
Originally Posted by
Brian-Man
For those that seem to still be hung up on the price thing.... which always makes me laugh to be honest.
All I can say, it costs us money and time to produce this stuff. We just about break even on each piece and actually lose money on exclusives offered through other sites like Poe Ghostal's POA or AFI. But we don't really do it for the money. If we did, we'd charge $15 each. We do it because other fans like it and get as much enjoyment out of our accessories as we do.
If we were a huge corporate, publicly traded entity with millions in assets, if we had a factory in China that was churning out tens of thousands of units that were distributed throughout the world to major retailers, then yeah they'd be about $2-$3 each. But we are just a few guys (one who does the lion's share) buying supplies, conceptualizing, designing, sculpting, casting, testing, assembling, painting, processing, packing, shipping, and what ever else we have to do. It is laborious and costly, and none of us pocket a dime, all proceeds contribute to going through the process again for the next item.
Add to that, all of our pieces are original and of the highest quality we can achieve. Since each piece is done individually the margin for error is nonexistent. If something comes out looking like a dog chewed it up, we eat it and won't send it to the customer. We'll make another and another until it's right.
The Transformers community has some great guys doing awesome stuff. Each piece runs anywhere from $60-$100 for something that if it was mass produced for retail would only run between $10-$20. Granted they have fully transformable toys and all we're doing are swords and shields. But like us these guys aren't huge companies they are fans with talent and skill who want to share their love and ideas with fellow fans.
There's some cat out there in the G.I. Joe community simply recasting star wars and joe heads and charging $7-$10 per noggin. Now that's laughable.
Simply put, if we charge any less than $10, we'd have to stop doing this for everyone that wants one because we wouldn't be able to afford it. If $10 for one piece seems too steep for some, that's okay. No one is obligated to buy anything. We're not gonna call anybody out because they didn't buy our stuff. We understand that some people don't like certain things or get the joke in something we found humor in. We understand that our product can be cost prohibitive for some fans.
Heck I drive a Honda Pilot because a Range Rover is too expensive. I drink more Johnny Walker with the black label because the blue label costs way too much. Of course the blue label is more rare and of higher quality so that cost is justified. I guess you could just think of us as the Johnny Walker Blue of the fan produced action figure accessory world.
Until Next Time.....ba ba ba ba da....... dun dun dun.