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Blind Bag discussion!


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Sorry you're not on board, Shane. I know some people say they buy Minimates because they're easy to collect, but I don't know if that has ever been particularly true, at least not to the degree people are implying. Yeah, you can see what you're getting, but some are one per case, which get marked up by retailers already, and some are retailer exclusives, which get cherry-picked by scalpers, and some are Internet exclusives, which require shipping. It's not like all figures are evenly distributed to every store, in every town.

And I see where Jatta is getting confused. He's thinking that people will put down a blind bag in Walmart, leave the store, get in their car, and drive to a comic shop because they know that the shop has all of the figures open, and the main characters they want are cheaper. That assumes a lot of things, including that the person knows what a comic shop is, where it is, what they carry, and that the person wants to put their kids back in the car and drive to a second location. The Walmart customers in this scenario are customers we would not reach normally, so they are likely not comparison shopping at comic shops. But if we can drive Walmart customers to comic shops, that would be great, and I hope that happens once Walmart sells out of their inventory and all these new customers are hungry for more.

And while I think any store that sells their figures open and at market prices could be seen as providing a service, they may also risk sending customers to other stores, so they can try to get the rarer figures cheaper, via the blind bag system. I also question whether an open main character will get marked down according to case percentages, or simply sold at regular price. These are all hypotheticals, of course, and we'll have to see what happens.

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A tiny bit of research (Simpsons thread) leads me nicely into my next point which merely uses Simpsons legos as 'a good example of current blind -bags'.

If I were collecting Simpsons Legos (SLs)......me being me...... I know I would just want a complete set for the cheapest price with the least hassle.......I'd buy a set of 16 off of a dealer for about $70 . Job done,no farting around.......especially when I see that each pack would cost me $4 each then 16 x $4 = $64 . I appreciate that not everybody can just blow $70 ish in one go .........trust me just lately I am amongst that group .....but it would have to be the way I'd go . I doubt that i'd be alone in wanting to do it that way?

This is the way it goes with blind-boxed figures.........almost always......amateur 'dealers' spring up all over the place ,the completists get what they want...full sets..... whilst the remaining 'left -overs' get chucked out like chum to hungry single pack buyers who believe they are getting a random pack .

Check out the mass of SLs ebay auctions offering 'random packs' of 20..of 30...of 10 blah blah blah . Random? My Arse they're random.....they're just sorted out left-overs.

Too cynical butt? Nope ,just know how it works.

edit: Not meant as a direct reply to Zach.

Edited by buttheadsmate
Typed whilst Zach was posting.
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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? We've been making them for years, and we do it because they sell better than most comic assortments, but also because we want to. They've helped keep the line going, and gain a better foothold, for sure. But there are clearly fans that enjoy them, and so do we. I realize this year is a heavy movie year, but I think this well have less in the future.

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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? We've been making them for years, and we do it because they sell better than most comic assortments, but also because we want to. They've helped keep the line going, and gain a better foothold, for sure. But there are clearly fans that enjoy them, and so do we. I realize this year is a heavy movie year, but I think this well have less in the future.

Don't apologize for running a successful toy line, and making decisions that keep it that way.

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I'm not sure how I feel about this announcement. I hope that this gets some new Minimates fans to jump on board but I feel like it might end up annoying the hardcore fans that have been around for a while if it's not executed properly.

Also, my local comic book store still has A LOT of the single packed movie figures from Captain America & Thor that are super marked down and still aren't moving at all. That kinda worries me because it seems like the individually packed figures don't have a good track record.

Edited by MisterMiracle
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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? We've been making them for years, and we do it because they sell better than most comic assortments, but also because we want to. They've helped keep the line going, and gain a better foothold, for sure. But there are clearly fans that enjoy them, and so do we. I realize this year is a heavy movie year, but I think this well have less in the future.

I'm not definitely not knocking DST for making movie figures. They must be making money for you. I guess I'm just venting because it's not a very fun time to collect if you like comics based figures, which is by far the biggest slice of the Minimates line. With the little bit of comics stuff that we do see being mostly costume variations of characters we already have or figures of the Minimates Mount Rehashmore, (Cap, Spidey, IM...), the movie stuff just falls kind of flat for me. But, I realize that's just how I feel about. And I've gotten away from the blind bag focus of this thread. So until it's confirmed that these are Marvel blind bags, I'll bow out.

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Hey Zach, I get what you're saying. I specialize in those Minimates that tend to not even end up in stores, so I know the drill. I tried to make sure that the "bottom line" of my post was that I am for it, if it means more cool Minimates in possibly more places. Personally, I just don't like the blind bag idea and remember a time when Chuck didn't either. Saying that, he hasn't liked a few things that seemed to have worked out fairly well for the lines...

I will be watching with great interest.

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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? We've been making them for years, and we do it because they sell better than most comic assortments, but also because we want to. They've helped keep the line going, and gain a better foothold, for sure. But there are clearly fans that enjoy them, and so do we. I realize this year is a heavy movie year, but I think this well have less in the future.

I'm not definitely not knocking DST for making movie figures. They must be making money for you. I guess I'm just venting because it's not a very fun time to collect if you like comics based figures, which is by far the biggest slice of the Minimates line. With the little bit of comics stuff that we do see being mostly costume variations of characters we already have or figures of the Minimates Mount Rehashmore, (Cap, Spidey, IM...), the movie stuff just falls kind of flat for me. But, I realize that's just how I feel about. And I've gotten away from the blind bag focus of this thread. So until it's confirmed that these are Marvel blind bags, I'll bow out.

I'm with you 100% on this.

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Palisades Blind Box Army of Darkness was painful. Even to the point that Time and Space Toys had a system set up to order sets to get SOME of the chases, but not all. To this day I still do not have S-Mart Ash nor the rare army builder. And I have no intention of paying $200 to get it. But I do have Hero Ash, which was either 1:32 or 1:64(and also resides currently in the $200 range). Either way, it wasn't really fun. However, Lego movie drew me back into blind bags. But once I reached duplicate purchases, I just turned to eBay to complete them.

If a buying a case guarantees me a set, then fine. But if it doesn't, I'm not digging it at all.

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We have no plans at this time for Marvel blind bags.

Also, my local comic book store still has A LOT of the single packed movie figures from Captain American and Iron Man that are super marked down and still aren't moving at all. That kinda worries me because it seems like the individually packed figures don't have a good track record.

Really? Iron Man 2 single packs? And Cap single packs? How marked down are we talking? Any Justin Hammers? Or Red Skulls? Have to ask, I never see these any more.

I'm not sure about what movies we're getting but Daredevil is gonna be on the TV........blind-bagged Matt Murdoch/

cool.png

Hey Zach, I get what you're saying. I specialize in those Minimates that tend to not even end up in stores, so I know the drill. I tried to make sure that the "bottom line" of my post was that I am for it, if it means more cool Minimates in possibly more places. Personally, I just don't like the blind bag idea and remember a time when Chuck didn't either. Saying that, he hasn't liked a few things that seemed to have worked out fairly well for the lines...

True. Other things Chuck has not liked: sculpted hands, child Minimates, fan polls.

MrClean, on 23 May 2014 - 15:21, said:

Palisades Blind Box Army of Darkness was painful. Even to the point that Time and Space Toys had a system set up to order sets to get SOME of the chases, but not all. To this day I still do not have S-Mart Ash nor the rare army builder. And I have no intention of paying $200 to get it. But I do have Hero Ash, which was either 1:32 or 1:64(and also resides currently in the $200 range). Either way, it wasn't really fun. However, Lego movie drew me back into blind bags. But once I reached duplicate purchases, I just turned to eBay to complete them.

If a buying a case guarantees me a set, then fine. But if it doesn't, I'm not digging it at all.

We have no plans to make different case assortments -- that seems like a lot of work -- so barring any mistakes, the same figures will be in every case. And since there are 18 figures per case, the rarest will not be rarer than 1:18. Edited by DSTZach
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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? But there are clearly fans that enjoy them.

*raises hand*

There are some characters I prefer the movie versions of.

As soon as the Winter Soldier wave comes in, comic Falcon is getting replaced in my display, for one example.

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The thought of buying a case and ending up with duplicates of main characters is bringing back that terrible taste I had in my mouth from the early days of Marvel Minimates. While I'll admit that it's better to have multiples of a toy that's as interchangeable as Minimates, I hated having multiples of Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, Yellow Daredevil, etc. I was thrilled when army-building characters replaced those them and will not look forward to having extras of main characters again.

That said, if the case this completist is coerced to buy happens to be identical to what's being sold in big box stores like Walmart, I'll feel zero guilt about returning unopened leftovers to them. After all, they'll have no trouble moving this can't-lose gimmick, right? devil.gif

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And sorry we make Marvel movie Minimates, I guess? But there are clearly fans that enjoy them.

*raises hand*

There are some characters I prefer the movie versions of.

As soon as the Winter Soldier wave comes in, comic Falcon is getting replaced in my display, for one example.

Exactly that. The classic versions will always be the definite versions but some either don't interest me as i don't have any particular atachment to the characters or i simply don't like the costume. Movie Falcon in my eyes is a much better design than comic Falcon.

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The thought of buying a case and ending up with duplicates of main characters is bringing back that terrible taste I had in my mouth from the early days of Marvel Minimates. While I'll admit that it's better to have multiples of a toy that's as interchangeable as Minimates, I hated having multiples of Spider-Man, Silver Surfer, Yellow Daredevil, etc. I was thrilled when army-building characters replaced those them and will not look forward to having extras of main characters again.

That said, if the case this completist is coerced to buy happens to be identical to what's being sold in big box stores like Walmart, I'll feel zero guilt about returning unopened leftovers to them. After all, they'll have no trouble moving this can't-lose gimmick, right? devil.gif

That sounds like a great plan.

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Sorry ...

And I see where Jatta is getting confused. He's thinking that people will put down a blind bag in Walmart, leave the store, get in their car, and drive to a comic shop because they know that the shop has all of the figures open, and the main characters they want are cheaper. That assumes a lot of things, including that the person knows what a comic shop is, where it is, what they carry, and that the person wants to put their kids back in the car and drive to a second location. The Walmart customers in this scenario are customers we would not reach normally, so they are likely not comparison shopping at comic shops. But if we can drive Walmart customers to comic shops, that would be great, and I hope that happens once Walmart sells out of their inventory and all these new customers are hungry for more.

Haha! That made me laugh. Reductio Ad Absurdum using an insignificant element of my overall critique.
Ultra-rare, one-per-case figures run the risk of stopping casual buyers from attempting to complete a collection. This is different from casual buyers remaining casual buyers who continue to pick up random blind bags every time they stop at Walmart. And it's different from casual buyers being comparison shoppers for impulse items which I'm not sure even exists.
If a casual buyer gets hooked, sees an accompanying checklist, and decides they are going to "Collect Them All", the one per case situation is going to eventually become evident. Either through a frustratingly futile attempt to find the rare, or with the sky high prices they soon discover on eBay. So in the short term, sales may be high. But long term, I'm arguing you are going to forego building a repeat customer base for the line. People are going to give up because they won't be able to complete a collection because you've given thieves and scalpers incentives to cherry-pick out the rares.
I don't see any benefit of a one-per-case rare strategy outweighing the benefit of an assortment strategy like the Lego Simpsons blind bags.
Finally, didn't DST already go through a similar headache back when the TRU exclusives were short-packed one per case? This seems like the same situation, only this time with blind bags.
thumbsup.gif
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Except in this instance, as we currently understand it, consumers have the option of buying a case directly, ensuring they get a full set, so essentially the "ultra rare" shouldn't initially cost more than the case price. At launches past, the 1-per-dump case exclusive rarely has sold for large money on eBay. It was only 3-4 years after release that the Justin Hammer price jumped, and even now they still sell for less than the original cost of the dump case.

If a casual buyer truly gets hooked, but can't find the rare, there's always a chance they may find us and we can help them or point them in the right direction.

It's all speculation at this point, but a 1:18 figure that is in one of EVERY case made, will most likely be more common than we are anticipating, especially if these are produced in the quantities I'm expecting for the license I'm expecting. ;)

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Except in this instance, as we currently understand it, consumers have the option of buying a case directly, ensuring they get a full set, so essentially the "ultra rare" shouldn't initially cost more than the case price. At launches past, the 1-per-dump case exclusive rarely has sold for large money on eBay. It was only 3-4 years after release that the Justin Hammer price jumped, and even now they still sell for less than the original cost of the dump case.

If a casual buyer truly gets hooked, but can't find the rare, there's always a chance they may find us and we can help them or point them in the right direction.

It's all speculation at this point, but a 1:18 figure that is in one of EVERY case made, will most likely be more common than we are anticipating, especially if these are produced in the quantities I'm expecting for the license I'm expecting. wink.png

I agree with everything you said. I still just don't see the benefit of one-per-case over something like two-per-case.

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It's no different than an incentive cover for a comic, right? Buy 25 covers of Deadpool 15 and we'll let you get a 1:25 cover for your store to do with what they want. It's to encourage retailers to carry the product, in hopes that their customers will buy the product. Some comic dealers sell the variants at a premium, some sell them at cover price to their loyal customers. I'm sure there will be some retailers that sell the 1:18 at a premium while others just leave it to chance.

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