Just out of curiosity, what's with the mass Ika expunge?

everyone is making room for the glow ones

I love my black one, i'll never part with it, now to save for a G.I.D.

The next limited variant is a colaboration with Good Vibrations. The tentacles totally hit those hard to reach spots. They are making a normal vibe and a special butt plug version.

Oh come on, you know there's someone in an emergency room right now trying to get one of those out of themselves!

Seafood alergies?

heh. I love it when TEH MARKET collapses so we who are occasionally patient (just occasionally mind you) can reap the reward.

Still need a black one. Keep those flips comin'.

It's certainly the perfect time to collect them.

If I weren't saving money for the GID Ika and the anarchy dog I will pick some of these up. I don't understand why everyone is dumping them.

It is easy to understand

A list of Ikas that haven't sold doesn't explain why they haven't sold.

Volume, volume, volume...

Ah, the supply exceeds the demand. Wasn't keeping track on how many of these were made.

lets see....

about 1100 ikas where made in 10 different colors over a 1 year period.

21 went unsold on ebay.

thats 2% of the ikas unwanted.

OMG

Nope, but it explains why people are dumping them. When toys don't hold their value people sell. Selling begets more selling. For all the “I buy what I like” bullshit I hear on message boards most people like to see toys go up or at least retain their value. Even if you don’t sell it is nice to know you are in front of the demand curve.

Since Frank no longer cares about the aftermarket for his toys (like a lot of artist these days) it is not a surprise there is no aftermarket for them anymore. I feel bad for a lot of collectors who did not get the memo last year. Many western artists have started making lifestyle products instead of collectables. The retail price points have gone up and the aftermarket values have gone down.

I guess it is just too bad for the collectors that were slow to catch on. Most of us were lucky, when we started buying stuff you could make purchasing mistakes and get your money back out of toys in the aftermarket. This kept a lot of us from early burnout.

Actually it was 21 in just the last month.

It is not the unsold ones that scare people it is what the are selling for that makes people decide to recover what money they can out of them.

It seems to be effecting retail. The gid w/spray took 7 days to sell and the gid is not sold out yet. The 1st versions were higher numbers and sold a lot faster. How are the other sculpts in the Kaiju for grown ups series doing?

honestly,aftermarket was never a concern, as I dont speculate my toys on the aftermarket.

I base my #'s as far as manufacture goes with this formula:

wholesale purchases=breakeven on manfacturing costs and 25 units for subscriber list.

my retail sales= my profit

so:

100 ikas cost me 3500.00 shipped to us

minus 25 units for subbers

leaves 75 ikas.

I sell 25 at retail= 2500.00
I sell 45 at wholesale=2250.00

5 are stashed= 0.00

money out: 3500.00
money in: 4750.00

my profit: 1250.00 plus say 1% of subscriber money as an ika is 1 out of about 100 pieces a subber gets

so 25 ikas= 750.00 dollars in sub money

my total profit on 100 ikas=2000.00

which is about 75% return on my investment, as I split a line between wholesale and reatil sales.

Thats pretty good. I wish it was 100% but shipping and handling costs eat up a lot.

any business person can understand this. pricing is fair. WW sells Ikas in Japan for less cause they are only paying the baseline manufacturing cost.

also, as a 'product' a new unproven product, a 90% sell through on the first year
is a spectacular success.

I am also not able to keep X percent of the wholesale customers from re-selling at low cost.

anyone here go to business school? tell me how to improve the model, the basic out the door regular sales model...not aftermarket speculation.

the gids where incepted by WW as they want to keep production flowing. I personally think theres enough variants.

the Mothman is selling like crazy as Horvath fans are many. theres LOTS of mothmen out there.

Ledbetter will be a crapshoot, as it seems his popularity is on the wane. Personally the current sales (35 out of 50) available have me at above my optimum formula so I am happy with the results. any unsold GIDS I have 3 wholesalers ready for them.

Ika is a small niche item. I do Ika 'for fun'...because in the same month that I sell a 'paltry' 50 Ikas I sell around 20,000 labbits and mongers. I also just sold out of my 50 retail Maos...at 200 a pop.

Also, theres a huge increase in RXH, sb garg etc action so that eats into 'ika sales' a bit.
on the new Labbit Monster with wonderwall I will prolly make less colors in smaller runs,and see how that goes.

also 'panic selling' is sort of counter intuitive,as its self defeating.

but then again,aftermarket is not my bag. I avoided it for the 15 years I did posters. I avoid it now.

I ebcourage people to buy my toys because they like them not as speculation.

I think the numbers of each release were reasonable, but I think the frequency in which they were released hurt the interest in the figure. So many Ikas came out so quickly, that it kinda felt like we hardly had any time to appreciate the last one before the next two were being offered up.

I think that in my case, I just felt a bit of Ika consumer fatigue.

There's no question certain buyers are very drawn to the idea of a "limited" release. However, when these limited releases are subsequently put into the market in a plethora of versions I believe the potential value gained by a figure's rarity is lost.

Even if there are only 100 of a certain colour how many possible combinations can be released before they all become less "special"?

the release schedule was and is incepted by WW. they are really pressuring me to release the new figure, I have been hanging back a bit. It will prolly come out in December.

be aware of this: my Japan sources tell me RXH and so on are about to dramatically increase production, so dont get scared into dumping your old stock.

stuff always goes down after initial release, then over time,if the 'collectors' stay cool
rises back up. it rarely hits 'peak' again, because the people willing to go large generally have their figures by then...and a 'normal' perswon is not going to spend 400 bucks on a balzac skullbee like I did.

likewise,making runs of '10' pieces is not a realistic scenario. why? while 'morally awesome' it eats up an entire production slot. do that repeatedly I'll have to go get a job and fuck that.