Matty is just being greedy when it comes to the online club stuff.
Consider them compared to brick n mortar offers:
No shipping to stores across the country
No point of sale display costs
No giving the stores 40%-50% of the profits
No mainstream advertising costs
No restocking fees back from stores with excess inventory, or stock reimbursment for clearance sales to clear old stock so new stock can be replentished.
When you look at that above list, then consider, say, the trap. At the high end, the trap MIGHT cost Matty $40 a pop. That means they make $80 per trap themselves, pure profit.
Then look at say, any mattel offering in a store..say, one of the popular hot monster high dolls.
They cost around $13 a pop retail.
Half of that money goes to the stores, So maty is down to $7
Those have to be shipped to the stores… let’s say that costs a buck. Down to $6
Point of sale display artwork, and advertising costs? Lets say another buck per doll. Down to $5
Now lets say that doll costs $3 to manufacture. Matty total profit per doll? $2
So they need to sell 40 dolls just to make the same money as ONE trap.
Assuming the 6" figure cost the same as that doll to make, they make $21 per figure. (Or 10 dolls!)
Supposedly, they only make 5 cents per hotwheels car because of the metal, weight, shipping and detailing costs.
So they have to sell 420 hotwheels cars to make the same amount of money as one ghostbusters figure.
See what I’m getting at? Matty profit margins on the matty collector stuff is pure gold to them profit wise compared to regular toys. They keep to keep all the profits, and don’t need to spend any of the costs for advertising and stocking. And dollars to donuts they make an easy few buck$ on shipping costs as well, since they are shipping massive numbers, and can get bargain shipping deals.
I doubt seriously that the GB line wasn’t profitable to them. They are just very greedy, and wanted high $$$ back on a minimal investment.. much like stock investors.
They doubled prices on toys a few years ago, because oil prices had skyrocketed, and oil is used heavily in plastic production. That makes sense. But when fuel prices plummeted to 3/4 of those costs, what happened? They raised the prices again, claiming higher manufactureing costs. Whaaaat?
Did those slave kids over in China working 70 hours a week for $2 an hour unionize, and demand $15 an hour? Nope.
10 years ago, the average 6" figure retailed for $6 or so. Today, the average 6" figure retails for $15-$20. Did your income triple in the last 10 years? odds are, nope.
Matty lost massively to MGA over the Bratz lawsuit when they trying to srong arm them out of the market and lost. Billions of dollars.They are trying to grab major dollars from anything they can to make up for that, and Matty Collector is exactly that.. an effort to make high dollars with low investment costs.
(And odds are, my estimated costs to produce items is a high estimate. As an example, Disney sells those PVC figures in parks for $5-$7. When I worked as a store manager at DisneyWorld, they cost $3.50. I had this massive cost book to figure store profitability. The cost to manufacture one of those pvc figures?
$00.000523
Yes… a tiny fraction of one cent!
I remember that number well, because I questioned it as being wrong in the books, and it was correct!
All this said, in whole the Matty GB line wasn’t the travesty it could have been, but it also wasn’t the best it could have been either. The uniforms and gear on the 12" figures were fine… the headsculpts though could have been much better. (Keep in mind, Mattel also makes those $100 collector barbies that look amazing.)
My dream choices to replace Matty?
Hot Toys could do the 12" line better, but today they would charge you $200-$300 a pop for them.
Neca would be my choice for the 6" figures, and they probably would have delivered them with more articulation, and much better sculpts for about $15 a pop. Plus they are doing 1:1 scale props now, like the Portal gun, and the Bioshock Injector.
The bottom line to all this? Matty is doing pretty much exactly what I expected of them. Milking th eline as much as possible investing the least amount of effort and cost possible.
Yeah the line is pretty much dead… but expect to see another box set or two before they go, milking it even more. Something to look foreward to.
(And I’ll bet the goggles hang around for at least 8 days before selling out. I’m not concerned about the club pre buyers at all.)
