I think Scott Nite-Lite was partially right, Origins isn’t working at brick n’ mortar but it is working with etailers. BBTS is obviously moving enough and Target, Walmart and Amazon are probably doing enough to make it worth it. Scott underestimated the online sales team and adult collector demand. But he was right about crossover sales to kids, I don’t see that happening this is an adult collector line. Origins has gone on way longer than I ever would have guessed or believed my hat is off to Mattel for embracing the collector market especially with the vehicles.
Stepped into an Ollie's for the first time ever and saw a huge chunk of shelf space devoted to Origins! Nothing remarkable or anything I needed, just a bunch of $20 Wind Raiders, Battle Cats, and Panthors, but neat. Interest was more piqued by the sheer number of $10 Eye Guys from Power Rangers there but I stayed strong and bought no toys that visit. Catching up on the various random reveals, some neat (and sad, poor entrance) reveals, only a couple I'd go for, pretty cool. Not particularly interested in Axel's unique stuff but good to answer the question of that unknown identity, lol at Spectormobile, fuck that thing.
I mean, "dead at retail aside from the two largest specialty online action figure sellers plus Walmart, Target, and Amazon" isn't really "dead at retail", is it? If so, the top 10 action figure lines, Barbie, and just about everything is "dead at retail".
Did you mean that the big retailers will continue to sell them online? I mean, I've seen Hiss and Thunderpunch He-Man in stores. I've seen restocks of wave 2 in the last month at Targets (which quickly sold out). The majority of Walmarts and Targets near me still have sections for Origins, with pegs full of wave 7 or 9. I feel like it's unlikely to end at physical retail. We're just in a situation similar to G.I. Joe Classified where they've had Snake Eyes movie figures clogging most of the pegs at most stores for 2 years, which forces us to buy online until they finally clearance them. The big breakthrough I've seen with Classified has been the retro carded figures Target exclusives, and vehicles/deluxe figures, which actually DO get stocked (alongside the pegwarmers) because they have new SKUs, while retailers are apparently content to let 2 year old figures collect dust, blocking new releases. IMHO, the best thing Mattel could do would be to introduce a new SKU that takes up a peg. Maybe a new class halfway between basic and deluxe that tosses in spare hands and extra weapons (maybe doling out pieces of the Weapons Pak). And make it 6 figures per wave, including some plused up reissues of more popular characters from early waves along with new figures. As I see it, what got those deluxes clearanced so hard was having 2 figures per case, which meant you'd get a peg filled with two figures -- and way too many of each variety. And the problem again with some of those pegwarmers in the basic SKU was that they'd get lots of pegs devoted to just 4 figures. Think of it this way: in an ideal scenario, you get someone who comes in and buys one of everything. And you have several of these customers per store. If you have 2 pegs devoted to deluxes and 4 pegs devoted to basics, with maybe 8 figure deep pegs... That's 8 customers you need per store, per stocking cycle. At around 7k combined Walmarts and Targets, that's around 56k customers for every shelf restock (of which a wave would ideally get one full restock, assuming a full peg is supposed to last 6 weeks, which it is according to Neitlich and I actually trust him on that). 4 waves a year means each wave should sell out once and get restocked once. That's in addition to all online sales from all sources. So with 2 deluxes per wave and 4 basics, you need 56k customers to come in and buy you out every 6 weeks or essentially 112k units a year (since every wave should be selling through twice at every store). Obviously, you actually need more than that for every customer who buys just part of a wave. Now... If you condensed that all down to a new, single SKU with 6 varieties per wave and 3 pegs at 8 per peg... You'd only need 4 average "full wave" customers per store, per 6 weeks. Part of it is smaller sections (which we're getting anyway). Part of it is the more figures you have in an assortment, the better your odds are of selling through. When a full peg has 2 figures on it, it takes a LOT to sell through. When a peg has 6 figures on it, it has a better chance at selling through with fewer customers needed. But to even get stocked, you need a new SKU for the new product. Like I say, the Classified stuff that is getting stocked doesn't share a SKU with the Snake Eyes figures. Anything that does share that SKU is only getting stocked at high volume stores or stores that clearanced the Snake Eyes figures. But once you manage to reassign a few pegs to the new SKU, IMHO, you need less duplication of the same 2 or 4 figures in a wave. And I think the cost-effective way to do 6 figures per quarter while still introducing new stuff at the same rate Mattel has been trying to is to shift to something like: Wave 1: 4 new figures, 2 reissues Wave 2: 6 new figures Wave 3: 4 new figures, 2 reissues Wave 4: 6 new figures That gets you 20 new figures a year (what we're getting between basic and deluxe right now). That gets you 6 figure varieties per assortment, which should sell through easier. I think what makes the most sense is essentially to bump everything up to what a deluxe is now (with whatever extra hands/heads/weapons/gimmicks it takes to justify that, including giving the reissues things like added hands, weapons, heads or paint apps) but give it a new SKU that takes over 3 pegs from every Origins section. So, for example, when you reissue Faker, maybe you give him a full set of at least two alternate hands for both hands in addition to the ones on the figure, the Battle Damaged He-Man head with the screaming face, and the shield. When you reissue Man-E-Faces, you can't do the alternate heads easily but you can give him alternate hands and the vintage Man-e-Weapons weapons (ie. the 5 extra maroon weapons some vintage Man-e-Faces included) and maybe something else. Maybe She-Ra gets a full set of hands, an alternate mask/tiara, and Kowl. Another advantage of bumping everything up to deluxe is that deluxes have a bigger tooling budget, seemingly, so you can get a bit more aggressive about actually doing 4 new characters per wave without needing to do color variations at retail. And if there are color variations worth doing, you can shift those to store exclusives or Mattel Creations.
It's not easy being green... It is for us. Fangor's sword is two toned, something only seen on deluxe Origins figures. Lodar's mace is way too big for a core figure. Hawke, please be real... Really I want them all to be real but I looked at the calendar and remembered the Gwildor rumor from last year.
Well, Fangor is Axel’s, Lodar is from the mini comics Hawke is from Filmation But those are most definitely Classics and a mock-up of Lodar This is from the Brazilians they are pretty accurate
What is the point of such awful images if they’re not of the actual product? Like the last time there was an image like this it used the Man-E test shot literally shown off days before but pixelated it the same way.
Weren't these the same guys that said Gwildor was coming? The rest of what they said last April 1st turned out to be real they just snuck one "joke" in, maybe most of this is real but one is their April fool's prank?
I'd like to say I don't feel so bad about the mess of my collection after seeing that. Well, I'd like to, anyway.
