Costco is a bulk retailer that charges membership fees to access their stores. Hasbro is a manufacturer of products. I'm sorry you don't understand why they're significantly different.

Good luck. Even the most popular normie tier kits are hard to get your hands on right now. Bandai has been unable to keep up with the higher demand. The pandemic has significantly reduced the output of their factories and Gunpla is being scalped hard.

You could all look into Robot Damashii Action figures, the thing that's actually comparable to Transformers and see what high priced collectables actually go for.

 

Or go the DIY route.
Way more expensive, but you get what you designed.

**************

Speaking of price increases:
Saw the new Buzzworthy Origin / Saucer BB.

$23 when other Deluxes on the shelf were $20. And no clear plastic window so a person can touch the figure. Crazy.

 

Hot dogs are cheap with some brands costing that or less for an 8-pack, plus it costs them about 5 cents to fill those drink cups, so even though it's not movie theater level price gouging they're still staying ahead.

 

Also, the Costco $1.50 hot dog and pop is a specific point of pride for the owner and he has REFUSED to raise prices on that.

It's more of a service than it is a moneymaker. The goodwill generated by it outweighs the costs.

 

Holds up sloppily slapped together model to camera

Level 1, Gundam.

 

So uh I'm guessing studio series is becoming cheaper lol.

 

I second the question as to whether this is just repeating the information we already knew. I don’t see the continued push toward the $25 deluxe as sustainable. Handling the most recent deluxes I got post-price hike, I don’t see the value.

“Due to a surge in Deluxe and Voyager costs, we will be reducing the budget for Transformers products despite robust demand. Please understand.”
-Boople Barp, CFO of me

 

I know, I'm giving examples of why people would expect that. Sony sold Playstations at a loss. Microsoft sold Xboxes at a loss.

 

That's a completely different scenario. Most consoles are sold at a loss, and they make money on games and peripherals.

Toys don't have natural add-ons and peripherals.

 

The obvious solution is to turn our backs on Generations figures and buy Cyberverse. Hasbro will get the drift, lower the price to $15 and everything will now be warrior class style figures.

Seriously, though, there are alternatives to the Generations price point. Cyberverse is one. Evergreen is another. If $23 for a deluxe figure is too much, there ARE those alternatives...that's what those are there for. The $10 Evergreen Megatron is surprisingly fun to play with, even if he looks weird.

 

I don't care. Large corporations do in fact swallow costs on things sometimes.

 

The article doesn't really make it explicit. The previous price increases have already been going to effect here and there. They don't really mention in direct detail the bad reports out of China in the last 2 weeks and whether this news has anything to do with it.

The "she" is CFO Deb Thomas. She is quoted as saying:

"As Brian mentioned, we're implementing price increases during the third quarter that should be fully realized by the fourth quarter. We expect this to offset the rising cost of freight and commodities we continue to see across the business."

 

What?

 

I do need to get back into that hobby soon. RG Wing TV and RG Hi Nu look fantastic.

 

Inflation is at the highest level its been in decades and price increases are happening in every sector. I'm not sure why this still surprises people when it happens every few voting cycles.

 

It goes hand in hand with extreme government spending. We are only just starting to feel that inflation now. Wait til December/quarter 1 2022 for the increase from 2021's spending.

 

Yeah - nice belief but no. The only thing that will impact Hasbro is Retailers refusing to purchase the product. Consumers have very little say these days, other than killing a product line by refusing to purchase it at retail. If Wal-mart & Target say no, maybe they will negotiate. other than that - sorry price redux will not happen. I would not be surprised if Inflation drives them to 35 by end of 2022 based on the influence of government spending not yet factored in from 2021. These are part of a global economy. Watch for more data about global spending & oil prices. You will have a better guess there where prices will end up.

If food portions are right now dropping 25%, but remaining the current price, expect about the same or much worse ultimately. My ice cream has dropped from 16 ounces to 12 ounces. Suspect it's gonna spread.

 

Absolutely, they do sometimes. As long as they can mitigate those losses elsewhere, which is what I pointed out in your example.

If they swallow the cost on their entire product line, that means they're going to cut budget elsewhere.

I agree that they could just do it and take a smaller profit, but the reality is that it is extremely unlikely.

 

That's exactly what I'm saying. Generations would be reinvented to a dumbed down product when sales plummet. The only way to get cheaper prices on current product is to either not buy it and push it into clearance pricing or hope Walmart purchases a pallet drop offer where product is shipped in display format in mass quantities. The former will kill off the line, of which one would hope Hasbro would reassess and reinvent the line to come in at a cheaper price point. The latter won't impact the greater picture but it does mess with distribution, making some figures easier to find but logjamming the current waves at the cost of future waves that may not end up seeing shelf time (see Titans Return).

 

Absolutely an apples and oranges comparison. Consoles are sold at a loss because they want people in their ecosystem. They want to sell you games, subscriptions and peripherals -- all of which outweigh any loss they incur on the console itself.