My personal theory is FT dictates prices Taobao sellers can sell at. Think aeroplane seats. It would explain why Thor had one price, and then upped to the next tier off 1500. That or they're max margin which also makes sense. But I wonder why Taobao stores don't undercut each other to make sales

 

I saw many 'secondhand' sellers selling at 13xx yuan (US$188). These are on Xian Yu (闲鱼), TaoBao's secondhand mall, but somehow they show up in TaoBao search.

I don't think you can buy them using official shippers, but should be able to using third-party shippers.

These are scalpers.

My guess is FansToys has two prices: pre-order price for a limited quantity, and normal price, which you can order more (though still limited).

 

I also suspect that FT does have a good grasp of Taobao prices (and they probably ask/require that sellers do not sell too low), but Dalianjj said one that the selling price for Thomas will be 125-130 USD, which is something like 850-900. If there's no interpretation error in that statement (and from my data, it does not seem to be) and the price can be maintained (see below), the 1500 you mentioned seems more like inflated first stock.

Interestingly, this 900 preorder price for the reissue is a little bit puzzling for me, because my current thinking is that there's a category price for triple changers and big bots such as Sovereign and Quietus that should be the sam price. If Thomas is really 850-900 street (as Dalianjj seemed to imply), the Sovereign M reissue should be the same (meaning that the preorder price should have been 700, not 850-900 - as a sidenote, at least one store right now seems to be having a preorder of less than 800, and maybe the "first" preorders with the probable lowest price have not been received yet). Maybe there's a second increase in price this year (which I doubt, as it would probably have spilled right now, and I did not see anything in my monitoring) or maybe my expectation of the same category price is wrong (which is weird, because the older data is pretty constant) or maybe there was this same category price, but this year it has changed. Well, need more data to conclude anything.

 

Yes, you can buy from them using a shipping forward service. Regarding Xian Yu, it does show some returns on the Taobao main search (if you click on the used"tab) but I think it does not show all the ones available , if you search on the full app (I could not install the full app).

I also got some feedback from people in China NOT to buy from Xian Yu if you are not there.

Yes, this was discussed before and it seems like it has a lot of potential on being true. This would also explain the fluctuation in prices I mentioned in my earlier post.

 

FT dictates the original price the items are sold at to all sellers/distributors that work directly with FT. That much should be self-evident. The arbitrage of selling Chinese products directly to US consumers is a topic that's been discussed at length around here.

 

I wasn't talking about any arbitrage. My point is how uniformly prices move and align across all Taobao sellers. It's not just for Fanstoys either, but it's particularly noticeable for FT as the prices jump pretty regularly and end up at the same prices across all sellers. More recently I've seen it for Roadking, Magnum, Spoiler, Iceman, Goose, Maverick, Hunk and now Soverign. I'm sure Dunerunner will be the same.

Western sellers generally stick to one price and that's the release price. With Taobao, you can get maybe a 200 yuan saving if you preorder, and not soon after prices increase from there. You gotta jump in quick otherwise prices creep pretty quickly. Even when there's ample stores selling so supply isn't an issue.

Anywhere else and pricing commissions would be onto this as it's like collusion. I doubt it's that sophisticated on Taobao and it's only a collectible after all so to me there has to be something else at play.

This pricing doesn't happen with any other third party. Prices generally stay the same throughout their lifecycle

 

Toy dojo sent out their invoices for this bad boy get out yer credit cards. Paid in full!

 

What's strange about TaoBao behaving as it does, responding to scarcity? That still seems not much different than any other marketplace. Compare how eBay prices fluctuate vs retail prices stay fixed aside from sales or occasional discounts over a long time horizon.

 

Now this talk got me another insight. which seems more plausible than the conspiracy theory that FT controls a lot of things they in practice could not control.

Taobao is less akin to Ebay, and much more akin to Amazon Marketplaces (Taobao is usually mentioned as the Chinese Amazon). Both Amazon and Taobao have several software options for vendors to automatically track things, including prices. One of them is probably something like:- Keep my prices near the market price (or something like that),in which the software automatically scans, usually daily, prices and and an algorithm calculates current market pricing and corrects all pricing on stores that let this feature on automatically.

I don't know how such as algorithm works (it probably has a complex calculation involving multiple offers or all offers, a medium or something, and also some additional factors), but the end results that you see very similar prices in most stores (either because they ticked automatic update price option box (which is really better than you checking everyday), or because it's the default of the system and you forgot to untick (remember that a lot of sellers do not have a good grasp on technology at this level, which is common for most of the population).

Obviously a store could still manually set its prices, but this explains how uniformly prices move and align across all Taobao sellers

 

Just canceled my TCP preorder for this guy

 

Did you find it available somewhere else?

 

Nah, just decided I didn't want it. I have the original and, to be honest with myself, I really had it reserved to sell it again. And I didn't want to be a part of the problem. Hopefully someone who doesn't have it and really wants it is able to snag it.

 

Here are the current Taobao listings for FT-16M
淘宝网 - 淘！我喜欢

 

It's strange as it only happens to FT

That's an interesting theory, didn't know that about Amazon or Taobao. And agreed, Taobao isn't like eBay at all really. It doesn't have any auction based listings.

 

That wasn't the point of the comment I was making where I mentioned eBay. It wasn't intended to be a 1:1 comparison, it was a way to note the contrast with traditional online retailers where it is a single business selling their wares on their website rather than a marketplace with many sellers. eBay, Amazon Marketplace, AliBaba, NewEgg and other online retailers that have allowed third party sellers to post their wares through the same site. Those would be on one side of the equation, while individual retailers like BBTS, TFSource, are on the other.
And it's really you who drew that contrast, I was just inquiring what was surprising about a site with many individual sellers (like TaoBao, eBay, etc) having more price fluctuations being more or less conspiratorial than individual retailer websites.

 

I totally get marketplaces and how prices reflect supply and demand. My point is around the almost uniformity and swiftness that FT prices increase and align. And this only occurs with FT. Have you used Taobao to see what I'm on about? Either way, I think we can leave this discussion as it's probably labouring down this thread unnecessarily and we can respectfully acknowledge each other's points and move on  

 

Until there's another company with the same characteristics to FT (production quantity, release cadence and shipping strategy, pricing, perceived quality, and overall demand) to compare it against, its products are going to behave somewhat uniquely in freeform marketplaces where prices can and do fluctuate. That will be in contrast to what are essentially fixed-price retailers where all products tend to be treated more or less equally regardless of those factors.

 

Mine's moved to "awaiting dispatch" at TFS-Express! I missed the UK stock so it's coming slowly from China, but at least it's setting off shortly  

 

Prices have reached a new level...

FansToys FT-16M Sovereign Galvatron Limited Color Edition

 

Well, the current spot price in China seems to be 1300. It's totally nuts, because I've never seen a preorder price of 900 (130 USD) spike to a street price of 1300 (188 USZD) - it's a 60 USD difference . I suspect the Chinese pricing is beginning to be affected by the international pricing, which is a shame.