Re-Mego rant to all

[MIB41]

I wanted to do the Karloff version from Bride of Frankenstein to pair with the Bride
as a set, but that raises the price over $20 - which causes orders to drop, so most
online retailers sold Creature and Bride as a set to keep from being "buried with Brides".

Poor Elsa Lanchester - even in Mary Poppins, she got no respect.

I guess the Karloff version would have cost more because of likeness fees that must be paid to Sarah Karloff managing his Estate?

[drmego]

I wanted to do the Karloff version from Bride of Frankenstein to pair with the Bride
as a set, but that raises the price over $20 - which causes orders to drop, so most
online retailers sold Creature and Bride as a set to keep from being "buried with Brides".

Poor Elsa Lanchester - even in Mary Poppins, she got no respect.

[palitoy]

The worst example of sets was the Bride of Frankenstein paired with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. All retailers had to buy them in equal numbers
from Diamond. I know one retailer who wanted to buy 1,000 Creatures and was told he would have to buy the same number of Brides, so he didn't do it
because "I would be buried with those Brides".

It really was like pairing Superman with Mr Myx. The Bride anything is the slow selling one.

[johnmiic]

I've noticed that in TRU's case, and maybe it's just here in NY, they let peg warmers sit for a long time. At one point they marked the JJ Abrams Trek toys as clearance but in truth they never really reduced the price substantially. They were pretty much the same as when they were released. By that time you could get them cheap at Big Lots and Target had cleared them from shelves already. Even now they still have stock from the Tron Legacy film & last Pirates film sitting out there and no one wants it. They don't seem to be very pro-active at clearing out the old stuff here.

[MIB41]

^^^ I noticed Toys R US is now going more in this direction too Paul. It use to be Toys R US would sit on stuff FOREVER. Now they seem to have a more aggressive rotation like other retailers. I noticed that especially with Captain Action. They ordered a mountain of merchandise for the holidays, but then started to discount it early this spring. And now what remains is back to regular price but on end caps or free standing displays away from the main aisles. It will be interesting to see how the Batman '66 merchandise holds up against this new business model. So much stuff flooding the markets.

[drmego]

Retailers don't want the same merchandise on the shelves in spring/summer that they had for holiday,
and the retailers are now in command. They demand that toy lines have new character line-ups twice
a year.

This means that if series 1 is Superman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman hitting stores in Sept/Oct.
then come April/May they want to see series 2 with the Super Gals or the Super Foes. Add to that
the fact that retailers don't want to get stuck with too much inventory - in case of slow sales - so
they under order at first, then end up with too many lesser characters later. It becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

This is why companies started to mix up A list with less popular characters but that doesn't work either.
The best system is the pre-order. It allows the fan to get the characters he wants, and let the retailer
know how many to order. And if done early enough, tells the manufacturer how to mix the assortment
of production to meet demand.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

I think the new business model is what it is because most of these toys are aimed at the adult collector. The old business model was great when I was a kid. When I look at my Mego requests as a youth, I had more than one Superman and Spider-man because the suits were torn or a finger was lost, etc. Hard to do that now with any line of toys even the ones that appear at TRU or Target. If you do not get a specific popular character the year that it comes out, you usually never see them again. (or at least until a variant comes out).

[thunderbolt]

guess you and Diamond should have paired up the Creech with the Metaluna Mutant instead. I personally don't pick and choose in a line, if I get one I get them all, unless you start doing variants like another Frankenstein or Bearded Spock, then I'm done.

[drmego]

The worst example of sets was the Bride of Frankenstein paired with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. All retailers had to buy them in equal numbers
from Diamond. I know one retailer who wanted to buy 1,000 Creatures and was told he would have to buy the same number of Brides, so he didn't do it
because "I would be buried with those Brides".

[ukaking]

From an "online store" perspective, if we sold the figures separate, we would either A: Have to charge more for the popular figure or B: Sell them as a set or C: Eat the ones that won't sell and go out of business. With the prices I have on my site, I hardly make a dime and yet stock still sits around. I understand why folks don't go into collectibles retail. LOL. Its such a tight market. I get something wholesale at $15 and I have to sell it for $19 (add in % taken out by website store or ebay). So any figure we have to eat digs heavily into our "profit".

[Mikey]

Some way, some how, I'll get an Oscar Goldman without a Fembot.

Why does that sound like a prelude to a musical number ?

[Brown Bear]

Some way, some how, I'll get an Oscar Goldman without a Fembot.

[ctc]

>As for putting a lesser character with a popular one, i see the need for it.

Hmmmm.... I don't think you're wrong, but I think a problem.... especially for a Mego like figure with lots of manufacturing, is that it prices the set kinda high. Above the impulse buy level at any rate. So you get folks thinking about what they want more, which squeezes out some of the less popular characters. The trick is to hit that maximalized sweet spot.... which isn't always an easy go.

That; and I hate having a main character paired with a minion. So that if you want (for example) a Stormtrooper squad you end up with ten Vaders as well.

Don C.

[B-Lister]

This is happening RIGHT NOW with the Mattycollector MOTU Classics line. All of the important characters are done. They have been hinting around that things are winding down.

Yeah it has life left in it because the fans are diehards, but the casual fan is not gonna stick around now that the well ran dry. And hardcore fan enthusiasm is no match for the casual Fan's dollar.

I am a Hardcore fan, and haven't bought anything new from the line in over a year. Nobody wants Karatti, or Gwildor outside of die hards. But the line won't last long enough to do everybody.

But those fans are also horribly misguided, because when the line fails, as it has done twice already, they will blame not Mattel, but rather, the fans, for not supporting a 'Vintage characters only' approach.

[bobws]

Boy you guys wuld have hated me in charge of BBP Galactica line! I would have held back Starbuck until figure 12 or 16.
I would have gotten Boomer and all the girls and a couple of the doctors out before i released him just to make sure the line kept going.

As for the Buck line, tigerman was a good choice, i think want got people to wait to buy them was the fact that there was uncertainty that a second wave would be comming out with Wilma and Twiki. Also that there was 5 guys in the first wave and 3 of these were Draconian characters. If Hawk and Wima were to be the second releases and for sure to be coming out, i think orders would have been higher.

As for putting a lesser character with a popular one, i see the need for it. You can't say make 20,000(my numbers) 4th Doctor figures and not order 20,000 Sontarans, Cybermen. However decaying Master (so you don't need a likeness fee) might not sell 20,000 and the factory wants an equal number of orders for
all figures ordered. So now to sell 20,000 ugly Masters you put him with a popular Cyberman. I would have put him with the Doctor But that's just me. Then i would have put the other 2 together and you could buy them in sets to Army build. I dn't want a army of ugly Masters.

I also want a Doctor and Companion in every set of four with an enemy of each, rather than one hero and 3 villians in each set.
The next set should be First Doctor and Susan with 2 enemies, Or Sarah Jane and Harry with a Zygon and Kraal if staying with the Tom Baker years.
Or Matt Smith and Amy with a weeping Angel and another enemy.