Ugh. As if the prices weren't high enough.

From robot kingdom's facebook page.

"Bad news from hasbro.

We have informed by hasbro today that they suddenly increase the cost of all FOC upcoming items without warning, and include the items we have been preordering for a while... Heavy lost from most of those orders.

We temporary put sold out for some of those FOC items, and will update the final price later.

Robotkingdom Crew"

 

What Is Hasbro thinking? The prices already been inceased but we get much worse quality figures instead.

 

As I said on Twitter, this probably means Australian TF prices are gonna be more insane than before. Oh the joy.  

 

Translation: We sunk too much money in DOTM toys that didn't sell.

 

It's called making money.

 

Wow. A lot of FOC toys look like $#!+, and they want you to open up your wallets?

 

No that´s called unfair prices for what you get.

 

Hasbro TFs are already fairly expensive in Hong Kong.

A more cynical reading might be that they are grubbing for lost revenue they were never actually going to get.

 

This is what we get for buying Third Party Products!!! The sky is falling!!!

 

Well we don't have to buy what we don't like   Or don't we?  

 

I'm not saying this couldn't be true, but the way it's worded makes it sound like a load of bull from Robot Kingdom. Hasbro informing you IS the warning.

I wonder how a price increase from Hasbro's end of things would affect retailers. Retailers that have already been jacking up the price on Deluxes from the SRP anyways....

 

Oh god, here we go. Can't wait for a new wave of threads saying how much they hate Hasbro.

 

I think BBTS stated something similar months ago, which some thought was a load of bull. May be it's not...

 

There's no real suggestion as to how bad the price increase will be when it goes into effect. Meaning it could be a couple dollars or a few cents; we don't know.

 

Not saying Robot Kingdom isn't full of bull, but it's not much of a warning if you've already started taking preorders and then this suddenly happens. If prices suddenly jumped on me, I wouldn't be out much, but some of these places are going through thousands of times more merchandise and small changes add up.

 

Transformers FOC Generations 2012 peg warm BAD around here. But so did WFC Generations figures until the Reveal The Shield stuff was on the pegs. That stuff sold like hotcakes!

I am not really into the FOC stuff so far. Bruticus is neat and all but I now already own 3 versions of the mold with a Takara version on pre order and a retool scheduled for early next year.

The figures are not worth more then $10-$12 each.

 

Someone else stated a few weeks back that RK was claiming GDO voyagers wouldn't hit US shelves either, in an attempt to sell their unwanted asia exclusive inventory. Well, they showed up and RK is still stuck with overpriced asia exclusives.

Watch out for scare tactics guys. RK seems like they may be implementing them to move product & make orders that are down suddenly start booking. TF fandom is very prone to scare tactics, best wait it out and see what happens if you want the best deals.

 

^ Agreed.

If this is true (and I apologise but I'm bolding this part) this is indication of an increase in wholesale prices. There are no indications on how extensive the price rise may be, if brick and morter retailers will be seeing a similar rise, and indeed, if retailers will actually pass this on or merely absorb the price rise. If there even is one.


Basically, don't jump to conclusions. Someone said earlier to not panic unless Hasbro publicly gives warning and that would be sound advice. Right now there's a few unknowns and other variables that need to be considered.

 

But Hasbro never announced a price increase even when figures went from $10.99 to $12.99 and then $12.99 to $14.99 and then $14.99-$15.49 to the NOW price of $15.49-$18.99.

We went from $9.99-$10.99 DOTM and Generations figures to the average price of $15.49-$16.49 for Prime and Generations 2012 in less then 1 year.

 

Where are you getting those figures from? The MSRP went from 12.99 to 14.99, which is where it is now - I've no clue where you're getting 18.99 from. And that price rise was announced in one of the financial calls IIRC, plus was shown months in advance at Botcon and was presumbably also in paperwork from that year's toy fair. The previous price rise to 12.99 was also announced.

And no, we did not jump from 9.99 to the current price in less than one year. That's an exaggeration, the DotM MSRP was 12.99. The last 9.99 Deluxes I am aware of were Animated in 2008. RotF was the first line with the 12.99 MSRP.

If it's been less for you, then you have had it extremely lucky because your stores have been selling under the MSRP for the last five years.