I'm just afraid we'll only get half of the 2K3 Turtles and Brian will abandon the other half due to "lack of pre-orders".

I've got to admit I stopped pre-ordering their products. It just feels like a bad bet.  They need to boost consumer confidence. 

If Brian Flynn is reading:

The reason I stopped preordering your figures is because of your business practices. I came into the TMNT Ultimates line late and paid $100 each for two Raphaels to keep one sealed. I also preordered five Michaelangos with the idea that I could sell three make a slight profit on each after eBay fees to make up for the extra I paid for Raphael. It's not scalping because it was a preorder.

Then you decided to re-release all of the turtles, which caused me to need to sell my Michaelangeos for less than half of what I paid, and my $100 Raphael was now worth less than $50 each.

So ultimately if your figures sell out, you will just make more. So why should I bother to preorder?

Then there's the QC issues. Flip a coin to decide if the figure will stand up or have botched paint. It appears your QC team either doesn't exist, or has such a low threshold for acceptability that at least half of the time, terrible figures emerge. And your response is to blame the factories, which you vetted, you chose, and you contracted.

Thus I won't know if the figure is absolute trash until after it comes out. So why should I bother to preorder?

Then there's the character selection issues. We never know if you're going to complete a team, family, or line. You like to make odd choices. This results in licensors pulling licenses early. 

Thus I won't know if I'm going to get a complete set of figures. So why should I bother to preorder?

Do you want to know which figures I preorder? Mythic Legions. I currently have $2k worth of outstanding preorders from them, direct. Why?

1) They have amazing QC, so I have no concerns the figures will arrive like trash

2) They own the license

3) They don't overproduce figures 

4) If a figure becomes rare, they dont automatically re-release it

5) They are not smug and tell us we as collectors are doing it wrong and then ignore us and give us stuff we dont ask for and dont want

PS: you mentioned the Reddit thread on the Veebs Cast this morning. But in typical Brian Flynn fashion you didn't respond to the claims. The Redditor did not claim you were being fired from Super7. The claim was that you have lost "Final Cut" authority, and that the hedge fund investors had implanted someone with authority to overrule your decisions because they have lost faith in your decision making authority.

You did not address that claim, you once again diverted and created a strawman claim that didn't exist to refute, so we are left to assume the Redditor's claims are true.

Brian's preorder griping is tiresome. He wants to put all of the risk on the consumer that these actually turn out worthwhile, rather than gauge interest and put in a factory order and sell product like most companies. It's going to take a combination of great products from Super7 and extreme scarcity to reverse the trend. For his sake, I hope the Reddit post is actually true to some degree and they're looking at improving the quality of the product. To just do nothing will likely doom then because how many more licenses can they acquire with a fanbase starving for action figures that will support them in the short term?

OK.. there are plenty of good reasons to complain about Super7 and their various practices and what not

But complaining because you invested in a bunch of extra figures hoping to be able to turn a profit and then having the bottom fall out because they reissued figures to reach more customers is NOT something I will ever be sympathetic to.

Pre-order the figure because you want it - not because you hope you will be able to flip it at double the price to someone else.    If the figure becomes available for pre-order again for a re-issue and more people can get the figure I already have - awesome.    Action figures shouldn't be investment commodities.   

And they won't reissue everything, just what's most popular.    The pre-order model has always been Super7's thing and it makes sense,  in the same way it makes sense for 4Horsemen to do pre-orders.    If you don't want your money tied up for a year plus,  pre-order through BBTS and they won't charge you until they have it in hand and ready to ship.   

There's no defending the QC issues, and I do understand holding off on pre-ordering to wait and see if the figure that arrives is a QC disaster or not.    Personally I haven't had any of my figures from Super7 be atrocities in that respect -  but I stay firmly in the MOTU/Thundercats/Silverhawks lane with only a handful of TMNT figures ordered.   I understand QC has been dodgier with other properties and I'm not defending S7 on the QC front in any way.    There's no doubt that Super7 expanded too fast with the boom in 2020/2021 - they overextended themselves and took their eye even further off the ball at their production centers (and I'm not saying it was the best to begin with).

But the main issues that Super7 is dealing with right now is a contraction in the market that is ALSO very clearly affecting McFarlane toys and  Hasbro's action figure lines.    All of those collectibles boomed in 2020 and 2021 and are seeing significant contraction now.    It's very visible with Super7 because of their model -  they cancel lines that don't get enough orders -   but they aren't the only company that had to steeply clearance tons of stock that was overproduced in 2021 -  look at the flood of action figures at  Ollie's/Ross/etc -   now there's a contraction.  It may ultimately have been necessary, assuming it doesn't kill the company.

If it stays afloat, Super7 will shrink back to what it was in 2018 and the people who were fine with that then will be fine with that again and the people who wanted it to be something else will go back to their NECA collections or whatever and all will be as it was.

Posted by: @panthercult

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Complaining because you invested in a bunch of extra figures hoping to be able to turn a profit and then having the bottom fall out because they reissued figures to reach more customers is NOT something I will ever be sympathetic to.

Yeah, and "it's not scalping because preorder" isn't legitimate, let alone acceptable.

If you buy something for the express purpose of reselling it for more than you paid, regardless of any other deciding factor, that is literally the definition of a scalper, lmfao.

Inb4 "bUt tHe iNvEsTmEnT" comments...

Posted by: @tenime

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Posted by: @panthercult

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Complaining because you invested in a bunch of extra figures hoping to be able to turn a profit and then having the bottom fall out because they reissued figures to reach more customers is NOT something I will ever be sympathetic to.

Yeah, and "it's not scalping because preorder" isn't legitimate, let alone acceptable.

If you buy something for the express purpose of reselling it for more than you paid, regardless of any other deciding factor, that is literally the definition of a scalper, lmfao.

Inb4 "bUt tHe iNvEsTmEnT" comments...

 

Your very broad, unequivocal definition of scalping applies to every business in the world that sells products.  Target is not selling you toys at their cost, they are doing it to make money.

Scalping is trying to corner the market and then take advantage of the demand and scarcity to sell at a higher price.  Preordering a made to order item actually results in the production of more product, potentially decreasing the value in the long-term, and does not deprive anyone else from purchasing the item at original cost.  They are not the same thing.

With that said, scalpers suck, as do producers who cater to them (i.e. McFarlane Toys and their constant chase figures).  I find investing in toys unappealing and a questionable way to use one’s money, but as long as someone isn’t grabbing all the stock off of shelves or utilizing bots, as far as I’m concerned, they can do with their money as they please.  However, producers have no responsibility to maintain the market value of one’s “investments” unless they make legally binding statements to that fact while promoting said products.

Let’s be honest, having a TMNT line where the basic four turtles are not available for new customers would be a bad marketing decision.  Of the many things Super 7 has done wrong, this is not one of them.

@misfit  I imagine Brian does know if it's a Sakai or NECA thing.There's a big difference between 'I'm not giving you the rights to do that' and 'I can't give you the rights to do that because those rights are held exclusively by someone else.' Doesn't seem like an issue that would be vague in any way considering it's a legal matter.

But man, it must have hurt to admit he can't do it. No Usagi. Not getting full waves, or even consecutive waves, of vintage-inspired figures anymore. I know Brian is a fucking fool, but even he must see the writing on the wall for this line. And I'm sure that helps drive the pre-order griping because he's building in an excuse when he cancels yet another line. Oh, you see, it's nothing Super7 could have done. People just aren't pre-ordering this amazing, perfectly flawless product for nebulous 'the economy' reasons. And we couldn't POSSIBLY just sell toys, like a toy company. Because we're not a toy company. We're an artisanal, high-end collectible company that ONLY sells directly to the customer. As long as that 'customer' includes most major toy retailers, including fucking Toys R' Us and nearly every toy e-tailer on the fucking planet.
Goddamn. If you only ever heard me talk about Super7 you'd think I'm the angriest person alive that hates everything because this fucking guy is such an absolute tool that it's genuinely infuriating to me. Doubly infuriating that he constantly gets away with it because no one with access to him has the balls to call his bullshit out.

@ben  My brother in Christ... c'mon. I'm with you on most of that. But I'm with my sexy dude-bros like @panthercult and @scottg10 that your top complaint about rarity and value is (my words not theirs) fucking dumb. They're toys. If you bought any of them thinking you could turn a profit on immediately reselling them, then that is on you and has absolutely nothing to do with Super7. One of the few intelligent moves Super7 has made was choosing to NOT worry about resell value and just re-issue the Turtles. They, correctly, recognized that many people weren't sure how the figures would turn out and opted not to pre-order and that those people, if blocked out of having all four turtles for a reasonable price, would simply choose not to collect at all.
Dooming the line in its infancy because you're trying to appeal to the basest of collectors - those that see these as investments of some kind, would have been absolutely ridiculous.

Moreover, I just think you're looking at pre-orders the wrong way. You're looking at it, in fact, kind of the S7 way. Pre-orders aren't supposed to be 'I must guarantee I get this super rare thing and if I don't pre-order it I will probably never have it.'  Pre-ordering should just be because you really want that thing. Hey, I like this, I'm going to PRE-order it, so I don't have to think about it again or look for it - it will just come to me when it's released and I'm happy about that because there's zero question that I'm going to buy it.' It should be a convenience, not a requirement, for collecting.

The rest of your post I am fully on board with and you have my support. And MY axe. Or something.

@tenime  I think we're arguing semantics here but I agree with Scott. Because Super7 doesn't put a hard limit on the number of items they WILL produce, and therefore will produce as many items as they have orders for, and the window for those orders is fairly large so there's really no way for anyone to glut up the system in their own favor; it's not scalping. Scalping does, by definition, require some type of control over the market. Buying all the figures at Walmart so only you have them, for instance. Or like... bribing all the right people so you can have exclusive rights to a country's water supply so you can bottle up water the citizens of that country rightly own and sell it back to them at a profit because now only you actually have legal rights to take any of that water I'm talking about Nestle in case anyone wasn't sure go ahead and look it up corporations are fucking evil how do you guys not get this yet.

BUT, I will say that intentionally ordering product you do not want in order to sell it to someone else for more money than you paid for it is definitely a cousin to scalping. It's a very similar, and almost equally disgusting, mindset. It's a mindset of abusing your fellows. Preying on someone else's desperation, FOMO, mental disabilities, impulse control issues, or just desires/wants in order to make yourself wealthier at their direct and explicit expense. You are going into that transaction with the HOPE of taking more money than an item is initially worth from a fellow collector. So you're treating your fellow collectors not as compatriots and friends, but as a source of income. And that, this won't make me any friends, makes you a fucking asshole and you should stop it immediately. You're making the world worse with this attitude. People you share a hobby with shouldn't be viewed with cartoon money signs over your eyeballs.

'I overpaid for Raph, so I'm going to get three other people to overpay ME for a different figure' is just a balls-backwards way of looking at the world and is so uncritical of oneself that it's deeply concerning people can say it out loud and not immediately follow it with 'wait a second.. am I the villain here?' Because yes, you are. And do not waste any time trying to convince me that there's 'nothing wrong with it.' There is. And if you don't think there is, then that says a lot more about how jaded you've let Capitalism make you.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pre-ordering extra figures to sell later. It hurts nobody. It is not scalping. In fact, it helps collectors get figures that are no longer available more easily. 

There is something wrong, however, in HOPING figures aren't re-released and complaining about it so that your own collection or "investment" will gain value. That's the gross part. Wanting fellow collectors to be deprived of something for your own gain is gross, and is very much a scalping mindset. 

I probably shouldn't step into this debate but I will say that if people placing extra preorders to sell means that the line stays healthy longer then I'm all for it.  I don't care if someone wants to make $10 on a figure a year down the line, that's their prerogative (really?  that's how you spell that word?) as someone that pledged money in advance to help make sure I got my action figure.  Heck, I'd be willing to bet that without speculators a lot more Super7 stuff would have been canceled for "lack of interest".

This goes doubly (triply?) for crowdfunded items.  By all means, please buy the maximum allotment of every GI Joe Haslab or MOTU Creations item to flip later if it means we can get all the unlocks.  Heck, I wish more people would have speculated on Eternia, we could have gotten Keclar!

Anyway... *runs away before KD tears me apart

Oh.... I'm not against anyone buying as many of the pre-orders as they can.   Buy away.   

I'm against those people bitching and moaning that Super7 should have protected their investment by never reissuing the figures so latecomers couldn't have access to the figures at a reasonable price and would instead have to buy horded figures at inflated secondary market prices.     

If you play the "investment" game you are placing a wager.   The company is under no obligation to ensure that your wager pays off.     

The calculus for the company comes down to: is it ultimately healthier to keep the initial investor on board or make a broader customer base happy with entry level prices?    By doing the latter they lose the multiple purchases of the former -  but if that's replaced with the same or more sales it's still a net win.

I'll throw my thoughts into the ring.

I do not think pre-ordering extras of a made to order item is scalping (bolded for emphasis). Not in a negative way at least.  I also do not have strong feelings against those who do this. Frankly it does not really affect me in a bad way. I had the opportunity to order my own, they didn't prohibit that. And if I didn't, then I can buy one of theirs. I'll pay a bit more, but not as much as if folks didn't order extras to sell. The more extras folks buy the cheaper they are on the secondary market. It's worked in my favor many times over the years. Almost every January I see people's top ten list and go back and buy a few things I skipped. 

I suppose the only way it would affect me negatively is if I was trying to sell my own copy. 

Also, I was one of those who had to pay almost $100 for Raphael way back when. I was not against them re-issuing it. I thought it was a smart move by Super7. 

Targeting action figures as an investment is an inherently foolish practice. Most gains are short term, FOMO, type stuff like we saw with the first wave of TMNT Ultimates. People thought they missed out and paid a premium, but Super7 issued more eventually so the window to make a buck was pretty small. Most of the really valuable stuff in the action figure world is either stuff no one wanted when it was made (like late era Playmates figures, if we're keeping it to TMNT) or stuff no one predicted would be a collector's item down the road (like the placeholder box for the initial Star Wars figures or basically anything only kids cared about in the moment). If you want to make an investment with a company where the company is going to cater to you, buy stock or invest directly in some other way. The PE or VC entity that invested in Super7 is probably the only entity Super7 cares about returning a profit to. For their consumer, they should only care about delivering a quality product that satisfies demand, and yeah, we all have our opinion on how well that's going for them.

I feel like Ultimates, and possibly even S7 as a whole, might be a thing of the past soon if they don't improve the business model.  Need to get a handle on the delays and QC issues, improve the articulation, and they desperately need to find a way to get their costs down to a level where they can sell these at the prices people are willing to pay.  Getting rid of weapon trees, shipping boxes, and slipcovers is a start.... but none of those cost savings were passed to the customer (heck, prices went up 2 or 3 times while they were cutting it).  

People aren't going to preorder direct after so many waves got deep discounts at retailers not even a year after release, which honestly may have already doomed Ultimates outright.

I don't care what the literal definition of the term "scalping" is.  If you buy a figure you have no intention of keeping for the sole purpose of selling it later for a profit, that may not be the definition of scalping, but it is the definition of a bitch move.

I have a ton of issues with Super7, but the fact that they re-issued the first few figures when they were selling for hundreds on ebay so new collectors could get on board is something I actually respect about them.

And that's why you're so handsome.