[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MeLikeJinx

No Joes, no MU, people aren't really buying 3.75" Star Wars toys anymore (not like during the Clone Wars era anyway where everybody was buying every Clone Trooper they made). I wonder if their decision to move away from the 3.75" scale action figure helped or hurt them. Have no idea about Transformers though... if they are still popular or not.

GI Joe died because of lack of retailer support after Retaliation because there was no continuing media. Adding in how costs starting skyrocketing around retaliation and the size to cost ratio simply isn't there right now for consumers, and retailers want more cost effective product that'll move. With the rising costs on GI Joe (why we saw so much non-articulated or reduced articulation material in it) it wasn't moving the volume it was. If they can bring it back at a reasonable cost though, thanks to the rest, it could do really well right now. Assuming they can match Playmates style costs at least. They go above that, and the consumer will turn to the bigger material at the same price.

Star Wars is at slowed point right now in the market, it happens. They go through ups and downs there quite often. Similar happened back during the prequels too, and then the slow down, then a boom again. It happens. With rising costs and people having less money to spend right now isn't helping much either.

Once costs can get under control, a lot of that can be fixed. This is one of the reasons Playmates is doing mostly okay right now. For cost to what you get, their material is pretty reasonable. How TMNT has managed to stay under 10 USD has really been a great thing for them. If Hasbro can do the same for 1:18th offerings, that'll increase sales to a large extent. Cost is what's driving consumers away though is still keeping the Legends within threshold for expectancy.

Depending on what the new price marks for transformers do, we should see some decent returns there, but until 1:18th can get back closer to that 10 USD mark, it's not consumer cost efficient. We see it in how the market is still here as Jurassic World showed, but Jurassic World also had a lower price point that really pushed it forward better.

That's the hiccup on things right now overall. Cost to quantity in a market that's getting more cautious about the money they spend. Play value has to be there, or if it's a higher marked purchase the consumer wants more from their money, which is why Legends 6" is doing okay, and other bigger lines, as well as Transformers that's essentially a 2+ in 1 toy. As people get more cautious what they spend and on what, higher prices outside of select markets is a line death sentence.

The other problem is smaller figures are prone to shoplifters. So protected packaging is a must as well, and finding a way to better prevent that. It's a whole mixed bag of issues to juggle.

The old phrase goes that a consumer walks into a store with an extra 20USD to spend. Now it's more like an extra 10USD or 5USD that's allotted for impulse purchases.