Shelfwarmer

Shelfwarmer is a colloquial term for a toy that either fails to sell well or is over-produced, leaving residual quantities on store shelves for months or even years after its original release, generally far in excess of other toys from the same waves.

The term is doubtless a reference to the theoretical lessening of potential heat rejection from a shelving unit covered with a layer of packaged products, as compared with a bare shelving unit. In other words, Perceptor, it's a joke. Alternately, it could be based on the sports term benchwarmer, referring to an athlete who very rarely enters the field of play, spending most of his time (you guessed it) warming the benches.

A related term is pegwarmer, used to refer to toys packaged on cards (which thereby hang on pegs), rather than in boxes.

On occasion, a toy that's considered rare and hard to find in the USA can very well end up as a shelfwarmer in other countries. Usually, this is due to the toy being only shipped to US stores in limited quantities, oftentimes even shortpacked, whereas European stores get those toys in solid cases (as in, cases only containing multiples of nothing but the same one or two toys).

Examples

 * Alternators Smokescreen
 * Insecticons
 * Wedge
 * Beast Era franchise
 * Iguanus in the UK
 * Injector
 * Jawbreaker in the UK
 * Primal Prime in Taiwan. No, Really.
 * Transquito
 * Transmetal 2 Prowl in the UK
 * Transmetal Scavenger
 * Energon franchise
 * Energon Ironhide
 * Energon Offshoot
 * Energon Ultra Magnus in the UK
 * Cybertron franchise
 * Mudflap
 * Vector Prime in Taiwan
 * Cybertron Quickmix in Taiwan
 * Classic franchise
 * Cliffjumper
 * Mirage
 * Ramjet
 * Movie franchise
 * All Real Gear Robots in Canada
 * Movie Bonecrusher in Germany and Canada
 * Movie Swindle in Germany, Canada and New Zealand
 * Protoform Optimus Prime
 * Protoform Starscream
 * Payload (Movie)} Movie Payload, affectionately renamed by some fans as Pegload.