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Star Trek - Reincarnated from the Genesis Planet!


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This response in the latest AskDST is troubling:

 

David E.: How has Diamond’s approach changed when deciding what will work and how to make Star Trek work in stores and do you foresee a time when Star Trek merchandise is more readily available worldwide rather than drip fed product we seem to be seeing from everyone besides Eaglemoss?

DSTChuck: What has changed in that time for DST is that brick and mortar chain stores no longer have any interest in Star Trek.

 

In other words, DST is content letting their Trek merchandise die with brick & mortar stores instead of moving to online retailers or developing the infrastructure to sell directly to consumers. With that kind of resolve, DST won't last much longer.

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On 3/18/2019 at 3:13 PM, MisterPL said:

This response in the latest AskDST is troubling:

 

David E.: How has Diamond’s approach changed when deciding what will work and how to make Star Trek work in stores and do you foresee a time when Star Trek merchandise is more readily available worldwide rather than drip fed product we seem to be seeing from everyone besides Eaglemoss?

DSTChuck: What has changed in that time for DST is that brick and mortar chain stores no longer have any interest in Star Trek.

 

In other words, DST is content letting their Trek merchandise die with brick & mortar stores instead of moving to online retailers or developing the infrastructure to sell directly to consumers. With that kind of resolve, DST won't last much longer.

That’s beyond disappointing but not surprised.

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I have no doubt that brick & mortar chains have no interest in DST's Star Trek offerings, not that there's much of it. I see MEGO Star Trek at Target. I see Mega Bloks Star Trek at Walmart. I see Funko Star Trek at FYE and Barnes & Noble and BAM.

After years of dumbing down action figures to poseable statues, the Kelvin Select figures are too little, too late. (One could even argue that the Kirk figure alone is too little. Or maybe Spock's too tall?) Ghostbusters is going on its second giant diorama with a fraction of the source material and Star Trek can't get one bridge or transporter room?

The last time DST offered Minimates to stores, they solicited a repackaged version of the same seven figures they'd already offered and justified it as an anniversary assortment. ?

The Legacy assortment was terrific but, again, it came too late and covered a lot of the same territory, safely going where DST had gone before. And while new fans were walking out of theaters after watching Chris Pine and Benedict Cumberbatch as Kirk and Khan, DST was trying to push Bill Shatner and Ricardo Montalban in the same roles. Terrible timing.

And the Trek Minimates offerings have been so TOS heavy from the start, it's as if DST has all but forgotten that there are several other popular series in their agreement from which to choose. Right now, fans are stoked about the new Trek series coming from CBS All Access based on Jean-Luc Picard. Trekkies love that guy, and in all fairness we've gotten a few 'mates of him already. Now how about the rest of his crew? 

If you watch the Star Trek episode of Netflix's The Toys That Made Us, the recurring theme of every unsuccessful Star Trek toy line (and there have been plenty) has been poor timing and not listening to fans. More often than not, DST has done just that with this property.

If DST needs a resident Trekkie to guide this property, they don't have to look very far to find one.

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5 hours ago, MisterPL said:

I see Mega Bloks Star Trek at Walmart.

If you do you see a Kirk or a Spock it's part of a minifigure that is made up of mixed properties and it's from a wave that has been sitting there for over a year. The MB Star Trek line died from lack of sales, just like the minimates. The idea that it would just take listening to "fans" to be successful is nothing but hubris.

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13 hours ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

Star Trek as a property doesn’t really feel all that relevant anymore, I’m not surprised they’re having trouble getting product out.

There are plenty of other properties I feel the same way about regarding relevance. If there were NO Star Trek products on shelves, I'd tend to agree but I'm still seeing it. This is about DST not being able to get THEIR Star Trek product into brick & mortar stores as well as apparently having internal problems getting product developed, approved, and into the hands of consumers.

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We work with several hundred online retailers. Including one called Amazon. But even they are usually not enough to support a poseable toy line's required quantities (or required profit margin), not without a chain store's hundreds or thousands of locations. 

Mega Bloks is dead. Pops are a different beast, people just want the dead eyes. Mego doesn't seem to be doing that well. If these lines were selling at retail, you wouldn't see them lying around.

PL comes from the school of thought that a Kirk figure being a quarter inch shorter than Spock is not only worth mentioning, but potentially catastrophic for sales. Kelvin Kirk and Spock seem to have done well, and that was just from online and specialty sales, no chains. We didn't have the Kelvin license when it was in theaters, because it went to Playmates and Hasbro, and we know how that turned out. I'd argue our Legacy assortment was the better product.

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TNG minimate boxset w multiple heads. Come on DST you’ve seen the light w this idea w the Endgame boxset now do it for Trek. 

Plenty of uniform styles to choose from and with the upcoming Picard show at the end of 2019/beginning 2020 interest will be up. 

Not a lot of new sculpting/new pieces would be needed for this, costs would be lower. You could even make one minimate in it an army builder alien if you wanted to go crazy w value.

@DSTZach @DSTchuck give it a rest w OG Trek and give TNG a shot. Please ?

 

Edited by fwoosheyman
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On 3/30/2019 at 4:20 PM, fwoosheyman said:

TNG minimate boxset w multiple heads. Come on DST you’ve seen the light w this idea w the Endgame boxset now do it for Trek. 

They've tried it for X-Men. They've tried it for Kill Bill. They're trying it for Endgame. For some reason they refuse to try it for Star Trek and Lost in Space despite the fact that it not only fits the mix & match Minimates play pattern but it virtually guarantees that collectors will buy two sets.

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23 hours ago, MisterPL said:

They've tried it for X-Men. They've tried it for Kill Bill. They're trying it for Endgame. For some reason they refuse to try it for Star Trek and Lost in Space despite the fact that it not only fits the mix & match Minimates play pattern but it virtually guarantees that collectors will buy two sets.

We aren’t privy to their business plans or data so everything we are saying is pure conjecture... however,  I 100% agree with you. TNG launched 4 shows now and 2 movies. It also sustained a toy line for years before the 1701 nonsense. It’s not unreasonable to think that a 4 pack of a red, yellow, blue uniform with a villain like Q/The Borg/or even an alien with head back ins wouldn’t move. Guessing, I’d do it at the same volume as Alpha Flight Box set 1 and watch how they sold for a year that had a Picard show “on air”. I am 100% convinced it would sell more than John wick or Jackie Chan. 

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:goodpost:

 

However, I don't believe a 4-pack of the crew needs a villain. So much of Star Trek is perfectly compatible with the Minimates play pattern, it'd be a shame not to take full advantage of it and sell sets by themes.

Offer sets with TNG uniforms and multiple heads to swap out. Give them phasers and tricorders but make sure it's designed to encourage consumers to purchase multiple sets to create as many different characters as possible from one SKU.

Same with DS9 uniforms and movie uniforms and adversaries like Klingons and Romulans and Borg (whose looks are more unique but with by simply exchanging, removing, or spinning around parts, you've got a new Borg).

 

But yes, where collectors might buy one John Wick and one Jackie Chan Bruce Lee 4-pack, they'd buy many more Trek 4-packs that allow them to build their own crews.

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2 hours ago, MisterPL said:

:goodpost:

 

However, I don't believe a 4-pack of the crew needs a villain. So much of Star Trek is perfectly compatible with the Minimates play pattern, it'd be a shame not to take full advantage of it and sell sets by themes.

Offer sets with TNG uniforms and multiple heads to swap out. Give them phasers and tricorders but make sure it's designed to encourage consumers to purchase multiple sets to create as many different characters as possible from one SKU.

Same with DS9 uniforms and movie uniforms and adversaries like Klingons and Romulans and Borg (whose looks are more unique but with by simply exchanging, removing, or spinning around parts, you've got a new Borg).

 

But yes, where collectors might buy one John Wick and one Jackie Chan Bruce Lee 4-pack, they'd buy many more Trek 4-packs that allow them to build their own crews.

Obviously, I agree with you. I am buying the Jackie Chan pack just for the peace symbol hand (can’t wait to get it on Jubilee and or Deadpool) and the John wick pack out of a ridiculous sense of obligation. It’s a shame that the Luke Spidey 4 pack didn’t crush it so that his store could be an option. I just think that too much faith has been put in Original Trek and not enough faith has been put in TNG. But it may be my bias as I wasn’t that into Star Trek until TNG. 

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3 hours ago, MisterPL said:

However, I don't believe a 4-pack of the crew needs a villain. So much of Star Trek is perfectly compatible with the Minimates play pattern, it'd be a shame not to take full advantage of it and sell sets by themes.

Offer sets with TNG uniforms and multiple heads to swap out. Give them phasers and tricorders but make sure it's designed to encourage consumers to purchase multiple sets to create as many different characters as possible from one SKU.

Same with DS9 uniforms and movie uniforms and adversaries like Klingons and Romulans and Borg (whose looks are more unique but with by simply exchanging, removing, or spinning around parts, you've got a new Borg).

 

But yes, where collectors might buy one John Wick and one Jackie Chan Bruce Lee 4-pack, they'd buy many more Trek 4-packs that allow them to build their own crews.

As much as I love this idea it seems too creative and forward thinking for conservative DST to even consider.

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48 minutes ago, thereasonsy said:

I just think that too much faith has been put in Original Trek and not enough faith has been put in TNG.

You're not the only one lured into Trek by TNG.

TNG was more Star Trek than TOS. TNG was Roddenberry's Star Trek. TOS was NBC's.

And that Deadly Foes set is a terrific evergreen. It fit right in with the "Best of/Greatest Hits" assortments as iconic versions of some of Marvel's most popular characters. I can't think of a better way to jump on that bandwagon.

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2 hours ago, MisterPL said:

You're not the only one lured into Trek by TNG.

TNG was more Star Trek than TOS. TNG was Roddenberry's Star Trek. TOS was NBC's.

And that Deadly Foes set is a terrific evergreen. It fit right in with the "Best of/Greatest Hits" assortments as iconic versions of some of Marvel's most popular characters. I can't think of a better way to jump on that bandwagon.

Agree about the set but the fact is it sat on “pegs” for a long time. I remember seeing it being solicited and I freaked out that I wouldn’t be able to get it. But it didn’t do that great. 

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As much as I love Luke's, it could use more advertising. While it was nice of DST to feature the set in the cross promotion inserts, it amounted to preaching to the choir.

Back in the day a few well-placed magazine ads might have drummed up some traffic to the site. I'm not sure what kind of advertising budget Luke's has but I wouldn't be surprised if he relied mostly on word of mouth and exclusively social media. And it's not like DST has toy commercials. Almost 20 years later and Minimates™ is still getting confused with LEGO minfigures.

I'm kinda waiting for a larger toy company with an existing brick system to acquire Minimates as a way to differentiate their minifigures from those of the competition.

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17 hours ago, Mystery Man said:

My mind still boggles at that Luke’s Spidey 4-pack not being popular. It was and still is phenomenal. 

That pack tells us a lot about the market but since it's not the information we want to hear I think a lot of us ignore it.

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