G.I. Joe Minimates!

[thereasonsy]

22 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

TL;DR ~ I want more international terrorists and less military stooges.

Post of the thread.

17 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

Thank you , I may well go back & have another look at them  

As an adult (fairly adult most of the time) toy-collector with tunnel-vision , I rarely stray from Minimates these days. I'm staggered by the fact that Minimates generally have never taken off commercially in the way I hoped that they would .  I see licences come along (like GI Joe) & I see the enthusiasm from those that are left of us on this forum only to see hopes dashed time & time again . I can't put my finger on exactly why this is but I'm an old guy who rarely knows when he's beat but maybe even I am beginning to see very little light at the end of a very long tunnel .  

 

 

I think there’s something to the underdog appeal of the line that when you get it, you GET it. I wish I had the same excitement I had for this line as I did prior to 2020 but those sweet sweet 3.75 figures are just calling my name. I do love the vast amount of product we got this year though. D&D, Transformers, Young Avengers, Power Rangers, AEW, GiJoe and TMNT has been stellar and everyone involved should feel proud of the work. It just hits different now. 

 

12 hours ago, nandoninny said:

for me the appeal of the Joe line is all about the potential.

the ones that have come out so far have been fine by me and i wouldn't change a thing (other than maybe give snake eyes his uzi).  but there were so many characters in the ARAH cartoon and toy line that will look so good as minimates.  plus similar to minimates, joes were easy to take apart and put back together in a mix and match fashion.  i used to customize so many of them.  but i was born in the late 70's and these were the first action figures i remember having.  i collected them for only about 7 years but in that time i had a ton of them and it was pretty much all of elementary school for me.  i think i quit joes when toy biz started putting out marvel figures which prior to toy biz i think i had only seen them as secret wars which i only had spider man.

when the 25th anniversary line came out i bought everything and had money to army build and it only increased the love.  when the minimates got announced i sold all of those in preperation for the minimates........which i'm still kinda waiting for.

but one of the things i'm most fond of was the tiger force which was where they took old figures and repainted them as a special unit.  simple idea these days but back then it was new to me.  then they did night force, python patrol, slaughter's marauders, and i'm sure i'm forgetting others. 

anyways, the appeal is a mix of nostalagia and potential.  the appeal of minimates combined with the appeal of my favorite toy line as a kid and to be able to collect a big line again and have easy access army builders sounded like a lot of fun and i hope we can still get at least some of that.  all of us excited all have our wish list based on our favorite characters and it probably covers a wide range of the line and not everyone was going to get thier favorite but they'd likely get at least one or two off thier bucket list (firefly for me).

 

Nandon you are singing my song! I also grew up in the 80s but on military bases so Joes have always held a special part of the chamber where my heart is supposed to be. I even store my Joe minimates in an old Joe footlocker.  I appreciate a deviation in strategy of having all heroes and all villains sets but I think you need the mix to make it more fun. Otherwise what are you going to do? I don’t think this was a kids line as presented in minimates form (price, packaging, etc) so I can see how it was a stumbling block for some. I’m also a huge fan of Tiger Force and was hoping that would one day be an exclusive for a con but then again I don’t need a Tiger print Roadblock or Duke so close to the other ones. With such a vast inventory of characters I was hoping we’d get back to the standard packaging of boxes like Transformers or even the VHS box with a mix of Cobra and Joes. Who knows maybe one day. 

[Navaan]

18 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

Thank you , I may well go back & have another look at them  

As an adult (fairly adult most of the time) toy-collector with tunnel-vision , I rarely stray from Minimates these days. I'm staggered by the fact that Minimates generally have never taken off commercially in the way I hoped that they would .  I see licences come along (like GI Joe) & I see the enthusiasm from those that are left of us on this forum only to see hopes dashed time & time again . I can't put my finger on exactly why this is but I'm an old guy who rarely knows when he's beat but maybe even I am beginning to see very little light at the end of a very long tunnel .  

 

 

I think the death of Toys R Us, which was one of the biggest provider of smaller companies, was the biggest blow.

[buttheadsmate]

The demise of ToysRUs was definitely the death knell as ,by that time, most of the Minimate eggs were in that one basket . I don't live in the US but this forum was alive back then & it was pretty obvious that something was not quite right with distribution even then .  TRU web sales were initially non-existent & then, when online orders became possible they were handled by .....I'll be too polite.....people that weren't quite up to the task .  Comic stores were all but alienated by that time except for some very entrepreneurial online sellers who thankfully took over the mantle .  I  cringe when I see how many 'retailer' promos there are in the MMDB , there are probably more individual promos than current Minimate retailers. By the time TRU had gone so had the 'other' retailers . So we're left with a ridiculously good product with some top-line licences with no retailers .  Walgreens Minimates were described on this forum recently as 'ancient history' , WG 'mates were in many instances superb & the final wave was according ,to the MMDB, January 2022 . They were never released in the US ,doesn't that say it all ?

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by buttheadsmate

[cylonchaney]

On 9/8/2023 at 1:28 AM, buttheadsmate said:

The demise of ToysRUs was definitely the death knell as ,by that time, most of the Minimate eggs were in that one basket . I don't live in the US but this forum was alive back then & it was pretty obvious that something was not quite right with distribution even then .  TRU web sales were initially non-existent & then, when online orders became possible they were handled by .....I'll be too polite.....people that weren't quite up to the task .  Comic stores were all but alienated by that time except for some very entrepreneurial online sellers who thankfully took over the mantle .  I  cringe when I see how many 'retailer' promos there are in the MMDB , there are probably more individual promos than current Minimate retailers. By the time TRU had gone so had the 'other' retailers . So we're left with a ridiculously good product with some top-line licences with no retailers .  Walgreens Minimates were described on this forum recently as 'ancient history' , WG 'mates were in many instances superb & the final wave was according ,to the MMDB, January 2022 . They were never released in the US ,doesn't that say it all ?

 

Right around that time, every comic shop in town carried Minimates. It was often the case that one could buy the TRU line and get an exclusive plus all of the characters from the Comic Shop wave, disincentivizing Comic Shop sales . Very shortly after that, no comic stores in town carried Minimates anymore. I can only order online now. Thank goodness for Luke.

[thereasonsy]

6 minutes ago, cylonchaney said:

Right around that time, every comic shop in town carried Minimates. It was often the case that one could buy the TRU line and get an exclusive plus all of the characters from the Comic Shop wave, disincentivizing Comic Shop sales . Very shortly after that, no comic stores in town carried Minimates anymore. I can only order online now. Thank goodness for Luke.

I’m sure someone will argue some counterpoint to this, but I had the exact same experience as Cylon in two different states. I’m nyc based and the stores here stopped when TRU took off. When I went back to visit friends in FL I hit up my old stomping grounds and they said the same thing. 

[buttheadsmate]

Bringing things totally up to date ...if you want to order Minimates from the official DST store you are restricted to buying 2 sets . Now I'm going to hear that that is going to deter scalpers . Here's some news for you, DST : "You need some scalpers ,you really need like 'anybody' who show some confidence in the line & who will buy the f*ck out of them "  .

In my complete naivety,some months ago, I suggested on here that I might want to helm my own box set . I could have forgiven the  question about whether I could have afforded it or any question about my mental stability but "no" the reason is, is that I have no track record as a retailer . TBQH I can't argue with that but I'm not laughing when I say this , maybe a 'retailer' like me & DST are perhaps made for each other ? 

I've ordered 2 Britt Baker Vinimates from the DST online store today . Therefore my mental stability perhaps remains in doubt because I have no idea why I'm buying 2 inarticulate large Minimates of an (apparently) female wrestler .   

The parrot is dead .

 

  

 

[DSTZach]

Not sure why we are limiting purchases online at all, especially for Minimates. I'll ask them to stop. As far as I know, we are not worried about scalpers at all, it may just be a holdover from some exclusive products on the Gentle Giant LTD site, which was a template for the new DST site. We are not worried about people buying product from us at retail prices and reselling it for more money, unless it's something highly limited that could be perceived as unfairly hoarded by others. 

But I don't think we ever "put all the Minimates in the TRU basket," at least not on purpose. We always offered an exclusive character or variant or even two-pack in the specialty wave, as far as I recall, at least as far as Marvel went. We wanted specialty stores to order product, and have product that was their own. TRU wanted exclusives, sure, but they never asked for exclusivity. Ditto Walgreens -- even though we gave them Animated Mates exclusively, I recall multiple specialty-exclusive movie Minimates, and it was Walgreens support for the line that kept those alive for a while longer, alongside some comic sets. (In addition to TRU AND Walgreens assortments, Ragnarok had the specialty box set with two exclusive figures, for instance.)

The final Walgreens movie sets ended up largely overseas because that was who bought it when Walgreens gave it up. I don't know that overseas retailers were targeted, they just happened to be two popular movie sets with global appeal, as opposed to US-based animation or comics. Nothing to read into it, except that movie sets were not doing well with US retailers at the time, so that may have been part of it. 

And yeah, we'd probably only make an exclusive for a licensed reseller. I don't think they'd need to have a history with our distributor (Diamond Comics), but they would need to have a sales outlet. To be honest, I'm not sure we still have the rights to sell Minimates in the UK anyway, so it may be moot. 

I am actively trying to get more retailers to carry GI Joe Minimates, be they Adventure Team or Real American Hero or even Action Man. Fingers crossed. 

[buttheadsmate]

Thank you for your response Zach ,it is appreciated especially as my criticism is never personal towards you except that you cannot get it into your head ( sorry I thought long & hard about putting it a nicer way) that I have & never ever had any intention whatsoever of even thinking about the UK as a market for Minimates.  

 

[cylonchaney]

19 hours ago, DSTZach said:

And yeah, we'd probably only make an exclusive for a licensed reseller. I don't think they'd need to have a history with our distributor (Diamond Comics), but they would need to have a sales outlet. To be honest, I'm not sure we still have the rights to sell Minimates in the UK anyway, so it may be moot. 

 

I have to say Zach, your attitude seems a bit dismissive. Why not invite bhm to have a serious discussion about how it could be done and what would have to happen. If it needs an American retailer, perhaps he is able to find one to partner with. Then if you cant' make it work, you at least come across as having tried. The above reads like a hard no.

Maybe you've had offline conversations. But it has come up publicly on the forum a couple of times and it seems like you just dismiss it without serious consideration.

That aside, best of luck with your Joe marketing. I hope you guys can get this line to thrive.

 

[buttheadsmate]

Vinimates BTW are produced in numbers as little as 250 & somebody like myself enjoys being part of that  little niche market .

I love to think that just because although I'm just some quaint ol' guy in the UK with no life  I may well have a unique collection of toys that only, perhaps , 248 other people, at most, have .

If I was retailing the toys on the other hand, in numbers of 250 ,at perhaps $12-15  a time, I can honestly say I would not sleep too well at night  .  

Yet ,I am told, anybody interested in helming* a Minimate 'set' of any description has to commit to 3000 sets !

I absolutely know that several high profile Minimate, licenced, sets have been produced in numbers far less than that, that said my nerves are still steady at 3K  . I do not however want to helm* a set of figures that are suggested to me , I want the figures I choose ......just like TRU did, just like WG did, just like Chef Duff,Goth Girl ,Gen Con,Shopko,Target,AFX & Agent F*cking 88 & the others did.

*helm = pay for , I could give a damn about whether anybody but me knew my involvement otherwise.

I choose .

Edited September 11, 2023 by buttheadsmate

[Strider]

If I had the means (I don’t) and had a retail store (I don’t) I would totally be down for funding an army build wave of Cobra troopers and a wave of my favorite Joes to go with them. Shoot I would probably fund a special Joe cartoon movie similar to the Transformer one (Nemesis Enforcer, Falcon, St Slaughter and Golobulus or Serpentor). That is if Diamond would be willing to work with me and if I could convince my wife to let me do it. I am not sure which of those is the hardest thing, the money, convincing Diamond or convincing my wife.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Strider

[DSTZach]

I thought BHM and I were having a serious, open, public, honest discussion -- I'm not ignoring him, but sorry if I seem dismissive.

Of course, now BHM is telling me he's not actually serious. Unless you mean you're just not serious about the UK? In which case you WOULD probably need to work with a US retailer. I know one who's done exclusives in the past, and may welcome a co-investor -- I can share contact info, but I'm sure you have it.

As far as production runs go, I honestly can't speak to how many assortments/individual two-packs of each series we made for TRU and Walgreens. With all of the shared item codes and rolling inventory, I doubt I would have been able to figure it out from the inventory reports I received. (BHM probably knows better from all the cases he's seen.) Were some less than 3000? Maybe, and that's certainly not ideal, but if a series was part of a larger, more in-depth partnership, I'm sure that was taken into consideration. 

But as far as I know, TRU and Walgreens did not pick their characters. Aside from saying "we want Animated" or "we want this movie," we gave them the  characters we thought would do best for them -- for better or for worse. (They MAY have expressed concern if the individual buyer saw a character or theme on the line plan they had no confidence in, but at this price point I doubt it -- these aren't $25 Marvel Legends.) If an independent retailer wants a one- off set, it would still have to fit into our line plan -- characters we think will sell in that market, fit in with what has come before, and are what Marvel or Hasbro will allow. The tooling investment for new characters is too great to have it dictated by others, not to mention the man-hours it takes to design, sculpt, tool, hours taken away from other projects. And buying the whole run doesn't change anything -- not to say we know best, but we don't want any retailer that supports Minimates to make a calamitous error in judgment. 

Not sure what to say about the rest of those guys, they were different situations, different markets, hell, different decades. Target helped launch the line, but I doubt they cared who was in the wave besides Spider-Man and X-Men. Chef Duff was a marketing opportunity. Goth Girl was a promo done for a friend. AFX had the Thundercats license, so they called the shots -- if you mean their Marvel exclusives, I'm sure we presented options, but most of their SDCC exclusive sets were pre- planned companions to ours. Surprised you didn't mention the Disney Store -- they outright ASKED us to make the Peter Pan 'Mates, and I'm pretty sure they wanted some Avengers comic sets, but we probably pitched them on the Future Foundation. 

And Vinimates... again, I'm not sure how many of each character we made for Walgreens (some were shared with specialty) or what our minimum (feasible) order quantity is (probably less than Minimates), but most of our 250-piece runs for cons have been repaints or at least tooling re-use. (The tooling we can re-use is very narrow, it's not like mixing and matching Minimates.) If any retailer or quaint Briton wants an exclusive Vinimate repaint that's NOT Marvel, I will happily start that convo. I'd love to do Vinimate blanks, since the custom possibilities are endless, but very few of our Vinimates are without added sculptural details. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by DSTZach

[thereasonsy]

At this point I’m ready to crowd fund and beg and plead to get Luke to just do the transaction so we can get an army builder pack lol. 

[THE_CRIPPLER]

28 minutes ago, thereasonsy said:

At this point I’m ready to crowd fund and beg and plead to get Luke to just do the transaction so we can get an army builder pack lol. 

An army pack of Cobra troops would easily sell out. Viper, Cobra Trooper, B.A.T., and a Crimson Guard would be amazing. A second set then with Televiper, Alley Viper, Cobra Eel, and Snow Serpent. You could make a set three, four, five, etc. There are so many different Cobra troop builders. Luke should seriously consider it. I would buy four sets minimum as long as they come in a 4-pack like the Transformers and MMPR sets to help keep the costs down. The Troopers would also be great as single carded figures. Have 3 or 4 sets of each figure per case. That might increase their price though.

[Strider]

4 hours ago, thereasonsy said:

At this point I’m ready to crowd fund and beg and plead to get Luke to just do the transaction so we can get an army builder pack lol. 

I will join you in the begging and pleading.

[thereasonsy]

I think the inventory issue of having to make 3k is the obstacle so it would have to be more than just the 20 of us committing to buying 4 each. That only gets 160 units sold. We would need at least 750 people committed to buying 4 packs at $38.99 for a total of $156 (rounding) plus tax and shipping. Could we do it? Probably. Especially if Luke’s was the only store that had them.
 

But it’s a huge ask and a huge lift for $117k gross. The Net is harder to calculate without knowing the licensing fees, etc. so the profit margin could potentially be slim.
 

We, as a community, really dropped the ball with the Deadly Foes set that took years to clear out so I’m not sure there is much room for begging without having the cash in hand. This is further exasperated because we can’t raise money without knowing what we are even talking about (I.e. the Hasbro terms that may actually prevent this or even character selection). Like if we had 4/5 different troopers per pack that bumps my order from 4 to 8.  But, what if we are restricted to only one trooper? That makes me only need 2 packs to get to my army builder Mecca of 7. These are things that we don’t know that DST can’t just publicly share. 

Moral of the story, we shall keep trying and crying. 
 

Good talk. 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by thereasonsy
Typo

[luke314pi]

I try to stay positive, and I am generally an optimist, but at this moment in time I don't have the confidence that we could sell more than 1500 of an army builder exclusive. Our sales on the individually packaged Series 1 and 2 were low, and sales on last year's NYCC exclusive were also low. I definitely believe 100% that we would get great support from the people here, it just wouldn't be enough to justify the investment unfortunately. 

[Strider]

Maybe I am more of an oddity than I realized because to me GI Joe seemed like it would be a perfect fit for minimates. There are no real scale issues since pretty much everyone is an adult human. You have plenty of unique looking characters (lots of them can double for army or civilian characters in other collections) and plenty of army builders. Vehicles would work great and there are tons of easy exclusives (Tiger Force, Python Patrol, Night Force, etc.). Obviously it looks like the market does not agree with me. It does make me wonder if maybe the line would have had more success if it came out back when TRU was still around and had that exposure. I mean when you look at all the different properties that have been made into minimates it’s hard to believe that GI Joe cannot get past wave 2. There were 3 waves of Muppets!!!

I might just be a curse for minimates. My favorite has always been Lord of the Rings (2 waves with promos shown for a wave 3, I still search EvilBay in hopes of finding them some day).

[Navaan]

3 hours ago, luke314pi said:

I try to stay positive, and I am generally an optimist, but at this moment in time I don't have the confidence that we could sell more than 1500 of an army builder exclusive. Our sales on the individually packaged Series 1 and 2 were low, and sales on last year's NYCC exclusive were also low. I definitely believe 100% that we would get great support from the people here, it just wouldn't be enough to justify the investment unfortunately. 

Tis why I would want Hasbro to sell them on their site, or elsewhere, too.

[DSTZach]

I honestly do believe that Joe Mates would have done better before ReAction came around, even better before Ultimates came around, and they would have conquered the market before Classified came around. Even our Dioramas and those other terrible statues that Gamestop sells probably eat into the fan base. 

Devil's advocate, but if the Minimates were NOT individually carded, and were done on a blister and sold at $30 per set, that's $90,000. Licensing fees are not passed along to the retailer, they are included in the price. The regular Diamond wholesale discount is around 40%. So an investment of $54,000 plus shipping would get you a profit of $36,000 upon sellout. Break-even would be at 1,800 units sold. Not sure about my math, but that seems correct. I suppose if a retailer charged more than SRP, the profit would be greater, and the time to break-even would be faster. 

Just thinking out loud.

Less likely, but if some kind of packaging split of blisters and boxes was done, that might encourage even more multiple purchases. Not sure if an even simpler packaging option is popular, but if you're just getting them for army-building, then maybe bags would be an option. 

[NerdyTrev]

Bags would be good.

In an "army dump" counter display.

[Padrino]

bag a bunch of army builders? I'd be into that. Just please don't include exclusives or single characters.

[DSTZach]

I wasn't even thinking blind bags, especially if this was an online retailer. I just figured if a store was selling the figures to people who were going to open them and make 'em fight, packaging was secondary, so why not put each of them in a clear poly bag. Just a thought. Might encourage purchasing multiples if they're cheaper, or DIScourage them because there are no packaging variations to keep MIB. Again, a 50-50 situation might be a good idea, half blistered, half bagged, if such a thing were possible.

[Navaan]

3 hours ago, DSTZach said:

I wasn't even thinking blind bags, especially if this was an online retailer. I just figured if a store was selling the figures to people who were going to open them and make 'em fight, packaging was secondary, so why not put each of them in a clear poly bag. Just a thought. Might encourage purchasing multiples if they're cheaper, or DIScourage them because there are no packaging variations to keep MIB. Again, a 50-50 situation might be a good idea, half blistered, half bagged, if such a thing were possible.

Direct to consumer. Hasbro did this with Joe (on card backs, but still). 

Sell some to stores with boxes, but sell others, DTC, but in bags?

[NerdyTrev]

5 hours ago, DSTZach said:

Again, a 50-50 situation might be a good idea, half blistered, half bagged, if such a thing were possible.

It could be a limited run of figures on vintage cardbacks to incentivize collectors. Make it clear that they're RARE and of LIMITED QUANTITY and they'll come running.

Second run being mass produced, clear polybags.