Team Jetfire not having Classic Ultra Magnus: Fail  

 

Epic fail!

 

Damn, I was hoping it would be cheaper. I will have to pass, it is just too much money.  

 

The only thing I'm concerned about the legs is how the armor will hold onto the leg itself. I can't figure it out from the pics.

 

Looks like the armor knee guards snap into place to hold onto the leg to me.

 

Wow, I was pretty sure that once someone like TFSource added this item, I'd cancel my pre-order with BBTS. Turns out - for like the first time ever - BBTS is actually the cheaper route when factoring in the additional shipping charges. Huh.

Glad to see some new pics, but gotta admit that I'm not really liking that huge piece of extra parts trying to double as a "big gun". Hopefully some finalized colored pics show up soon.

 

$152,000 is of course the total revenue on the piece. The retailers get a good chunk of that (I'd say $25 of the $76 per unit). It costs from $25 to $50 per unit to cast (depending on how much you order and where you go). So at minimum cost for 2000 pieces to be made is going to be $50,000. They are including packaging as well. I don't know how much that is so because I have never researched/inquired about the cost of packaging. The net profit is probably at most $50,000 which is not a bad profit (which is why you have some guys taking the risk of making these things) but you the risk is also high. You have to put tens of thousands of dollars upfront to produce these things with the risk of not being able to sell them all. The market is certainly there for quality fan made figures if you can also sell it for less than $100. It's a niche market but it's there. I think we will see more fan made figures for sale in the coming years. We've already seen companies like justitoys and RSP making them. Now fansprojects. I wouldn't be surprised if more are on the way.

 

From the looks of the bottom two pics there's a gap between the leg armor and the knee guard.

I hope that the leg armor isn't just held on three sides of the leg by friction.

 

Don't forget importing fees too.

But yeah, I hope more stuff like this is on the horizon. Hell I hope the Cliffjumper upgrade they made makes it Stateside too.

 

If the retailers get so much, wouldn't it be much cheaper just to hire someone to make a website and sell it themselves? That'd be giving sellers $50,000 just to "allow" people to buy it...

Just another reason the price is too high...

 

Quoted for epic amounts of WIN!

What's this about a Hearts of steel Prime now?  

 

The distributors are already there and have a strong following. Why not use them? Sure you have to pay them but included in that is advertising that they won't get if they tried to set it up themselves.

JustiToys does the same thing with their custom made stuff. They sell through online stores here.

 

man i am SOOOO glad i pre-ordered

this thing looks gorgeous!!

 

And I'm sure fansproject will have their own website later to sell future stuff if they want to circumvent the middle man. But since they are new to the game they want better exposure and a more guaranteed way of selling these...which is through reputable online retailers. By selling these to online retailers like BBTS upfront, they take pretty much all the risk away and all the hassle of marketing. BBTS now assumes the risk of having to sell these (unless BBTS as an agreement that they can return a certain number if they are not able to sell them all). If fansproject were to sell these on their own at $76, they would need to sell around 700 of them just to break even. 700 units is alot of units to sell for a fan made piece. In hindsight of course, it seems now 700 has already been sold it seems. But that's hindsight.

Edit: the other part that fansproject doesn't have to worry about by going through the online retailers route is distribution. All they have to do is send the bulk order to BBTS (or other retailers). If they sold it themselves then they have to ship them individual. I assume these guys are from China or Singapore (or other country other than US). Shipping from those asian countries to the US can be a real pain. You will get a quite a few customers complaining about shipping and how long it'll take and risk of damage during shipment.

 

Staples solve EVERYTHING. From cute little antlers onto a mouses head to blue ribbon on a wedding car.  

I just preordered mine from TF Source! To be brutally honest the first lot of pics looked good, but not enough for me to buy. These new ones make me want it more.

I'm 'guessing' that the inside of the trailer might be hollow, and enough for Bumblebee at least.

 

"That is true, but the reality is they didn't, so those of us who want it are faced with one alternative amd it's something I'm able and willing to get. However, I don't see the need for either side to get upset over this: The people that don't want this item are helping the people who want it and otherwise might not have been able to get a hold of it, while the people who do want it make the item's existence worthwhile and justified."

sure, whatever you say - you make your point, and everyone else will make there's, and I don't think there was any sign of being upset in my original post. I'm not one of the drama queens of this group.

 

I suspect the inside of the trailer is inhabited by the BFG we've been admiring.  

 

I DARE you to use staples on yours. DARE!

 

So half of the trailer becomes his gun eh?

 

You're obviously unaware of how wholesale works. $76 is the target retail price, which means the manufacturers probably sold the sets for closer to $35-$40 wholesale knowing full well that online stores will add their obligatory 100% markup. It's exactly how wholesale CD & DVD sales work. What you see priced in a store is usually at least 100% more than what the items were actually sold for. The only difference there is that there is also middle-man distributor markup added to the final prices.

It's simply a more viable business gamble having multiple stores buy this set for wholesale since it means the manufacturers are guaranteed their base sales as opposed to hoping they can move 2000units on their own from some obscure website.