Or perhaps people just prefer to wait to the end to commit. I’ll say it, again, the Barge got more backers (122% to be exact) in its final 6 days than its first 35 days.

No need to speculate about buyer’s practices when there is actual data to refer to.

 

Good news everyone...

Looks like the official approach to opening up to retail via a direct distribution model has done it.

Latest info from TFS Express / Omegalock (2nd paragraph) implies the total is almost there albeit not added to the Hasbro pulse yet.

 

Saw this on the FB page earlier as well. Sounds like this deal is all but done.

 

guess all the chicken littles will have to find something else to worry about now

 

I still think it would help to see orders added in at the end of each week or so instead of the last day. If the counter was over 8000 all the FOMO would trickle in more orders...

At this rate it’s more of a “Sorry guys, looks like Christmas is cancelle...OMG KIDDING, IT WAS TOTALLY FUNDED A MONTH AGO!!”  

 

Agreed, it would be nice if this thing was a little more real time. Oh well, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out and what the final numbers will be.

 

It doesn't matter. Until the HasLab page actually says 8000 total, people will say this is failing.

Hell, even after it succeeds the conspiracy theorists will still say that it actually failed and Hasbro fudged the numbers to not look bad.

 

true

 

True, but from an etailer perspective it makes the most sense to just place one big order near the end than hundreds of individual orders throughout the month.

 

I just dont see the logic behind waiting until the last minute when everyones card is going to get charged on the same date. Get it over with. Especially in the event that maybe you dont have internet access on the last day for whatever reason. (Power outage, lost cell phone, lost credit card, or whatever) In all honesty I believe all the barges bought on the final days were BBTS and other big money online retailers/speculators swooping in to save the project from failing. Now those barges are all on ebay for double the price.

 

That's me!   I know I'm getting it (maybe two), and I have the money ready to go, but I'll likely wait until close to the end to put in my order. From other comments I've seen online, I think a lot of people will do the same.

 

I still stand by my criticisms of the figure and the sales model.

If they hadn't opened this up fully to retail through the Chinese sellers via direct distribution albeit still at full cost $575, which they have now done, then they wouldn't have hit the target. I'm very glad they listened and have.

Big Bad Toy store is simply adding the max margin buyers can stomach, covering their cash investment costs, hence the cost from them. The fact that BBTS are taking what sounds to be considerable sales volume shows that it's not the price but the immediate affordability/pay now get 18 months later of the TF market that was well misjudged. Especially as the USA market can buy direct from Hasbro $200 cheaper.

This is after all going after the same TF buyer's market who wait until Titans are on firesale sub $60-$100 and still have misgivings.

 

Damn! Good news and bad news. The good news is that in all likelihood, this will happen. The bad news is that the Unicron-counter in my signature is now moot.   I did notice that the number of backers went down from 2088 yesterday to 2083 today. Hmm...

 

I don't read Alan's English esponse as saying they're nearly up to the 8000.it could simply mean we're in the last 30 days of the campaign. It's too vague to draw any inference.

 

And why exactly is Hasbro giving inside info to some random retailer, and not the people funding it? I'm not buying that.

 

pretty sure their numbers relate to the cost of tooling up new molds to make it profitable for the company

Grand Max's mold was already done (for Fort Max) so there was no cost in building molds (except for the Pretender)

 

But hey, at least this is more real than the Zeta Unicron.

 

Hasblo thinks waiting until that last minute to get over 8,000 will sell more units, and they are right.

 

Whats the logic ? (No offense) If it hits 8000 your card gonna get charged the same day as mine and I backed it the first hour. Might as well git-r-dun. You never know what could go wrong at the last minute.

 

I think the pretender mold was created. They had a picture of one done in clear plastic. Could it have been 3D printed ? Maybe. But it looked so shiny, leading me to believe the mold was already made and it was supposed to be a repaint of the 3rd pretender with the dive mask that we never got but should have. Damn metalhawk took his spot.