Target and Amazon Botch and Delay Hasbro’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection Street Date

Meanwhile, over in Walmart land, the retail giant continues to prove it gives zero cares in the world.

Man– what a disaster this is turning out to be.

The Power Rangers Lightning Collection was the first toy line announced by Hasbro after the purchased the Power Rangers license from Saban. This of course meant that Bandai of America would no longer be making the figures, but this would segue over to toy manufacturing giant, Hasbro. (Bandai is still making the Chogokin and specialty products for the American market, but that’s a conversation for another day).

Upon sight, many fans were thrilled by these Power Rangers Lightning Collection figures. The flagship wave included four very strong character contenders (MMPR White Ranger, MMPR villain Lord Zedd, Dino Charge Red Ranger, and SPD Shadow Ranger). We even had Goldar announced as a Game Stop exclusive, coming out this Fall. So for now, we weren’t going to worry about Goldar. We are going to focus on this first wave of four with that tasty, tasty street date of April 21st, 2019.

It took us all a minute to realize it, but April 21st, 2019 was Easter Sunday. Therefore, many stores were closed. But that’s okay, there’s still room to fix this. The toys could come out on April 20th, right? Or even a day later on April 22nd, yes?

You see, this is where it starts to get messy.

Approximately 7-10 days ago, something funny happened on the Target shelves. Customers began to see the Power Rangers Lightning Collection action figures on the shelves, seemingly breaking that April 21st, 2019 street date. Excitedly, fans and collectors started taking those action figures to the register for purchase, just to be told that they couldn’t have them; it wasn’t street date. Innocent enough mistake, right?

Well…not when it’s happening at Target stores all over the country.

One by one, the Lightning Collection action figures were frantically pulled from Target shelves. In fact, Toy Wizard Scott caught a Target employee taking all of the Power Rangers Lightning Collection figures off the shelf in real time. He managed to snap a quick picture of them before the confused employee scurried them to the back storage room.

Naturally, this huge mix up and occurrence caused Power Rangers fans and collectors to raise their eyebrow. Discussions like this are all over Facebook and other social media:

“It’s okay that they’re pulling them. Street date isn’t until 4/21 anyway.”

“No, street date is 4/22.”

“Are you sure? I heard it was 4/21.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway– Target says it’s 5/1 now.”

“Wait, what?”

And May 1st, 2019 indeed– now, after this entire debacle and whirlwind of confusion, Target and Amazon have taken it, seemingly upon themselves, to change the street date of Hasbro’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection to 5/1/19.

Screenshot 2019-04-22 10.11.47.png — *Here is a screen shot where Amazon shows the street date as 4/30*

Screenshot 2019-04-22 10.12.23.png — *Amazon then changes the street date to 5/1 in this screen shot*

Screenshot 2019-04-22 10.46.18.png — *Target claims their online stock is sold out. But what is the street date?*

While meanwhile, Hasbro Pulse (via Instagram and their website) continue to show the Power Rangers Lightning Collection street date as today, April 22nd, 2019.

And as we stated in the opening sentence of this article: Meanwhile, over in Walmart land, the retail giant continues to prove it gives zero cares in the world. This is completely true. While we Toy Wizards managed to find 3/4 of the Lightning Collection figures at Walmart (and totally bought and reviewed them, see the video here!), evidence shows that Walmart is receiving as few as one case per store of the Power Rangers Lightning Collection Figures! And of course, in typical collectors fashion (guilty), fans are buying the shelves in one fell swoop!

The long and short– we have waited forever for these toys, literally about tens months anticipating this burst of new Power Rangers product on the shelf. This is not necessarily Hasbro’s fault at all, but there is a disconnect somewhere in retail land, and it all seems to stem back to Target.

Toy Wizards reached out to Target for a statement. The following message was received:

Screenshot 2019-04-22 10.46.41.png — *And Target is now claiming the street date was Easter, 4/21*

So, that’s the story up until now. If you go to Target for a Power Rangers Lightning Collection figure and they give you crap, show them this Toy Wizards article. That screen shot above is from Target’s Twitter account, where Alec is openly stating that the toys were released 4/21/19 and should be available for purchase in stores.

RAISE YOUR HAMMER AND GET YOUR ACTION FIGURE, SENTAI WARRIORS!

Our job here is done.

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