Quote Originally Posted by MV75
I'm just becoming too disgusted with the retail prices.
There's gonna come to a breaking point where importing becomes cheaper and many of us will opt for it.

Both liegeprime and I imported Henkei Inferno because we were unable to find Universe Inferno until yesterday at TRU. They were selling Universe Inferno for $50, which is pretty much what we paid for Henkei Inferno including postage. So in this case, we paid basically the same price for an import (with postage!!) compared to what we would've paid locally. That's stupid.

Once local retail prices exceed import prices, then why wouldn't you just import?

And it's not the first time it's happened either. Hasbro's G1 reissues here shelf-warmed for ages because they were so expensive that you could buy Japanese imports, from expensive import stores, for nearly the same price!! (and for cheaper if you just imported them yourself directly from Japan) As Takara's reissues were preferable to many collectors, most of us just imported them from Japan instead of getting them locally. Eventually the cost of Japanese reissues at import stores matched the standard price of local ones, then they became cheaper (again, in import stores!!). No wonder most of us opted for imports. The cost of Alternators here were also initially comparable with the cost of Binaltech too. I remember seeing Alternator Smokescreen in Kmart for approximately the same amount that I paid for my Binaltech Smokescreen from HLJ. (-_-)

We all remember Toys R Us massively slashing prices of G1 reissues and Alternators in a desperate attempt to flog off dead stock - as cheap as $25 for a reissue! And even then it was a slow process of seeing those toys getting sold off... I remember seeing them still shelf-warming for a while yet at those obscenely cheap prices. A sign that most collectors had just gotten Japanese reissues for a comparable price IMO.

Let your wallets do the talking!