Is it just me, or are there not a lot of 3rd party products with early bird pricing anymore? There was a time when major figures such as the Feralcons, or FT products would have discounted pricing if you chose to pre-order early. I thought it was a good way to give the early adapters some extra incentive. I believe stores in Hong Kong still do this frequently.
Depends on where you shop and what you consider an early-bird discount I guess. PC in Australia are on average about 30% cheaper than other stores and they have limited stock that goes up early and sells out quick. Plus they require up front payment and are really reluctant to offer any refunds. I see this as an early bird discount. I am willing to commit and pay upfront at the preorder stage and in exchange I save about 30%. This is of course a retailer specific thing and the discount is less appealing if you're overseas and have to pay international shipping. (Though for larger figures it's worth doing the math - they sometimes still work out cheaper than US stores for folks overseas - they're pretty slow to deliver though) PlanetSteel Xpress are also a bit cheaper at the start for MMC I think? And I'm sure I've seen TCP offering a few percent off for early bird (though they may not do that as much anymore)
Over here in the UK, the early bird offers don't seem worth it anymore. Typically its a saving of £5-£10 if I pay in full, 6 months in advance. Not worth it now.
They don't do it anymore because so many people just wait for clearance. When you purchase a product for resale, you cannot assume that everybody will pay the same price, let alone MSRP. As more of your clientele shifts into parsimony, the more you need every dollar that your early adopters are willing to spend. 3rd party stuff, with smaller runs and a smaller market, is more susceptible to the fallout. If BBTS didn't reserve mint boxes for preorders, I'd be waiting for a weekly spring cleaning giveaway too.
I was never a fan of preorder pricing anyway. It's a strong arm incentive to make you commit to something that may wind up being a turd. Yeah, the figure's not living up to expectations and you couldn't wait until the reviews started because you had to preorder... But you saved twenty dollars on it, so how can you complain, right? Besides it's a lot like a Kroger card or Humana Vitality Points... why can I save twenty bucks by just swiping a card or lying about how much I exercise or preordering. What changes after the toy hits the BBTS warehouse that suddenly makes it twenty dollars more? However, none of this plays into it. The simple fact is, they don't have to offer the incentive so they don't. And as the above have pointed out, with a lot of folks buying at the tail end tail end discount, retailers have to make the most money they can when they can before demand peters out entirely and they're selling items at 50% off.
That's actually a reason for a business to do it: When they want to drum up more pre-order sales so they can better estimate the order size they'll need to place and not have inventory sitting around that will end up having to go on a clearance sale. Yep, true enough. Product quality is so inconsistent it's often counter-productive for the consumer to pre-order, and without any special incentive, doubly so. But many still do, which is interesting. This is true in the sense that the collectors that drive this market are likely going to buy the product regardless, and therefore retailers don't need to offer an incentive to get them to pre-order the product - the bulk of the customers likely pre-order regardless. And some of them will cancel the pre-order if reviews of testshots show something truly unappealing but that's after the fact. But if there is a pre-order discount, the customer then has to consider if they feel the concerns with the product exceed the savings they are getting by keeping the pre-order rather than cancelling it. This is how a discount can provide a benefit to both the customer and the retailer. The retailer moves more inventory if the customer keeps the pre-order (and they have a more accurate order quantity up front which helps their long-term inventory planning) and the customer gets a discount that is pure savings to them on a good product and helps to offset any issues with a less than perfect product since they're not paying full price for it. That's also a reason to incentivize up-front orders, though, as noted above.
Do you really think that people who wait for a 50% clearance are going to be swayed by 5% off? All you're doing with a preorder discount is leaving money on the table. When clearance time rolls around, and it will, your buffer is that much thinner. Would I like a preorder discount? Hell yes. I've about had it with subsidizing paupers. But I spent 5 years in the trenches and it's clear as day to me why they've gone the way of the dodo. As mean as it sounds, I'd like to see online stores go to a preorder-only policy and not order a single unit more than they've taken preorders for. It would help their bottom lines and help make conventions more than the overpriced cosplay parade they've become.
Most collectors dont do that with figures they want, they buy them at release. The stuff that goes for 50% off is the stuff that doesn't move and isnt in as high demand.
