[bwalters]

Hi All; I don't know if this is a good or bad sign. Target has put all the Smurfs on clearance here. That could be a good thing though. They might be making room for a bunch of new stuff.

[Gerda]

are they still in the same spot or in the clearance section? If they are still in the same spot then I would think they are getting rid of old inventory and making room. At least that is what i'm hoping for.

[bwalters]

They have been moved an isle or two but are still in toys. They have about an isle and 1/2 of toys on clearance. The isle where the Christmas pack was has been turned into plastic tubs. I don't know what they did with all that stuff. There was still a ton of stuff there just no Smurfs. [/b]

[stampysmurf]

They have marked all the smurf stuff down at the Target near me also. Hopefully it's to make room for more. I checked for the $1 stuff and there wasn't any left. I'm hoping that's a good sign

[bwalters]

My Target has never had the $1 items. But the two that did that I have been to. The stuff sold pretty well. Problibly would have sold better had it not been just thrown in everywhere. Of the two I looked at the sticker and magnets were thrown in with a bunch of other stuff. I might take you a half hour to look through 4 or 5 bins. When I found the indivually wraped Smurfs that was all that was there. I left about 10 there when I went back 4 days later I couldn't even find them. I finally found a Jokey in a bin on another Isle. [/quote]

[bradley]

well Toys R Us in Australia no longer have ANY smurfs now. I checked 2 stores this past week and the beanies are gone. They only originally had the 5 beanies and the first wave set of figures. Very small selection and not many. So now the waiting game to see if that was all we are getting or if they will sell more of the different play along smurf toys sometime this year.

As for the play along toys in general, what is the opinion? do we expect more toys this year or do we think the line has finished? Maybe the company will take a break until next year leading up to the smurf movie. I'd like to see more beanies but other than that I really don't think there is much more to do with the line really. They have the figures, the houses etc... I don't see them bringing out many more new smurfs.

[bwalters]

I think that Wal-mart and Target's purchaseing people said that if they don't just fly off the shelves, We won't carry them anymore. I hope that isn't the case but fear that it is. I'm pretty sure that they don't reallize that the movie will be comming out, and things will pick up big time when that happens. By then they will be behind the 8 ball. Not sure what TRU and Kmart will do.

[toydreamer]

All the new ranges will be coming out soon, so it's probably just to clear out last year's stuff. Big stores don't like hanging onto older stuff and clear stuff quite often. It's also the sale time of year, so many things are going cheap.

[Gerda]

I just went to a bunch of targets and the few smurf things they had left where all on clearance, but the more I looked the more I saw that everything was being moved not just smurfs and alot of shelves where empty so I think this is just making way for new stuff and clearing out the old

[eggie smurf]

Clearance at my Targets too...the problem with that is the brand new Papa and Vanity Mighty Muggs are on clearance and nowhere to be found instead of having hit the shelves as a new item. WTF??? The Target worker said whatever Mighty Muggs were there, that's it since clearance doesn't get anything new. All they had were the same old Smurf one that they overbought and no one wants

[Smurfysmurf]

I haven't been to Target in forever, but will go this weekend..hopefully they still have some of them left..if they ever got them in. The Targets in Chattanooga have been very lax in getting new smurf stuff in after the first round.

TRU was selling the first Might Mugg as well....do they have the Papa and Vanity or was that just a Target thing?

[Gerda]

I did not see the papa or vanity at the toys r us store,
did anyone notice that the smurf dollar stuff was on sale too? I was only able to find 1 papa notepad and a partial button package and one single sock that someone took apart, the whole dollar section looked like a tornadoe hit it

[bwalters]

Actually Gerda I looked at lunch today. I didn't find anything Smurfy. And my dollar section had looked like a tornado hit it before but today it was very straight. Looks like they just threw all the stuff that was in it before and put all new stuff in it last night.

[Jack Ubel]

I noticed the Target stores here in Memphis are getting rid of all their Jaaks smurfs. I did however find 2 small smurf houses ,pink and one blue and a Big house tan with orange or red roof from Schleich/Peyo at Toys are us. They also had the big Jaaks windmill about 4 of them and some of the play sets. They also had the Garamel set 40601 and the drummer set 40623 by Schleich/Peyo

[bwalters]

Hi Jack; You might look in the section that has the Schleich animals. My store has just gotten in some of the Super Smurfs. They placed them with the other Schleich animals not with the Jakks Smurf stuff. They do have some houses Large house, and two small houses with the Jakks Smurfs. I think it depends on the store where they put them.

[Smurfysmurf]

No Mighty Muggs in Chattanooga either

Actually, the whole Target looked like it is going out of business, because everything seemed to be on sale or out of stock. I don't think they are closing but it looks like they are totally redoing everything

I did find the Playalong windmill at TRU for $19.99, so I grabbed that one because I still needed it (was waiting for it to go on sale as I didn't want to spend $30.00 on it). TRU also had super smurfs, but since the box of one of them was open I was able to check it for the new markings and it only had the old markings, so that saved me some money

[Gerda]

wow that is a great buy for the windmill, my tru did not have any big sales the last time I went (at least not on the smurfs) but I know what you mean about the target stores, mine looked the same way with shelves every where being empty. good way to make room for all the new stuff though

[bwalters]

I have never even seen series 3 of the two packs at one Target. Not to mention the windmills. We never got the $1 items or the Christmas pack either. I checked the prices on the benies and two packs when I first saw them on sale. They were around $5 each. They must have raised the price back to the original price then took 30% off. I checked at another Target and they were $3.50 or so there.

[bradley]

just reading this stocks article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-201 ... Hot_Stocks

Jakks Pacific Inc. (JAKK, $11.71, -$0.83, -6.62%) was downgraded to market perform from outperform at BMO Capital. The firm said despite strong overall trends in the toy industry this past holiday season, it believes Jakks' near-term results will be pressured by weak sell-through and an overabundance of clearance items at retail. The firm also noted that while it had anticipated weak results from existing licensed lines like Hannah Montana and Pokemon, some other lines such as SpongeBob and Smurfs didn't appear to resonate with consumers as the firm had expected.

[Gerda]

considering how empty some of the shelves where around here they can't claim weak sales in wisconsin. Then again they over bought the uglies and those there where alot of so that was a loss on there part

ps... they can also blame it on POOOOOr adverstising. I never once saw a comercial for smurf toys on tv or anywhere else and if it would not have been for word of mouth on the forum alot of us would not have known where to go and what to find