Some more 'minor' changes.

[griffin]

Had to remove and edit 4 posts here, because a certain member of this forum had asked me not to have his place of employment made public. Many would now know, because it was here for 6 hours, but this just prevents anyone else from seeing it. It wasn't Robzy's fault for posting it, if that other person didn't mention it to him at the meeting.

hmmmm kinda like doing a deal with the devil i kid i kid
so one day, maybe the other toy line sections will be gone? If no interest from say LEGO is garnered

Yes. If the other sections end up being like the Damn Toys forum, and just don't have any interest, I won't spin off a separate website and forum, and just integrate them back into the one 'non-TFs toy' section.

If on the other hand it's support grows overwhelmingly, it will be split off quickly. So the more popular it is, the faster we can get it out of the TFs forum.

Sounds interesting!

Hope it's still cool to promote stuff from toy companies other than Hasbro... Mattel for example!

That's kinda the point. If a rival company gets onboard with the Toy Collector website, Hasbro will either compete by utilising it as well, or cut all ties to prevent any leakage of info to their rival. Since we have very little tying us to Hasbro at the moment, and the Q&A thing seems to have lost its momentum and interest, it wouldn't be a huge step backwards if that happened. We existed and grew over the 4 odd years they had us blacklisted, so that sort of thing doesn't worry me.

The problem I will anticipate at first will be, most of the bigger toy companies won't be too keen to get involved in a website that leads back to a forum for a Hasbro product (the non-TFs sections are still part of a TFs forum). When I can get it split off (if it has enough 'legs' to stand on its own), the other toy companies will be more inclined to work with a more nuetral website.

It will be a balancing act, but I'll only do whatever won't jeopardise the continued existance of the TFs forum.

[iceburn]

It will be a balancing act, but I'll only do whatever won't jeopardise the continued existance of the TFs forum.

Total support.....

[sanbot]

Sounds like a rather innovative idea!

I was wondering though, is it really necessary to have Hasbro's other toy lines "promoted" through the website? Wouldn't it be enough for Hasbro that the website will generate further interest in their TF toyline if they get involved? I mean, my impression is that TF's arn't doing that great in Australia compared to other toys (from other companies), so for Hasbro to increase sales in TF's alone wouldn't that be incentive enough? And for their other toys, I would have thought Hasbro would much rather invest money into websites that specialise in individual toylines of theirs rather then a website that covers all their toylines? Or have I got it completely wrong? I must admit, I don't know the complete history of this website so correct me if my thoughts are off.

[griffin]

That'd only happen if Hasbro products were obviously different in the toy store to other distributors' products. One great selling toyline won't automatically have consumers looking for only their other product lines, and even if they did, how obvious is it to find other Hasbro products without looking for the Hasbro logo on the packaging?

Do any of us collectors know off hand all the Hasbro toy products currently available, or at least can pick which ones in the action figure aisle are Hasbro products without looking for the little 'Hasbro logo' on the packaging? As is the case with things like Batman and Marvel toys, the license changes hands all the time, so even if collectors knew who used to release a particular theme of toys, it may not be the same today.

So if Collectors of various toys aren't aware of all the other toylines, how would the general public know? It's the general public (kids and parents) that these toy companies get most of their sales from, so prioritising the collector niche market is misdirecting their resources. They interact with us collectors up to a point, and at the moment, it is only being done to help themselves keep us off their backs. To get them more involved, we need to give them what they want - access to the general public, so that their products are promoted directly to kids and parents.
If each of the main toylines had their own page to promote their new products, like most do with their own websites in America, people would know what Hasbro have just released, what Lego have just released, and what all the other major toy distributors are releasing, because it would be in their best interest to promote their products more than their competitors.

Just because the Transformers toyline or Star Wars is doing great, it won't flow onto other Hasbro products by the consumer, only by the retailer. So initially other Hasbro products will benefit from the first shipment to stores after ToyFair, but the consumers demand will drive the re-stocking for the rest of the year as they will be the ones buying what they want, or what is best value.

So one month a year (ToyFair) the toy companies can fool the retailers into thinking certain products are the ones consumers want, and we can spend the other 11 months a year, covering all the products, for the consumers to decide for themselves what they really want.
In theory anyway...

[sanbot]

You're right. I honestly have no idea about Hasbro's other toylines so knowing of their existance will largely be dependent on how well Hasbro can market it to the general public. I guess what I was inferring from my post was that the general public (parents and kids) probably wouldn't visit websites such as this to find out about their other toylines, maybe they'd just visit Hasbro's own website and other retailer websites?

So for them to get involved with this website, I just thought they would only think about it from the point of view of how it will benefit their TF sales.

[swoop]

Sorry i don't want to derail the thread or anything but why was ozformers blacklisted by hasbro?

[The_Damned]

sonds like you have some sort of evil genius plan to take over the online world of toy collecting for your own nefarious purposes griff

[loophole]

Why? What are we going to do tomorrow night?

Same thing we do every night, try to take over the online toy collecting community!!

[roller]

Why? What are we going to do tomorrow night?

Same thing we do every night, try to take over the online toy collecting community!!

The Griffin the Griffin and the dirge, dirge, dirge, dirge, dirge

[MV75]

Start some Nerf((R) to Hasbro) interest.

I have the nitefinder and ironman firefly.......

Also, any RC interest? Tamyia anyone?