Another Price Hike

[tru48082]

Amazon already bumped the preorder on retro carded Scarlet Witch and Vision to $25.99 so no big surprise to me. I'll see how I feel about it all by the end of the year.

Can Amazon do this? I thought if you already had the item pre-ordered at $22.99, you were locked-in at that price. Any future pre-orders or an additional pre-order would get you the new price.

I may have to re-think those 2 pre-orders.

So far my pre-orders of Hammerhead, Black-Suited Spidey, Spider Armor, Sleepwalker and D'Spayre are still at $22.99.

- tru48082

I believe you are right. Whatever price you pre-ordered at is locked in, unless it goes on sale before it ships then you get the lower price. But from my experience, they never raise it once you're pre-ordered however the listing price fluctuates. Maybe this has changed recently though?

My bad! They are both still at $22.99. I was clicking on the item's link that took me to a "new" pre-order. I overlooked the smaller $22.99 print in my Order Details. Whew!

-tru48082

[Ultramane]

$27 for repaints with no new tooling, no bafs, and minimal paint. a $7 increase over what a retro figure could've been purchased for a year ago.

iNfLaTiOn

[kantboy2]

Found a sealed Scourge for $30 shipped on Ebay; better than my local Walmart.

That 2024 Secret Wars wave better be worth it.

[Scissors]

Anyway, kidding aside, I do have to say, as a Canadian, I am enjoying sitting in the peanut gallery. We have had 3 price increases in the last 12 months, and MLs (and their equivalent counterparts) haven't been below $30CDN since before 2021. So seeing you guys finally getting close to the same (dollar equivalent) price is interesting. And I am seeing a lot of similar comments to what I see on Canadian boards, some by me.

I have said elsewhere that it wouldn't be until you guys hit that magical $30 mark, that we would see a real drag on the sales for these lines. You guys are still the biggest market and have been, to a degree, sheltered a bit from the same percentage increases that other markets have faced. Seeing the reactions right now, I wonder if we won't see that drag now instead of at the $30 mark.

I agree that US collectors are more fortunate than the rest of us in terms of price-sheltering, but this price hike is going to hit us in Canada too.

As someone else already pointed out though, TRU just repriced most of their Legends figures. Armadillo wave figures are now $42.99, FF4 Retro, AOA2 and Villain waves are $39.99. What really grinds my gears with this TRU price hike is that these are all existing stock already on the shelves for a while. I'm sure jacking up the prices of Eternals figures to $36.99 is really going to help move them when they were pegwarming at $33.99.

I've already scaled back on this hobby in 2021. If the price gets another hike, I'm done. I'm already reconsidering my preorder for the 20th Anniv. Cap preorder, and "nice to have" figures from things like the Bonebreaker wave will probably get cut.

[SDcomics]

So basically, to boil it all down ... this sucks.

[K_Steel]

Regarding Canada...

TRU Canada is charging $43 CAD plus Tax for...Jyn Erso https://www.toysrus.ca/en/Star-Wars-The ... 45984.html

That's mindblowing and hilarious.

[Demjot]

I haven't seen a figure for 30$ in Canada since 2019 except maybe on Amazon if I'm early. I think most Canadian collectors would welcome only paying 25$ USD (between 30-34$ CAD normally) for figures at this point. We're always going to get offset an extra 5$ though because of... more expensive import or transport fees or something.

[christianpyro]

The prospect of a $25 price has me eyeing my current collection(s), and wondering what is expendable. I know there are lots of characters I wouldn't purchase at $25. Characters that may have gone along with figures I already own, like the Serpent Society. Do I need to continue to keep the Serpent Society characters I already own, knowing I may not add to them?

How about X-Men? I want the core team, and classic Brotherhood. But the rest? In that case I'm virtually done. I just want obvious and worthwhile improvements. Are these new animated X-MEN good enough to want me to repurchase them? Most of them probably are not.

Spiderman? Basically I want characters from the 90's Animated series.

Power Rangers, with the exception of a few cool looking villians, are probably out.

Star Wars? I would keep to Classic OT and a few new, but cool characters. No need for the endless parade of Trooper repaints (Except clones, I have a soft spot for those...). And no more Ponda Baba's, where the re-used tooling and made an inferior product.

Another purge may be in order. Refine my collection, and make it easier to skip new, but secondary characters that don't fit it.

[Super Camel]

I have felt for a while I need to cut back on the Hasbro Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black Series figures I buy. I buy so much. I am fortunate because I have the budget I can afford it, but it often feels like money wasted. Because do I really need some of these people/characters? So, this price hike kind of gave me the inspiration to finally do that.

When I jumped into the line of Hasbro's Marvel Legends, my goal was simple. Get all the X-Men and X-Related characters. But along the way I branched off. Street Level characters, pretty much any and all villains, because it's fun to face the X-Men figures off against them, etc. I felt like, "You have to have the Avengers and Fantastic 4". And just kept buying characters i don't know that I needed.

So, I need to tighten up. Mainly only X-Men going forward. And I think I will still get some of the bigger name villains (I know I'm getting Zemo and Jigsaw this year) and some but not all street level characters. Definitely going to stay all in on X-Men, and then really pick and choose everything else.

With Star Wars I buy pretty much everything and I'm sick of it. And now a price hike? Perfect time to change. I will get anything from the Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy. Outside of that, I really just want certain kinds of fighting, Warrior like characters. Jedi, Sith, Dark Jedi, Inquisitors, Mandalorians, Bounty Hunters. But I don't need all these troops from video games Game Stop is offering, or troops from different shows that only show up for a scene or two. Or some of these characters from the Sequel trilogy, Cartoons, or Shows that don't do much, don't really fight, are only on for a brief moment, or just seem bland.

So, I have made a few cancellations, kept some pre orders going, and will just shape things up a bit and focus on what I really want, and not just get anything and everything.

What really concerns me when it comes to price hikes isn't Hasbro. It's Super7. I like so many of their Ultimate lines, but $55 is already asking a lot for what you get.

[yojoebro82]

In all honesty the line could end now and I'd be fine. Dozens of versions of every A list character for you to pick from, all of them good in their own way. B, C, and D list characters that no other toy company would ever touch. They've done it all. That's why I'm not really too upset over price hikes. I'm not staring down a long list of figures I still want. I struggle to come up with 10. If you give me a version of a character that I really like that blows all the other versions completely and totally away, yeah, I'd drop $25 for that.....heck, maybe even $30. But it would have to be perfection. Not "almost" perfection. We have "almost" perfection many, many, MANY times over. I've got it already.

Sort of off topic, sort of not, but last week I brought in a ton of 6" Marvel and DC figures to my LCS to sell. I got $1,000 for it. That was really nice, and if you look at my figure room you'd never know I just sold 1K of stuff. Tonight my 4 year old who LOVES books was getting together a bunch to donate to give to kids who might not have any. If she can do that with the stuff she loves, unload her extras to help out someone else, why can't I? I'm gearing up to bring another big load to my LCS. Let the good folks who run it and their customers benefit. I don't need so much.

[Ultramane]

What really concerns me when it comes to price hikes isn't Hasbro. It's Super7. I like so many of their Ultimate lines, but $55 is already asking a lot for what you get.

is it really though? between the accessories and a lot of unique sculpts it seems on par with something like sh figuarts which are comparable in those departments. obviously the articulation and engineering isn't comparable, but still

[Ultramane]

a thing i haven't noticed mentioned much is the complete garbage quality plastic hasbro uses. it's super cheap and soft to the point of warping under its own weight and easily scratches. pinless joints isn't enough to make me ignore that.

[EnigmaticClarity]

a thing i haven't noticed mentioned much is the complete garbage quality plastic hasbro uses. it's super cheap and soft to the point of warping under its own weight and easily scratches.

That's so kids can also play with them since they're widely sold in toy departments. My son breaks pretty much anything I give him from NECA or Disney Toy Box due to the comparatively stiff plastic they both use, but the pliable Legends plastic withstands falls and rough play pretty easily with some exceptions. The most vulnerable points on Legends my kids have broken are mostly small, unarticulated points, particularly pony tails--which they recently addressed by making the AoA Sabretooth pony tail and the Colossus mask ties removable.

[Ultramane]

i collect plenty of comparable lines targeted at the same age groups and only ML have this trash plastic

[VonDoom62]

Most figures I get from ML feel like they're made out of a pretty solid plastic to me, especially compared to the average Marvel Legends from five or so years ago. I still do, on the rare occasion, get a figure that feels like it's made out of an extremely soft plastic that can't even hold the figure's weight in certain poses. PulseCon Animated Venom is probably the most prominent example I can think of from the past year. That figure's knees were so rubbery, I had to stiffen them up myself. Retro Sandman is another where the plastic felt pretty cheap. Still, out of all the figures I bought last year, those were the only two that were bad enough that I actually took notice of it.

It would be nice if it wasn't a problem at all, though, especially since that Venom was a pricey con exclusive.