I went to Toys R Us right went it opened on one of their truck days. The first time, nothing. The store associate told us at the door that they only had a delivery of the Season 2 playsets. Regardless, the handful of us still went in to see for ourselves. We then stood in the aisle, scanning the shelves in case we were somehow misled and a huge case of Shopkins Season 3 would magically appear.
Then I went on a Toys R Us truck day in the middle of the week, Wednesday. I got there about 10 minutes early and waited for the doors to open. There were a few moms in line too. They had gotten to known each other over the past week while waiting for the store to open on truck days. One of the moms showed me a picture of their collection, it was huge, there must be hundreds of season 1 and season 2 Shopkins. She had been looking daily for Season 3 too but haven't had any luck. The doors soon opened and we made a beeline for the Shopkins aisle.
And we saw Shopkins, 2 shelves full of season 3 and 2 more shelves full of season 2. It was an amazing sight. Blind baskets, 12 pack, 6 pack, play sets, shopping carts, they had it all.
The half dozen of us early-birds started looking for the ones we wanted. I felt a little greedy when I grabbed an entire case of the blind baskets, but then I noticed that there were a few more cases of Season 3 and at least 20 cases of Season 2, and still a whole row of 12 and 6 packs so at least there are still plenty left. I figured it would be a waste of time to come every three days to stand in line for the door to open just to grab 5 blind baskets at a time.
15 minutes later, half of the season 3 were gone. Season 2 was mostly untouched since most of the early shoppers were there for season 3. But at this rate I'd imagine that all of season 3 would be gone in the next few hours and season 2 would most likely follow within the next day or two.
Hopefully they will continue to get large shipments of Shopkins for the next few months, because with the way they were flying off the shelves, I think there is still a shortage :)
So here are my lessons learned from the past 2 weeks:
Toys R US
- Ask an associate about their truck day schedule.
- Inquire about the number of people that typically wait for the store to open.
- Ask to see if there is a limit on how many you can buy.
- Arrive when the store opens on a truck day. You might have to go earlier to wait in line if your store gets small deliveries and there are high demand.
- I wouldn't recommend calling first to see if they have it, most likely they would be gone by the time you arrive.
- Online - Sometimes they have Season 3 on sale, usually they are sold out within a day.
Target
- I have not seen any Shopkins Season 3 at Target.
- I find that Target is generally unreliable in terms of predicting when they'd get a shipment.
- An associate might offer to scan the SKU on their handhelds and see if nearby Targets have them in stock but usually that number is inaccurate. One Target told me a nearby target had 120 units in stock, when I went there 10 mins there, they didn't have any.
- Online - I have not seen Season 3 sold online.
Walmart
- I have not seen any Shopkins Season 3 at Walmart.
- I hear that some stores only limit you to 2 items.
Amazon
- Unfortunately, the prices on Amazon are really high, I wouldn't buy them online if you have the other stores nearby.
Ebay
- Also priced pretty high.
Needless to say, I'm loving these little guys, check out the unboxing video of my first Shopkins ever!
Check out these other Shopkins Season 3 videos!
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