It's interesting that, from the sounds of it, had I stuck with a distribution account for Earthrise, despite the very clear shortages at retail, I'd probably still have trouble getting MSRP for any of it.

 

Check out this wise mofo tellin' it like it is. Shit's changed. Fortunately, preorders don't cost money until they're ready to ship, except in the cases of very very very rare or expensive items (where they want a deposit to punish you if you cancel it) and we can always just decide we don't need those items, too.

Right this minute I have a lot more preorders than products I will actually end up buying. I handle them through a separate bank account into which I ONLY place money when I intend to buy something. Doing things this way, I've only made one accidental purchase and only had my money go missing from a sale (did not get an item or my money back) once.

Because of the 'now' reality where you are unlikely to be able to buy items below retail price by waiting them out, there is very little reason not to preorder everything, perhaps even from more than one site, to help protect your purchase option. Later on, you can either cancel one of them or sell the second one to a board member that missed out (hopefully for a good price, but it's your business) or if you're floating in dosh, just keep both and have a sealed backup for when you break one??

But let me say, I think there's going to be a rubberbanding effect in the global production and shipping apparatus, because the scarcity of the past year was artificial in nature, created by precautionary measures... ones whose real importance appears to have varied a lot as information changed and some statements were retracted or revised. Nonetheless, I think once shipping volume stabilizes and catches up, we're going to see the results of over-compensation and maybe have a season or two where there are more Hasbro products on shelves than people can realistically buy.

3P on the other hand is likely to remain badly impacted for another year, if I had to guess, because their small volume and relatively smaller margins (than Hasbro) means all of this fucks them way worse. Labor shortages and loss of tribal knowledge on producing their products can result in them becoming unable to produce satisfactory product anymore... We collectors have TITANIC expectations. Cut corners won't do.

Yeah it's strange, but it seems most people aren't as big of fans of Earthrise, especially the deluxes. I'm in the opposite boat. Though, none of them are cool enough to own more than one of except the Weaponizer\Modulator and maybe some of the micros, if I'm fair. And the online pictures don't do them much justice. Some people have to see it on the shelf to realize they want it.

Totally agreed! Someone else in this thread made a good point about Hasbro's seasonal production schedule, though, and it's possible that the reality is, they're producing as much product as they have time to produce, and some of the things you and I want are being pushed off the schedule to leave enough room to stock up the big box stores with shelfwarmers.

Otherwise, I do agree Hasbro should accept at least one preorder for at least one unit of each item they list on their site from AT LEAST Pulse Premium customers. I've missed out on Pulse preorders on my premium account because I forgot how to convert from my time zone back to EST during the off season (We don't change Daylight Savings every six months in Arizona so half the year, EST is +3 and the other half it's +2) and missed a sale window while doing chores. They should let me order anyway, and do a little overtime if needed to make sure I'm not left going "Why did I pay for this premium account?"

Yes, that's true, but there's a neat trick about Preorders that I'll share with you. People cancel them every day. If you bookmark the page for a sold-out preorder you want, and hit refresh 50-100 times a day, eventually you're going to get one, as long as you're quick and persistent. And when the product actually arrives to ship out, 20-30% of those people are not going to pay for it and the item will very briefly be "in stock" before the unsold ones are snapped up.

TL;DR, you HAVE to be persistent and tenacious and intrepid to get the items you want, nowadays--whether you're doing it online or in stores. We're all fighting over these items. Sucks and it really should be improved, but I have no fucking idea what to suggest to them.

 

Probably get an earful. But that's the risk I took and I got a pre-order in.

Who's NOT buying though? It's clear from every financial report for years and years that Transformers in particular is on the up and up. Even GI Joe which has had an extremely rocky release and even rockier distribution than Transformers has been an immense seller with a lot of hype. No one can get it, because it sells through completely when stores get any amount of stock in. We don't hear about the masses of people not buying Transformers because it isn't happening. The people who are content and are okay with just ordering stuff aren't saying anything because they're getting things they want and it's all that really matters.

Transformers is doing well. People are already buying and they've never stopped. This idea that if we fans or whatever continue to not buy then Transformers will be in dire straights is straight up lunacy. The brand is doing well because everyone is buying, and people who are happy and content don't come to forums or social media to bemoan the state of things.

I agree that it isn't easy for everyone to pre-order. But I do agree with the sense that pre-ordering is...well, easy. I work from morning to evening 5 days a week, but I still get pre-orders in. Someones I do it while on shift. Sometimes I do it on break. Sometimes I wait until I come home. Sometimes I miss out, tough luck! But if you have access to a computer at home, that there is your path. It isn't hard to type in a website and get a pre-order in.

That being said I do feel that some specific product is hard to order. Cobra Island comes to mind. I think it's up to the retailers offering these exclusives to plan accordingly after exclusive runs to adjust numbers for further runs. Aside from that, I dunno. I'll let people smarter than me figure out the business end of that stuff.

HOW would Hasbro make those efforts worthwhile? Isn't it already worthwhile in and of itself to be able to get a product you want ahead of release? Why are people so adverse to doing a little bit of work and a little adapting?

 

I'll keep that in mind ... IF Hasbro ever produces anything I simply must have ever again. That's the other half of the problem. I simply don't feel that the current product is worth that kind of effort. If I see it in the store or it's available when I can check for the preorder, fine. But there's literally nothing that's a must-have.

 

That's my question to anyone who understands the back-end of logistics and production and marketing and retailing; just what exactly do you think Hasbro should do? And make sure to answer from Hasbro's perspective: don't say (in Hasbro's voice) what YOU would do. Put yourself in the shoes of Hasbro, a massive international business. What would YOU do if you were Hasbro, and is your solution realistic and likely to be effective without being "a bad idea" in some way (creates risk of unsold product, etc)

That's fair. I almost totally skipped the Netflix and Kingdom lines early on, but decided I'd grab them when they showed up for the first time at Walmart already on clearance and leave them boxed and think about it for a while. Ended up opening them all and now I'm like "Wow, I got every Kingdom figure so far for MSRP or less than MSRP, that's pretty cool!" and I also like them.

Figures in hand are always nicer looking and feeling than online pictures of stuff you don't own, just saying.

 

And why should I have to "adapt" in order to give Hasbro my money? Why should it be "work" at all to get regular retail product from Hasbro's own sale site? It's one thing to not be able to get an order in for a figure 6 months after the announcement. But 60 minutes after? F*ck that sh*t. I'll spend my money on Reprolabels and other addons to improve my existing toys instead. After collecting for decades, my collection is pretty extensive. New additions are welcome, but not essential.

I'm keeping an eye out for the Artfire preorder right now, but I miss it? So what? It's no big deal to me, and I'm not going to work to track one down - it isn't that important an item or character for me. But it's one less potential sale for Hasbro. Their loss, not mine.

 

No, it's not. Don't get that into your head. They will sell. If you don't buy it, someone else will. Voting with your feet doesn't make a difference here. The quote I like, I can't find, but it goes something like

"If a reed turns in the river, the river's course does not turn. Even if all the reeds turn in the river, the river's course does not turn. The course of rivers is not determined by reeds."

We are just reeds, boy-o.

 

Got my SS86 preorders in! Now I just sit back and wait for toys to land on the front step! Easy!

 

So ... a sale not made because there isn't enough of the item to fill demand isn't a lost sale ... oookay ... You're missing my point. Unfulfilled demand amounts to potential sales lost. Sure, Hasbro may be selling all of the ones that they make, but if that's only 80% of the demand, then that's an additional 20% they're just tossing away. Why set a limit of their profits like that? That's basically leaving money on the table that people are offering them!

One collector saying "F*ck it" on one item, no big deal. Lots of collectors, on the entire line, on the other hand, not so much. And leaving collectors frustrated doesn't encourage them to keep buying.

This preorder setup, so long as the stuff sells out super fast, is just poor customer service. Not that HAsbro is known to be stellar at that ...

Preorder windows on Hasbro Pulse should not be measured in minutes. If they can't schedule additional factory time to fill all the preorders, then they should take the preorders first and THEN schedule the time. Sure, it might push the release date back a few months, but that's no big deal.

 

I understand that KFGatri, but what I think is that they are producing as much shit as labor and time and resources and logistics make possible--the only thing is, they're making the wrong numbers of the wrong things. And that's hard for them to anticipate ahead of time, I'd wager. Sure they have numbers and metrics, but no one can account for the chaotic behavior of consumers.

I do agree about them scheduling enough time to produce what PULSE customers DESIRE, though. But for them to feel safe doing that, wouldn't they have to make us pre-pay for preorders, so they aren't stuck with overstock when the usual 20-30% of people cancel their preorder?

 

I'd have no problem whatsoever with that. I'd actually rather have the money come out right away, rather than at some random point down the line. If I make a purchase, preorder or otherwise, I know I have the funds for it at that moment. The last thing I'd need is for a big item to get unexpectedly charged to my checking account the same day I pay my mortgage and electric. I normally have more than enough to cover all, but Murphy's Law, ya know?

So yeah, set the production amount based on the preorders, and have us pay upfront. It probably won't fully solve the issue, but it would certainly help. It'd probably discourage the scalpers a bit, as well.

 

At the end of the day you have to make a value decision on whether or not something is worth your time. But don't conflate your feelings that there isn't enough value to justify adapting to new situations as something that's a universal problem when people have shown they're very willing to adapt to something that's frankly, in my book, negligible.

Your sale is a drop in the bucket. I said this before and I'll say it again. Saying that Hasbro is losing money because few people in relation don't or refuse to get figures is meaningless when there's a hundred silent people who've bought a figure and don't complain about anything. How many people do you think only have an account on TFW, who might never post, who are only here to see news on releases? How many more just lurk for releases? For every one of you there's probably like a dozen. Our forum isn't an entire census for the Transformers community at large.

The issue is that there isn't 5 different factories that Hasbro uses, and 5 different factories that Mattel uses.

There might be 15 factories that EVERY toy company uses. The schedules there are tight as hell. If you don't get in a slot way ahead of time, you might run into conflict when another company's time to produce comes up. Made to order items are set ahead of time, which is why such ordering schemes have a maximum time limit. After that any production number is ordered at a factory and there's your time slot for that factory to get the product made.

 

Ultimately, I would too. But what I'd REALLY prefer if they don't ANNOUNCE a figure until it's a few days away from being in production, at which time they solicit BOTH: Normal, non-paid preorders, the number of which influence their production run, and Bespoke, pre-paid preorders, the number of which directly modify the size of their production run. This inludes Retailers specifying how many THEY want, too. Let us get OUR orders in at the same time.

 

I know. So wouldn't it make more sense to have an accurate gauge of the demand for figures before scheduling said factory time? Less waste from overproducing low-demand figures, fewer frustrated collectors because they'd be producing the high demand characters in adequate numbers. That's why I'm saying, use the preorders to set the quantity for the production run. Sure, we'd have a longer wait for our preorders, but IMO that's a small price to pay.

 

That might cause a problem in being able to schedule enough factory time to produce sufficient product. I mean, logically more toys=more time needed to make, so it'd make more sense to do the preorder well advance of the production run, in order to schedule it correctly. PlanckEpoch is at least right about the limited number of factories and tight schedules. Hasbro can't necessarily just add more production time whenever they please.

 

Yeah. Wouldn't it be great if Hasbro had their own state-side factory and we all worked there and brought quality and commitment to our work and produced good quality figures and their domestic origin meant that shipping costs didn't ram the figures into the next higher price tier!?

Lol, sorry, I'm just talking crazy talk. Abusing the populations of other countries to save money IS The American Way, dammit. And passing the savings on to your executives and shareholders rather than your customers is, too!

Yeah but we're a capricious and demanding bunch of fuckers, let's be honest. We see a sexy plastic thing, we want it, time passes, we see a more sexy plastic thing, we want it, suddenly we no longer want the old one anymore... Etc. I don't envy whoever's job it is to ANTICIPATE how many of an UNRELEASED product "we" want.

 

Hell yes. I missed coneheads and centurion due to this.

 

I mean, that kind of ignores the fact that other companies have to use these factories for their schedules too. There aren't too many made-to-order products out. Those that are tend to be ones with small time frames or big marquee items designed to promote a brand.

 

1) Hasbro Pulse Premium customers should get first dibs, ALWAYS. We need more than just $50 a year for free shipping. Give us some easy, affordable perks. Throw in a few seasonal coupons as well (did we get any coupons whatsoever in 2020?)

2) Enforce quantities. You can go in and pre-order multiples of "restricted" figures, so long as they aren't in the same order.

3) Have more quantities of store-exclusive items. I like that Hasbro Pulse is starting to go this way.

 

I've read through a lot of thread, and, for me, to commit to buy sight unseen requires an amount of trust that Hasbro and retailers have not earned.

For Hasbro, for me to be comfortable making that commitment would mean I would have to have a steady stream of product from them that exceeded expectations, provided value, and had no quality control concerns. If Hasbro has managed to do that for you, congratulations, you are far luckier than most. For me, they have not met that threshold.

For the retailers, I need to be confident that when I place a preorder with them, I will get it. I've had multiple pre-orders cancelled in the last year. The record is not good.

I'm funny. I like to be an informed consumer. Not just for ridiculously overpriced plastic toys, but for pretty much everything I buy. I read reviews, watch videos of reviews, ask about things from others that already own them. Silly, I know.

I have a finite amount of money to waste on this hobby, so I like to have confidence that I'm going to enjoy a product before committing. I'm not looking for guarantees, just reasonable, educated confidence.

It isn't about "putting in the work" for pre-orders. Pre-orders really involve no work. It is the laziest way to buy something, not doing the research. It's an impulse buy. It's looking at a picture and screaming, "Want!" The work I put into reading and watching the reviews actually takes time.

Of course, I'm also one of those unfortunate people with a decent job I'd like to keep that doesn't allow us to have our phones out at all while on the clock. Admittedly, I'm old enough that this isn't an issue, because I have worked during a time when smart phones didn't exist, and I managed to work an entire day without being connected to the internet. Shocking, but it's completely possible.

I'm also old enough to know that my single purchase doesn't really matter to Hasbro. My feeling of "If I have to buy it now, without any information, then no," is mine and mine alone. I just save more money as I'm pushed out of the hobby. As I mentioned in my previous post, my relevancy for Hasbro is coming to an end, anyway.

It doesn't bother me too much, because I'm also old enough to know that "FOMO" isn't an intelligent reason to buy something. It's an artificial pressure put on the consumer to eliminate thinking in the purchasing process. It's not new, just rebranded.

But, hey, as the kids say, you be you. (I don't really think the kids say that. I'm old and out of touch with the kids.)