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04-23-2021, 12:49 PM | #9891 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: PA
Posts: 4,693
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Quote:
People are allowed to make reasoned and logical speculation. I don't know what's exactly in the contract but I do know "exclusivity" is absolutely worthless if one party can simply decide it's not exclusive anymore whenever they want.
So yeah, whether I've seen the contract or not I'm pretty damn sure there are strings attached that are preventing Hasbro from instantly flooding the market with Vipers, much less somehow magically making production of all those Vipers instantaneous and teleporting them directly into whiny collectors' hands the way some people are going on around here. "Wriggle room" is one thing. Buy YOU have no idea what went into getting that tiny amount of Vipers on Hasbro Pulse, either, so you can stop talking on it "as a matter of fact" yourself, or you can admit that you're just making an educated, semi-educated, or completely uneducated guess yourself. So, sure, we're both speculating. But we're not on equal footing. That said, it's a fair point (largely elaborated upon by firmpulse) about the logistics and cost inherent in scheduling a new line of production. I think we can all agree that, by the time Major Bludd was being produced, everyone had ample time to see how in demand the line was, and therefore the production numbers should be well above what we've seen for the first two waves - reflecting that Hasbro and Target can learn from past mistakes. I'm not optimistic about that, but "make more of what we have in the production queue" is easier than "let's make more Vipers." (I remain steadfast that they could sell loads of preorders for Vipers and/or Troopers via the same methods they did the two pre-press Cobra Commanders - perhaps more than those two, given builders.)
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Trading for Nothing; Have: Nothing http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...-baroness.html |
04-23-2021, 01:01 PM | #9892 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 1,853
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Not even sure what you're arguing. That there isn't a contract between Target and Hasbro?
HasbroPulse getting their "shared exclusives" is something new. And they only get really limited amounts which often sell out rather quickly. When they mentioned starting to get shared exclusives, it was stated Pulse would be getting a very limited supply compared to the retail partner. For decades, we've seen store exclusives not pop up for sale again. Product being timed exclusives seems to be a relatively new concept as well. We haven't seen any of the Cobra Island stuff offered again via a 2nd production run at another vendor. HasbroPulse's Firefly/Viper was only a small, likely leftover, amount. We have seen the Cobra Infantry figure re-decoed as a mainline release. This seems the more likely way any of the Cobra Island figures/characters will be offered again. Repackaged, redecoed, and possibly re-accessorized in the main line. I wouldn't expect to see the CI items just have an additional production run. But anything is possible. |
04-23-2021, 01:24 PM | #9893 |
Stockings and heels life
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 488
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Quote:
Not even sure what you're arguing. That there isn't a contract between Target and Hasbro?
HasbroPulse getting their "shared exclusives" is something new. And they only get really limited amounts which often sell out rather quickly. When they mentioned starting to get shared exclusives, it was stated Pulse would be getting a very limited supply compared to the retail partner. For decades, we've seen store exclusives not pop up for sale again. Product being timed exclusives seems to be a relatively new concept as well. We haven't seen any of the Cobra Island stuff offered again via a 2nd production run at another vendor. HasbroPulse's Firefly/Viper was only a small, likely leftover, amount. We have seen the Cobra Infantry figure re-decoed as a mainline release. This seems the more likely way any of the Cobra Island figures/characters will be offered again. Repackaged, redecoed, and possibly re-accessorized in the main line. I wouldn't expect to see the CI items just have an additional production run. But anything is possible. The state of toy exclusivity is different now and ever evolving. I think 2020 presented a special case where the toys just didn't get out to people. Had 2020 not been a pandemic I would bet more that more people would have CI and we wouldn't be complaining about it. Target exclusives have historically never been hard to get. |
04-23-2021, 01:25 PM | #9894 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: West Coast
Posts: 54
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Quote:
Super 7 is not much of a mass retail company, if any, which allows them to "do things differently." If Hasbro did things they way you describe, there would be no point in retailers carrying non-exclusive figures at all (Because the bulk of everyone that wants them would have already ordered from Hasbro Pulse). That's a quick recipe for the death of action figures at retail altogether. which is a pretty hefty chunk of Hasbro's income (though I don't think it's the majority these days).
But the truth is that the bulk of toy buyers don’t buy at pre-order phases. I have a factory sealed MacFarlane Kickstarter Classic Spawn in my house that would easily fetch me triple price, there was no limits on ordering that thing outside of a timeframe. The same is true if you follow the 12” collector market like Hot Toys. Hot Toys will scale up production runs throughout the pre-order phase, and sometimes even do second runs, but the day a product sells out from retailers many more figures instantly appreciate by about 50% rather than fall in value. And it doesn’t matter that these examples are not ‘mass consumer product’ examples, what matter is that they are evidence of how to successfully sell to the adult toy collector, which is the segment of the market that is constantly fucking up Hasbro’s mass market distribution plans and luring in the scalpers. Pre-order-for-production does not kill the toy industry. But what it does do is change the scalper market from guaranteed gold to something much more speculative and riskier for the scalper. It insulates your die hard customer base to insure they get product. And it lets the manufacturers estimate demand of the product before you have even turned on those expensive injection molding machines so that the initial run is more likely to meet demand. Hasbro doesn’t need to guess at winning and losing product before setting case assortments. They could let consumer driven metrics through early orders drive decision making. And if people are so concerned about what pre-order-for-production takes away from retail, there are multiple proven methods to limit it. 1) Gate it behind premium membership. Hasbro could even add an extra tier of Hasbro Pulse Premium+ at $120 annually for the privilege. This will deter all but the most ardent collectors, who are exactly the ones you want to stop whining online and stop fighting each other in the children’s toy aisle. 2) Strict time limit to the pre-order phase. Take orders for one week. Once it is done, you have to find it at retail when product finally hits 8 to 12 months later. 3) Require non-refundable deposits upfront. Shouldn’t need an explanation. Hasbro can do better and increase company profits. |
04-23-2021, 01:38 PM | #9895 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 537
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dont we already order from hasbro and then end up finding it at retail months early just to cancel our pre-orders...or in my case forget and end up with two :(
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04-23-2021, 02:23 PM | #9896 |
McGuffin Device Inventor
Join Date: May 2008
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1,028
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Well, that is even more depressing!
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Stand and Deliver, or the Devil, He May Take Thee! |
04-23-2021, 02:41 PM | #9897 |
He Who Remains
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Florida
Posts: 9,380
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HA! I keep doing that.
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~~~~~The Late Night Crew~~~~~ |
04-23-2021, 02:58 PM | #9898 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: parts unknown
Posts: 53
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At 3:58:40 of the Hasbro Pulse FAN Fest 2021 YouTube vid, after announcing that Antoc Merrick's X-Wing would be a Target exclusive in the US, Patrick, the Star Wars fan-business marketing sr. brand manager (something like that,) says, "As we've stated before, as we mentioned in our last livestream, we want to ensure that the preorder experience is always a positive one. We know that it hasn't always been fully positive in the past... But again, we want to make sure that that buying experience is always positive."
Now, granted, that's not an admission of gross incompetence or corporate corruption. All in all, it's easily missed, it's so quick. But it's an acknowledgement that Hasbro's Star Wars fans haven't always had the smoothest experience, that that experience can and should be better, and that Hasbro values that fan base enough to spend ten seconds on the topic. Thing is... I'm big into the Black Series and know of a few hiccups for some Star Wars product in the recent past, but nothing resulting in disappointment and dissatisfaction even close to that created by the COBRA Island exclusive situation. So why can't a Joe team member simply acknowledge that things have been "crazy" and sure, cite some of those factors beyond Hasbro's control in the process? Don't misunderstand, I think it's great that the Star Wars team treats their fan-base as business partners and communicates with them as such. The SW group may "want to make sure that that buying experience is always positive," but obviously it's not a company-wide concern. |
04-23-2021, 03:26 PM | #9899 |
Cobra Viper
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: NY
Posts: 145
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04-23-2021, 03:44 PM | #9900 |
Cobra Soldier
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 35
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I feel like there's a lot more pressure on Hasbro to not screw up their Star Wars products though since it's a license that they have to pay for and once the license expires Disney is free to go to any other company to produce these products if they or their fanbase aren't happy. With GI Joe, Hasbro is the only game in town so even if they disappoint the fanbase it's not like they'll get these figures somewhere else.
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