Adding in UltraMarginal's point from the News threads, as it holds value for this discussion.
Originally Posted by UltraMarginal
I never put much stock in these sorts of listings as they are often fuelled by popularity or promotional advertising in some way.
Regarding Hasbro's pricing structure though. I have noticed in the podcasts I listen to that deluxe pricing in the US has gone up with prices approaching $15 now in some cases. while at the same time, if you shop carefully here you can deluxes for as little as $23 which while it's not equivalent it's much better than 5 years ago when a deluxe was $8 to $10 in the US and $28 - $30 here.
Keeping in mind the horendous import duties here and the scale differences in the two markets, it's not as bad as it could be. I think we have seen a change in the retail prices here, especially with the Deluxe toys. Whether that's a reflection of a change in Hasbro's wholesale prices or something else is anyone's guess.
Either way, I'd recommend against putting too much stock in a report by a company who's business is to create lists to be included in media to make it sell better so the advertising in the media is worth more.
US prices have been increasing much more, relative to the increases we have recieved over hear. Looking long term, we have had a (roughly) 15% increase in TF prices in the last 10 years, whereas US pricing has increased by (again roughly) 30%. So we are seeing some savings passed on to us.
I really only began collecting with RID, and more intensively with Armada/Energon, but do not feel that (speaking in the long term) that the extra $4-5 that we are being asked to spend per figure is too much.
Speaking outside of direct price V exchange rate comparisons, there is also an economic argument for the higher prices we see.
The Australian market is smaller than the US market. Therefore we receive less toys. Economics of scale indicates that there are certain overheads that need to be paid no matter the size of the order. Therefore smaller batches recieve higher costs per item than larger batches would. In the case of shipping, each shipment to Australia would have similar costs to shipments to the US, however this needs to be spread over fewer figures - effectively an extra 50c or dollar per figure.
Economics of scale also then affect the wholesale price, in that a project will require a minimum turnover to be viable. The US buys many more TF figures, so it's viable to sell them at a much lower price. The AU market does not buy as many figures, so it's not viable to sell the figures to the Australian market at the same price as they are sold to the US market.
I'm not necessarily supporting the practise but, like Prowl, I'm simply trying to show that there is a lot more at play than what we perceive as corporate greed.
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