Will pointless exclusives hurt Palisades line?

[MrTheFrog]

I was thinking about this today..Originally some of the palisades exclusives were going to be resculpts, but now they're pretty much just repaints with extra things like guitar cases. I'm a huge Muppet Fan. I have over $10,000 worth of Muppet collectibles, and on top of that I'm a puppeteer. And even I'm not going to buy Beauregard in purple overalls (I know that's not a real figure). My point is, if the stores were going to have good exclusives like Bear on Patrol Fozzie, I'd shop there. But I'm not making a special trip to FAO to get Kermit with spoon. And if I'm not gonna bother, why would a less enthusiastic Muppet fan bother? So my question is, when Kaybee sees that there are a hundred Fozzie with striped tie sitting on the shelves, won't this hurt the line as a whole? Will they still order? I'd rather have scalpers snatch up all the Bear on Patrol Fozzies and have the shelves empty, and have the stores order more, then not have the figure at all. It has always been like this in the Star Wars line. There is not a single figure I haven't been able to find in stores. I have all the exclusives, and never had to buy from e-bay. Scalpers have actually helped the line go as far as it has. They make the product scarce and desired. You know why the Star Wars midnight madness sale at TRU is such a success? Because people are afraid tha scalpers will get the figures first. So, they plan, they get excited, and they BUY THE FIGURES. I'm not condoning scalping, it frustrates me as much as the next guy, but sometimes figures need to be hard to find. It lengthens the life of a toy line.
What do you think? Will the future pegwarmers of the Muppet line hurt the line as a whole?
-Artie

 

[bw0000]

I could not agree more!

 

[Foreignman]

I don't like that I have to order from EBWorld and Toys R Us, for different exclusives. Doubles Shipping and Handling!!! However, I'd rather they make exclusives than no excluives at all, and am very much looking forward to my Miss Piggy EB Exclusive(she looks so much better), and my Kermit in Tux.

 

[ResidentLilly]

It's a ****** if you do. ****** if you don't situation as a toy company. If you put out something as choice as a Patrol Bear Fozzie, then a lot of people, mainly completists, might get irritated that they missed it, or they had to go through e-bay and pay a huge price for it. You lose some customers and sales. If you do a less choice exclusive, like a Floyd repaint, you have people who decide they don't really need or want that one and the figure might sit around and again, you lose sales.

Fact is, you can't make everyone happy, no matter how hard you try or want to. So why do exclusives at all? It is one of the necessary aspects of this business that unfortunately everyone has to do...from the small guys, like us, to the big guys, like Hasbro. It is based on survival and hopefully appeals to a hard core collector.

See, only the most hard core collector's will take the extra steps to aquire pieces like these. That's why exclusives are limited. Most people on this board do not fall into that category. I have read so many posts that indicate people will pick and choose what they get. That's cool, I am the same way with some of the lines I collect. BUT, I am a hard core Star Wars collector. And it does irritate me when something comes out that is SO choice, like a B'omarr Monk, that I have to join a fan club to get it. A new version of Luke isn't such a difficult thing to miss out on. I suspect that there are quite a few hard core collector's out there who would still go after a Floyd repaint with a new guitar, but who knows?

There is no easy answer. Not in this fickle business, where some things sell like crazy and other, equally good items, do not. But that's where response time comes in. As a company, it is our job to respond to consumer demand. We have received plenty of negative response to the first real choice exclusive, namely Kermit, and so the decision to hold off on Patrol Bear and to wait to see how Kermit actually does is sound. If in Series 2 the Floyd and Gonzo crash and burn then believe me, the simpler repainted figures will go away and result in no exclusives or all choice exclusives.

It is one of those things that you just have to wait and see on. And you never really know until the stuff is on shelf and moving.

My two cents...
Ken

 

[Michael Crawford]

Ah yes, I believe I've heard this song before

Ken and I have had conversations on this exact topic. Well, sort of 'exact'.

It's not exclusives that are a bad thing - it's limited figures. Quite honestly, EVERYTHING is limited. When a company does a figure run, it's tremendously unlikely that they'll ever go back and run more, due to timing, set up costs, and scheduling issues. So while a regular line figure might be 50k or so (and I'm just guessing based on my own knowledge of similar lines and demand), it's still 'limited'.

However, when you run enough to meet demand, the fact that there aren't more really isn't an issue. Actually, it's a very good thing - I'm sure Palisades and their retailers would like to see at least 90% of the product sell at full retail relatively quickly.

Exclusives are rarely a problem either, when handled right. Look at the WOS exclusives handled by EB. They allow you to pre-order early, and they have a decent number - certainly not tens of thousands, but enough to meet the demand for these types of exclusives. Miss Piggy at EB is a great example - every completist can pre-order the thing and be happy.

But making a decent variation - even something like a repainted Dr. Teeth - either impossible to get due to your method of distribution or because only a few hundred exist, well, that can cause issues.

And good exclusives can be a terrific thing. They can allow a company to make a figure that only a quarter of the collectors would care about, but because it's an exclusive they can still get it produced and into their hands. The WOS exclusive KBBL radio station playset is a great example. There's no way they could sell 50k of them to the WOS collectors. But 20k will sell to the completists and hard core fans.

So to recap - very low numbers = bad, exclusives can = good.

Michael
MWC

 

[frogboy4]

I am not completely wild about the repaint exclusives, though I think the Electric Mayhem ones coiuld be really cool. And Scooter in a cape kicks serious butt too. I will try to collect them all, but if I am not able to, I won't feel so terrible. I think that's the point of these exclusives is that nobody (especially the very important overseas market) feels burned or becomes discouraged from this series because of missing choice exclusives.

I always thought Patrol Bear was a poor choice for an exclusive because I thought there may be a playset down the road and it wouldn't sell too well if many collectors were only able to get Link.

I wish that the exclusives were more interesting, but the Piggy, Tux Kermit, Caped Scooter and three EM member repaints could prove to be interesting yet. And I have no idea what they have planned for Link!

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I already said it: I'm going to get ALL the figures, even if I have to hurt myself to do it.

After all, Ken's getting married...he's gonna need a bonus in that paycheck

FOZ