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2017 SDCC Exclusive (or retail exclusive?) Any News?


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33 minutes ago, Mysterious Stranger said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that its going to be the Translucent Purple Donatello we all need to complete that set.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if we get a translucent purple Donatello, it will be styled like the upcoming 80's cartoon designs, not the last one needed for the Nick set...

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21 hours ago, TBT! said:

So in Summary, no. ;) - but if we are playing the you can get them elsewhere game... My local comic book stores don't stock minimates any longer due to  people only buying the stuff that's not at TRU leaving them with shelves full of stuff that doesn't sell, my TRU is better at stocking minimates these days but still is very hit or miss on what it gets.

I get this is a limited exclusive (& It's a cute idea in that's also a nod to wave 4) I Just feel like it seems an odd choice when you're at the biggest geekshow on earth where you need something special to wow people and you give them a spidey pack that claims 'extra' parts but it cant be a displayed as a regular spidey.

Not trying to be a debbie downer but as folks say, I feel this is a swing and a missed opportunity.

T.

Well, it's a big movie, it comes out 2 weeks before the convention, and as has been noticed, we pretty much made the rest of the cast, top-secret finale stuff aside. I have not seen a ton of Spidey exclusives, although I'm sure there's a pop, so if you just saw Spider-Man and you want an exclusive, here you go.

I suppose a masked head would have been a nice addition, but TRU has their own masked Spidey to sell, as do comic shops -- remember, this will also be at retail. Rendering that set redundant (depending on your Shocker love) is not good business for anybody. I also disagree with the idea that that one alt head would make this set significantly more appealing.

And it doesn't "claim" extra parts, it has extra parts. Two alt hands, one alt hair, one alt shirt/coat.

As far as your comic shop goes, I have heard this anecdote before, but I have no real data to back it up, aside from declining comic shop sales. Comic shops get plenty of 100% exclusive Minimates -- Series 68 and 69 were 100% comic shops, as are the Jessica Jones and Brotherhood sets -- but the non-exclusive sets in any assortment are always the main characters. So if they can't sell the most popular characters from the comic or movie to people in their store, and they are ONLY selling their exclusives to MM fans who hit up the TRU first to save a couple of bucks instead of supporting their local comic shop, then maybe it wasn't meant to be.

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6 hours ago, luckycreature said:

But I am lucky enough to live in a town with three comic shops all who refuse to order minimates anymore unless I buy a full case. It's not because of competition either. To quote one owner

"we can't justify filling our shelves with different versions of Spiderman . I love the character, my customers do to, but how many times will they buy him?" 

I know this is a different topic and so I apologize for continuing it, it just gets frustrating when Marvel Legends which is such a more mainstream line releases new characters every wave and gets rare characters for SdCC and we get Spidey with food in his hands. 

If there is data about how many new characters vs. repeats Legends does a year vs. Minimates (not per-wave, I'm sure the numbers don't match up) I would love to see it. I honestly don't think we're repeating the same characters in the same costumes all the time, or we would not have made the Best of and Greatest Hits assortments. 72 had Wolverine sure, and if you want to count Weapon X, that's two, but then it had three new characters, a repeat from a decade ago, and an army-builder.

I'm sure ML is closing in our character count, but we were obviously well ahead of them for a long time, and Marvel can only create new characters so fast. (Neither of us have made an Itsy Bitsy, which is a shame.) But the characters I see linger on the pegs for ML are the new characters, the Misty Knights and the Tiger Sharks of the MU. Spidey is usually gone.

I don't know how many of each set Hasbro makes for their box sets of new characters, or how much parts re-use there is, or how much of a bath they're able to write off as a "marketing expense," but we make our SDCC excusives to sell to retailers (mostly comic shops) and to walk-up customers at the show. We were making box sets of new and relatively obscure characters before Hasbro, and if that pattern still worked, maybe we'd still be doing it. But I can see a lot more anger, not joy, from international MM collectors if four new characters hit SDCC and sold out there. Not that I think that would happen. This one is for TRU USA specifically, so I think you need to look at where and how it is being sold.

6 hours ago, luckycreature said:

It is what it is. I'll keep ordering from Luke for packs with new mates or whole series like the avengers one a while back and hunting Walgreens for the man things of the world.

I'd check the restroom! ;)

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3 hours ago, MisterPL said:

They're for cutting out the middle man (retailers) and selling directly to the end consumer.

Not in our case. Our minimums for production are in the thousands, that's how we keep our items affordable. We sell to retailers, at the show and elsewhere, and bring some to sell ourselves. But that means we have both retailer  AND consumers buying each item, with a few exceptions, so if it is not workign on either end, we have to try something different.

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19 minutes ago, DSTZach said:

Well, it's a big movie, it comes out 2 weeks before the convention, and as has been noticed, we pretty much made the rest of the cast, top-secret finale stuff aside. I have not seen a ton of Spidey exclusives, although I'm sure there's a pop, so if you just saw Spider-Man and you want an exclusive, here you go.

I suppose a masked head would have been a nice addition, but TRU has their own masked Spidey to sell, as do comic shops -- remember, this will also be at retail. Rendering that set redundant (depending on your Shocker love) is not good business for anybody. I also disagree with the idea that that one alt head would make this set significantly more appealing.

And it doesn't "claim" extra parts, it has extra parts. Two alt hands, one alt hair, one alt shirt/coat.

As far as your comic shop goes, I have heard this anecdote before, but I have no real data to back it up, aside from declining comic shop sales. Comic shops get plenty of 100% exclusive Minimates -- Series 68 and 69 were 100% comic shops, as are the Jessica Jones and Brotherhood sets -- but the non-exclusive sets in any assortment are always the main characters. So if they can't sell the most popular characters from the comic or movie to people in their store, and they are ONLY selling their exclusives to MM fans who hit up the TRU first to save a couple of bucks instead of supporting their local comic shop, then maybe it wasn't meant to be.

That's kind of unfair, Zach.  TRU has often gotten sets in before they ship to specialty. Also, while the difference may be "a few bucks", another way to look at the price difference is that 2 packs are 25% more at comic book shops than they are at a mass market retailer. And that's just for two packs; shared box sets are now almost $10 more at comic book shops. You've got to be really loyal to not shop at TRU. And I'm not saying that's impossible; I personally decided a few years ago to buy everything I can from Luke, even if it means I might be paying a little bit more and waiting a little longer with shipping factored in, because he's my friend and deserves the support. But surely not everyone is going to make that same decision.

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My (also Canadian) LCS orders a case of most Marvel waves, and the occasional assortment from other lines.

The only Marvel assortments that they haven't ordered at least one set of were wave 60, 61, 67, and 70. I'd guess that the distribution problems with 60 were to blame in that case, and I think they skipped 61 and 67 so they'd only have one wave per movie. For 70, maybe they just didn't have confidence in the DS movie?

They don't always sell out, but the sets that would be shared in movie waves are always the first to go, with the more obscure exclusive sets lingering. It's a little more random for comic waves, but there are usually 1-4 packs left over by the time the next wave arrives, depending on how popular those characters were.

There are a bunch of different factors that I think make certain sets hang around, like case ratios (the 64 exclusives), oversaturation (tigerstripe Wolverines), or just a lack of popularity (most of 59 and a lot of movie exclusives).

TRU Canada doesn't get minimates, so there's no real competition there.

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7 minutes ago, DSTZach said:

If there is data about how many new characters vs. repeats Legends does a year vs. Minimates (not per-wave, I'm sure the numbers don't match up) I would love to see it. I honestly don't think we're repeating the same characters in the same costumes all the time, or we would not have made the Best of and Greatest Hits assortments. 72 had Wolverine sure, and if you want to count Weapon X, that's two, but then it had three new characters, a repeat from a decade ago, and an army-builder.

I'm sure ML is closing in our character count, but we were obviously well ahead of them for a long time, and Marvel can only create new characters so fast. (Neither of us have made an Itsy Bitsy, which is a shame.) But the characters I see linger on the pegs for ML are the new characters, the Misty Knights and the Tiger Sharks of the MU. Spidey is usually gone.

I don't know how many of each set Hasbro makes for their box sets of new characters, or how much parts re-use there is, or how much of a bath they're able to write off as a "marketing expense," but we make our SDCC excusives to sell to retailers (mostly comic shops) and to walk-up customers at the show. We were making box sets of new and relatively obscure characters before Hasbro, and if that pattern still worked, maybe we'd still be doing it. But I can see a lot more anger, not joy, from international MM collectors if four new characters hit SDCC and sold out there. Not that I think that would happen. This one is for TRU USA specifically, so I think you need to look at where and how it is being sold.

I mostly agree with you here. At this point I think it's unfair to compare Marvel Legends and Minimates, just like it's unfair to compare Hasbro to DST or Toys R Us to local comic book shops. The advantages the formers have over the latters are just too great. Hasbro also has a huge advantage with the Build a Figure model, since they know a certain percentage of their audience will buy every figure, no matter the character. Even so, you're certainly right that a lot of these "highly requested" characters have been pegwarmers, and easily available for a deep discount months if not years after their release. If DST had flooded TRU with as many duds as Hasbro has, we'd probably be having a very different discussion about the future of Minimates right now.

 

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The appeal of the BAFs varies a lot from wave so I'd question how much of a difference they make consistently. For example, I doubt Titus sold many extra figures. I'd agree though that Hasbro's character selection, while awesome for serious fans, does seem to fly in the face of good business sense. I'm really surprised they haven't found it necessary to change up their strategy yet. Still, it makes it tough as a fan of minimates when you watch Hasbro making far more progress on your wishlist than DST. Maybe that's not fair but I suspect a lot of us are feeling that way.

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Maybe where you live, Luck. My area, Darkhawk lingered for weeks until it was clearanced away. So did both sizes of Moon Knight. Heck I probably still find you the 3 3/4" Moon Knight if you want one. Speed Demon, Tiger Shark, Nighthawk, Ms. Beetle, Wasp, Boomerang- They're all still around. Ask Lurch, we hunt the same stores. He'll back me up. You can't find anything short packed, but if it's common, we're choking on Legends around here. Except Spider-man, Iron Man or Cap. Those move. The minor villains I wish minimates made more of, they sit and sit and sit.

 

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Add me to the list of people whose lcs has stopped ordering minimate waves. I was given the bad news when I tried to order the last Wolverine wave. I was their only steady customer and usually pre-ordered two sets of each comic wave.

They saw the success of the first Avengers movie wave and kept ordering all of the movie sets even though they had no pre-orders. They ended up deep discounting Avengers 2, Cap 3, Guardians 2 and Dr Strange. They took another hit on Ghostbusters and a Turtles wave. They also ordered multiple Best Of sets and are still eating those. From what I was told, they were shocked by the lack of Best Of sales and that, combined with Dr Strange not moving at all for them, convinced them to stop ordering Marvel sets.

Apparently they misjudged their customer base and ordered stuff they hoped would sell. I received a 25% discount on all toys I ordered so that makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow. They should still be able to order box sets so there is still a glimmer of hope.

I now have to order waves online as they were the last shop in a 60 mile radius still ordering. Even one of the big chain stores dropped out of ordering waves about 2 years ago at all locations. Its pretty bleak in my area at this point.

1 hour ago, luckycreature said:

 As did their Darkhawk.

As someone that used to order ML i've gotta say, that Darkhawk is an amazingly nice figure. On the rare occasions i've come across one I look at it for a few minutes and I never cared for the character much. That figure is fantastic though. 

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2 hours ago, hellpop said:

That's kind of unfair, Zach.  TRU has often gotten sets in before they ship to specialty.

And vice versa! Pretty sure Series 72 hit before Wolvie/Magneto. Right? No? People are often waiting on TRU around here, from what I hear. Maybe I am wrong.

2 hours ago, hellpop said:

Also, while the difference may be "a few bucks", another way to look at the price difference is that 2 packs are 25% more at comic book shops than they are at a mass market retailer. And that's just for two packs; shared box sets are now almost $10 more at comic book shops. You've got to be really loyal to not shop at TRU.

You're right -- when a set is under $10, a couple of bucks is a lot more impressive when stated as a percentage. :D We can't control TRU or specialty pricing, but I'm sure that 5 bucks saved on the two shared sets is crucial to some, especially if they're burning gas driving all over town. Regardless, we're happy that people shop at TRU as well as comic shops, as we never wanted to pit one against the other. We need to share figures because usually either location alone is not quite enough to make the line costs make sense, and the main characters have to be in both locations anyway. But TRU buyers have to go to comic shops, and vice versa, to collect them all -- it's a partnership.

 

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Maybe DST could easily win back stores that dropped Minimates by letting them just order full sets, instead of forcing them to order a full case with a single variant pack.

That way the retailer can make their customer happy AND not feel like they are stuck with product that they can't move.

 

 

Edited by youbastards
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6 minutes ago, youbastards said:

Maybe DST could easily win back stores that dropped Minimates by letting them just order full sets, instead of forcing them to order a full case with a single variant pack.

 

If DST can offer 2-packs at $9.99 and 4-packs at $24.99, it certainly stands to reason they'd be able to offer complete sets as well.

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16 minutes ago, DSTZach said:

And vice versa! Pretty sure Series 72 hit before Wolvie/Magneto. Right? No? People are often waiting on TRU around here, from what I hear. Maybe I am wrong.

You're right -- when a set is under $10, a couple of bucks is a lot more impressive when stated as a percentage. :D We can't control TRU or specialty pricing, but I'm sure that 5 bucks saved on the two shared sets is crucial to some, especially if they're burning gas driving all over town. Regardless, we're happy that people shop at TRU as well as comic shops, as we never wanted to pit one against the other. We need to share figures because usually either location alone is not quite enough to make the line costs make sense, and the main characters have to be in both locations anyway. But TRU buyers have to go to comic shops, and vice versa, to collect them all -- it's a partnership.

 

I believe 72 hit right at the same time.  I know that I bought the TRU set a few days before, but again I have them shipped from Luke, so there's a few days' delay (even though he always ships priority, plug plug plug).

My point with the TRU/specialty discussion is that, when pitted against each other, TRU is gonna win. And I know you're not TRYING to pit the two against each other, but unfortunately that's often what happens.  I think it's probably unavoidable, though I definitely think including short-packed variant figures in the specialty waves is a practice whose time has come and gone. I think that if DST were to do more eight figure waves, with two shared packs between TRU and specialty stores, the sell through would probably be good enough for more specialty stores to stick with Minimates. But I'm just speculating, you guys have the sales data and I trust you know what you're doing.

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24 minutes ago, youbastards said:

Maybe DST could easily win back stores that dropped Minimates by letting them just order full sets, instead of forcing them to order a full case with a single variant pack.

That way the retailer can make their customer happy AND not feel like they are stuck with product that they can't move.

 

 

What he said .

 

 

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51 minutes ago, youbastards said:

Maybe DST could easily win back stores that dropped Minimates by letting them just order full sets, instead of forcing them to order a full case with a single variant pack.

That way the retailer can make their customer happy AND not feel like they are stuck with product that they can't move.

 

 

Nice suggestion. I could really get behind that and I'm sure my local lcs could too. ?

The variant situation would still need to be resolved and as Hellpop mentioned maybe it's time for that to go. I'd hate to lose out on characters like Silver Samurai or Shapanka Blizzard but something has to give. It's becoming far to hard to collect in general and I detest paying shipping and online markups on certain packs.

I want to support my local shop and buy my favorite action figure line. That shouldn't be an impossible task.

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Any chance the shared packs could go? The only Minimates at my TRU are the Ultron/2020 and Maestro/OML packs from ages ago. TONS. But no Gwen/Spidey. At 6.98 "clearance" they're not going anywhere. 

Until a couple weeks ago when we got the Wolverine wave. And the Magneto/Wolverine packs disappeared in a week. Not a single"shared pack" has sold.

My TRU had no problem getting rid of TRU19 BTW.

Coincidence? 

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On 7/7/2017 at 10:20 PM, bigvis497 said:

Any chance the shared packs could go? The only Minimates at my TRU are the Ultron/2020 and Maestro/OML packs from ages ago. TONS. But no Gwen/Spidey. At 6.98 "clearance" they're not going anywhere. 

Until a couple weeks ago when we got the Wolverine wave. And the Magneto/Wolverine packs disappeared in a week. Not a single"shared pack" has sold.

My TRU had no problem getting rid of TRU19 BTW.

Coincidence? 

Now, I have to ask, which is it? Are the shared packs lingering at comic shops or TRU? Is it really both? How can a TRU sell NO shared packs, if they're charging less than the same sets at a comic shop? Especially since the TRU 21 assortment came out first? (According to MMDB, hail Ivan.) Or maybe the Gwen set was just the most desirable one there? Series 23, I can see those sets not doing well -- in hindsight, I probably would have voted to change the shared sets, and specialty got them first.

The next two specialty and TRU comic assortments are NOT shared. 24/25/74/75. We'll see how they do! The specialty Thor set will share two figures with TRU, but they are the main hero/villain, and anyone can order the set from their comic shop, so hopefully those two will not longer at TRU. TRU will share four figures with another retailer, but again, popular characters, so hopefully not an issue.

 

 

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Call me crazy, but I would rather not have new characters be rare, hard to get exclusives. Minor costume variants should always be the exclusives, in my opinion. For any line, any license, any company. 

Edited by TENIME_art
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Well, it depends on how "exclusive" the exclusive is. The DST SDCC exclusives used to be just as available as a regular release. If that's the case then go ahead and put important characters in the sets. If you're going to pull the sort of nonsense that some companies do (like Funko) then just skip it altogether.

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21 hours ago, DSTZach said:

Now, I have to ask, which is it? Are the shared packs lingering at comic shops or TRU? Is it really both? How can a TRU sell NO shared packs, if they're charging less than the same sets at a comic shop? Especially since the TRU 21 assortment came out first? (According to MMDB, hail Ivan.) Or maybe the Gwen set was just the most desirable one there? Series 23, I can see those sets not doing well -- in hindsight, I probably would have voted to change the shared sets, and specialty got them first.

The next two specialty and TRU comic assortments are NOT shared. 24/25/74/75. We'll see how they do! The specialty Thor set will share two figures with TRU, but they are the main hero/villain, and anyone can order the set from their comic shop, so hopefully those two will not longer at TRU. TRU will share four figures with another retailer, but again, popular characters, so hopefully not an issue.

 

 

The shared packs linger at TRU. If Iron Man 2020 was the exclusive, that would probably gone just like Gwen, I don't think it's necessarily who the character is. Comic shops don't order Minimates here so I can't speak to that. I'm assuming whoever's buying in my area are collectors who get them online. TRU exclusives, Walgreens exclusives, all of that stuff moves pretty well.

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