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Greetings Seibertronians! Thanks to fellow Seibertron user, Shiningstar7896, we got pointed towards this article from Reuters. The bulk of the article is from statements made at the Hasbro’s 2021 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call, which is also where we leaned that the corporation is looking to capitalise on the growing trend of NFTs.



In a nutshell, due to rising costs with resin, shipping, packaging and metal prices, Hasbro will be looking to offset these by increasing the prices on their products from the second half of the year, going forward. This will likely cover Transformers Kingdoms fourth wave and what ever Studio Series figures that are yet to be revealed.

This is the key points from the article:

Reuters wrote:Hasbro Inc (HAS.O) said on Tuesday it would raise prices of toys and games to counter higher raw material costs as the company sees surging demand for its Nerf blasters and board games from families spending more time at home.

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The toymaker, like most U.S. manufacturers, has had to contend with rising resin, packaging and metal prices, as well as soaring transportation costs due to high demand and supply disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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"Freight and input cost increases have become more pronounced over the past several months, and we have plans in place to help mitigate those costs, including price increases for the second half of the year," Hasbro Chief Financial Officer Deborah Thomas said.

What do you think about this? What prices do you expect them to start asking for on top of the current pricing set up?

Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!

Didn't they just raise prices on deluxes for kingdom? Now they're going to raise them again?

Maybe instead of raising prices you can *not* pay your execs more money in a month than most of us will ever see in our entire lifetimes

Everything starts with Oil . Thanks Biden !!!!

Well continual price raising is one way to become more selective in your customer base.

Maybe Hasbro is yearning to become the next Super 7.

EB Games in Canada has Voyager Rhinox listed at $44.99 (Voyagers are typically $39.99), so this is probably why.

I guess it's time to stop collecting Transformers.

kurthy wrote:Didn't they just raise prices on deluxes for kingdom? Now they're going to raise them again?

That might be the raises they're talking about (at least for deluxes).


While I'd rather they raise prices than cut corners on the figures themselves, it's hard for me to imagine there won't be at least a slight drop in quality at some point, whether it's later this year or 2022.

Tuned Agent wrote:

kurthy wrote:Didn't they just raise prices on deluxes for kingdom? Now they're going to raise them again?

That might be the raises they're talking about (at least for deluxes).


While I'd rather they raise prices than cut corners on the figures themselves, it's hard for me to imagine there won't be at least a slight drop in quality at some point, whether it's later this year or 2022.

I think this is correct and will be extending to SS deluxes as well. If you pre-ordered any of the upcoming figures from the Amazon wish list trick, they have the deluxes for both Kingdom and Studio Series at $22.99. Voyagers and Leaders are still at the current prices.

Ya know - normally when a company is selling really well they LOWER their prices to attract even more customers....

DeathReviews wrote:Ya know - normally when a company is selling really well they LOWER their prices to attract even more customers....

That won't please the investors though who expect infinite growth forever!

So that's why SG Megatron shot up in price from $29.99 to $36.99 a couple hours after it was revealed . Man they don't waste time do they.

DeathReviews wrote:Ya know - normally when a company is selling really well they LOWER their prices to attract even more customers....

That's what competent and non-greedy companies do...

Kyleor wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:Ya know - normally when a company is selling really well they LOWER their prices to attract even more customers....

That's what competent and non-greedy companies do...

Companies lower prices when their costs go down. Sometimes if things sell well enough and they can get a discount on mass produced items, that might allow them to lower costs, but Labor, Material and Taxes are what really decide on a price.

Why do you think so many businesses are refusing to say anything to the Chinese government about their concentration camps for the Uighurs. If they did they wouldn't be getting all the cheap labor from China they get. (of course so many politicians stay silent on the subject because they've been paid off by the Chinese government)

Plus when Corporate Taxes go up, they spread that out to the customers in higher prices for products.

With oil prices rising once again with the end of the keystone pipeline, plastic is going to be more expensive.

No surprise the prices are going to rise. But better than than the quality steadily decreasing as it happened starting with Generations FOC.

o.supreme wrote:So that's why SG Megatron shot up in price from $29.99 to $36.99 a couple hours after it was revealed . Man they don't waste time do they.

To be fair, the thing come with way more accessories than a regular Siege Megs.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

o.supreme wrote:So that's why SG Megatron shot up in price from $29.99 to $36.99 a couple hours after it was revealed . Man they don't waste time do they.

To be fair, the thing come with way more accessories than a regular Siege Megs.

And at a smaller production run.

concern intensifies

I watch a lot of those doom & gloom prepper/economist videos on Youtube. And everything is falling right into place as they've been saying for the past couple years. Massive inflation, supply line breakdowns, food shortages etc. I hope it doesn't get as bad as they've been predicting.

This concerns me as well, but I don't see it improving. Ever. For a number of reasons.

1. On January 21st this year, gasoline prices jumped 30 cents a gallon in a single day. The reason was the end of a 30 cent per gallon moratorium placed on the national gasoline tax by the last admin. Once that was discontinued, by the current admin, it resulted in gas prices skyrocketing overnight. That cut made a huge dent in shipping costs nationally in the U.S. With it's intentional discontinuation by the current admin and the resultant increase in oil prices from the end of the Keystone project (supply and demand; oil prices have increased by 20% since January 31,2021 when the project was ended), companies have seen a 30% increase in costs for gasoline. This, of course, resulted in increased shipping costs in the U.S. A further complication is the Covid-19 issue (aka Scary Death Virus). With people being stuck at home, shippers have had a dramatically increased demand placed on them for "safety and convenience". This has led to an increase in gasoline usage in a time where the government is very intentionally trying to cut back on national oil supplies for environmental reasons. The result is a much lower supply and higher demand simultaneously. Shipping costs are going to start affecting everyone.

2. As these companies become more specialized in their offerings (multiple lines of Transformers, for example, rather than one large all-encompassing line) due to market shifts, it requires more tooling, more engineering (a high expense), more specialized machinery, and overall increased manpower to produce roughly the same total number of items.

3. Increased marketing costs: there are more ways to advertise than ever before. YouTube, Netflix, internet cookies, and much more; these are a bit higher risk and higher cost than good-old television commercials (honestly I can't remember the last time I saw a Transformers toy commercial on TV). The advertising has to be more intensive though, too, due to the HUGE diversity of toys available to choose from anymore. In order to hang on their market share, there has to be constant- and expensive- bombardment from advertising.

4. Manpower costs are increasing, even in China (which I think several people have mentioned). Yes, comparatively Chinese and (by-and-large) other southeast Asian countries (Thailand, Vietnam, and a couple others) provide less expensive labor than domestic- even when you factor in shipping costs, international tariffs, and the layers upon layers of bureaucracy needed to ensure (relatively) speedy travels through customs and the like.

5. Lastly, on a personal note, I will never hold executives at fault for their "exhorbitant pay". It takes enormous effort, education, skill, and focus to reach the near-top of a Fortune 500 company. If someone is able to finagle a really nice paycheck out of their skills (such as NBA, MLB, and NFL players who are the cream of the crop and parlayed their best-in-the-world skills to huge paydays, or actors who are the best at what they do, or physicians or lawyers who are the best), I am going to admire their drive and, of course, be a little jealous of their good fortune (forgive the pun). I also realize that their decisions affect tens or hundreds of thousands of people. I for one am happy making healthcare recommendations for a couple hundred people and caring for them. I couldn't imagine carrying the livelihoods of the employees PLUS the related manufacturing, shipping, and advertising employees on my shoulders. And, in the end, their "salaries" are largely in stock options and are not truly liquid assets. They draw on credit from those assets to live as they do. These are brilliant people. I will never blame them for maximizing their worth; their "work lives" at the highest level are often shorter than NFL players. It's do or die, and in the end they make far less than Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson for doing something that produces fare more and influences more jobs directly.

Funny how other companies are selling six inch, well detailed figures for half what Hasbro is. Look at the new Predator line at Walmart. Somehow, that company is delivering pretty decent figures at low prices, and somehow making money.

Hasbro is shooting itself in the foot. I think a lot of people collect their stuff because it's pretty cheap, otherwise, they'd just stick to the superior third party stuff.

Now, let's think about it. When the deluxe toys were $10 each, I bought every single one of them, and multiple copies of some of them. Bear in mind I made a lot less money back then.

When they were $12, I purchased pretty much everything.
At $15, I started being selective, skipping out on representations of characters I already had, and focusing on core stuff.

When it moved to $20 ... I bought one figure because he went so well with my Trypticon. That's actually not true, I bought another for $9 at Ross.
When Walmart sold their figures for $17.88, I purchased three others. Now I have a lot more purchasing power today than I did when they were $10 each.

But if we see a move to $25 for a deluxe that would have been sold as a basic a few years back, I'll be completely out. If I'm paying that much for deluxe figures that, lets face it, all have some compromises — whether it's deco, gimmicks, size or even durability, I may as well spend a few bucks more for a third party figure that is exactly what I want.

DeathReviews wrote:Ya know - normally when a company is selling really well they LOWER their prices to attract even more customers....

I understand prices go up. Labor, production, materials, shipping ... sure it all goes up. But Hasbro just laid down a huge price increase at a time when fuel and oil prices were way down.

It's not the increase, it's the increase on top of the increase I have a problem with. They jacked up the prices on a deluxe by $5, 20 percent, just recently.

I wonder how much price increases cannibalize their other lines. Someone who use to get Transformers, GI Joe, Star Wars and Marvel figs may now trim their collecting down to one key line and one "special characters only" line.

And maybe, maybe if the geniuses in the boardroom actually addressed the continued distribution problem they might be able to hold of on cost increases-or make finding those now higher priced figures less obnoxious, but I guess they know best. Raise prices, make finding new waves at regular frustratingly hard and then wholesale a bunch of those figures no one could find at retail to bargain retailers like Ross or Ollies.

I mean, who doesn't love seeing ads for Ollies that are nowhere near them showing low prices for Transformers you never saw in stores despite multiple trips, and only saw on Ebay for at least 2x as much as SRP?

Betenoire wrote:I wonder how much price increases cannibalize their other lines. Someone who use to get Transformers, GI Joe, Star Wars and Marvel figs may now trim their collecting down to one key line and one "special characters only" line.

And maybe, maybe if the geniuses in the boardroom actually addressed the continued distribution problem they might be able to hold of on cost increases-or make finding those now higher priced figures less obnoxious, but I guess they know best. Raise prices, make finding new waves at regular frustratingly hard and then wholesale a bunch of those figures no one could find at retail to bargain retailers like Ross or Ollies.

I mean, who doesn't love seeing ads for Ollies that are nowhere near them showing low prices for Transformers you never saw in stores despite multiple trips, and only saw on Ebay for at least 2x as much as SRP?

Problem is, as far as distribution is concerned, that's the retailers problem not Hasbro's. Retailer x buys so much stock from Hasbro, that's the business transaction over. If Retailer x sits on the stock or just ships it to stores in one part of the company, isn't Hasbro fault. They already made their money.

The only place this isn't the routine is Hasbro Pulse, but that has its own problems of course.

I think First-Aid hit the nail right on the head with this whole thing. Going forward for me, if there is a hefty or even moderate price jump, it will mean I will not be purchasing as many mainline toys. And it CERTAINLY means the days of impulse purchasing a Deluxe or Voyeger just to check out based on a hunch, are over Hopfully things will get pulled out of the gutter in this country sooner than later and this price scare will just be a quaint memory ..