Now to get those Hasbro and Takara Fanboys and their pre-orders sorted!

D'Oh!

 

 

It's a good move, hopefully other retailers will follow suit and the whole 3P scene will find its own level in terms of pricing and weeding out the chaff. By the time you get toys in stock, there will be genuine fan reviews, other people will also have them and we can make an informed decision on what we buy. Rather than us, and your good self, having to shell out cash on a pencil sketch with no guarantees of quality, release dates, final pricing or the reputation of the company producing them. Plus, you get a good night's sleep.

 

Last nights sleep was a good one  

Its a massive smelly mess which is threatening to eat itself, there aren't any rules and that really is the main problem and highlights a genuine need for some control. Don't get me wrong I'll still be buying and selling stuff from 3p companies but the focus will go back on the official stuff, Hasbro, Takara, Star Wars which is ramping up again etc.

Reading some of the comments and emails its quite eye opening, most think its the right thing to do, others think its going to be our doom, one thing I can say is that if we stick with this stuff that will genuinely be the beginning of the end for us, not the other way round, sales are genuinely dwindling, BBTS is controlling the market on an epic level and bullying a lot of the companies into exclusives which in turn sometimes kills them flat out from the beginning.

Its time to be flat out honest about this stuff and I'm beyond caring what some of the companies think or feel so here goes

At £290 per unit for Utopia we make £20 when all is said and done.

As you can see its not worth the time or effort if you play by the rules, the money is better off elsewhere if I want to keep the balance sheet healthy and the company alive, its time to let others fight it out for nothing but the prestige of selling this stuff.

 

You had me at

Sounds gross, not surprised you don't want to deal with it  

 

Mate, that just does not seem worth it. I really hope this takes a lot of the stress off you, and makes work a heck of a lot better  

 

Sounds like a massive ball ache – think you’ve done the right thing

 

Glad you slept well, Andy! I think that largely, most people have been very supportive and understanding. The 3P scene has been a bit of a lawless goldrush and there's now too many companies vying for our attention.

Still, it's odd, you'd think it would be the 3P companies hounding retailers to carry their stock, not the other way around.

 

This has been coming for some time. It must be hard for retailers to try and stock everything that people want, but with 3rd party all it takes is qc problems or bad reviews and they are left with loads of stick that they have to sell with minimal profit.

Another sign was the FP headmasters. They sold otihinally at £65+. They had great reviews but Kapow still had to clearance them off at £50? That to me is a sign they had to order very large numbers which can't be sustainable.

Having got on really well with Ellis models before the first TF movie, they found that sales were not what the should be and had to leave tf's due to hasbro uk's ridiculous supply routes/costs, falling sales and the dip between films.

Andy has to simply do what is right for him, his health and the business.

Tf fans always want the cheapest and fastest which also doesn't help (does anyone really care how long you get a figure after release?), and ebay and dodging customs must also make an impact.

So many factors involved. Not a line of business I could work in.

Hope things go well Andy, will still support you where I can. Thank you for sharing the reasons why, I do think its important that people know the situation behind things. Not an easy choice I am sure.

 

Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.  

I think after all the stupidity evaporates (if it ever does) you'll be standing tall in the ruins....and it'll probably be down to Hastak, five 3P figure companies, and the usual weapons-and-new-heads-kit creators by then.

 

Fraudian slip eh? 'President instead of the President? So you've always wanted to be an American! You're the UKDT's very own Richard Hammond!

Re: Utopia... wow I figured the margins would be low, but not that low.

Hmm all this talk of preorders has me thinking what I have on preorder, MP Wheeljack, MP Bumblebee, a bunch of Generations Legends, OP and UM pens (Nemesis may get ordered... maybe) and most recently Utopia. That's around £500 worth of stuff!

Blimey... that one snuck up on me.

 

Just read your post after sending you an email. Absolutely not worth the hassle. It doesn't matter what it costs Maketoys to produce the figure. These overheads coupled with what you make are not just worth it, they are flat out dangerous! I was doing a few calculations and if you bought utopia at wholesale price and did not include anything else(tax vat and whatnot) say 300 pieces you would need to pay upfront 55000 pounds. With what you make it comes to 6000 pounds at 20 pounds per sale. That is absurd and you have a business to run! No. Do what you have to do. Eventually their overheads will be more than they can manage and they will come begging. I mean maketoys has like seven retailers in the world? Well if they keep this up they will have four then three and so on...let's see bbts save them. And even a business as large as bbts how many will they be able to afford to keep around? The rest will just sink. No it is the right decision. And i know that if i want something i can always pop you an email and you can sort me out in a nice and pleasant way.

 

I always wanted to be THE American.

And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!

 

New stuff from AE:
[email protected] x Transformers - Optimus Prime
[email protected] x Transformers - Megatron

 

When people say YT as a short hand for Youtube I don't think Youtube - I think of the Canadian TV channel that used to show Beast Machines and that was then uploaded to the internet in 1999 in a little postage stamp sized window.

 

I was gonna joke in the 3P forum about Hasbro merging their 'Year of the Combiner' with the inevitable 'Year of the Goat' into a giant combiner Goat, but the anti Hasbro Vitriol in that thread ('Hasblo sucks! 3P 4evar!') made me not bother.

3P super elitism... oooof. Everything bad about the fandom right there.

 

Ign.com have reviewed age of extinction. More of the same, which is fine by me, but I knew that bloated running time was going to be a problem.

Talking of Robot films, I finally caught the new Robocop the other day, and I'd have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. Definitely more reboot than remake, it's different enough to legitimise it's existence. It still makes sure to keep current social commentary running through the middle (though that's not exactly anything unique in this day and age), and the story is actually quite compelling. The guy playing robocop is great, but even 25 odd years on, the originals ED209 showdown remains on top.

Also, anyone got their scoria yet?

 

I run a small but successful-on-its-own-terms software business, and one thing I've had to get used to is the fact that there is a particular type of user who, instead of telling us about a certain feature they would find useful if we implemented it, finds it necessary to declare that EVERYBODY wants this particular feature that they want and that if we do not implement it we will be DOOMED because someone will come along and use their idea and then they will be the market leader and make millions... And so on. There are always people with no experience of your business who nevertheless think they know how to run your business better than you, in other words (which is usually by just doing the things they want).  

It's very annoying about BBTS. But maybe if a few more of the larger 3P retailers do the same as Kapow and limit their 3P stuff to companies that can be dealt with reliably, it might encourage more 3P companies to forge better links with the retailers that provide them their income... Here's hoping.

 

Thanks for the input, I will definitely come by and visit your shop =)

I will mostly be looking for generations or stuff from the prime line but I might pick up whatever that takes my fancy.

Forbidden planet is a must and so is Hamleys but I doubt they will have anything of real interest when it comes to Tfs.

Right as you are Sir, the Swedish Tf distrubution is severely lacking. Just yesterday I went around all the shops in my local county (five of them) to scout for Tfs and all I found were some AOE crap releases =(

 

So a figure the complexity of a scout, the size of a deluxe and it costs the same as a masterpiece.... ahahahahaha.....no.

 

Exactly.

My lad had his eye on these as he thought they were Mickey Mouse.
I was going to pick him one up but not at that price.