Why No Pre-Orders?

I'm having frustration with the way doll lines are being handled. There are more promising lines right now than we've had since the days of Monster High, but most of them are not easy to find and few have done the online path properly.

Let's go company-by-company.

HASBRO:

Hasbro's got about two big things right now when it comes to fashion-type dolls. There are the Wreck-It Ralph princess sets and the Descendants 3 dolls.

Wreck-It Ralph offered pre-orders from both Amazon and Walmart, if I remember correctly, and the giant set was on Hasbro Pulse/Shop. These dolls have only just made it into regular stores recently, so this was handled pretty well.

Descendants slipped onto Amazon, Walmart and Target's online stores with barely a whisper. I knew the dolls had to be coming, because the movie is due out next month, but where were they? And then all of a sudden they were there and mostly in stock.

So Hasbro's done quite well.


MOOSE TOYS:

The Shopkins Shoppies were handled decently by Amazon in their later lines, though the early ones I usually found in stores first. Moose's current offering, the Capsule Chix, are available for pre-order on Amazon, so that's looking good, too.


MGAE:

MGAE has only one I can really speak of at the moment, but I must say they do really well with Amazon on their blind-packed lines like LOL Surprise and Poopsie. The LOL OMG fashion dolls were available on Amazon for pre-order and that made it easy to get them, because they sure aren't in the stores here yet! I'm hoping they do the same with their upcoming Poopsie Rainbow Surprise line of dolls. Some Amazon pre-orders would be nice.


MATTEL:

And then there's Mattel. Yeah, you knew there had to be a failure here for me to even make this post. But at the moment, Mattel is seriously dropping the ball.

Mattel's got loads of dolls, but I'm going to stick with Fashionistas, DC Superhero Girls, Wild Hearts Crew and She-Ra.

So a bunch of these turned up for pre-order on Amazon. I ordered some Fashionistas, DC Superhero Girls and Enchantimals.

The Fashionistas were mostly handled well, so I know they're capable of it. The Enchantimals I can't really judge because the line is no longer being sold in the US, so my outstanding pre-orders are likely never going to be filled for that reason. They did manage two though.

Then we've got the DCSGs. The only reason I have my dolls right now is because I pre-ordered. The listings don't even exist on the website anymore and the only other person I know that got them also pre-ordered. We're still waiting on 2 of the main cast, too. So Amazon did seem to get them in and I believe it's safe to say they got more than a couple of each doll in to fill pre-orders, so why are the listings still missing? Weird. Some of them have been spotted at Target, but so far I've just seen one person find them who found some other stuff out too early. They do have listings on Mattel Shop, but they've fluctuated a lot. The last time I looked before just now, they had the two dolls I was still missing plus one that's a supposed Walmart exclusive. Not available to buy. Just listings. Currently, they have most of the products that were found in Target, but still not available to buy. This line is a bit tricky, because it was a completely unnecessary reboot and it wasn't a guaranteed success, so I can see it trickling out slowly, but seriously, it's just been weird. And I want my Green Lantern and Zatanna, y'all. Where are they?

Next, there's Wild Hearts Crew, the brand new line that generated a load of excitement because collectors see the flashes of Monster High in there. Now what would the intelligent thing have been? To offer pre-orders on Walmart.com. What did they do? Squeaked them into some stores and even though the cases clearly say "rush to sales floor" on a "feature endcap," have the stores done that? Not mine! I only got 3 of my 4 because I was able to do a pickup order and they took them from the back to fill it. The listings on their website are pre-orders...to be filled in early September. When the dolls are in the back rooms NOW. One of the five characters, naturally my favorite, is being delayed for who knows what reason, and of course is showing up now, but nowhere near me and not available for pre-order yet either. (Can anyone help me get Rallee?) This line could be a hit, so why not handle it well? MGAE had the right idea here and people got their OMG dolls easily, so why not learn from them?

And now there's She-Ra. My (disappointed) comments on the dolls themselves will wait, but this line has been teased by Mattel as debuting at SDCC. So what happens? We get all excited for SDCC for the first time in ages and...someone goes and finds them at Target, where some idiots stuck them out too early, but the street date is still...today. The day before SDCC starts. This was just stupid. Pure, utter stupidity. Debut them at SDCC. Then advertise pre-orders on Target.com. Get people excited about them and then make them easy to acquire.

This seriously is not rocket science. And yet, here we are! Looking things over, it's really just Mattel that needs to fix their issues, but since they have multiple lines, it feels like more problems than there actually are.