Action figure economics

[wayne foundation 07]

how does ctvt toys manage to sell there figures for about 5 bucks?

[PNGwynne]

^As does my local shop.

[The Bat]

[QUOTE=Astronut;616940]

A friend of mine has a comic shop and sold the new retro megos for $15 and he still made a profit.QUOTE]

That's interesting... I thought someone posted on here the comic shops had to charge $25+ just to make a tiny profit...

Newberry Comics charges $29.99 for retro Heroes.

[PNGwynne]

The Mcdonald's stuff is paid for by Mattel and DC. Promotions like that are bought and paid for under their annual advertising budget, not production budget. It's supervised by an entirely different arm of the company.

It would be nice if right hand actually got to meet left at Mattel. Maybe someday...

Scott

That would prob. be like matter & anti-matter meeting in the Star Trek mythos--we'd all suffer...

[Werewolf]

Seriously. $6 for a Barbie doll? That's stunning to me. Their costs must truly be laughable, the numbers so high.

When you get into the $10 and under range the dolls become fairly basic. $6 dolls generally don't even have full clothes anymore. I'm seeing molded tops becoming much more common. When you get into the higher end non-playline dolls the prices can get rather high.

Barbie actually has collecting tiers. Pink Label being the lowest (which is above playline in quality but still with massmarket unlimited production runs) and Platinum Label (the most limited and very expensive) which is the highest.

Barbie Collecting Tiers. I hope this helps a bit.

http://www.barbiecollector.com/collecting/tiers/

[megoscott]

Playline Barbies really are an incredible value.

The costs are kept low by the absolutely enormous production runs they have. Playline Barbies are also sold just about everywhere. Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Kmart, Kohls, etc. and they are even sold at drugstores and grocery stores. Now when you get to the more elaborate and limited edition Barbies, prices start going up.

Seriously. $6 for a Barbie doll? That's stunning to me. Their costs must truly be laughable, the numbers so high.

[Tothiro]

Wait a minute. 39,000+ posts?! HOLEE -

Don't get too excited, some of us just say the same thing over and over again.
(...now where did those damned kids on my lawn go?)

[Random Axe]

The Mcdonald's stuff is paid for by Mattel and DC. Promotions like that are bought and paid for under their annual advertising budget, not production budget. It's supervised by an entirely different arm of the company.

It would be nice if right hand actually got to meet left at Mattel. Maybe someday...

Scott

[Astronut]

[QUOTE=Doc;616910]A friend of mine has a comic shop and sold the new retro megos for $15 and he still made a profit.QUOTE]

That's interesting... I thought someone posted on here the comic shops had to charge $25+ just to make a tiny profit...

[Werewolf]

I was kind of surprised when I just looked up what a Barbie goes for at TRU online. I know the economies of scale are VASTLY different, they sell so many of them, but Barbie was cheaper than I thought she'd be given the number of accessories and clothing items any particular doll is packaged with.

Playline Barbies really are an incredible value.

The costs are kept low by the absolutely enormous production runs they have. Playline Barbies are also sold just about everywhere. Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Kmart, Kohls, etc. and they are even sold at drugstores and grocery stores. Now when you get to the more elaborate and limited edition Barbies, prices start going up.

[EMCE Hammer]

First one, all molded with no cloth clothing and overall smaller

second one happy meal toys are often joint promotions between whatever property and the fast food joint. They are made to promote the property and food. So often, the price of the items is beside the point because they are promoting a movie/tv show and going to the fast food joint.

I didn't mean to draw any correlation to the RAH stuff. I just don't get the economics of Happy Meal toys. Why not just give away repaints of the regular 2" B&B stuff if it's just the advertising angle? Why pay for tooling and materials for larger figures on top?

[Meule]

Did we really need a second thread questioning the price of te Retro DC figures?

[Doc]

A friend of mine has a comic shop and sold the new retro megos for $15 and he still made a profit. DR Mego at the time was a few bucks more plus shipping. Now Toys R us is a few more bucks then that. Somethings not kosher.

[Doc]

But it still comes down to 25 cents worth of plastic and some chinese workers who get paid 20 bucks a week...

[megoscott]

Does anyone know for a fact the difference between molded figures and clothed Mego style dolls? My logic says that sewing outfits, making accessories like boots, assembling the figure makes for a more expensive toy than a molded figure that is assembled and painted.

But what do I know? I was kind of surprised when I just looked up what a Barbie goes for at TRU online. I know the economies of scale are VASTLY different, they sell so many of them, but Barbie was cheaper than I thought she'd be given the number of accessories and clothing items any particular doll is packaged with.

What's a fair comparison to the Retro-Action figures? We don't really know how many they make...