Target/Walmart employees buying figures to sell on ebay?

[zen411]

With the Royal Rumble set seeming so elusive at this point, I'm wondering how many retail employees snatch them up themselves to sell online? Does anyone here have retail experience and have heard of that happening? I could see the ones in the know doing it or at least texting their friends to come buy them. Do the retail stores have any guidelines in place to prevent this or is this a common thing? I called every target in my area up to like 12 and no one had warrior. I just wonder if this is part of the problem.

[LA Times]

How many target employees know who the ultimate warrior or titus o Neil is?

[WOOOOOO]

Id say possible but not widespread. I dont think people on this board give enough credit to the store employees sometimes for knowing what they are stocking. If I worked a minimum wage job in retail and found out a figure coming through my store could resell for double or triple my weekly salary u bet I'm setting that aside if I find one. Most are not into these figures but to say it never happens is also not realistic.

[Only1TH2]

Definitely happens. It only takes 1 collector to tell them about how valuable a figure is and they get hip to it. Example: When series 1 of AEW dropped in august the toy department guy didn’t know about wrestling since Austin, fast forward to Series 2 release, he now has a chase Moxley.

[scotthitman1]

I see it happen a lot with the super treasure hunts and popular castings with hot wheels a lot. An employee goes through the box before putting it on the shelf and pulls out the good ones or chases and either steals them or buys them before they even make it to the shelf. Or they put them aside for their friends (scalpers) to buy up...pisses me off

[Professor Sparlin]

I don't see employees being the mean source of you figure finding woes, but if so its isolated an accounts for less than 1%.

Your biggest competition are kids and other collectors. Brick and Pop not working at Target, also puts you at a disadvantage (really, just levels the playing field).

Make friends with local collectors, it helps you in the long run.

[HandsomeHollywood]

Nah, distribution for this license has been garbage for a few years now. That's all it is.

[Medieval]

When I worked at TRU I was the World Leader of the stockroom and it absolutely happened there. The a.m. stock guy would take any treasure hunt that came in. He would also take all the good star wars legacy and Mcfarlane figures. It was beyond annoying. And the main Store manager didn't really care. He thought it was funny a grown man collected toys. I always thought he was selling the stuff on Ebay. But who knows.

[zen411]

I bet me calling every target to ask about it alerted them to it being a hot figure too. : (

[Deleted]

Jan 16, 2021 10:21:23 GMT -5 scotthitman1 said:

I see it happen a lot with the super treasure hunts and popular castings with hot wheels a lot. An employee goes through the box before putting it on the shelf and pulls out the good ones or chases and either steals them or buys them before they even make it to the shelf. Or they put them aside for their friends (scalpers) to buy up...pisses me off

You’ve seen an employee steal STH Hot Wheels? 

[PJ]

I know of a Target employee who I always see at the other Targets and WalMarts in the area looking for figures. But I think it’s for his collection.

[ajleefanboy1]

I wouldn't know about the royal rumble series elites per say, but I definitely know that walmart associates buy up the aew figures. In a part of groups on Facebook and people who work in walmart post their figure findings.

[kinnikuman]

Sure some workers do it. Then you have the scalpers. Then you have the collectors who buy more than one for themselves. Stock will never stay on shelves.

Just buy online if possible.

[rkmo: Autonomous Meat Shield]

It's subterranean lizard people, funding their imminent surge on us surface dwellers by tunneling into stores and DC's, taking the stock, and flipping it. They may have not felt the warmth of the Sun's rays for millennia but their scaly taloned digits are firmly on the pulse on collectibles markets.

[King of Kings]

As someone who has worked in retail in one of the two stores mentioned I can tell you it absolutely happens. As someone who collects it was always a major bummer to me. I remember as recently as the Pat Patterson chase figure coming in, and I saw it and was going to buy it on my lunch break but an associate bought it out of the backroom before I could.

[WCWThunderRosa]

Y’all need to stop this. Have you ever considered that retail workers are people too and not your slaves? Perhaps they collect too? Jesus Christ.

If I get a job at Target and I find an AEW chase stocking the shelves that crapis mine, and considering the bs workers put up with, they deserve more than rare toys.

[LA Times]

2007: Wrestling fans were making fun of Shane Douglas working at a Target

2019-current: Wrestling fans are now looking to work at Target to get their toys.

[omartheterror]

Jan 16, 2021 9:03:04 GMT -5 WOOOOOO said:

Id say possible but not widespread. I dont think people on this board give enough credit to the store employees sometimes for knowing what they are stocking. If I worked a minimum wage job in retail and found out a figure coming through my store could resell for double or triple my weekly salary u bet I'm setting that aside if I find one. Most are not into these figures but to say it never happens is also not realistic.

I believe target pays $15/hr starting out now which is about as good as you can expect nowadays if you don’t have a degree or know a trade. I don’t know about Walmart but these people aren’t making like 9 bucks an hour or something.

As to the OP, I think it probably happens but not as often as you expect. And I think wrestling figs are pretty low on the totem pole compares to resale value of other lines.

[Plastic Cowboy]

There is a Joe collector that posted on one of the Joe site and Instagram about a target manager who has been watching the Joe collectors line up and opens the door only to take the new Joes to the register and purchase them right in front of all the collectors

[Deleted]

The co-manager and one of the ASMs at the Walmart I worked at did this with the MOTU WWE figures and some of the Elite CEs. It pissed me off.