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I personally don't think the 20 dollars for Retro Action is all that out of whack considering all that goes into making one for mass production. I think a lot of the discontent has to do with cost vs. quality, which is a completely separate animal. If we examine what's involved money-wise in simply making a figure, it's odd that anything ever gets done as most of the money is up-front with no sales guarantee. I'm sure Doc or the Castaway guys can chime in on this and blow up my cost structure theories, which is all this is, theory.
Let's say we are a small toy company with 5 employees, better than average production facilities and decent distribution. We'll be called Jackson Figures. We have recently acquired a license to produce The Atomic Avenger. We have decided on a 10,000 unit production run initially, so let’s see how the costs affect the product and it’s retail price.
Licensing fee
Original head sculpt
Plastic to produce bodies and parts
Rubber to make the heads
Rubber to make boots
Paint application tooling
Material for 10,000 figure’s clothing
Insurance to cover manufacturing flaws and lawsuits
Factory fees for manufacturing
International phone bills contacting factory daily/weekly
Packaging design
Paper board for backer cards
Plastic figure bubbles for card
Shipping overseas,customs and tariffs
Advertising in trade magazines and related publications
Now keep in mind all of the above is prior to whatever wholesale deal has been struck with vendors/retailers. There will be a variance in wholesale and projected gross profit by each retailer, so that’s a unknown quantity. The usual markup will be 23-30 percent on average.
After factoring all of the above costs into the final product, which is of very good quality, we aren’t really making a great deal on investment. The following numbers are guesses, but I’d bet I’m close.
Final cost per figure – 9 dollars
Wholesale cost to retailers – 13 dollars
GP markup – at a 25 percent margin, around 3.25
Suggested retail price – 16.25
Jackson Figures gross profit – 40,000 dollars for 8-10 months of work
Good luck making any money in this industry. The key to everything is large production runs and cost management. You’ve got to make your money on sheer volume, we’re talking 100,000 plus units. I sincerely doubt Mattel’s runs are consistently that high for Retro Action, so they make up the difference by increasing the wholesale. Talk to any comic shop owner and see how much they are paying Diamond for those figures. At a 17.99 cost, they have to turn around and go 25 dollars minimum to make anything at all since they might not have a customer base established for that product.
I have mass respect for EMCE, Castaway and ZICA for going through all of this. It's obviously a love and passion and is greatly appreciated.
As usual, I'm probably way off.
Scott
Let's say we are a small toy company with 5 employees, better than average production facilities and decent distribution. We'll be called Jackson Figures. We have recently acquired a license to produce The Atomic Avenger. We have decided on a 10,000 unit production run initially, so let’s see how the costs affect the product and it’s retail price.
Licensing fee
Original head sculpt
Plastic to produce bodies and parts
Rubber to make the heads
Rubber to make boots
Paint application tooling
Material for 10,000 figure’s clothing
Insurance to cover manufacturing flaws and lawsuits
Factory fees for manufacturing
International phone bills contacting factory daily/weekly
Packaging design
Paper board for backer cards
Plastic figure bubbles for card
Shipping overseas,customs and tariffs
Advertising in trade magazines and related publications
Now keep in mind all of the above is prior to whatever wholesale deal has been struck with vendors/retailers. There will be a variance in wholesale and projected gross profit by each retailer, so that’s a unknown quantity. The usual markup will be 23-30 percent on average.
After factoring all of the above costs into the final product, which is of very good quality, we aren’t really making a great deal on investment. The following numbers are guesses, but I’d bet I’m close.
Final cost per figure – 9 dollars
Wholesale cost to retailers – 13 dollars
GP markup – at a 25 percent margin, around 3.25
Suggested retail price – 16.25
Jackson Figures gross profit – 40,000 dollars for 8-10 months of work
Good luck making any money in this industry. The key to everything is large production runs and cost management. You’ve got to make your money on sheer volume, we’re talking 100,000 plus units. I sincerely doubt Mattel’s runs are consistently that high for Retro Action, so they make up the difference by increasing the wholesale. Talk to any comic shop owner and see how much they are paying Diamond for those figures. At a 17.99 cost, they have to turn around and go 25 dollars minimum to make anything at all since they might not have a customer base established for that product.
I have mass respect for EMCE, Castaway and ZICA for going through all of this. It's obviously a love and passion and is greatly appreciated.
As usual, I'm probably way off.
Scott
I am not jealous of this fact at all I am saying that I think a lot of people here tend to kind of over look that "little" known fact.
We are not being forced to buy them. Although they sure do make it so very tempting. LOL!! 
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