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Originally posted by Toyguru:
Okay, so Moss Man sold out in seconds. That caught everyone by surprise. Who knew flocking was so popular!

I hope you keep that in mind for panthor

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Moss Man wasn't produced in any quota smaller to Adora and Trap Jaw but we did split his non subscription production between the flocked and non flocked variants. So that did mean their was less of one particular version. But it all does come out in the end.

I understand that but you've got to admit that making moss man into a variant created all kinds of other buying complications

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Either way, at the end of the day the line is clearly picking up more and more fans as we go along and we are doing our best to keep up. Production will increase but it doesn't happen overnight as raw materials are purchased many months before a figure goes on sale.

I can't argue with logic here, but you do know by now that characters with multiple heads & also characters from the vintage line are going to have more demand right. Please consider that a little more when predicting your numbers

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We'll also continue to make improvements with Digital River and we do have a laundry list of corrections we are still implementing in the buying process.

A year a half later is a nice time to start I guess. The cart system has been a joke since day one, could you please fix this first then work on customer service before you go down that laundry list.

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A lot of fans are asking specifically about the 10 per order limit (which was demanded by fans after our initial 4 per person limit was rejected as being "not enough!").

I've never argued about the 10 order limit but reducing the order limit could've helped up until the upped production numbers kicked in

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Well, once again I went through every order today and once again VERY few customers are ordering 10 (in fact very few order more then 4). I know people are seeing a ton of Moss Man on the secondary market, but remember, we offered subscriptions in the summer of 2010 and customers were allowed an unlimited amount of subscriptions. It is very likely some fans bought subscriptions for the sole purpose of reselling them. And you know what, they have every right to do this.

The aftermarket is something that is never all that predictable but let's face the truth. The low production combined with fast sell-outs only baits reselling

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The subscriptions were open for 3 weeks and anyone could buy as many as they needed or wanted. Their really was not a more fair way to offer an alternative to waiting each month to buy the non subscription production. If you wanted to buy figures right from Mattycollector.com and not a reseller, the chance was open for every monthly figure in 2010.

In the summer of 2010 fans were lead to believe that mattel wanted characters to last a few weeks on mattycollector.com and not the standard less than a hour sell-out that we have now. You can push for the sub all that you want but can we be realistic, you're not being fair asking folks to commit to something that is unseen, especially when there are still quality and replacement issues. Let us not forget about the new fans that are late to the party combined with the casual collector's who are out there. Please don't point fingers at the fans when we're the ones trying to buy your product.

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We will increase production as demand continues to go up and I'm sure Moss Man will be back in time (but I can tell you it won't be in 2010). The 2011 subscription will be available starting the Wednesday night of SDCC 2010. For those customers who want their figures guaranteed with no wait and no hassle, be sure to take advantage of this buying method!

I’m glad he’ll be back but re-issues are taking a few days to sell-out, is this acceptable by mattel because it is by fans but you keep changing what is planned to what actually happens, so hopefully you understand the sense of uncertainty.

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We'll keep working to bring the best product we can to you. There is never a resting point. Long live MOTUC!

Scott

I hope MotU has a long life too and not a stunted growth.
Drew

Regarding Toyguru's reasoning on maintaining the 10 qty limit, I disagree. 4 is much better, unless your sole desire is to dry up your entire stock asap. That's smart business, but considering guru's forum posts that's not the intent.

Battle cat and Trap jaw gone in 30 minutes. Moss man gone between 3-5 minutes. Lowering the purchase quantity is only putting those figures into fan' hands that otherwise would not have been. It is not in any way hindering sales.

It only makes sense to me IF matty employees waywardly profit through outside connections, eg employee' friend orders 10 flocked moss men, resell on ebay for $75 each. To note, I don't believe this is the case. Just saying.

And finally to those getting excited about moss being re-issued 50/50 flocked/un-flocked. The re-issues are all tagged with a 'The Original' mini placard on their faces, which roughly translates to 'You failed at getting the original'.

This also means that the recently released 'truly original' moss man flocked is in fact the rarest of the classics. More so than king grayskull(?)I don't know the exact numbers, so please advise.

Matty, can you answer this:

why do you insist on fans getting the subscription if you can't even tell us what is coming out??? why are we going to commit to a line of figures we don't even know what we will get? do you think that is fair?

i mean there's a lot of completeist out there but i think it is just fair that at least we know what's in line for the whole even if we don't know what month it will come out.

your great figures are going straight to the secondary market and not to your real fanbase.

That's a very good question Wolverine. Surely any one of us could make up our own mind whether or not we wanted to subscribe if we knew what was coming in the next 12 months right? I mean, you'd think they could figure out their line up for 12 months of figures right? Don't other toylines have the foresight to know what they're making before they sell it?

Heck, I'd glady be an ALL IN zombie if I could say 75% of the figures over the next year were ones I wanted. And that's even being generous. As a customer I shouldn't be prodded into buying something with the intent to resell part of it if there are figures I don't want.

The real answer, Wolverine, is that it's more money for Mattel if we all commit to the subscriptions. And I'm not trying to make them sound greedy - more money, more money - it's just that they're playing it completely safe and if they can secure that money up front, then they'll feel comfortable producing a certain number, retooling some molds, pay the manufacturers etc.

It's like buying a house. You have to put down a good chunk of money for the down payent to prove to the seller and the bank that you're really gonna buy ALL of this house.

The difference is that we're talking about 12+ $20 toys and ALL of the money up front instead of a downpayment.

"Do you think that's fair?" That's a very good question.

Captian ahab has to have his whale,ey web store.

Great glad there going to bring back both versions I need the flocked one

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Originally posted by Toyguru: Well, once again I went through every order today and once again VERY few customers are ordering 10 (in fact very few order more then 4). I know people are seeing a ton of Moss Man on the secondary market, but remember, we offered subscriptions in the summer of 2010 and customers were allowed an unlimited amount of subscriptions. It is very likely some fans bought subscriptions for the sole purpose of reselling them. And you know what, they have every right to do this.

OK. but since we are not allowed to know what the exact percentage of customer are that ordered 10, or in Moss-Mans case, possibly 20, just saying it was a small number doesn't really satisfy me, because if you do the math, it wouldn't take many to really limit the number of available products for every one else.

If only say... 5% of them ordered 10 per customer, then that wipes out roughly 1/2 of the available products! If it were 10%, which is still a "small" percentage, that would mean for every 109 to 118 products sold, 100 Moss-Man figures went to only 10%!

Moss-Man had 2 seperate items going for 10 per customer, so if anyone ordered both at 10 at a time, they made off with 20 figures! Even if everyone bought 2 per, that's 9 customers who missed out because of that 1 purchase, and it's obveous they didn't buy it for the spirit of your toy line, they did it to gouge the fans and make a prifit, an extra profit MATTEL doesn't see a dime of.

Resellers do not care about the toys, the story or history, or the fans, they only care about making money off off it's popularity, and if thats the kind of crowd Matty wants to serve and cater to, then Matty Collectors is just as bad as they are.
So who is it you want to please, your fans? Or the resellers?

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Originally posted by Web Store:
That's a very good question Wolverine. Surely any one of us could make up our own mind whether or not we wanted to subscribe if we knew what was coming in the next 12 months right? I mean, you'd think they could figure out their line up for 12 months of figures right? Don't other toylines have the foresight to know what they're making before they sell it?

Heck, I'd glady be an ALL IN zombie if I could say 75% of the figures over the next year were ones I wanted. And that's even being generous. As a customer I shouldn't be prodded into buying something with the intent to resell part of it if there are figures I don't want.

The real answer, Wolverine, is that it's more money for Mattel if we all commit to the subscriptions. And I'm not trying to make them sound greedy - more money, more money - it's just that they're playing it completely safe and if they can secure that money up front, then they'll feel comfortable producing a certain number, retooling some molds, pay the manufacturers etc.

It's like buying a house. You have to put down a good chunk of money for the down payent to prove to the seller and the bank that you're really gonna buy ALL of this house.

The difference is that we're talking about 12+ $20 toys and ALL of the money up front instead of a downpayment.

"Do you think that's fair?" That's a very good question.

Fair? Matty doesn't care about that. don't get me wrong, i will sign up for the "ALL-IN" subscription. but my point is we shouldn't commit to something we don't even know what the heck we are getting. and because of the quick sell outs, Matty is winning this argument. they are shoving this to our throat and justify that their product is selling in seconds.

not fair Matty. but then again, it's just a toy.

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Originally posted by Web Store: I mean, you'd think they could figure out their line up for 12 months of figures right? Don't other toylines have the foresight to know what they're making before they sell it?

Therein lies the big problem here; in order to do that, Mattel would actually have to follow it up by actually making a year's worth of product more or less ON TIME. And that is something Mattel has proven time and again that they are incapable of doing.

It isn't foresight that is the problem; it is the ability to actually produce product that Mattel finds impossible to master.

Interesting point Scott. I see what you're saying. I guess I'm assuming a 5-7 month lead time to make a toy is average. I have no idea though. I just assume Mattel's production pipeline is just like any other toy.

If 5-7 is ridiculously too long to turn around a supply of toys in the tens of thousands, then yeah, there are other problems here.

I guess I'm just wondering about other toylines then still. When Hasbro shows off the next wave of Star Wars figures (which can be over 12 figures) how is it that they make enough and distribute them to all stores on time.

Can't Mattel show us the new annual "wave" and open up the subscriptions? have taken the previous 5-7 months to manufacture them?

More just rhetroical questions really because yeah, if they can't manufacture that many figures in that amount of time then it's problem.

the first thing i thought about is how was it possible for mattel to go trough nearly every order placed that day? are there no so many overall orders as we all believe? that's an interesting question, because it's a good indicator how many figures in total are really sold?

and the second thing is that it's very strange that with the beginning of the new subscription-year nearly every figure was sold out within minutes. yes, it may be very complicated to improve production figures - but in the end this is a very frustrating situation for all fans.

I think the answer to all of this is that Mattel goes to a preorder format. Say, they put Whiplash up in August 2010 as a preorder for delivery in January or February. The preorder would be up for a week allowing collectors and scalpers alike to order what they wanted, then Mattel could run the production in accordance with those numbers. Figures would only be paid for when shipped. This way Digital River won't be swamped at high noon and all this endless cry baby s#*t will go away.

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We will increase production as demand continues to go up and I'm sure Moss Man will be back in time (but I can tell you it won't be in 2010). The 2011 subscription will be available starting the Wednesday night of SDCC 2010. For those customers who want their figures guaranteed with no wait and no hassle, be sure to take advantage of this buying method!

i want to buy a subscription, will there be various types available? 12monthly, all in etc?

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Originally posted by Arkangel:
i want to buy a subscription, will there be various types available? 12monthly, all in etc?

I hope not, Matty can only just manage with a single type of subscription. It looks as though they are pushing for an "all-in" type of subscription ie. all monthly and quarterly figures.

Btw excellent analysis of Matty's latest public excuses darthdrewbaby. I think it's about time they started to shape up, fix the DR problem, start giving production numbers, something at least to show they are trying to make being a fan of this line a little easier.