Toy sales mark the end of Power Rangers?
 

I currently work at ToysRus and bad news guys Power Rangers toys are not selling. And they haven't been for quite some time. The store is reducing the section of Power Rangers to a small pocket next to TMNT toys. And in my local area for toy shopping: Target has reduced their PR area to a sliver, putting most toys on clearance, and both Walmart and Kmart has completely removed Power Rangers from their physical stores altogether. This is a sad time in toy sales for Power Rangers. But why are the sales going down? Here are my thoughts as to why:

1) First and foremost the 22 minute long show has always been simply an extended advertisement for the toys. In order for the toys to sell the show must be entertaining for children and adults alike. People won't invest their money into a show they feel has lost a lot of luster since it's debut over 21 years ago. Even young children don't want toys from a show they aren't interested in watching. Power Rangers went from being the "coolest show on TV" to the very thing young fans are being mocked for by their bullies. Kids don't want toys that make them a target for bullies.

2) The Zord builder set. Though an interesting concept at first, it has effectively destroyed what the original Super Sentai mechas were all about. They destroyed the actually fun gimmicks and replaced them with large awkwardly shaped "legos." If kids want legos they'll ask for it. They can be more creative with legos than with zord pieces.

3) And finally, the marketing. It's crap. Even when I had Nickelodeon still on my cable I rarely ever saw a commercial for any of the Power Rangers toys. I remember when I was little, before the internet became huge for shopping, the advertisements made the toys look awesome and they told you when and where to get the item. Then when the internet became the go to place for shopping, you didn't have much difficulty finding the new Power Rangers megazord and related zord pieces. Now they have this weird "quiet marketing" scheme where each new toy from the current toy line randomly shows up in various stores in selected areas, making it harder to find in areas not selling the item yet, not easy to find at all online. And is only available on eBay but at triple the cost! Ex: The current line the Q-Rex didn't show up here until two weeks after it showed up in California, the Turbo Falcon was not available until a month after it showed up in California (both were not listed on Amazon for the longest time), and the Ninja Zord is still hard to find in my area, not able to purchase online, available on Walmart.com but currently out of stock (just recently became available mind you), and is currently selling on eBay for an outrageous about of money.

As you can see from my prospective at least, the toy sales are not doing so hot. So what does this mean? Is the end of Power Rangers and it's toy line? Share your thoughts.

Honestly I doubt the franchise is going anywhere, Megaforce clearly hasn't been as well received as Samurai but I think the amount of fans for the series is still significantly higher then the last time it was in trouble.

Food for thought though: Australia received the entire Samurai and Super Samurai line, then only the first half of Megaforce and then only the Megazord and Morpher of Super Megaforce (Plus the sword and gun as TRU exclusives) and now rumor is that we'll skip Dino Charge entirely.

Zord builder is why many of us still buy the us mecha. I we wanted the big Dx bricks we would import them.

Around here, the Fred Meyers chain has stopped carrying any Power Rangers toys whatsoever

I feel the main problems have always been marketing and distribution. I guess the show being better would help, but their main focus has to be on marketing it well and making sure it gets into people's hands. Also, competitive pricing would be appreciated. Power Rangers toys are quite expensive outside the USA.

Zord Builder is the only type of PR toy I buy. So that's not the issue. The problem is that they don't promote that aspect of the toyline at all. The few commercials PR has now either say "Watch the show." or "Buy the Morpher, Keys & Megazords.", that's it. That's a waste of marketing because the show itself is supposed to advertise those specific toys, so don't make commercials about the exact same thing. What the show doesn't show are the toy-exclusive items; that's what needs to be in the ads. If they are then people will be a little more inclined to buy them as opposed to seeing this random item on the shelf they've never seen before & passing by it because they have no attachment to it. If the show doesn't give you a connection to the merchandise then the ads should. And neither of them have as much quality as they need to promote the show & the toys the show is trying to sell. And for the love of God, don't get me started on their Ranger Key distribution............

Dino Charge I think is definitely gonna help. It's not some messy hotch-potch that's overloaded with footage & merchandise. DC is very self-contained, it has a simple direction & I think it'll work better than Megaforce & SM. Really, a crossover season with supposedly 20 years behind it can scare away some people because they feel they haven't been up to date. I don't doubt at all people watching the show got confused & dropped SM just because of it. Though I honestly do believe DC will help reel in some lost folk.

I sincerely hope you are right. I'm still rooting for Power Rangers, may it find success once again.

I feel like they make a bunch of useless toys in America compare to Bandai of Japan.

What's with your constant doomsaying?

I gotta say this thread is nothing more than speculative notions based on one persons' experience who works in retail. This isn't at all an indication of Power Rangers decline. It's an opinion piece. And despite my personal distaste for Power Rangers toylines it's an undeniably popular brand.

Your personal experience at one Toys R Us is hardly indicative of the broader brand.

Plus it's nearing the end of the line (Do not take that out of context). Stock is winding down and drying up while Dino Charge is being prepped for both retail and airwaves. I saw this when I was working at the TRU near you, we, started getting Super Samurai stuff in November in time for the holiday rush.

A reset will come through soon enough and make plenty of space for the new, it's how retail works. PR tends to do a lot of its sales in the first half of the year anyway, this is nothing to be concerned about.

Though to go with how the toys are marketed/released, I think there are some issues:
The biggest pushes always seem to be at the beginning of a new show and the inevitable "Super" season. There's always a huge stock of those toys, and while in my area I see most of them sell, there's always some shelf warmers that just never go away. Any figures that don't get released with the initial push never seem to get a good distribution. This is exceptionally so with toys that come out later in the "Super" season. I've rarely seen Gosei Grand & the Hyper Change Zord, I have never seen a Gosei Jet, and doubt I'll see whatever they're calling Furaimaru. I have no hope of seeing even a fraction of the Ranger Keys that are due this Fall/Winter season as I think I've only seen series 3 Keys once or twice.

The way they break up releases gets retailers to overstock on premier items, and then not bother with restocking later new releases because they still have dead stock or the promotional push for the next season's premier items is so strong that retailers wait for them to really refresh their inventory.

Though the best part for me is that I know that there'll always be a clearance before the next season, so I usually wait until then to get my Zord Builder toys at 25%-50% off. I even got my Legacy Megazord at 40% off back when it came out because of a blanket Power Rangers sale. I agree that Power Rangers toys are way overpriced for what they are.

that's my feeling too, so I actually do what Shinken Red says: import and completely ignore all US PR releases (unless it's an import version like TRU sometimes carries).

As for why it's not selling, well who knows, but I will agree that marketing seems to suck.

Tail end of a series, new toys featuring older characters that a good chunk of the audience may not know, shiny cool new Legacy stuff costing $80+, and JDF having convinced Saban and BoA that he is Power Rangers.

If sales don't improve by early Dino Charge, then fine, but as for now, it's nothing surprising.

You answered your own question in your first post. You work at Toys R Us. Everything there is over-priced because it's marked 'exclusive'. And even the things that aren't are way expensive. And I have to agree with Den-O. You experience, at your store, in whatever state/country you're in, does not cover America as a whole. Or toys sales of MMPR as a whole.

For all those who responded like this, if you would have read my whole post I did disclose that this is what I was experiencing in my area and I asked you all to share your thoughts and experiences even if they differ from mine. No reason to get upset with me.

Also in my area Power Rangers toys have not been selling for a long time. There are rarely any Power Rangers toys that sell around here. So it's not just that the current toy line is slowing down naturally, it never grew to begin with.

Is there an Ollie's discount store near you? That chain wound up with the Gosei Jets and are selling them off at $10 or $15 depending on the store.

Back on topic, I agree with what pretty much everyone else has said. The Power Rangers toy line isn't going anywhere. Yes, some figures shelfwarm, but you can say that about any toy line. Remember a few years ago how Samurai was supposed to be toy line only with no accompanying show? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have risked something like that if Bandai wasn't certain that they would still makes lots of money.

Toy sales of MMPR doesn't in any way effect the sale of the line as a whole.

Not to mention that America is only one slice of the pie, you're clearly forgetting about other countries Bandai distributes Power Rangers merch too...