I've been thinking about this lately. Kebco has the "1 of every figure club". So why don't retail chains like TRU, Target, or Wal-Mart offer a pre-order club for Star Wars figures? TRU had something like it during Ep 1. This is how I got my Mos Espa encounter cinema scene. I paid $5 down and the rest when it came in stock at my local store. Since TRU and Target have exclusives coming up, why don't they take pre-orders? I'd be willing to pay in full up front just to guarantee I'd get the new figs when they came in.
I'll play devils advocate and list a couple of reasons why they may possibly not want to:
1) The stores can't control what they get. Or more precisely, the store's corporate office doesn't want to put the effort into making sure each store gets what they need.
2) It's a pain in the butt. Maybe no one at the store level wants to do this for collectors. But you think they would if it's guaranteed sales.
3) Since some figures are short packed in certain waves, there is no way to guarantee they would get enough stock from Hasbro to satisfy collector needs. Has anyone communicated to Hasbro that collectors like wave cases of one of each new character?
Anyway, these are my ramblings. Anyone have any comments?