I Used to Work at Reprolabels (Toyhax) AMA

Discussion in 'Transformers 3rd Party Discussion' started by Signal LancR, Jul 12, 2021.

  1. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    He has average sized hands, and that set still sells well today; better than other MP besides maybe G2 Sideswipe

    He REALLY loved the more dark and gruesome sets. He's done a lot of other projects like the Alternate Universe Optimus "Monster" set. He also had a penchant for monosyllabic names, like "King" for a combination of Earthrise Slitherfangs. Funnily enough, he had me pitch ideas for the names of those snakes (Sidewinder and Venomax) which wound up in Patriot Prime's YouTube review, but not in the final release.

    Whether or not a sticker makes it into a set could be one of several things. Chief among which, the is area won't accommodate a sticker (too small, stringy, or uneven), it has been axed in favour of price, or the manager just wasn't feeling it.

    Because the person applying the stamp to the envelope (formerly me) gets paid.

    Bingo. It's a drop point. Main office is in Canada. Prices are in USD to facilitate the sweeping majority of customers in the US
     
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  2. scuffed up rts bumblebee

    scuffed up rts bumblebee #Justice4Chopter Trench's#1Fan

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    Did you have a happy weekend yesterday?

    Does my father love me?

    Are there any stickers you recommend?
     
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  3. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    I had a lovely weekend, thank you. My wife made brownies :D 

    Yes, son.

    The Unicron Maw set was the first and last set I got to design. Honestly, it's a bit overwrought, but it was my magnum opus. The Cybertronian around his mouth says "The Pit awaits", to those curious.

    My favourites though are the Power Rangers Legacy sets. I had no involvement in them, but damn the Dragonzord looks good. For Transformers, I recommend Generations Wheeljack, Siege Magnus, and cassette blocks. It's a genius set, yet nobody buys it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2021
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  4. Starganderfish

    Starganderfish Well-Known Member

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    The one thing I really wished for Reprolabels was for them to produce waterslide or dry-rub decal sets instead of just the stickers. Even the vinyl stickers always looked cheap and nasty to me. I bought a couple of sets, put them on, stepped back and immediately pulled them off & binned them.
    Not sure why they've never tried to expand into better quality materials
     
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  5. Scurv

    Scurv Well-Known Member

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    I've noticed a big drop off on labels being made for third-party products, was this a decision management decided on?
     
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  6. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    Right there with you. We got asked about them all the time too. I asked about it, never got a straight answer, and it's a lot of money left on the table in my opinion.

    There was a huge backlog of toys in the office, a lot of which were third party, that kept getting delayed in favour of HasTak sets. The latest 3P set was for Kingzilla, and the set only came out last year, for context. I asked the manager about this. His stance was that symbol sheets were adequate. Again, money on the table

    When I worked in database management, I found an old 3P set that was inexplicably finished but never released. All they had to do was hit print, but a lot of things get overlooked; hence all the amendment sets. But to answer your question, no. There was no conscious effort to ignore third party products.
     
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  7. Thundershot

    Thundershot Ratchet Fanatic

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    This is before your time, but what was the reason they never made labels for Botcon exclusives? Was it because of a request from FunPub? Or just because they were so limited?
     
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  8. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    The owner is constantly trying to keep a balance of happy customers, financial success, and not getting sued.

    The SG symbols alone were a big risk in his eyes, and he only did them this year (coincidental timing with new toys). I could see him steering clear for that or their exclusivity. Keep in mind, however expensive the toy, it's a business expense to them (they WAY overpaid for HasLab Unicron without batting an eye), but there are only 1,500 copies of most Botcon toys produced. Subtract the collectors who keep their toys mint, in box, or just haven't heard of Reprolabels and there is practically no market for a set.
     
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  9. wreckgar39

    wreckgar39 I'm just a simple man, trying to make my way.

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    These are some spicy leaks I must say.

    Were there any sticker sets proposed, aside of Botcon, that were an outright no?
     
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  10. FiVE1ZERO

    FiVE1ZERO ***FT Screwdriver Collector ONLY.!***

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    Where do you see Reprolables/ToyHax in 5 years?
     
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  11. TickTockGoesTheClock

    TickTockGoesTheClock Dōmo arigatō, Mr Roboto.

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    Thanks for doing this first and foremost as your responses are really interesting!

    My question(s) are this, what caused the company to move into accessories outside of stickers (Guns n stuff) and was it a lack of sales that caused some sticker sets to "have" the gun thus raising the overall prices vs selling stickers and weapons separately?
     
  12. Oniconvoy

    Oniconvoy The other black repaint

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    Gotcha. Slept with the boss’ wife. Say no more.
     
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  13. mikequillm

    mikequillm Well-Endowed Member

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    Can't share everything? Is the sticker cartel going to come after u?
     
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  14. octobotimus

    octobotimus Bad company ruins good morals

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    why'd they randomly surge in price and completely obliterate sales?
     
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  15. KFGatri

    KFGatri Madman with a Blue Box

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    What .. is your quest?
    What ... is the mean flight speed of an unladen swallow?
     
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  16. hthrun

    hthrun Show accuracy's overrated

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    I've noticed the same with movie toys, is there a reason?

    How are they able to make Autobot and Decepticon labels while third party toys never have them?
     
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  17. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    None that come to mind. I'll edit this post if I think of any.

    Still releasing my work

    Sincerely, it's hard to say. I wouldn't expect any major changes. Their system works, so why change it? One thing that I loved about Reprolabels was their drive to push the envelope. Stuff like raised ink was mind-blowing to me, and I can't see them resting on their laurels creatively. That said, I'm sure they will be due for more discontinuations sooner or later.

    You'll notice they don't do that anymore. The Toyhax armoury was an initiative to give customers the option of getting upgrade parts and labels separate from one another. The last set that did that was Netflix Hotlink, if I'm not mistaken, which was only because it was a recolour of Siege Starscream. The boss was dead set on improving quality of the upgrade parts, and it shows. The first upgrade part, TR Galvatron's helmet, was sold with the label set because it was an unprecedented experiment. Now, there is demand for the parts on their own and the parts speak for themselves, quality-wise. So there you have it. Supply and demand at work.

    Talk about a...

    ...Sticky end
    CSI Yeah Won't be fooled again.jpg


    As for the price surge, I honestly don't know.
     
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  18. Signal LancR

    Signal LancR Bah weep gragnah

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    You'll notice the new SS Leadfoot set. Stay tuned.
    EDIT: Also, Movie sets are tricky because you have some fans who want total screen accuracy and others that want more colour or G1 referential design elements. It's a hard line to walk, but there are some interesting ideas in the pipeline.

    The same way third party companies make red & blue robot trucks called "Primorion" or "OP Leader"
     
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  19. Soundwave27

    Soundwave27 Decepticon

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    Whatever I buy there, the additional insignia labels seem to have been useful. I wonder why Toyhex recently gave up additional labels.
     
  20. Monari

    Monari Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for this. Have they ever considered partnering up with other 3rd party parts producers like Nonnef and expanding their product lines a bit more?