We just got our stock in at work today. I nabbed Loki without ripping open the package or tearing through them. A simple peek was all I needed.

Correct.

-nihil

This has been posted in a couple of other threads already, but the AVM GF sets are now being stocked in WalMart as well (as of Saturday night). I'm sure the cherry picking will run rampant there as well...

Your examples seem to assume there are an infinite number of available boosters, when in reality it's probably 24 or 30 boosters per store.

My point is if there are 30 boosters, and person A walks in and cherry picks the Loki, person B walks in and buys nothing, and person C (or more) buys the remaining 29, it doesn't matter what person B did. The entire supply sold out. There is no impact, because there is a limited supply and there was sufficient demand to sell out.
Now let's say they restock the next week. Person B is still upset, but gets to the store first. Now he buys the whole 30 booster display case. The store is out or supply again. They sold all 30 boosters. Please explain how any of the above translates out to lower sales.

There are two sides, supply and demand. Don't ignore either.

mass market boosters should be replaced by mass market blister (non blind) so people know what they buy... problem solved.

lets use your example. person b, he will no longer trust the quality of product sold at said target. so rather than buying boosters there (or at any other location) he just waits to buy the piece he wants online, or trade for them later. the supply is limited for a short time, but not in the long run. target can order more (as much as they want) and if 3 people decide not to buy there boosters and instead wait for trades, etc, then they therefore purchase one less case of boosters. its not about one case, its the possibility of future cases to be purchased by target from wizids. so again. if person A, C and E all buy, but B and D, chose not to buy any, then less are sold! it doesn't matter if they sell out of there first case! B and D never bought do to cherry picking, so that is less boosters sold!

I agree with you, and it's hard to really say with 100% how people will buy. And I know for a fact that saying people won't buy the AVM boosters if they're opened and the Loki is gone isn't true.

Case in point, with GF: GL last year. I bought 5 boosters at two different Targets. I got 3 Ramey Hall's and 2 Hal Jordan's. I was kind of pissed that I spent 15 dollars plus tax on just 2 figures I didn't even really want. I decided then not to waste any more money on GF's (as I had just pulled 3 SHIELD Sentry's from 4 boosters in the Cap GF as well), because I'm not keen on wasting my money.

I went to another Target, and there were several boosters that someone else already tore open. However, all the ones that were opened were figures I didn't have. I then proceeded to buy those already open ones that someone else already "cherry picked" through.

So in this particular case, not only did cherry picking not cost Target or NECA any sales, it INCREASED them, because I wouldn't have bought them otherwise.

This is not meant to defend the practice (I didn't cherry pick any at all), or to decry it. I'm just simply saying that it's impossible to make any proclamations one way of the other on whether this practice hurts the bottom line of the companies.

I love the heroclix community because it represents the essence of human nature. You have some people who like to play with new players and teach them the game and then others that are about building the most competitive teams to try and get ahead of their fellow man. That's what is going on with the cherry picking. My problem with cherry picking the Target GF's is that people are walking around the store and opening the boxes to get the one that they want and then putting the rest back, closed back up. Tbe next poor soul is going to buy those thinking that they have a chance of getting that chase. My buddy did this just this past weekend and to make matters worst is the bragging about doing it.

And here I thought there was some sentiment on cherry picking the figs I want form sellers in the community, and other resources.. :P

That being said, yeah I'm not a fan of people ripping through stuff to get what they want. I'm surprised nobody ever says anything.

However.. It'd be nice if the randomness of the display was a bit nicer as I bought 5 target boosters (from a fresh case), and came home with 3 thors, a cap and and a skrull..
Awesome.. I wanted 3 copies of thor..,

Went back a few days later and bought 5 more.. with my luck I pulled... a 4th thor... At least the rest was keepable.

Personally. I dislike Cherry picking a lot. I won't call it a disgrace. But, I will just say it's frowned upon by myself and many of my clixing friends... and leave it at that.

My local Wal-Mart had no AVM GF but I did buy a booster of Avengers and pulled Iron Spider. 5 years later and this guy still rocks out.

I'm there 100% with you. Like I've said, the only time I've ever had luck with GF is when they were previously opened by someone else and I knew what I was getting lol.

GL: GF 3 Ramey Hall's, 2 Hal Jordan's
CA: GF 3 Sentry's, 1 Nick Fury

After that, I severely limited buying any GF's. Most of the LotR I either traded for or bought individually, and at most I'll only buy a few so I don't end up with a bunch of useless doubles I don't want.

So I might be the rare case, but those that cherry pick and leave boosters open improve the chances that I'll buy lol, because I won't risk wasting my money on such piss poor randomness distribution.

I don't know the breakdown of the gravity feeds, I assume there's not actually a 1 in 9/10 chance of pulling any figure and that some figures are more rare than others, which suck for such a small set as it pretty well ensures that there's going to be lots of dupes pulled..

That being said.. Why not (assuming there's some form of rarity) make the thing like the skull infiltrator the one that you're most likely to pull dupes of..
I wouldn't MIND having 4 of the skrull infiltrators..

There should be 3 complete sets of 201-210 less one figure, and one 211 Loki chase in each GF display. That's what my GF Display looked like and that's what others are reporting as well.

The non-chase figures are all commons in the Gravity Feed. That does NOT appear to be the case with the regular CTD (the one that will be available in game and comic stores this week).

No it wouldn't if I see crap, crap, and 2 Super Rares, on the shelf I'm going to buy the two SRs and nothing else which mean the next guy who walks in will have fun buying crap. Even better I WORK FOR THE STORE so every Chase, SR, and power piece from that case NEVER makes it out of the storage room.