Transformers retail prices in 2012 unchanged despite exchange rate

[griffin]

I was thinking that with all the factors in play, we need to visualise this, using the Deluxe Class as an example...



Note though, that it isn't just Hasbro not passing on savings of the exchange rate - it is just easiest to show the cost breakdown of the Deluxe size-class.
And our Wholesale price has the added component of funneling commission to the American Companies, who are already getting profit from their own domestic sales to pay for R&D, staffing, shareholders and future projects.

But Retailers are parties to the "offence" of either being negligent in not chasing up savings (by doing research on what items should be costing them) or intentionally accepting the higher prices to keep the higher profit margin (the margin between wholesale and retail is often about 40%, so smaller wholesale/retail prices means smaller margin per unit).
I'd never expect these multi-national corporations to give us a fair deal with pricing, but looking at the cost breakdown above, can you see why I'm so passionately upset about how much we are being shafted here.

(I'll move these into a new topic, as my posts are taking this one off-topic)

[Golden Phoenix]

Where have you gotten the figures from? Also, where do you think the overhead costs fit into it?

[griffin]

Figures are from...

Retail prices are known.
Tax rates are known.
Wholesale price is either known (here from 2 years ago) or calculated (US, based on the fairly standard ratio distributors have as their RRP from their Wholesale price). I've imported as a wholesaler in the past, and have also seen domestic prices from various sources.

The wholesale price was only broken up into three components (actual cost to Hasbro at the Factory (blue), the cost for Hasbro to get the product from the Factory to each country (green), and profit from what they then sell them to the retailers for (yellow)) to show that the first two factors are the same for Australia and for America, leaving the variable I'm trying to highlight (Hasbro's profit per figure) as being the big difference between the two countries.
Hasbro are never going to come out and say exactly what the cost breakdown is, and I had to utilise figures revealed on that recent Hasbro Factory article (which included a document that showed us that the production cost to Hasbro at the factory is 20.14% of the RRP before tax in America). But since the total cost of the blue and green are essentially the same for US and Australia, the yellow blocks are the only variable... keeping in mind that the Yellow block had to be enough to cover "R&D, staffing, shareholders and future projects, etc", based on how cheaply we now know they produce the toys now in the factories.

Basically, we know enough of the factors to extrapolate approximate values and even eliminate elements claimed to be factors. But unless Hasbro comes out with official figures (which they wont), this is about as much as we know from what has been leaked or revealed.

If it was just a small margin of difference, I wouldn't be so obsessed about highlighting this. But we have years of Hasbro US getting rich off the weakening US$, by not passing on savings to non-US markets.

Can you think of any other cost elements that could make our prices so significantly higher than America? If I've missed some variable between the two countries, I'll fix up the figures.


(IMO though, theoretically it shouldn't be cheaper to express post the exact same items from the other side of the world, than what it costs here domestically... when we know that the unavoidable price factors aren't much different between the two countries)

[GoktimusPrime]

So it seems that $18 is the min. price that retailers ought to be charging? I feel a bit better now paying $15 for Deluxe DOTM Optimus Prime at Big W But of course, not so good for all the number of times I've paid $30 for so many other Deluxes. :/

$25 seems an okay price to pay - it's outside of that "cheapest retail" range and on the lower end of "high end retail". Big W's slated $23.88 RRP for TFP Deluxes doesn't seem too bad either considering (it would place it on the upper end of "cheapest retail"). I'd be curious to see how this comparison would look for Voyagers and Leaders as I suspect that it is in these larger classes that we're getting more seriously ripped.

[griffin]

Those $15 store exclusive Movie deluxes proved that non-US branches can have the US prices passed onto us fairly, but the mainline stuff is just too profitable to discount if consumers are willing to keep buying them.

And recent downsizing of the main size-classes makes it even more annoying, as it feels like we are paying more for less.

[Accel]

do we have the prices for each size class from now back through to Armada to compare the last 10 years?

[griffin]

Demonac found this topic on another Australian fan-forum, showing that it isn't just Hasbro or Transformers - this is an epidemic of the toy industry by the major toy companies profiteering off the exchange rate. But it seems there is no way to force a correction, as toys aren't seen as important enough for people to know or care about their value.

[Paulbot]

do we have the prices for each size class from now back through to Armada to compare the last 10 years?

Yes, Griffin's archive includes prices. Over the last 10 years the price for the deluxe price point has stayed around the same.

[griffin]

So it seems that $18 is the min. price that retailers ought to be charging? I feel a bit better now paying $15 for Deluxe DOTM Optimus Prime at Big W But of course, not so good for all the number of times I've paid $30 for so many other Deluxes. :/

$25 seems an okay price to pay - it's outside of that "cheapest retail" range and on the lower end of "high end retail". Big W's slated $23.88 RRP for TFP Deluxes doesn't seem too bad either considering (it would place it on the upper end of "cheapest retail"). I'd be curious to see how this comparison would look for Voyagers and Leaders as I suspect that it is in these larger classes that we're getting more seriously ripped.

Just like the other colour bars, the red and pink are not indicating price ranges, the end of each bar indicates a set figure... as in the cheapest price (AU$24 & US$12.50) and most expensive price (AU$30 & US$15).
The pink bar would effectively be "the retail price range" - so between $24 to $30 is what we get here.

[jazzcomp]

Should be more than $30 if you include DJ/Myer...