[Steevy Maximus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakeeyesisposh

-Also, I'm not expecting immediate responses in inventory, even with the Proposed solutions in the first post that Hasbro could do, it would take them a Month at Max to respond and about two more months to reach retail through distribution, but remember that the pre-orders were to take place before manufacturing, which means they should be planning a response IMMEDIATELY to cut down on response times unlike now when it happens in reaction to poor sales.

YOu're being unrealistic in how fast Hasbro can respond to the market, much less make efforts to address it. It can take weeks, even months, for a significant "bottleneck" to reveal itself at mass retail (given the many different factors). Further, it is MONTHS between when hasbro orders its product and when retailers get it (even longer with street date product).

The Transformers product we got at the start of month was in production in JANUARY! The stuff in production now, we won't see until October (depending on product sales).

In terms of GI Joe, we didn't see Hasbro adequately address the early shortages of the 25th line until nearly 9 months later with wave 3 2008 around April of that year, and couldn't get figure reships to market until September of that year. And that was when the action figure market was FAR more robust than it is today.

[Marine-73]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

YOu're being unrealistic in how fast Hasbro can respond to the market, much less make efforts to address it. It can take weeks, even months, for a significant "bottleneck" to reveal itself at mass retail (given the many different factors). Further, it is MONTHS between when hasbro orders its product and when retailers get it (even longer with street date product).

The Transformers product we got at the start of month was in production in JANUARY! The stuff in production now, we won't see until October (depending on product sales).

In terms of GI Joe, we didn't see Hasbro adequately address the early shortages of the 25th line until nearly 9 months later with wave 3 2008 around April of that year, and couldn't get figure reships to market until September of that year. And that was when the action figure market was FAR more robust than it is today.

I have to disagree with you on this, and agree with the original poster and I will give a current real example.
Let's look at how Hasbro has handled the last few waves of the Star Wars black 6" series.
You have 2016 wave 5 that had Darth Revon, Sabin Wren, Ben kenobi, Princess Leia, at at driver, and imperial snow trooper. This wave hardly saw the light of day on pegs brick and mortor stores, now lets go to 2017 wave 2 rogue one figures, they short pack Baz malbus and Chirrut emrey, two of the most wanted figures in that movie with rereleases of wave 1 figures ( krennick, Jin, etc, etc ) that are still peg warming to begin with this driving up the secondary market price ( I've seen them going for double what the GameStop exclusive 40th R5D4 is going for) I'm sorry but what were they thinking, it didn't drive up foot traffic as most scalpers who have ins with local stores got their hands on them and drove up the price along with comic/ collectible dealers bought the online cases and jacked the price of those two up, example I just went to a large comic con and didn't see either of those two for less than $65.00,...then comes along the 40th wave 1, lets short pack Han Solo and R2D2, I have not seen either in the wild but I have seen multiples of new face leis, old Ben and Luke. So in my opinion the OP has a point that toy companies, I mean let's see example Walmart and Target clearances out a ton of the Star Wars 6" and 4" black series recently and I have not seen them replace any of it, hell my local Walmart ordered 1 case of wave 1 40th due to the rogue ones peg warming.

[youdoitimbusy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonoftimmy

I agree 100% pre-order is the way to go, even if they continue to sell cases to retail. Nothing is stopping them from doing both, it is a modern era, a computer age. Hasbro is really far behind in this area.

Amen brother. However, I would argue, that your trying to convince a dinosaur to not go extinct.

[Snakeeyesisposh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmacq1

Really?

Do tell: Which major toy manufacturers (read: Those that sell toys at mass retail in the United States) are currently operating on a 100% preorder model?

The answer is "None."

On a side note: Hasbro opening their own retail outlets that they keep perfectly stocked with every figure collectors want turns them from a partner to the big-box retailers into a direct competitor.

??????
100% pre-order? No one operates like that. I was proposing a limited individual figure pre-order that Hasbro could do before the manufacturing stage.

Once a set number of pre-orders are ordered, Hasbro can decide to open up more limited individual figure pre-orders, start manufacture and plan to manufacture, respond and forcast using tailored detailed data.

A Hasbro run retail outlet doesn't have to make a profit to be useful to obtain Sales data on individual figures, but given again that Lego operates Lego stores and survived, I wouldn't be too worried about getting crushed willy nilly by big box stores, there are numerous advantages to operating your own store when you are as big as Hasbro.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

YOu're being unrealistic in how fast Hasbro can respond to the market, much less make efforts to address it. It can take weeks, even months, for a significant "bottleneck" to reveal itself at mass retail (given the many different factors). Further, it is MONTHS between when hasbro orders its product and when retailers get it (even longer with street date product).

The Transformers product we got at the start of month was in production in JANUARY! The stuff in production now, we won't see until October (depending on product sales).

In terms of GI Joe, we didn't see Hasbro adequately address the early shortages of the 25th line until nearly 9 months later with wave 3 2008 around April of that year, and couldn't get figure reships to market until September of that year. And that was when the action figure market was FAR more robust than it is today.

-_-

Yeah, Viperlord posted about that right off the bat in the first page of posts. The idea of the pre-orders is to use the pre-sale data of individual figures in advance to know about the bottleneck months in advance and execute planning, plans and manufacturing responses as soon as possible by having individual tailored data in advance instead of waiting on nonspecific Toy Case Sales figures months later.

Hmmmmm, a 9 months responses time is also not a good indication of Hasbro's response ability given that a good portion of that they're waiting on data and feedback from customers to react to and craft a response in the first place, they have responded faster before, and well, I'm hoping that a reform involving pre-orders for planning and planned manufacturing, bling packaging, etc would help prevent the supply bottlenecks that would probably necessitate more lengthy planning and create faster response times than 9 months.

[backhawkdown]

Except taking preorders doesn't reveal what characters will be in the most demand in the market, it reveals what characters are in most demand by the most hard core collectors who would be willing to preorder.

Additionally, if those collectors already preorder those characters, it eliminates those collectors from buying them at retail. So if you double up on those characters in a case but the collectors who want them have already bought them, if the rest of the market does not feel as strong about them those pre-ordered characters become the peg warmers.

Nothing about this idea creates a flawless system that eliminates peg warmers. The "obviousness" of bad case packs is simply a result of after the fact awareness.

[SmokeBellew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by backhawkdown

Except taking preorders doesn't reveal what characters will be in the most demand in the market, it reveals what characters are in most demand by the most hard core collectors who would be willing to preorder.

Additionally, if those collectors already preorder those characters, it eliminates those collectors from buying them at retail. So if you double up on those characters in a case but the collectors who want them have already bought them, if the rest of the market does not feel as strong about them those pre-ordered characters become the peg warmers.

Nothing about this idea creates a flawless system that eliminates peg warmers. The "obviousness" of bad case packs is simply a result of after the fact awareness.

Exactly! I've thought about this before, but the only way to make case ratios fit what's selling is to have real-time sales data and the (impossible) ability to fire up a production line at a moment's notice to produce more of what's selling, but even then you're still dealing with a long lead time for production and transit, so it'll be months before you get the "hot" product to the retailers.

Nothing occurs in a vacuum either. Just because something is in demand in January, doesn't mean it'll still be in demand in July.

[Zap Rowsdower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by backhawkdown

Except taking preorders doesn't reveal what characters will be in the most demand in the market, it reveals what characters are in most demand by the most hard core collectors who would be willing to preorder.

Additionally, if those collectors already preorder those characters, it eliminates those collectors from buying them at retail. So if you double up on those characters in a case but the collectors who want them have already bought them, if the rest of the market does not feel as strong about them those pre-ordered characters become the peg warmers.

Nothing about this idea creates a flawless system that eliminates peg warmers. The "obviousness" of bad case packs is simply a result of after the fact awareness.

If I'm understanding it correctly, he is referring to vendor pre-orders, not customer pre-orders with the idea being that vendors (specifically e-tailers) will have a better feel for market demand than arbitrary case ratios would.

[SmokeBellew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zap Rowsdower

If I'm understanding it correctly, he is referring to vendor pre-orders, not customer pre-orders with the idea being that vendors (specifically e-tailers) will have a better feel for market demand than arbitrary case ratios would.

A better feel for PART of the market maybe. Namely, the collector market. But as he stated, that doesn't really account for what the market-at-large wants, and that's what matters from a dollar standpoint. So, for a lower production, collector-oriented line, it could work, but it probably won't do much good for a high-volume toy line with aspirations of broad appeal. In other words, what adult collectors want and what kids want don't always jive.

I think it really depends on what the manufacturer & retailer want from the product line in question. I could see this working for a line like the TRU exclusive "50th" G.I. Joe line, since it apparently only really appeals to folks like us. TRU could offer preorders on their website and then produce to suit those orders (provided the order quantities are large enough to justify the dollar and opportunity costs of production), but it's not a workable model for a mainstream product line hoping to attract customers from multiple demographics enough to justify its shelf space. Plus, like I said earlier, there's no guarantee what was popular in January as a pre-order will still be so popular in July. It stands to reason that once the people who pre-ordered their items get them, the demand for those items is automatically lessened. And now we're back to asking whether or not kids and collectors want the same things, because it'll be the kids who will be predominately buying the toys at retail that were shipped in case ratios based on those pre-order demands.

[Zap Rowsdower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokeBellew

A better feel for PART of the market maybe. Namely, the collector market. But as he stated, that doesn't really account for what the market-at-large wants, and that's what matters from a dollar standpoint. So, for a lower production, collector-oriented line, it could work, but it probably won't do much good for a high-volume toy line with aspirations of broad appeal. In other words, what adult collectors want and what kids want don't always jive.

I think it really depends on what the manufacturer & retailer want from the product line in question. I could see this working for a line like the TRU exclusive "50th" G.I. Joe line, since it apparently only really appeals to folks like us. TRU could offer preorders on their website and then produce to suit those orders (provided the order quantities are large enough to justify the dollar and opportunity costs of production), but it's not a workable model for a mainstream product line hoping to attract customers from multiple demographics enough to justify its shelf space. Plus, like I said earlier, there's no guarantee what was popular in January as a pre-order will still be so popular in July. It stands to reason that once the people who pre-ordered their items get them, the demand for those items is automatically lessened. And now we're back to asking whether or not kids and collectors want the same things, because it'll be the kids who will be predominately buying the toys at retail that were shipped in case ratios based on those pre-order demands.

I'm just trying to clarify the topic at hand. I don't have a dog in this fight.

[SmokeBellew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zap Rowsdower

I'm just trying to clarify the topic at hand. I don't have a dog in this fight.

I'm doing the same and trying to reason it out. The topic seems to be that pre-ordering would help Hasbro identify which toys are more popular for the purposes of deciding upon case ratios. I think the pre-order idea could work for a limited, collector-focused line available only through a few vendors, but I don't see how it helps with deciding upon case ratios for a "mainstream," mass-market line due to the reasons already outlined.