Action figure economics

[samurainoir]

I'm also reminded of that Lieutenant in "Aliens" who was put in charge of a battalion of seasoned Marines even though he had no real combat experience.

Ripley: Hudson! This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.
[to Newt]
Ripley: Right?
[Newt apes a salute]
Hudson: Why don't you put her in charge?

[zeedox]

Why so hard to get licenses tho?

Seriously don't these products promote the property? I don't see why folks like KISS don't realize that the original megos is why I even care about them at all! I mean I can't name 3 songs.

Then I saw the Anthrax figure today and I am just not interested in the guy with the strange beard. I mean I would prefer a John Boy repro.

[PNGwynne]

^Please don't--no one else feels obliged to, and your perspective is interesting.

[EMCEtoys]

I'll shut up now.

[EMCEtoys]

With a lot of emphasis on "sort of", right? Financial planners aren't given a sizable chunk of your portfolio ("preferred stock"), and they aren't given a Golden Parachute clause that guarantees them a huge (as in, huge) bonus even if your portfolio tanks.

If corporations are going to pay irrational sums of money regardless of the quality of governance... then I wish they'd just hire me as a CEO. I'm sure I'd be more than capable of running their company into the ground for $25 million.

See, this is where we get into a whole 'nother area of discussion, the modern CEO as robber baron. Not to get to far into it, but my dad once told me how his boss at The Phone Company (when it was just "The Phone Company") started as a lineman and worked his way up to President.

Those days are gone. Nowadays, business schools spit out MBAs ("Mediocre But Ambitious", I call them) and get them placed to run companies. Has nothing to do with their passions or interests. Everything is a widget.

I'm also reminded of that Lieutenant in "Aliens" who was put in charge of a battalion of seasoned Marines even though he had no real combat experience.

Anyway, to put it in perspective, in our circle here, we are dealing with the Product Design and Manufacturing levels down. The CEO thing shouldn't even come up as a factor in our discussions about all our toys, no matter how we feel about the current state of the CEO position.

IMHO.

(...Tep)

[EMCEtoys]

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...zzstuff323.jpg
the retro action retails for two dollars more than the monster high. Monster high has lots of accessories and bigger package and seems like a much better deal.

monster high has a larger run, is a mattel-generated property (like major matt mason), has retail and media partners all over the country and is probably priced to sell in order to get the property exposed.

god know, it worked in my house. :-)

[EMCEtoys]

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/

Wow, this link was really helpful! Thanx for posting it...gonna try to overlay it on some internal observations we've had about the action figure collector. Great insight!

[EMCEtoys]

What are your thoughts about these?

These are nice 11" figures with clothing, lots of accessories, boots and very attractive packaging all for only $5.00 each. Is that great deal or what?

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/livnxxxl/2010/DSC09939.jpg

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/livnxxxl/2010/DSC09941.jpg

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/livnxxxl/2010/DSC09940.jpg

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/livnxxxl/2010/DSC09943.jpg

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn184/livnxxxl/2010/DSC09942.jpg

These did not take no $12 million dollar a year CEO to stand behind others to produce. Some times companies spend millions of dollars to save a quarter. Not very good business sense IMO.

i can speak to that, having looked into doing generic figures like this myself.

these are produced by those infamous factories you hear about on the news. we get solicited all the time by these factories, most of which are in the few rural areas of china not turned into large industrial cities by the bigger corporations. no transparency, no factory inspections, and you feel like you're working with an arms dealer. no thanx.

folks like mattel work with factories that are in a completely different category, including those with unions and increasing quality of life. because of the size of their company, they have to.

my recommendation to everyone is to read up on the evolution of chinese manufacturing over the last 20 years and the disparity between the factories that work for large companies and the small ones that churn out the drugstore "shut-up" toys.

business week just did a piece on the largest electronics factory in china and it would be a good start for anyone wanting to look behind the curtatin:

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone - BusinessWeek

as for the "0.5 for plastic 0.10 for a worker", that statement is just plain ignorant. david lee, the zica fellow and i can attest to the fact that we don't even deal in that universe, and for us at emce, it's our core business, not a side gig. in fact, neither does mattel -- the additional costs applied to increasing quality of life at the factories have probably raised the per-figure price to close to what we've been paying, frankly. the difference between them and us is that they can afford the costs of changing the product along the way.

which brings me to the point about amortizing costs of the bodies. we made it clear in another thread that mattel has given us all the opportunity to look at changes in tooling going forward. that should pretty much silence speculation that Big Bad Mattel is looking to mug people with future waves of releases.

this may be the last i speak on the topic, not for any lack of wanting to be transparent, but once i saw the title of this thread i shuddered. the economics of this business are a) vastly different from one end of the spectrum to the other and b) about as easy to understand as lovecraftian geometry.

[EMCEtoys]

I would never play the "whoa as me", but I know it's a labor of love more often than Champagne and Caviar

Though I can't help reflect... Remember just a five or six years ago when we paid $10 for a DM body and we were darn proud to have it? When China made repros cost $5 each... You were not even coming close to a full figure for $20! I think a little perspective is in order here... I'll be the first to say I wish everything was cheaper... but as a person who know what it really costs? It's a good deal...

-Dave

hear, hear.

[LadyZod]

This is also misinformation. Comic book stores are not getting them from Toys-R-Us. So they aren't that exclusive.

They are exclusive to Toys R Us as far as mass retailers go. Or as they say in my neck of the woods, as far as BIG BOX stores go. That is enough to qualify as exclusive to the majority of public.


Comic shops are a niche. They usually do not have a direct account with Mattel like say TRU. They usually go through Diamond, a middleman, who will take a piece of the pie.

Some larger comic shops may set up a direct account with Mattel, as they have done so with Hasbro, but because they do not order the same quantities as a large retail chain, their prices will still be high.

[mightyquinn]

If you've seen the documentary on how Wal-mart operates, you would see how manufacturers are forced to lower their prices. Maybe Target is getting to be the same way. I'm seeing more and more toy stores go under at the hands of wal-mart and TRU seems to be struggling also. Buy more = better deal

[LonnieFisher]

I think everyone is missing one obvious piece of the puzzle: Toys R Us.

Since the Retro Heroes are exclusive to TRU, the price is what it is.

This is also misinformation. Comic book stores are not getting them from Toys-R-Us. So they aren't that exclusive.

[PNGwynne]

BK--the difference between Big Jim & Retro is that Big Jim was a well-engineered figure that holds up even today (even with rubber arms!).

The later Euro Big Jims even had jointed arms & gripping hands. Heck, second generation Big Jim (aka Max Steel) was better than the retro body.

Honestly, I can't fathom Mattel. But it's not exclusive to them, either--look how Hasbro crapped out new 12" Joes in recent years. (Good points, Lady Zod.)

[LadyZod]

I think everyone is missing one obvious piece of the puzzle: Toys R Us.

I'll use Star Wars as an example. Why does TRU sell the exact Hasbro 3 3/4" figure as Target for $10, when Target sells it for $8?

It's the same toy. It cost the same to make the one sold at TRU as it cost to make the one at Target. Same molds, same factory labor, same shipping containers, same customs inspections, same CEO at Hasbro is still making his millions.

This leads me to believe one of two things:
A) Target is making less money per figure than TRU or
B) Target is getting a better deal from Hasbro due to the amount of stores they have vs TRU.

Since the Retro Heroes are exclusive to TRU, the price is what it is.
(Remember, TRU is no longer the toy juggernaut it once was. They've have to close down stores and THEIR market is being taken over by Target and Walmart.)

*IF* this line was carried by Target or Walmart, I believe we would see a lower price in THOSE stores, but TRU would continue to keep their price as it is. Their contract with Mattel won't change regardless how many more units Mattel produces, or how much cheaper the production becomes to them.

I tend to look at these toys, as I look at the EMCE product (remember, EMCE helped with the Retro figures, but the buck stops at Mattel), the BBP products and the Castaway products in the same way... they are as Sideshow, Dragon, and BBI are to Hasbro (you 1/6 scale fans know what I'm saying.)

Can Hasbro produce a wonderful 12 inch figure with all their vast resources, sculptors, factories, etc? Probably. But they don't. They put out a decent product as a reasonable price.

But Sideshow, BBI and Dragon put out AMAZING 12 inch figures, at a lower production run... and the cost shows it. They are expensive. Are they worth the extra money? If you're an adult 1/6 collector trying to get something new out of your hobby. Not a great value for kids.

Mattel's retro line is not really meant for kids. It's meant for the adult collector who will probably keep it carded, and would never open it to discover loose limbs or crackly emblem. Sure, many do buy it for their kids, as I'm sure many 1/6 collectors have given a BBI or Dragon figure to their child.

$20 is not a parent buying it for their kid price.

$20 is for the adult who sees their original megos on ebay being sold in the hundreds of dollars because it's MOC, and this $20 toy he found at TRU while shopping with his kid ignited a sense of nostalgia, and he figures, I can't afford a real carded mego Superman because I have bills to pay, but I can buy this $20 one and put it in my office!

[ctc]

>It isn't just testing the market.

Maybe not, but it doesn't seem like a big thing for them. More like they're keeping their hand in just incase this 8" thing takes off.

Don C.