[Trivial Psychic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

I personally think what we've seen the last 6 or so years has been a much needed "market correction" spurred by changing retail habits and increasing costs in China.
For a while, toy companies were able to reach a point where they were able to provide a "collector friendly" toy at mass market/kid prices. And we all loved being able to get a super articulated 3.75 figure for $6-7.

But the big things I saw was that over that period of time, we saw action figure space (already smaller than the 90s) reach some of the lowest shelf space I've seen in my lifetime. A big part of that was the surge of costs we saw around 2009 caused, IMO, by two big factors:
1. Retailers (like Walmart) stopped treating toys as loss leaders. Toy prices were kept artificially low for DECADES by stores taking little or no real profit on toys to drive people to their stores (I remember GI Joe in 2007 saw a 30% undercut across the ENTIRE range at Walmart). Around 2009, that stopped, so that Transformers deluxe that Walmart bought for $8 and sold for $10? Well, now they wanted a healthier margin so the price kicked up to $13, which was also fueled by..
2. MASSIVE increases in production costs in China. Hasbro stated back in 2013 that the average increase PER YEAR of production costs was 20%. And since Hasbro still wants to make money, that cost got passed along to retailers who, wanting to keep their margins, passed that along to the consumer.
The increases of labor have gotten to the point Hasbro has shifted a LOT of their manufacturing to Vietnam (pretty much all of Transformers Combiner Wars is produced there instead of China.

I agree with you 100% here. I remember my local Walmarts DRASTICALLY cutting the prices of G.I.Joe merch back in 2007. It helped me pad my collection sure, but I can't imagine that it helped Walmart very much economics wise. Very well stated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

I see similar thing in action figures where toy companies doubled down on collectors, only see retail space shrink and costs continue to go up. And now we're seeing that issue addressed with a much greater emphasis on cheap toys that kids can actually buy.

Because remember, many of the toys we had growing up were just cheap toys we happened to make an attachment to, and were often sold to us by branding and gimmicks than screen accuracy or articulation.

This was another thing that stuck out my mind when I was making my previous post, but I didn't know how to exactly address so I left out.

Say what you will about the greatness of toys (action figures in particular) in the 90's and 2000's but as I walked around the toy show I went to today, I found myself looking back in hindsight at how ridiculous some of the offerings that I would chase down back in the day were, as they often looked like this...(and these are two of the actual toys that I saw today that caused me to think back a little...)

...or this...

That Sentinel gimmick hand thing was nearly bigger than Jubilee, would probably only work a few times, and in the long run was going to be tossed aside, leaving me with a 5 POA figure that could barely stand on it's own, and due to it's sculpt, couldn't really be posed in anything other than the pose it arrived in. And while the Blade figure was a ton better than Jubilee in terms of articulation and likeness, they still managed to package him with a huge gimmick weapon that he could barely hold as a selling point. As I pointed this out to a friend today at the show, I found myself laughing at how ridiculous it was, because now I was looking back in hindsight as to what did I really purchase...Blade....or the ridiculous rocket launcher?

Branding and gimmicks.

Sorry if I'm a bit disjointed in my presentation, but again...very well put.