Roughneck
Avenger
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Now I am likely wrong and I await for you all to let me know.....
But this rant pertains to us.....collectors.
How many of us are there? Where can I get these numbers? I know that some of the 7th Kingdom stuff goes so far as to make 7000 of some of thier figs.....maybe 3500 is more common for them though, so I'll use that for my example, they make 3500 of the Rhino guy, and sell out and many many folks still want one and are unable to track them down? The cow guys were between 3500 and 5000 each, and I (ME) have thus far only been able to track down one (Of six) FTB aint got none.
What is all that saying? Well, I am going so far as to make the bold statement that there are at least five thousand action figure collectors out there....five thousand (or more) that are willing to buy a fig, that they have to go to (up to) nine different websites to find, and pay shipping (up to) nine times for a set of action figures with no movie, no comic, no cartoon, no breakfast cereal....no previous history or anything, just some awesome looking made up figures, with no advertizing, besides internet word of mouth.....that's five thouusand (or more) folks that I would call hardcore collectors.
So a line like Marvel Legends.....the Marvel universe of characters spans over 40 years of comics, ten years of movies, 40 years of cartoons, 10 years of great cartoons, t-shirts, shoes, board games, previous toylines from many childhoods, ....... well let's just say most folks in the world can pick Spider-man out of a lineup....there are sure a **** a lot more than five thousand (or more) folks picking these Marvel Legends figs up, especially since these are advertized, available in huge retail stores like Toys R us and Wal-mart.
To get to my main point of all this....well I refuse to believe that children are buying more of these figs than us collectors. And I want to know why these action figure executives can't understand this....Jesse Falcon seems to be able to understand....Now I know that they still need to follow the business of it all and stuff.....but then they go and say that the business is to have a popular or recognisable character in the line to help it sell....now I pose this questions to you guys....how many of you can go right now and with great ease buy yourself at least three X3 Beast figs? Hmmm?
You might think that the folks at Hasbro might be interested to look into sales numbers a little bit, they could call some folks at Diamond Select and see what the sales are like on the Marvel Select line. Does anyone have those numbers by the way? They might do a spit take or a double take or go full on cartoon and have thier eyes jump out of thier heads and grow to gargantuan sizes, and then when all is normal once again you might hear one of them say "Wow, and those are only sold in collectors stores and online"
I honestly lie awake at night and wonder why no one at Playmates has ever figures out that the recent ninja Turtle van released in the TMNT Movie line (In a six inch scale it is imeritive for me to add) has sold better than any other ninja turtle vehicle (all five inch scale) has before? Hell, I'm sure that they probably sold more of those vans than they did sets of four Ninja Turtles. Allow me to pose another question to you all here that would be effectivelly answered on the Fwoosh...how many of you purchased a Cowabunga Carl Party Van and own no other modern TMNT figs? Hmmm?
I also wonder, while trying to sleep, why no smaller companytries to capitolize on the 6 inch scale collectors market....Take the C.O.R.P.S. for example....these little 4 inch GIJoe rip offs made my some slightly-above-dollar-store-grade-quality company.....these are made for cheap and they sell for cheap. I know that a few folks bought some of them for the Super Hero Showdown figs...so why don't they kick it up a notch and hit the six inch scale? it would cost a bit more, but they could still make them cheaply enough for us to get six inch scale tanks and jeeps and guns...I know I'd buy them.
Another question I have asken many times is about the accessory packs....I see these wrestling figs with some great accessories from both TNA and WWE, made my Marvel Toys and Jakks Pacific respectively, but I can't justive shelling out $14 CAN and getting a fig I don't want just for a great looking 2x4 or boom box. But say they made a little pack or mini box with the boom Box, a TV, 2x4, set of weights, baseball bat and a couple other goodies, well I'd gladly pay over $20 for that.
The answer, no, to that question has come back many times with the explanation that they need to be able to sell the product to the stores and chains like TRU and WM are no confident that something like that would sell....well they could to it in conjunction with an online store as an online exclusive....but that's not in the spirit of my little rant here is it....Guess what toy stores have in common with toy companies?
Executives.
Bingo, these toy store executives are also putting some pretty heavy weight behind getting the shots called at the toy companies to determine what gets made....and these stores are also the same stores that currently sit jam packed with many many many many DCSH Superman figures. "No, we cannot put out these new figs until these old ones sell!" Seriously, what kind of mentality is that? The older figs are all bought up, all of our needs have been filled for them, no please give us the new ones that we crave, or else...wait.....Instead of waiting for the store to give me the new wave that they have had in the back for over a month I can just buy it online....Okay, I'm happy now I've gotten the figs I want.
Now a brief interlude to go on a side rant and take you to an alternate future that could be out present.....Okay so I bypassed the store and bought online, the TRU down the street lost business, they think that DCSH doesn't sell well, TRU cuts back thier orders, mattel sees that thier largest purchaser has cut back thier orders, and they make less figs, therefore less figs are available for all of us to get and the line dies out, leaving us unfulfilled.
What am I saying? I'm not telling you to not buy figs from online stores, I am telling the executives from companies and stores alike to pull thier heads out of thier asses and take a look at what the market really is like. Watch E-bay, the mother buying figs for her kids does not shop on e-bay, check sales and purchase numbers with online stores, online toy stores are a breeding ground for collectors, a little kid wants a fig he hoes he finds it in a store, he doesn't realize he has another option.
The collectors, who should by far be the target consumer of these figs buys these things wherever they can get them, and more often than not they find it easier to get them from an online retailer....especially when they live in Canada and retail stores don't get figs for another couple months after the USA? What's up with that, but I guess that rant is for another day.....Where was I? Oh yeah, online....collectors...how many members does the Fwoosh have? How many different websites are there dedicated to action figures? How can anyone believe that collectors are anything but the driving force behind these lines.
And playsets.....fans are demanding playsets, not even playsets....just 6 ionch scale dioramas, but no, they don't cost out, TRU won't put a giant box on a shelf with a hundred dollar price tag....at least that is the answer I have heard from people in the business....funny how I see $90 CAN AT-ATs and $80 CAN Wresting Rings being sold....but a six inch scaled playset/diorama is out of the question. I take you back a couple years....Diamond Select toys made a Six inch scale diorama of the Library from buffy the Vampire Slayer, it fetched a pricetag of around $60 and sold exclusively in Specialty stores, once again I don't have any of the sales numbers from this, but once again i will ask....how many of you own one of these Library sets and not a single BTVS figure? I have a few Buffy figs but not one of them is near that Library.
I can understand that a mother might now want to pay $100 to buy her bratty little child an Asteroid M Lunch Room diorama, but guess what, the collectors will buy them, and we have our own money, collectors are adults, and a bunch of us save money because we live with out folks. And as an added bonus there are plenty of whiey kids today that are spoiled rotten so their mothers will buy that for them anyway. Can you say win win?
So please, executives, use your heads.
But this rant pertains to us.....collectors.
How many of us are there? Where can I get these numbers? I know that some of the 7th Kingdom stuff goes so far as to make 7000 of some of thier figs.....maybe 3500 is more common for them though, so I'll use that for my example, they make 3500 of the Rhino guy, and sell out and many many folks still want one and are unable to track them down? The cow guys were between 3500 and 5000 each, and I (ME) have thus far only been able to track down one (Of six) FTB aint got none.
What is all that saying? Well, I am going so far as to make the bold statement that there are at least five thousand action figure collectors out there....five thousand (or more) that are willing to buy a fig, that they have to go to (up to) nine different websites to find, and pay shipping (up to) nine times for a set of action figures with no movie, no comic, no cartoon, no breakfast cereal....no previous history or anything, just some awesome looking made up figures, with no advertizing, besides internet word of mouth.....that's five thouusand (or more) folks that I would call hardcore collectors.
So a line like Marvel Legends.....the Marvel universe of characters spans over 40 years of comics, ten years of movies, 40 years of cartoons, 10 years of great cartoons, t-shirts, shoes, board games, previous toylines from many childhoods, ....... well let's just say most folks in the world can pick Spider-man out of a lineup....there are sure a **** a lot more than five thousand (or more) folks picking these Marvel Legends figs up, especially since these are advertized, available in huge retail stores like Toys R us and Wal-mart.
To get to my main point of all this....well I refuse to believe that children are buying more of these figs than us collectors. And I want to know why these action figure executives can't understand this....Jesse Falcon seems to be able to understand....Now I know that they still need to follow the business of it all and stuff.....but then they go and say that the business is to have a popular or recognisable character in the line to help it sell....now I pose this questions to you guys....how many of you can go right now and with great ease buy yourself at least three X3 Beast figs? Hmmm?
You might think that the folks at Hasbro might be interested to look into sales numbers a little bit, they could call some folks at Diamond Select and see what the sales are like on the Marvel Select line. Does anyone have those numbers by the way? They might do a spit take or a double take or go full on cartoon and have thier eyes jump out of thier heads and grow to gargantuan sizes, and then when all is normal once again you might hear one of them say "Wow, and those are only sold in collectors stores and online"
I honestly lie awake at night and wonder why no one at Playmates has ever figures out that the recent ninja Turtle van released in the TMNT Movie line (In a six inch scale it is imeritive for me to add) has sold better than any other ninja turtle vehicle (all five inch scale) has before? Hell, I'm sure that they probably sold more of those vans than they did sets of four Ninja Turtles. Allow me to pose another question to you all here that would be effectivelly answered on the Fwoosh...how many of you purchased a Cowabunga Carl Party Van and own no other modern TMNT figs? Hmmm?
I also wonder, while trying to sleep, why no smaller companytries to capitolize on the 6 inch scale collectors market....Take the C.O.R.P.S. for example....these little 4 inch GIJoe rip offs made my some slightly-above-dollar-store-grade-quality company.....these are made for cheap and they sell for cheap. I know that a few folks bought some of them for the Super Hero Showdown figs...so why don't they kick it up a notch and hit the six inch scale? it would cost a bit more, but they could still make them cheaply enough for us to get six inch scale tanks and jeeps and guns...I know I'd buy them.
Another question I have asken many times is about the accessory packs....I see these wrestling figs with some great accessories from both TNA and WWE, made my Marvel Toys and Jakks Pacific respectively, but I can't justive shelling out $14 CAN and getting a fig I don't want just for a great looking 2x4 or boom box. But say they made a little pack or mini box with the boom Box, a TV, 2x4, set of weights, baseball bat and a couple other goodies, well I'd gladly pay over $20 for that.
The answer, no, to that question has come back many times with the explanation that they need to be able to sell the product to the stores and chains like TRU and WM are no confident that something like that would sell....well they could to it in conjunction with an online store as an online exclusive....but that's not in the spirit of my little rant here is it....Guess what toy stores have in common with toy companies?
Executives.
Bingo, these toy store executives are also putting some pretty heavy weight behind getting the shots called at the toy companies to determine what gets made....and these stores are also the same stores that currently sit jam packed with many many many many DCSH Superman figures. "No, we cannot put out these new figs until these old ones sell!" Seriously, what kind of mentality is that? The older figs are all bought up, all of our needs have been filled for them, no please give us the new ones that we crave, or else...wait.....Instead of waiting for the store to give me the new wave that they have had in the back for over a month I can just buy it online....Okay, I'm happy now I've gotten the figs I want.
Now a brief interlude to go on a side rant and take you to an alternate future that could be out present.....Okay so I bypassed the store and bought online, the TRU down the street lost business, they think that DCSH doesn't sell well, TRU cuts back thier orders, mattel sees that thier largest purchaser has cut back thier orders, and they make less figs, therefore less figs are available for all of us to get and the line dies out, leaving us unfulfilled.
What am I saying? I'm not telling you to not buy figs from online stores, I am telling the executives from companies and stores alike to pull thier heads out of thier asses and take a look at what the market really is like. Watch E-bay, the mother buying figs for her kids does not shop on e-bay, check sales and purchase numbers with online stores, online toy stores are a breeding ground for collectors, a little kid wants a fig he hoes he finds it in a store, he doesn't realize he has another option.
The collectors, who should by far be the target consumer of these figs buys these things wherever they can get them, and more often than not they find it easier to get them from an online retailer....especially when they live in Canada and retail stores don't get figs for another couple months after the USA? What's up with that, but I guess that rant is for another day.....Where was I? Oh yeah, online....collectors...how many members does the Fwoosh have? How many different websites are there dedicated to action figures? How can anyone believe that collectors are anything but the driving force behind these lines.
And playsets.....fans are demanding playsets, not even playsets....just 6 ionch scale dioramas, but no, they don't cost out, TRU won't put a giant box on a shelf with a hundred dollar price tag....at least that is the answer I have heard from people in the business....funny how I see $90 CAN AT-ATs and $80 CAN Wresting Rings being sold....but a six inch scaled playset/diorama is out of the question. I take you back a couple years....Diamond Select toys made a Six inch scale diorama of the Library from buffy the Vampire Slayer, it fetched a pricetag of around $60 and sold exclusively in Specialty stores, once again I don't have any of the sales numbers from this, but once again i will ask....how many of you own one of these Library sets and not a single BTVS figure? I have a few Buffy figs but not one of them is near that Library.
I can understand that a mother might now want to pay $100 to buy her bratty little child an Asteroid M Lunch Room diorama, but guess what, the collectors will buy them, and we have our own money, collectors are adults, and a bunch of us save money because we live with out folks. And as an added bonus there are plenty of whiey kids today that are spoiled rotten so their mothers will buy that for them anyway. Can you say win win?
So please, executives, use your heads.