wendi gets released on her own, or in a perfect world with moohlah and capt Lou.

Not really

It’s evident in the main line. Why do you think there’s hardly any flashbacks?