TheXtremisT
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This is the way
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Post by TheXtremisT on Jul 21, 2017 4:20:46 GMT -5
What you American guys do everytime there is a thread like this, is make you local shops the benchmark for the entire global sales of a toy line. You live in a country with 5-6000 Walmarts, thousands of targets. Their demographics are completely different in almost every city, because you have 300m people. Their tastes change. Their disposable incomes differ from area to area. And even that can change drastically at any given time. (See Detroit). I don't know where you guys are from, but if from outsite the big cities of the US, I could bet that the economic recoveries were probably weaker and slower in your areas. You have to adapt all the time to keep your collection going. If you are a completist, you are never, ever going to walk into store again, in this age of internet shopping and see shelves stocked to the brim with all the figures you need. No matter what the line is. Even the horseshyte new transformers. You harp about the glory days of jakks, well if stores were knee deep in figures, that means they WERE NOT SELLING!! We saw the CS line deteriorate rapidly during the recession, and then there was no more jakks WWE.... (Tragically I know that had now been reversed) Respectfully, that is BS. It's done due to the numbers of product that sells. It was like that way back in the Attitude Era, a wall full of WWF and WCW figures which were selling like hot cakes because those same figures weren't there a few months later. Same for Jakks during the Ruthless Aggression era. I can't see why that is being misconstrued as "they were not selling!!". And yes the recession may have officially ended in 2009, but the effects were felt for a couple of years after that. Hence why the credit crunch continued even into 2012. Just because the category of recession finished, doesn't mean everything magically went back the way it was before. Companies were suffering big time years after.
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maske2g
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Joined on: Jan 31, 2011 7:00:54 GMT -5
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Post by maske2g on Jul 21, 2017 7:11:23 GMT -5
What you American guys do everytime there is a thread like this, is make you local shops the benchmark for the entire global sales of a toy line. You live in a country with 5-6000 Walmarts, thousands of targets. Their demographics are completely different in almost every city, because you have 300m people. Their tastes change. Their disposable incomes differ from area to area. And even that can change drastically at any given time. (See Detroit). I don't know where you guys are from, but if from outsite the big cities of the US, I could bet that the economic recoveries were probably weaker and slower in your areas. You have to adapt all the time to keep your collection going. If you are a completist, you are never, ever going to walk into store again, in this age of internet shopping and see shelves stocked to the brim with all the figures you need. No matter what the line is. Even the horseshyte new transformers. You harp about the glory days of jakks, well if stores were knee deep in figures, that means they WERE NOT SELLING!! We saw the CS line deteriorate rapidly during the recession, and then there was no more jakks WWE.... (Tragically I know that had now been reversed) Respectfully, that is BS. It's done due to the numbers of product that sells. It was like that way back in the Attitude Era, a wall full of WWF and WCW figures which were selling like hot cakes because those same figures weren't there a few months later. Same for Jakks during the Ruthless Aggression era. I can't see why that is being misconstrued as "they were not selling!!". And yes the recession may have officially ended in 2009, but the effects were felt for a couple of years after that. Hence why the credit crunch continued even into 2012. Just because the category of recession finished, doesn't mean everything magically went back the way it was before. Companies were suffering big time years after. [ Times they are a changing. Internet shopping wasn't as big then, pretty mich all their stock would have been on shelves. YoY internet sales for these companies will continue increasing while retail suffers You may or may not find this interesting. Being the smallish island that England is, and with the consistency of Smyths toys, as well as the fact that they show stock levels for all 80+ stores, we can confidently predict the figures that wont sell. The uk collectors are trading the stock levels. Our shelves are stacked and people are just waiting for the clearance. I would say 60-70% of elites have ended up reduced in the last 18 months. Agreed some have not fully recovered. And others like energy, utilities, healthcare, tech, and consumer staples have blown the roof off. Just as with an economic cycle. Automative also flew because of cheap loans.
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TheXtremisT
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Post by TheXtremisT on Jul 21, 2017 7:45:56 GMT -5
Well said man.
But internet sales really became a big big thing about 10 or less years ago, and on top of that the highest prices for Jakks figures were £10 for Adrenaline, CS and DA. Of which the 2 formers did increase to about £13 towards the end. But what I'm getting at, was it was so much easier for them to have that amount of product on pegs because they were so cheap compared to today. And internet sales weren't as competitive as they are now so yeah you're right.
Smyths then flys in the face of internet sales, which is great for UK retail. I like the ease of walkign in and buying the ones I want. Whereas even with Jakks I couldn't get certain figures despite them having a very good presence. And out of Smyths or Jakks - Jakks pegwarmed way more in the RA days. May come down to their constant Cena in t-shirts, Triple H in t-shirts, Undertaker in the same attire 10 times, the same Kane figure released 20 times, figures in boring street gear.....
I just hope Smyths keep elites at the same price. Cos it's too much even now. And they completely stopped stocking Marvel Legends cos the prices skyrocketed and weren't worth it. TRU have those rotting on pegs cos of their greedy prices.
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Post by Halloween King on Jul 22, 2017 2:24:55 GMT -5
Dont confuse the words Company with the word toy line. Yes, Mattel is a big toy company. But of those 7 billion wwe figures is a small portion. If I had to guess I'd say Barbie is Mattel's main focus. What you're saying is the equivalent to someone saying that the All Day Breakfast is what has made Mcdonalds an industry leader in fast food. It might help but they were doing quite well before said examples. Try reading the whole thread. I've spent my career working on Equity trading floors.
WWE is consistently in the top two selling action figure lines, and is currently number 1.
But, Mattel's market cap is only 7 billion despite Revenue of 5.5 billion. Do you know what that screams to me? Their earnings are POOR, and that is reflected in the share price being halved in a couple of years.
Do you know why earnings are poor? Costs will be one, but I don't buy that at the moment considering the USD strength. Barbie sales is all I ever see when it comes to Mattels poor performance. There are consistent stories of Barbies slump on Forbes and Bloomberg, etc over the last 5 years.
So Mattel definitely are keeping WWE a high priority, but the poor performance of other toys will affect the WWE line.
Budgets are done Top down. When a team of senior management are giving the WWE line a budget, they are not asking Bill if he is going to be putting shiny paint on Jericho's tights. They give a figure based on performance of both the company and the line. And then people like Bill's bosses and finance department have to manage that budget accordingly. I have the same situation at work, I work for a company 4 times bigger than Mattel.
Don't forget Mattel also owns formerly large independent companies like Corgi and Fisher Price. They will be a huge piece of the pie too.
Your last line is a good example for Mcdonalds despite the extra things they offer these days, but for a company like Mattel, where toys are constantly changing, and tastes are constantly changing, and as mentioned already, Tech has taken over, it's a case of adapt or die. Barbie's will never ever sell like they use to. So is it wise for them to keep throwing good money after bad after years of declining sales?
Im a firm believer that money talks. And when I walk into target or Tru and I see Hotwheels and Barbie have much bigger shelf space in stores than does wwe I tend to believe that is for a reason. And that reason is that Mattel pushes hard to get those brands the space needed to make money because they make the money to merit that space. I could be wrong. You could be wrong. We both could be wrong. Neither of us works at Mattel. I just know Mattel owes their existence to Barbie, so I would tend to think they would look after their baby more than a passing license.
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