Hasbro Made-to-Order Figures

fac said:
Does Hasbro claim anywhere that the MTO model is a one-time only production run? They don't disclose the number of orders, do they? I don't feel this is like a Haslab where you kind of think this is your only opportunity.

I think they are just using this to confirm that if they needed 5,000 orders to go into production, getting 7,000 preorders covers that and they can possibly make 10,000 and not lose money even if they have excess and it takes awhile to sell. And if they get 1,000 orders, they can always say "sorry, didn't get enough interest, your preorder is cancelled".
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I think you are right and I think it is great when an additional release of a limited production item can get product to those regretting not ordering during a first run. But I was salty when Hasbro started selling additional Dragon Man figures after they told me they didn't have inventory to replace my defective MTO Dragon Man.
 
bat said:
I think you are right and I think it is great when an additional release of a limited production item can get product to those regretting not ordering during a first run. But I was salty when Hasbro started selling additional Dragon Man figures after they told me they didn't have inventory to replace my defective MTO Dragon Man.
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That was nonsense no matter how they cut it.
 
I dunno... I kinda feel like the words "Made To Order" suggest that they're making the amount that's being ordered. So having like 6k of them sitting around after fulfilling those orders definitely feels like it is, in fact, not Made to Order and actually just like.. a regular pre-order.
 
I am surprised if the numbers are correct, they must have had a lot of cancelations or partial cancelations as that is a lot of extras. I think they will avoid having any big ticket item hit in mid-December again.

I also wonder if (and this is pure speculation) the overall total profit was cut to shreds due to tariffs that were not priced into the pre-order price. Maybe they decided to roll the dice and make a larger run to generate more revenue in order to get back to their expected total profit figure, by dropping the per unit cost a little and selling at a higher prices, getting an extra $500,000 or more in sales (if they sell).
 
bat said:
I think you are right and I think it is great when an additional release of a limited production item can get product to those regretting not ordering during a first run. But I was salty when Hasbro started selling additional Dragon Man figures after they told me they didn't have inventory to replace my defective MTO Dragon Man.
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Yeah, I understand being salty about that, that was a poor move on their part to be sure.
 
Damien said:
I dunno... I kinda feel like the words "Made To Order" suggest that they're making the amount that's being ordered. So having like 6k of them sitting around after fulfilling those orders definitely feels like it is, in fact, not Made to Order and actually just like.. a regular pre-order.
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I still believe it's a lot of waffling buyers or people who cancelled because Christmas/The Economy. I know a fair amount of people in the Toronto scene who all jumped off the tracks at the last minute with the payment chicken game.and exchange rates, as example.
 
Stoopid_Sandwich said:
This is kind of unprecedented for Hasbro’s standards for new releases. We see popular items sell out all the time but the fact that they have to keep restocking the sentinel tells me
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Since these are only just now hitting, I wouldn't really consider these "restocks" - this is just the inventory as it is arriving and being added to Pulse. These would all be from the same initial production run.
 
Didn't have to make any cuts on Sentinels... but I didnt have the excess cash on hand for the Ecto-1 last year. And boy did I pay for that on the secondary market.
 
fac said:
I also wonder if (and this is pure speculation) the overall total profit was cut to shreds due to tariffs that were not priced into the pre-order price. Maybe they decided to roll the dice and make a larger run to generate more revenue in order to get back to their expected total profit figure, by dropping the per unit cost a little and selling at a higher prices, getting an extra $500,000 or more in sales (if they sell).
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This is, in my opinion, the most likely scenario. They went 'made-to-order' the way those liars at Super7 called their product 'made-to-order.' It was really just a pre-order and they made loads of them because the actual MTO numbers weren't going to get them where they wanted to be, but they knew it would sell out eventually if they made extras. It's a totally logical, reasonable thing to do barring any concerns over fraudulent marketing.


altcunningham said:
I still believe it's a lot of waffling buyers or people who cancelled because Christmas/The Economy. I know a fair amount of people in the Toronto scene who all jumped off the tracks at the last minute with the payment chicken game.and exchange rates, as example.
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You'd have to do a lot of work to convince me that like 5-6 thousand people cancelled their pre-orders for this.
 
Well, I've had a handful of days to play with the '97 Sentinel I post-ordered and, I have to admit, he is simply magnificent. The minimal paint applications are clean and precise, his joints are all well-engineered & sturdy, and I appreciate his ability to strike dynamic poses.
He is a beast though. I kinda feel like the dog who caught the car; I'm at a loss on what to do with him. He definitely won't fit into any of my display cases without a major overhaul involving not only figure rearrangement, but actual shelf adjustments. So he currently resides on our coffee table in the middle of the living room accompanied by Shuma Gorath, both just waiting for me to figure out where to put them.
Despite my quandary, both of these acquisitions are wonderful renderings of their respective canonical source material and most welcome additions to the collection.
Also, both are absolutely in the running for my figure of the year award. Decisions, decisions...
 
Damien said:
You'd have to do a lot of work to convince me that like 5-6 thousand people cancelled their pre-orders for this.
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Agreed that seems unlikely, but it wouldn't shock me that a lot of people over-ordered on multiples knowing that there was no ramifications for cancelling and then reduced their orders when it ended up hitting in December at the same time they were buying holiday gifts. Timing of this was bad, even though I know that this was originally supposed to hit months ago and got delayed significantly.

The likely scenario seems to be that there were a fair number of cancellations, credit cards that didn't get approved AND Hasbro making a lot more than were originally ordered. Hasbro will likely end up doing better on this than expected, because they'll still sell through at that higher price even if it takes a bit. I'm still good at the 2 that I pre-ordered.
 
Damien said:
This is, in my opinion, the most likely scenario. They went 'made-to-order' the way those liars at Super7 called their product 'made-to-order.' It was really just a pre-order and they made loads of them because the actual MTO numbers weren't going to get them where they wanted to be, but they knew it would sell out eventually if they made extras. It's a totally logical, reasonable thing to do barring any concerns over fraudulent marketing.
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"Made-to-a-reasonably-accurate-estimate-of-general-interest-from-buyers-based-on-preorders-placed-during-a-limited-window" doesn't have the same ring to it.
 
Lucid Silverback said:
Well, I've had a handful of days to play with the '97 Sentinel I post-ordered and, I have to admit, he is simply magnificent. The minimal paint applications are clean and precise, his joints are all well-engineered & sturdy, and I appreciate his ability to strike dynamic poses.
He is a beast though. I kinda feel like the dog who caught the car; I'm at a loss on what to do with him. He definitely won't fit into any of my display cases without a major overhaul involving not only figure rearrangement, but actual shelf adjustments. So he currently resides on our coffee table in the middle of the living room accompanied by Shuma Gorath, both just waiting for me to figure out where to put them.
Despite my quandary, both of these acquisitions are wonderful renderings of their respective canonical source material and most welcome additions to the collection.
Also, both are absolutely in the running for my figure of the year award. Decisions, decisions...
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I keep mine on my hobby table where I customize and stuff. It’s like a ten foot wide table so there is plenty of space for items that would otherwise be too invasive


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Reno said:
Agreed that seems unlikely, but it wouldn't shock me that a lot of people over-ordered on multiples knowing that there was no ramifications for cancelling and then reduced their orders when it ended up hitting in December at the same time they were buying holiday gifts. Timing of this was bad, even though I know that this was originally supposed to hit months ago and got delayed significantly.

The likely scenario seems to be that there were a fair number of cancellations, credit cards that didn't get approved AND Hasbro making a lot more than were originally ordered. Hasbro will likely end up doing better on this than expected, because they'll still sell through at that higher price even if it takes a bit. I'm still good at the 2 that I pre-ordered.
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Oh, I definitely think some people scaled back or cancelled entirely. But I'd be shocked if it were any kind of significant percentage. Much as we all bitch about it, big ticket items, full waves of product, etc etc are always dropping around the holidays. We have complained about it literally every year since I first joined Fwoosh like 20 years ago. Yet toy companies keep doing it. That seems to imply there isn't really any significant negative impact (if any at all) on their sales when they do it. Otherwise toy companies would avoid it like the plague. Like how TV production companies refuse to release new episodes of things during certain times of year because 'no one is watching TV at that time.'

I imagine, just as a guess, cancellations or unresolved CC issues represent maybe -hundreds- of figures, but definitely not thousands. So that's still a pretty massive amount of extra figures Hasbro produced over and above what was ordered. Again, in my opinion.



hmmberto said:
"Made-to-a-reasonably-accurate-estimate-of-general-interest-from-buyers-based-on-preorders-placed-during-a-limited-window" doesn't have the same ring to it.
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Well, you know, maybe next time someone can tell them that you can just call that a 'pre-order' like everyone else. Hasbro wouldn't be the only company to do a pre-order and warn people that pre-ordering is the only way to be sure they'll get it because in stock sales will be extremely limited. Mezco built their entire brand on not calling it MTO, but making sure you knew that if you didn't pre-order there was a good chance you wouldn't get it.
 
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