Bandai DX Chogokin 1/48 VF-1

[slide]

Just now, Slave IV said:

Also, I will reiterate that I don't think Bandai is miscalculating anything...at least not by as much as we all hope to think. They are an international corporation with bean-counters whose calculations are most likely telling them it's more profitable to produce other items instead of more of these high end niche items. It's great for business when all your high end items sell out instantly and you have no extra stock clogging the shelves. Each unsold SOC or DX item costs more to make and to store because of the size and parts count. Selling more small, cheap items at a higher margin means more profit and less potential loss.

It's not a 'miscalculation';

"Bandai made X amount of DX Max VF-1A. Bandai assumes [correctly] that the number they made will be Pre-sold or otherwise picked up by a retailer."

All fine and dandy... One even assumes that's how they do business in general, like most companies in this game.

However: This still leaves customers with money in-hand, and no supply to meet them, except scalpers.

What I'm harping on is a failure to modernize/optimize/integrate the data systems they already have in-place, when doing so opens up the opportunity to expand sales.

 

Again: Bandai, the Manufacturer and Primary Distributor of the product in question, has the power to solve this problem; simultaneously getting more product into collector's hands, and potentially expanding their profit margins beyond what they had planned, simply by utilizing the systems/Data already in-use, in a new/different way, to nail down EXACT numbers before they even begin pressing plastic into moulds.

Seems a no-Brainer to me, but again, I don't know their production limitations, etc. etc. etc...

 

This is a potential optimization applicable for all lines of "high-end, low-margin" Collectibles they make, not just Macross:

Actually manufacturing an amount of stock in accordance to your pre-payed pre-orders would [in theory] remove the issue of oversupply completely from the table.

 

I also realise that Bandai has little incentive to care, since they [presumably] sold their entire run. If they're fine with that, then mission accomplished.

 

Whatever, it now makes no difference to myself. Bandai's loss of potential revenue

Edited April 8, 2019 by slide

[Bolt]

Everyone is napping now...

[Shizuka the Cat]

A friend of mine who works at Hasbro explained a possible theory as to why Bandai does not make enough valkyries.

He said that, depending on the manufacturer, one cannot just order an arbitrary number of toys to be made. Rather, they have to be ordered in lots.  For example, if a single lot is 2500 valkyries, maybe Bandai ordered 2 lots of the VF-1A because they knew that would completely sell, but were not convinced that 3 lots of inventory would clear quickly.

Also, due to the quantity of a lot, it is not practical to have open pre-orders, since what happens if the pre-orders that come in does not come close to filling out a lot multiple? That runs the risk of the company either needing to cancel pre-orders down to a lot multiple, or going up to the next lot multiple and having too much extra merchandise.

He also said that Bandai may be trying to avoid warehousing product as much as possible, so they might have fewer products manufactured, but don't have to worry about warehousing since they pretty much already sold everything off due to pre-orders. This is versus an approach of making perhaps too much and needing to keep some inventory warehoused in hopes of eventually getting sold off, potentially at a discount.... which they might be trying to avoid.

He's not sure if this scenario is true for Bandai... or at least the division of Bandai responsible for Macross toys, but he offered it as to one possibility.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Shizuka the Cat

[Checkmate]

Has anyone been monitoring Japanese Macross sites or forums? I wonder if they experienced the same hell we did?

[rdrunner]

1 minute ago, Checkmate said:

Has anyone been monitoring Japanese Macross sites or forums? I wonder if they experienced the same hell we did?

I would be curious to know too. What websites would you search for a Japanese Macross forum??

A toy reviewer in HK said none of his friends and him were able to secure a PO for the Max 1A. So it’s not just us American fans who got screwed this time. 

[rdrunner]

Thanks Shizuka that theory actually makes a lot of sense (the idea of lots, and warehousing). While I agree with what your friend said, I do wonder how TWE preorders fit into the model. Maybe these are produced in much smaller lot sizes and warehousing won’t ever be an issue anyway as they’re all prepaid up front. 

[Checkmate]

Just now, rdrunner said:

I would be curious to know too. What websites would you search for a Japanese Macross forum??

A toy reviewer in HK said none of his friends and him were able to secure a PO for the Max 1A. So it’s not just us American fans who got screwed this time. 

What if there were like 100 pieces and the reason we didn't get one is because of an error. Then tomorrow we'll get an apology from Bandai execs. They'll give us a two minute head start during PO. LOL

[tjdetweiler]

NY - 27K yen - no pay later option

 

https://www.nippon-yasan.com/27881-super-dimension-fortress-macross-dx-chogokin-vf-1a-valkyrie-maximilian-jenius-custom.html

[Kanedas Bike]

N-Y just relisted Max at 27,500 with payment due immediately

-b.

 

^edit, what he said 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Kanedas Bike

[Valkyrie23]

NY is back up 

27,500 JPY though

[derex3592]

Nope. not gonna do it. Principles. 

[Kanedas Bike]

Just now, derex3592 said:

Nope. not gonna do it. Principles. 

Especially from N-Y

Max is my favorite character, and if release day come and I still haven't gotten a copy, then I'll begrudgingly pay a markup, but not 1 day after preorders opened. 

-b.

[spacemanoeuvres]

2 minutes ago, tjdetweiler said:

NY - 27K yen - no pay later option

 

https://www.nippon-yasan.com/27881-super-dimension-fortress-macross-dx-chogokin-vf-1a-valkyrie-maximilian-jenius-custom.html

Hot damn, that’s quite the markup lol

[tjdetweiler]

4 minutes ago, Kanedas Bike said:

Especially from N-Y

Max is my favorite character, and if release day come and I still haven't gotten a copy, then I'll begrudgingly pay a markup, but not 1 day after preorders opened. 

-b.

I wish you all the best! I hope that you are able to secure one of your fav characters! I just got very lucky but not until 3 hours when POs opened up.

[slide]

Just now, Shizuka the Cat said:

A friend of mine who works at Hasbro explained a possible theory as to why Bandai does not make enough valkyries.

He said that, depending on the manufacturer, one cannot just order an arbitrary number of toys to be made. Rather, they have to be ordered in lots.  For example, if a single lot is 2500 valkyries, maybe Bandai ordered 2 lots of the VF-1A because they knew that would completely sell, but were not convinced that 3 lots of inventory would clear quickly.

Also, due to the quantity of a lot, it is not practical to have open pre-orders, since what happens if the pre-orders that come in does not come close to filling out a lot multiple? That runs the risk of the company either needing to cancel pre-orders down to a lot multiple, or going up to the next lot multiple and having too much extra merchandise.

He also said that Bandai may be trying to avoid warehousing product as much as possible, so they might have fewer products manufactured, but don't have to worry about warehousing since they pretty much already sold everything off due to pre-orders. This is versus an approach of making perhaps too much and needing to keep some inventory warehoused in hopes of eventually getting sold off, potentially at a discount.... which they might be trying to avoid.

He's not sure if this scenario is true for Bandai... or at least the division of Bandai responsible for Macross toys, but he offered it as to one possibility.

Indeed, that's why getting PO info before actually beginning manufacture, and using said info to inform your manufacturing numbers solves the 'overstock' issue, in a different way than they're doing now, which [hopefully] won't result in further mass-disappointments like this morning.

 

Customers happy with your service not only return, but sometimes even bring new customers with them.

Fed-up customers may stay asleep during the next PO night.

A tipping point will eventually be reached...or people will learn to love taking it up the wallet. Either way, time will tell.

But count me out for this line at least...

 

Just now, derex3592 said:

Nope. not gonna do it. Principles. 

Indeed.

[Kanedas Bike]

2 minutes ago, tjdetweiler said:

I wish you all the best! I hope that you are able to secure one of your fav characters! I just got very lucky but not until 3 hours when POs opened up.

Thank you!

Going to need all the luck I can get

-b.

[HardlyNever]

Yeah, the gouging from NY was predictable.  I stopped checking them a while ago, knowing that it would be ridiculous when it resurfaced.  I kind of hate giving them money for even their reasonably priced stuff, but sometimes they are the only option.

I just wanted a VF-1A of any variety.  If I would have known Max was going to be such a cluster, I would have just slept in.  Hopefully I'll catch a mass production or Kakizaki version, with less madness.

[Checkmate]

5 minutes ago, spacemanoeuvres said:

Hot damn, that’s quite the markup lol

I was about to buy it but yeah, principles. They held off on releasing their whole stock so they could prey on us fans.

[Alphahorizon]

27500. Whoa..270.00 give or take. WT fricking....anyone recall what the VF-1J was going for on release day? I know I'm gonna pay a mark up but dang that seems silly.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Alphahorizon

[kkx]

2 minutes ago, Alphahorizon said:

27500. Whoa..275.00 give or take. WT fricking....anyone recall what the VF-1J was going for on release day? I know I'm gonna pay a mark up but dang that seems silly.

My VF-1J is from amazon jp on release day, $240, not too far from $275.

Amazon jp third-party price is dropping slowly. Eventually, it will go below NY's price.

At this point, I am preparing myself for some major markup.

[Convectuoso]

5 minutes ago, Alphahorizon said:

27500. Whoa..270.00 give or take. WT fricking....anyone recall what the VF-1J was going for on release day? I know I'm gonna pay a mark up but dang that seems silly.

I'm thinking the same 

[Bolt]

                       

15 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Nope. not gonna do it. Principles. 

 

[Ridden001]

Eating my words here.  Paid $315 shipped EMS just now on Nippon Yasan.

if Fokker is not a tamashii release, we are all screwed.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Ridden001

[rdrunner]

11 minutes ago, Alphahorizon said:

27500. Whoa..270.00 give or take. WT fricking....anyone recall what the VF-1J was going for on release day? I know I'm gonna pay a mark up but dang that seems silly.

my best recollection is that it was trading around 24-25k the first couple days, then went up to 28k then 30k fairly quickly in the first week or two. 

[Alphahorizon]

4 minutes ago, Ridden001 said:

Eating my words here.  Paid $315 shipped EMS just now on Nippon Yasan.

if Fokker is not a tamashii release, we are all screwed.

Unless of course they release more batches than the VF-1A. I would suspect....well I wont assume anything after the last 18 hours. Did a number on my sleep, but it was an eye opening experiance. 

[jenius]

I probably would have bit at 25K.

[rdrunner]

12 minutes ago, Checkmate said:

I was about to buy it but yeah, principles. They held off on releasing their whole stock so they could prey on us fans.

Hats off sir for the principles. If I hadn’t been lucky, I would admittedly have caved as well. 

NY’s ticketing system combined with their deliberate stock limitation is bloody ridiculous. 

[kajnrig]

I see "hot topic," I click. What's going on? A reissue? Someone got new stock?

[Alphahorizon]

3 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

I see "hot topic," I click. What's going on? A reissue? Someone got new stock?

NY does. For 27500Y/270.00 US for the VF-1A DX. I assume they held back some of thier surplus. Which is kind of...no not kind of, its filthy.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Alphahorizon

[Bolt]

2 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

I see "hot topic," I click. What's going on? A reissue? Someone got new stock?

“New stock” or just holding out to gouge you. 

[sumyumgoy]

3 hours ago, Foblander said:

Now that I'm committed to at least the Vermillion Squadron and a Roy DX, I'm thinking real hard about slowing down on the robot spirit line to make sure there is enough space for the giants. Lol I love my robot spirit Gundams and they are so fun to play with, but Macross toys are such delightful pieces of art to own Each Macross toy I can appreciate and view as a unique masterpiece on it's own.

I'm on the same boat and decided on letting go of some robot spirits.  Still grabbing the 0083 though...those are must haves for me.  Nice pose on that Alex!

[Gwynne]

I just bought one form NY.  It's the same price I paid for the VF-1J Hikaru so I can't complain too much and I can only see it going up from there if anyone is able to get more later.

 

At least it's secured.  

Edited April 9, 2019 by Gwynne

[Ridden001]

Nippon Yasan is not even allowing for the pay later option.  Hikaru’s 1J was able to be paid later.  

This has effected me enough that I’m not going to sell my 2 new premium VF-1 Fokkers by Arcadia.  There is a real chance the DX release may be unattainable responsibly.  It could get released higher than premium O-S prices.

To be fair to Nippon Yasan:

They always relist the day after at a mark up, it’s not new.  What is new is that the demand and prices of the 1-J caused this release of the 1A to get listed at such a higher markup.  

If anyone is to blame for the condition we are in, It’s Bandai for not printing enough.

No.

Actually its Harmony Gold, if they could sell Macross in the US, then the largest economy in the world would be contributing and influencing Bandais print rate which would be much higher.

F  Robotech.  

Even though it led me to Macross.

watch Toynami release another run of their junk masterpiece VF-1’s thinking they can get in on this action.

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Ridden001
Corrected grammar tense.

[easnoddy]

Got one (and the missile set) from NY. Dont care that I had to pay now. I'll do that for every Bandai 1/48 DX if possible so that the PO madness ends.

[Bahamutzyro]

Up at NY 27500 yen go!