Hello Again,
Actually the supplier that you found is the exact same one I had found through Salehoo "entertainmentearth".
Unfortunately they do not have ANY currently in stock and after speaking with them over the phone I am not confident at all that they will have any more left over after their pre-orders.
Toy-R-US, Walmart, all show these toys on their site but I can 100% guarantee you that they are sold out. Richelle I'm not sure if you have much experience dealing with these larger stores but in my experience they do not accept Bulk order and do not provide any discounts for wholesale buyers. It is better off for wholesalers and business owners like myself to SUPPLY these chains with stock rather than to expect to purchase large orders from them. The way these types of stores make their profits is from retail sales after ordering them in absolute MASSIVE quantitied. They are not going to be interested AT ALL in selling hot-selling toys at bulk. LOL.
The problem at this time is finding a good reliable supplier and when I mean good supplier I guess what I meant by that is the supplier must either have these toys in stock OR can guarantee that their pre-sale orders will be filled (Which entertainmentearth can not do). Watch out for companies like this who ask for pre-orders sales but can never guarantee your order will be filled.
The most recent example of this is through IPad sales. Many suppliers especially wholesale suppliers received orders for hundreds and thousands of Ipads and many companies took these orders fully knowing that APPLE would not and could not guarantee any quantities to their distributors EXCEPT for a select few. There are some distribution channels that even Apple doesn't want to screw over and make sure they get their orders filled first prior to worrying about everyone else. I know some wholesalers who had thousands of dollars tied up with IPad orders and some still do waiting on shipments that continually get "delayed", "mis-counted", "under-prioritized" etc. One of these people I know ordered 100 units through pre-orders (you can imagine the amount of cash that takes) and to date has only received 10units.
Of course the issue remains that we as wholesalers and store owners would rather get the goods as opposed to a refund because we are trying to make profits not have our money and time wasted.
And yes I know there are plenty of these on Ebay and Amazon etc selling at retail prices but I challenge you all to see if any of these sellers are interested in bulk orders, I can guarantee you they are not. It's just not the right way to profit on these items.
All I'm saying is be careful with these pre-order things especially on Hot items because it may be a LONGGGG TIME before you see even a partial amount of your order. Entertainmentearth is asking for $11/pc for these toys and you can see by the toy-r-us price tag of $12.99each that the margins on these toys is almost nothing.
My backup plan to this is simple. If I can not find a reliable supplier for these toys who can supply me with at least 100pcs at a reasonable price, then I will go straight to the source. Why not just invest in "Mattel" ($23.55) or "Leap Frog" ($5.46) stocks. Both of these companies have massive plans for XMas 2010 and 2011 sales and this could be an "outside the box" thinking for making money here.
Rather than fight the crowds and other suppliers and battle over minimal margins on this item, invest in the actual companies behind them on a "Short" mentality. Don't look to profit from them for 5-10 years but look to make short plays in the markets especially buying them in early Spring and Summer and then selling them off usually 1-2 weeks prior to XMAS. It is a much safer play especially if you only have $500-$1000 or so in your budget for purchase of these toys. Then just sit back and watch all the nuts run each other over at Wal-Mart and Toys-R-Us to get them!
I have used this logic many times in the past researching major movies in the winter that will hit theatres in Summer and are expected to be major box office hits. I have many times invested in Time Warner (TWX) months prior to releases of major hit movies and cashed in quite nicely. All I would do is invest in the underlying ownership and productions companies of these kinds of movies and usually only hold them for 6-12 months max.
I know LONG POST but what do you guys think?
