Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
I'm hoping that Hasbro America comes to it's senses and allocates stock to other countries, including ours, but the massive size of this toy would never be profitable to Hasbro if they tried to sell it through retailers and online stores just to get the production numbers up.

With Hasbro selling these, it cuts the price by about 35-40% as retailers and online stores mark up by the usual* 50-60% (or more to cover the risk of a more expensive item)... plus the extra expense of shipping to the retailer/online store from Hasbro, before it is then shipped to the customers.
(the "usual" 50-60% markup is taken from wholesale price listings I have been sent in the past, which follows most retailing markups, having the wholesale price being a little under 2-3rds of the retail price)

As such, a US$575 toy from Hasbro would need to be sold to retailers and online stores for less than US$345 (which would include shipping to the retailers, as the US$575 price includes shipping to customers from Hasbro). So for online stores to sell one and add on shipping to their customer, it would need to be even cheaper than US$345 from Hasbro to come to less than US$575 (including shipping) from an online store. And to get to a cheaper price at retail or online store, you just have see that Hasbro would have to sell it for significantly less than US$345 in order for a retailer or online store to sell it for significantly less than US$575.
I think it would need to be at least half the current price for a significant number of people to buy it for a more general release, but then Hasbro probably wouldn't be able to produce it at a profit.
I imagine that these would be the things that their accountants would be working out beforehand, in order to determine what is a minimum price to make it profitable and then adjust the price up according to how many people would be expected to buy one - if their bosses say that they need to raise at least US$4.6 million before it goes ahead, and lets say that it would cost them at least US$400 per unit to produce to cover all expenses and minimum profit (this is not the actual figure, but I'm just using it as an example, based on MP-44 Optimus having an estimated US$260 wholesale price for it to be US$440 at Ent-Earth, and Unicron is a lot bigger), then they would have needed to sell 11,600 units at that price to raise the same amount. Maybe they assumed that number was too big a goal to reach at that price, so reduced it down to a goal of 8,000 backers, which raises each unit to needing US$575 to make it happen.
(if my estimate for a wholesale price of US$260 for MP-44 is close, it would make it really unlikely that Hasbro could produce Unicron to sell to retailers for less than US$400, which would then mean a retail price of over US$600 - my guess is that people at Hasbro worked this out, and realised that to make it more affordable to fans, they would need to sell it themselves
Thank you for that explanation

Quote Originally Posted by Sinnertwin View Post
BBTS have also opened up their preorders for him at $775.
I expect other stores to jump aboard soon to boost backing.
Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
Obviously for those outside america, or those in america who miss the cut off... but the hasbro pulse site says limit of 5 which seems stupid for preventing online stores from buying up a heap to then sell off with a payment plan... which I'd go for if it wasn't too much more.
Yes if only there was a lay-by option with the online retailers where you could pay off a certain amount each month. I can't justify shelling out so much in one go but if I could pay off $100 a month then I could swing it. I wonder if BBTS would be open to the proposition.