If it falls short the point made earlier that there's another Haslab waiting for this one to end definitely is a pickle. I could easily see them extending since we're clearly getting close, but they also may not because it would overlap with the other Haslab. Or they could also bump that one a bit. Unicron got extended something pretty long--I forget how long exactly, but I think it was an extra month--but they could just try extending Giant-Man another week or two, then start the next Haslab after that.
Let's say it ends at 9K backers. Just letting it drop is saying no to almost $2 million in revenue on what has been a largely positive campaign. That's a lot of money to leave lying on the table. 😳
Because that's how retail used to work for decades. The Khetanna - sure, retail won't want that. And yet they ordered multiple runs of the Millennium Falcon.
For something that is just a big figure - like Giant-Man - there's no reason it HAS to be a HasLab. That's what I'm saying.
The reason is Toys R Us.
Target and Walmart had to compete with TRU so they ordered stuff like this because TRU would put 15 of something like this in every store and more in warehouses.
Walmart isn't going to carry something like this if there isn't a TRU competitor with 25% marketshare.
@enigmaticclarity isn't that was that rancor went thru or was it not that close?
For the record, HasLab averages for the final two days of a campaign is 7% followed by 23% in the last 24hrs. Basically 30% between now and midnight tomorrow. With 73.6% toward the minimum goal we should be fine for the base funding, just not the tiers unfortunately.
I really wish the Skrull head was 12K, I could give up the zombie version with a lot less disappointment than the Skrull, it’s almost easier if we get neither than to only get the “eh” one of the two.
@enigmaticclarity isn't that was that rancor went thru or was it not that close?
The Rancor came within 500 units of reaching its base funding, but that toxic campaign also moved backward for a spell. Not nearly as badly as the EoV campaign though. That one was brutal.
Sentinel had an order limit of 5 as well, I believe all haslabs have had itIt did not. When Sentinel ran Pulse had no item ordering limits on anything--Haslabs or regular products. Pretty sure it wasn't a feature in the version of Shopify they had at the time, which is the e-commerce software the site is built upon. Or maybe they just didn't know how to configure it at the time, not really sure why they didn't have any ordering limits back then. The limits started kicking in on other regular Pulse items a few months before Galactus ran, and then it applied to Galactus.
I still don't get why they put the ordering limit on Haslabs. I'm guessing it's to make it difficult for retailers to get it, but why do they care about that at all? If BBTS or EE want to speculate they can sell it at a markup then let them. Usually they sell to retailers well below MSRP, so I would think them not making Haslabs available to retailers just means not giving them their usual wholesale price break.
The order limit, on reflection, is probably due to the cancellation policy.
Due to whatever mix of payment processor rules, fraud issues, and customer service/satisfaction workshopping Hasbro has done, they allow for full, no hassle refunds up to 30 days after a project ends.
Capping orders at 5 reduces the chance of a project being pushed past a goal by a party in bad faith or just the chance that through ordinary cancellations that a goal may be un-achieved.
This probably also ties in with why there are 2000-3000 unit differences between tiers (that have multiple items) instead of 500 unit tiers with the same items split up (which would probably yield better results).
If 100 units get cancelled from all sources then Hasbro will probably quietly shift those into replacement/QC issue stock and honor the unlocked project or goal.
If 5000 units get cancelled then the choice becomes one between eating a lot of money/product or walking back a tier or cancellation of a previously funded project and taking a black eye.
Limiting orders to 5 and spacing tiers out reduces the probability of that scenario.
@enigmaticclarity isn't that was that rancor went thru or was it not that close?
The Rancor came within 500 units of reaching its base funding, but that toxic campaign also moved backward for a spell. Not nearly as badly as the EoV campaign though. That one was brutal.
Yeah I wanted that rancor, but I didn't bother with the car, I wanted the car but nothing else... So I didn't try
Hankor Monster loves cookies!
For something that is just a big figure - like Giant-Man - there's no reason it HAS to be a HasLab. That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, I agree. Once upon a time I listed a bunch of other toys that came in big boxes that retailers (Target, Walmart) were just fine with taking a chance on. Many people told me that Giant Man was different because reasons. I'll have to agree to disagree on that one.
For the record, HasLab averages for the final two days of a campaign is 7% followed by 23% in the last 24hrs. Basically 30% between now and midnight tomorrow. With 73.6% toward the minimum goal we should be fine for the base funding, just not the tiers unfortunately.
Yeah but we're trending below previous percentages on matching days and there's underlying reasons why the model of applying previous percentages is flawed.
Those previous percentages at this point were with already funded campaigns (which tend to attract more backers) and were fueled by tiers, which we're not ramming through here. If we were funded and at 2/3 tiers, we might see a 33% total increase in the final 24 hours.
The Skystriker also had product added.
I'm thinking we're possibly at about 80% of the way to where we end up. Which is under 9,000.
If we got 2,700 backers in the next 8 hours then, sure, I think we'd probably get another 4,000 to 5,000 on Monday. Because we'd be hitting and coasting through incentives.
That is the irony, right? If someone could fake 3,000 orders and they got cancelled on Tuesday, we'd end up funding and unlocking the first tier even after the fraud is corrected for because of momentum.
But without those imaginary orders, we might not even get funded in the first place because we don't get momentum.
I talk a lot about backing Haslabs/MC and running Kickstarters. What I haven't talked about is the strategy of being an angel donor to small crowdfunding campaigns -- and that piggybacks off the momentum concept.
I identified a couple of comics crowdfunds that stalled like this by big creators you've all heard of. They were on track to fail. I did the math. I determined -- let's keep this vague -- that $1,000 difference would change the momentum of their campaign between failing and succeeding by over $1,000.
These were artist run campaigns.
So I went to them with my math and I said, "I'm publishing a comic. I know your rate for a cover is $3,000+. If I back at $1,000 and it funds the way I predict, will you throw in a cover for me with full publishing/reprint rights?" Both times they said yes. Both times the funding curve did what I said it would do. One time I got the cover. One time someone else I know did.
There is real bargaining leverage in the value of momentum. That's why earlybirds were a thing for awhile.
Somebody could potentially cut a similar deal right now. Effectively, "sell me 3,000 and if the final total is over 15,000, I want a price break." Now, that requires trust between parties and Hasbro is a big, slow bureaucracy so it might not be doable at this point. But it's conceivably rational for everyone.
For the record, HasLab averages for the final two days of a campaign is 7% followed by 23% in the last 24hrs. Basically 30% between now and midnight tomorrow. With 73.6% toward the minimum goal we should be fine for the base funding, just not the tiers unfortunately.
Yeah but we're trending below previous percentages on matching days and there's underlying reasons why the model of applying previous percentages is flawed.
Those previous percentages at this point were with already funded campaigns (which tend to attract more backers) and were fueled by tiers, which we're not ramming through here. If we were funded and at 2/3 tiers, we might see a 33% total increase in the final 24 hours.
The Skystriker also had product added.
I'm thinking we're possibly at about 80% of the way to where we end up. Which is under 9,000.
If we got 2,700 backers in the next 8 hours then, sure, I think we'd probably get another 4,000 to 5,000 on Monday. Because we'd be hitting and coasting through incentives.
Yeah, it’s a good distinction to make that most of the campaigns these averages are based on had already met their base funding by Week 7. That said, it’s still performing within the average when using just the base 10K as the end goal, so 700 units by the end of today would make me feel better. I’m really hoping Giant-Man may still prove to be an outlier that follows the historic trajectory of successful campaigns considering most fans seem to subscribe to the notion that $199.99 isn’t that outrageous just for Giant-Man alone.
If it falls short the point made earlier that there's another Haslab waiting for this one to end definitely is a pickle.
Let's say it ends at 9K backers. Just letting it drop is saying no to almost $2 million in revenue on what has been a largely positive campaign. That's a lot of money to leave lying on the table. 😳
They have an obvious extension date of Friday the 27th with the 1027 event, where they can do a final push for this, and even if launching a new Haslab that day the overlap would only be half a day.
Unrelated, but in terms of big and costly toys at retail, the lack of Toys R Us (or any dedicated national toy store) hurts I would guess, as they had nowhere near the shelf constraints that a typical Target or Walmart has, so they could decide to get 20 of these per store and build a whole Avengers display around it.
I wonder if Target would question whether blocking off the shelf space to put 5 of these on display is a safer bet to get $1000 in sales than if they could fit 50 toys at $20 each in the same space. Especially across all Target stores - I suspect sales of higher ticket ($200) toys probably varies quite a bit based on the economics of the store locations, more so than sales of $20 toys. (I suspect one reason that Amazon goes for the $125 ML box sets, and the physical stores do not, is that they don't have to worry about figuring out if some stores will sell 1 and others will sell 10)
The Big Millenium Falcon was a toy representing the most iconic vehicle from the biggest movie trilogy ever for one of the biggest, if not biggest, toy lines of all time. Not saying other big things can't sell, but that's a special case and probably not an apt comparison to anything else.
On the momentum subject:
Earlybirds, I feel I don't have to explain too hard, can be bad. We've seen backfires. There's reasonable debate with many projects if they even cause extra sales or just shift when sales happen or if (as I think is probably true) there's some of both and you end up with a softer final surge.
Campaigns follow a curve with a big surge, lull, big surge. Breaking the lull is where the big opportunity is. It often involves sweat, clever promotion, media interest, timing, and luck. Tiers can help.
The ideal is not so much an earlybird but a middlebird. But you don't want to give early backers the bird with your middlebird.
So the smart thing I've seen work repeatedly is timed add-on drops in the middle.
An add-on only available to backers from day 10 through day 20. Sometimes small, rare add-ons for single days.
For Haslab and MattelCreations to really benefit from the range of things crowdfunding does now, they need to work out add-ons.
It's trickier than it might seem because you still need your big thing to hit the MOQ but you need your add-ons to contribute to the success of your big thing and you need the costs to be proportionately the same to the asking price.
I'll throw out the simplest way this could work:
14" Giant-Man. $140.
Then for the middle three weeks of the campaign, one a week, you offer modern Pym Giant-Man, Goliath (red/blue), and Goliath (blue/yellow) as add-ons for $140 each. These are super-small runs so you effectively can't have any unique tooling except the head. They have to all be made in one factory run with running color changes to support the small run and make it work. The alternate heads probably all have to be produced for all versions just to keep it even. You can't do anything dramatically different (like Atlas or Clint Barton Goliath) under the assumption that some may be running changes of just 100 units or so at the end of a production run.
But this is essentially what a middlebird strategy would have looked like. You'd have had to avoid any sculpted details unique to any of them and probably a lower price/size in hopes of more people buying 4+ or even 5 of each.
This is just a sample strategy I think could have been powerful though.
@darkxorn Yeah. Do you associate anal rentitiveness and hyper-analysis and talking about regression math with negativity or wishing failure on people as disposition?
This is just autism spectrum behavior.
I mean, sure, I've wished failure on people before. But not because I wish failure on everyone or even the same people consistently. But because I didn't feel their approach was autism spectrum-y enough and I wanted the market to guide everyone in that direction.
There are absolutely a-holes who wish failure on everyone and who want this to fail but I guarantee you the people who want everything to fail (rather than specific things for specific reasons) aren't sitting around talking about business strategy or data regression models. They're off making memes on Facebook groups with Rancor and Cookie Monster alongside Giant-Man.
And at this point, I'd wager everyone in this thread who is writing more than three paragraph posts backed this, wanted to but couldn't afford to, or would never have backed this because it's not for them.
Anybody who's just generally sour at Hasbro or Marvel isn't going to be running numbers through a calculator. You're talking, I suspect, to people who approach their favorite things with this kind if hyper-critical hyper-analysis, who want to calculate and share their favorite team's odds even when they're not good because statistical accuracy is exciting.
If somebody wanted to dump on this thing, like I say, a meme's easier and will get thousands of times the engagement as a text salad. If all someone wants is high fives for crapping on something, they don't need to post an essay on a forum that probably gets a quarter the activity that it did six months ago when a crude jpeg of Hank Pym's head on a Rancor body would probably get 3000 likes in the next 24 hours. People who put effort into negativity generally aren't just negative for popularity or because they hate happiness. Those kinds of people don't need to write dissertations to get what they want.
Anyway, I backed this. It'd be cool if it funds. But I'm thinking as of right now that we're trending towards a bit shy of 9,000. Better than I thought a few days ago but not enough.
So, in pain staking summary, that's a Yes.
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