Last month Disney Parks announced a new partnership with American big-box store chain Target, wherein the retailer would be carrying an assortment of new and repackaged merchandise inspired by the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed lands under the “Trading Outpost” branding.
And the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost collection launched yesterday at Target stores nationwide, though not everybody was thrilled with the results.
We arrived at our local Target (the Empire Center location in Burbank, California) around 6:45 AM Sunday morning, roughly fifteen minutes before the store was scheduled to open. There was already a line forming when we got there, but it looked like some of the people waiting were just regular shoppers and not super excited about the Trading Outpost launch. Indeed, as the doors opened at 7:00, only about half of the line headed directly to the toy section. We were disappointed and a little frustrated that a number of people who had been behind us in line took shortcuts running through the store to beat us to the display, as we had been politely walking to our destination.
Fortunately, by the time we arrived at the toy aisle where the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost endcap had been installed, there were still plenty of items to pick up and take photos of. The only merchandise the early birds grabbed up instantly were the creature plushes, so I didn’t even get to see those up-close. There were still a few of each of the Black Series figures, so we put a DJ R-3X in our basket and kept browsing (I never bought the park-exclusive four-pack that came with C-3PO, R2-D2, BB-8, and Rex– though I do own the three pack of Hondo Ohnaka, Rey, and Chewbacca).
Other items available on the shelves included nifty Galaxy’s Edge-themed ceramic mugs, as assortment of smaller-scale droid action figures, plastic lightsabers and blasters, child-sized Halloween masks, Sabacc-shaped playing cards, water bottles, a large-scale BB Unit droid, plus The Mandalorian plushes, playing cards, and puzzles. Sadly we did not see any of the announced apparel or books available, and in surfing through Twitter and discussing with friends it seemed as though many fans across the country had difficulty finding any of the above-listed merchandise, as often Target stores had either forgotten to put the displays out entirely or hadn’t yet received their shipments. We also had to head over to another nearby Target in North Hollywood to grab the Resistance I-TS Transport LEGO set.
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Target’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Trading Outpost collection is a pretty cool and well-diversified assortment of merchandise, but it’s a little but of a bummer that the chain couldn’t roll the launch in a somewhat more organized manner. I got lucky in that I was able to pick up the two items I was most excited about (the individually packaged DJ R-3X figure and the LEGO set) but many people were not as fortunate. Hopefully as time goes on Target will be able to restock many of these items in order to satisfy the obvious demand.
Of course, the Trading Outpost collection is also available for shop-at-home options at Target’s official website.