MATTEL Shop vs. Matty collector

[affleck13]

I was on the mattel store not matty collector and was curious how much shipping was on similar figures also offered on matty collector.
And there is quite a difference and I was just wondering why there is a matty collector site at all if the mattel shop is basically the same company.
It's like going to a brick and mortar store and being charged more depending on what door you use.
Has there ever been an official answer from TG on this subject other than the typical TG response of were always looking for other options.
How bout looking in the same building for starters.

[shadowfall1976]

I was on the mattel store not matty collector and was curious how much shipping was on similar figures also offered on matty collector.
And there is quite a difference and I was just wondering why there is a matty collector site at all if the mattel shop is basically the same company.
It's like going to a brick and mortar store and being charged more depending on what door you use.
Has there ever been an official answer from TG on this subject other than the typical TG response of were always looking for other options.
How bout looking in the same building for starters.

Matty is a collectors site, which is not the same as a basic walk-in store, the Mattel site is a store.

Matty only sells collectors items, and yes the shipping is a bit cheaper and CS is much better on the Mattel site vs Mattycollector, almost as good as Hasbrotoyshop.com. Even the Transformers Collectors club has it's own website, that is separate from HTS.com.

[wyldman11]

Mattel shop is cheaper and more realistic on shipping. I have often wondered the same issue and will get to the real reason in a minute. The first though you would think is being a collector's page vs a mass market page you would find differences in ways things are handled and there would be more care put into one over the other. There is slightly more care with the white mailers and the tissue they put in, but we have all gotten dings and bumps in our figures. Also you think it would have fewer mix ups since there is less product etc. the case is Mattelshop is better aside from the white mailers.

The real reason, Mattelstore is built off the warehouse and you are ordering off mass market SKUs and are ordering off what is still in stock in the warehouse. Matty store has been outsourced and is supposed to be more personal to the collectors. It's kind of like buying at Sam's club vs Walmart. Sam's club allows you to buy in vary generous portions or smaller ones. Walmart not so much on the more generous portions. Matty is more like the local comic shop with a very small amount of product.

Mattel's own store was very limited until more recently also. You often could only pick up a handful of items, because Mattel didn't want to interfere too much with retailers and from my understanding Matty was part of a test bed to see how some of it would work. Mattel has been putting more and more on their site though because they get more money directly off the consumer that way (charge walmart prices and walmart isn't taking a cut). I remember they had a special site for collector level Barbies at one point also which was offsite.