Shelfwarmers? Who's fault is it? Discussion

[Mechbiter]

I think it'd be interesting to find out what kids realy do think about the TFs on the shelf. Anyone have a nephew or something they could take shopping one week so they could see how an average 8 to 10 y/o would react?

[GoktimusPrime]

I personally think the asking price on these was just too high, yes they are targeted at collectors, but seriously, they didn't cost that much 20 years ago, and given that manufacturing techniques have improved soooo much, the enjoyment value of a re-issue sky lynx, next to a brand new classics deluxe at a quarter or less of the price, is questionable.

Remember that TakaraTOMY manufactures their reissues in limited production runs because it's targetted at a niche adult collector market. Hasbro on the other hand aren't as discerning with the marketing of their reissues (hence why they're subject to contemporary child safety laws and many of their reissues had to be modified accordingly)

The first I saw of the hasbro/takara re-issues was a hot rod for $25 in a TRU, I snapped it up without even thinking twice. later I saw others, skids, Inferno, around the $60 - $70 mark, just un-justifiable. I bought Metroplex and Omega Supreme through BBTS but only on a massive clearance sale.

Hot Rod was exceptionally well priced in Australia, but otherwise TRU Hasbro G1 reissues in Australia were mostly overpriced (just like MP Ghost Starscream!). Takara's TFC Skids and Inferno reissues sold at 3000JPY RRP each (approx. $34). You could go to an Australian import store and purchase Japanese reissues at the same price as what Hasbro's reissues were selling for at TRU!! Of course we know that imports are always expensive here because of all the import taxes, duties, levies etc. that the Australian gov't slaps on it -- but the Hasbro reissues were locally released... there was no excuse for them to be that expensive other than TRU just wanting to charge high prices for them. So 'sif you wouldn't just import a Takara reissue -- particularly with group orders reducing individual cost of shipping, it worked out to be CHEAPER than buying local Hasbro versions at TRU here! And of course Takara's reissues weren't modified for the sake of child safety (e.g. newtered launchers, over-lengthened missiles etc.) or for the sake of being cheap (e.g. lack of chrome).

Encore Omega Supreme retailed for 10,000JPY ($113) and Metroplex for 7000JPY ($79) - but some things that made them more expensive for Aussies were:
1: Size. With smaller toys you can order them in bulk and have them shipped together in a big box. With these figures, you could fit maybe one or two toys in a large box, and that was it. So it was harder to save on postage with group orders.
2: The Aussie dollar took a spectacular nosedive (after floating really high for about 0.98USD for ages) around the time that Metroplex came. Hoo boy, I remember this well as my wallet took a good pounding. But that's just bad luck with the exchange rate (just as we're all now experiencing good fortune with the really strong AUD atm ).

But for the domestic market in Japan, I think these toys were reasonably priced. Also remember that technically they're not reissues in Japan as Japan never got Omega Supreme or Sky Lynx during G1. So you'd think a lot of Japanese adult collectors would've scooped up these characters who appeared in the G1 cartoon but never had toys for... but alas, not enough ...

Honestly I think all these products suffered first and foremost, by just looking crap. regardless of whatever reasons were given, or how well the idea "fit the movie" A monkey devastator and ravage that transforms into a ball, are just not cool. What parent is going to buy a crazy robot monkey, or strange HR Gieger inspired dog, when right next to that is a really cool dumptruck, or audi, or ice cream truck at a fifth of the price. These three are just unfortunate by products of the difficulty of transposing some of the movie designs to toys.

I dunno... a lot of other movie toys sell quite well even with movie aesthetics. Only a select number of toys are shelf warming; it's not as if the entire movie line is shelfwarming like say, Transformers Animorphs.

I think repaints of certain figures is a good idea, especially since for HasTak, it's making the most of a mold. they could quickly get to the piont on repaints, where it's OK if stuff goes for a relly low price as they paid for design and production on the first paint scheme and every cent is pure profit. I do agree though that certain figures would sell better, if just re-released, ie Jazz and tracks, while others like all the iterations of ravage from rotf, could have been totally skipped.

The idea of repaints itself isn't necessarily bad... it's just these "pointless" repaints which don't hold much appeal to the market that shelf warms (e.g. Ravages).

Don't forget, products don't have to move the day after they are shelved. We see things we are desperate for moving from shelves, and we grab stuff as soon as we see it, but parents are only going to buy for birthdays and Christmas. which means apart from christmas and mid year sales, there is a general lull on shelves through the rest of the year.

Yeah, for carded toys I think 1 year is a reasonable shelf life, whereas box toys maybe 2 years. Any much longer than that then they're pretty much shelf-warmers.

Machine Wars, Transformers Animorphs, Supreme Cheetor etc. -- these toys all lingered on shelves for years.

I think it'd be interesting to find out what kids realy do think about the TFs on the shelf. Anyone have a nephew or something they could take shopping one week so they could see how an average 8 to 10 y/o would react?

Saintly has 2 sons (Legends Saintly and Mini-Con Saintly) whom he collects and plays Transformers with. Last time I saw them Legends Saintly was walking around playing with Voyager Class ROTF Optimus Prime quite happily. No need for fancy electronic gimmicks.

Just yesterday a 10 year old boy had a great time playing with my DOTM Sideswipe too (and helped me to discover a potential flaw with his mechtech gimmick which us overtly careful adult collectors may not have noticed).

[LordCyrusOmega]

I understand why there is more effort put into the more marketable characters but is this really needed?
My son just turned 10 and when it comes to transformers he just wants the ones that look cool or do cool stuff. He doesn't go hunting for Bumblebee, he much prefers characters like Jazz and Sideswipe (movieverse)
And when i was younger i really wanted Pretenders Skullgrin and Stranglehold even though these never features in western cartoons. I just thought they lookd cool.
Children want toys, not 50 different versions of Bumblebee

[Robzy]

The second that a new Transformer toy is announced or leaked, Hasbro have countless pages of Transfans writing on Seibertron, TFW2005, here, etc. saying whether they will buy a toy or whether it looks like crap. Merely reading those should be a good start for Hasbro to work out a sensible balance for case assortments.

common sense dictates that if 80% of people posting about a leaked toy say that it looks like utter poo then it is idiotic to put that toy more than one-to-a-case.

Perhaps, though, it's not just a decision based purely on what's hot and what's not. Take, for example, some of the figures that Mattel (esp Mattycollector) release. Some of them have to be released because there's no new money in the tooling budget (don't get me started). Similarly, others have to be released because they paid a lot of $$$ to get the toy tooled/sculpted in the first place, so they need to recoup. Maybe this is the reason we see crappy Hasbro figs released in high volumes? Of course, maybe I'm wrong. But it seems feasible that most of the decisions Hasbro make are based on the bottom line. Maybe it's just a case of Hasbro seeing that 'Movie Bumblebee' sold really well 2 years ago, so let's flood the market with more of the same and hope lightning strikes 58 times (I think Hollywood has this same business model).

So, yeah, while they may read the forums and see that a figure sucks in people's opinions, by then it may well be too late to stop the production process because of the dollars already spent (kinda like Alien³ ).

Then they would go "Oh the fans aren't that excited about the 7th ROTF Bumblebee repaint... Maybe we shouldn't flood the shelves with these... Maybe we should replace those figures in the cases with more of the Jazz and Tracks figures so the fans aren't forced to buy them elsewhere."

The whole point of this thread is that Hasbro doesn't have a clue.

I think you're both right in this case! Hasbro Australia in particular, don't have a clue. If anyone doubts the validity of this statement - go find someone who collects Star Wars figures! I know many (and I'm a casual one myself). The 'Jazz/Tracks' debacle happened around the same time that the 'Vintage ROTJ Star Wars figures' debacle did (seriously, check out what people at Mousedroid said about Hasbro at the time). Hasbro put it all down to quote/unquote "human error".

IMO, shelf warming is a result of a seller (retailer or production co) not knowing what their consumers want (product per price). Purely and simply, this is the reason! Plus... Supply should never exceed demand.

Excellent thread btw

[Mechbiter]

And when i was younger i really wanted Pretenders Skullgrin and Stranglehold even though these never features in western cartoons. I just thought they lookd cool.

Heh, when I was a kid I wanted any and every 'bad guy' I could get my hands on. Didn't matter what series it was from, as long at it was evil.

Because everyone knows... good is dumb.

[Hursticon]

Heh, when I was a kid I wanted any and every 'bad guy' I could get my hands on. Didn't matter what series it was from, as long at it was evil.

Because everyone knows... good is dumb.

The bad guys always looked a million times cooler anyway - I'm with you Mechbiter!

[GoktimusPrime]

Because everyone knows... good is dumb.

Spaceballs'd!!

I agree with LordCyrusOmega -- as a kid I just got toys that I thought were cool. Later on they'd appear in fiction and I'd be like, "Oh cool look, there's that toy I have!" -- but I wouldn't go get a toy just because it appeared in fiction. Heck, my favourite Star Wars toys when I was a wee lad were R5-D4 and the AT-AT Commander (General Veers)! Then whenever I'd watch Star Wars I'd be like, "Hey! There's that dude in grey armour I got! Hey, there's my droi--oh crap, he blew up..."

[LordCyrusOmega]

It seems to me that the toys aren't even being that well distributed. New stuff isn't being released in the Illawarra and the only store that i've seen with serious shlefwarming is Uncle Petes. The displays in the other stores are actually getting a lot smaller, as if no-one is stocking Transformers at the moment.
Uncle Petes still have toys dating back to Galaxy Force. It's pretty special. In other stores the Animated voyagers are shelfwarming. I think this was a tactical error on Hasbros part cause if they'd released them when Animated was still running they would have sold themselves. Kids have short memories and a toy they may have loved when a series was on is quickly forgotten once something new began.
Shelfwarming could also be avoided if Hasbro stopped reinventing the line every couple of months.

[Dkaris]

Think of it this way, if you didnt have shelf warmers then there would be nothing making the better figures seem better. I cant see how you can blame retailers and buyers for shelfwarming, Stock comes in case assortments. Blame Hasblo for not sending more of the popular figures and less of the shitty ones.

[GoktimusPrime]

Think of it this way, if you didnt have shelf warmers then there would be nothing making the better figures seem better.

A good toy will sell under its own merit - regardless of whether other toys around it are good or not.