The Energon Pub

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

megatronus wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Jabba's sail barge got a sudden surge of 5000 orders on its last day, after having sat around 3000 for the large majority of its preorder time.

The number seen on Hasbro Pulse is specifically for the number of preorders made through Hasbro Pulse, not factoring in all of the other preorders made through all of the international preorder channels and all of the alternative American retailers like BBTS and TFSource. The number of preorders from all of those venues likely won't be added near to the very end of the preorder time in order to give each of those venues as much time to maximize all of their preorders as they can gather before submitting their order totals to Hasbro.

I understand that, you understand that - but most super fans don’t, so I think it would be helpful for Hasbro to clarify that for the fandom writ large.

That's why I was pointing it out here, to alleviate the concerns that were expressed above on this page of the topic.

Sadly, only a few eyes will see that, and even then we don't know everything. It would be incredibly helpful is Hasbro/BBTS/Takara was more transparent and clear so that we could news it to people at large.

Yeah, and I think we can also guess as to why Hasbro isn't pointing this out like we are. They probably want to focus on the Hasbro Pulse order numbers so as to generate more hype and attention, letting people think that they need to hop to it and put in more orders themselves, and not letting them know about the other options both in the U.S. and worldwide that will likely also contribute to the number only near the very end.

If more people think that this figure is in a more dire need of orders, Hasbro thinks that more people who want this thing to get made will put in more orders to Pulse, when those of us more savvy like ourselves here know that the other options will surely help increase the number on Pulse exponentially towards the end. By not making that clear, Hasbro thinks they can keep the general unawares on the edge of their seat with anticipation, and it seems to be working to some extent, as evidenced by the concerns expressed by other above.

It's kinda devious when you think about it.

This feels counterintuitive to me. I see it as the number being so low, people wont even bother. But if its so close to succeeding, then more people will rally for it to be made. Like Kickstarter with extra goals and such.

Right, but we saw how confident and excited John Warden was about this figure back at SDCC and in this new trailer, so while we definitely see it as counterintuitive, Hasbro may see it as a means to goad more people into placing orders, preying on the human instinct of "people want what they can't have", confidently (if perhaps over-confidently) thinking that a great enough want is all that it'll take for more orders to be placed.

We'll see. Regardless of how this all plays out, I will say it certainly wasn't a boring time to be a Transformers fan.

william-james88 wrote:We'll see. Regardless of how this all plays out, I will say it certainly wasn't a boring time to be a Transformers fan.

Indubitably! Especially with the enormous swathe of reveals that we got both right before and during SDCC, and then later in Japan at Summer Festival.

william-james88 wrote:

PadForce wrote:The UK customs could add literally whatever value they want.

If i ordered from a 3rd party i could end up with a situation where its either $100 import taxes, or $500.

I ordered a $12 T shirt once and the customs was $18. No way im risking that here.

Ha, Happened to me once too in Canada. Lego set was $35 USD, Customs was $16 CAD. I am paying half for customs?!

Hysterically depressive stuff aside, I think our high sums were due to the idea of fixed cost and variable cost. UK and Canada seem to operate similarly. They will charge you the variable tax fee equivalent to what you'd pay if you bought the item locally (where I am, that would be 15%), but on top of that you have to pay a fixed fee for the customs office. Basically, you are paying them for their time to write how much you owe the government as a result of not shopping locally. The flat fee in Canada is 10$.

So $35 USD becomes about $45 CAD. 15% of that is about $6. So add $6 to the $10 flate fee ad you get $16 in customs fees. Your thing with the UK was probably similar.

Of course with Unicron, hasbro charges taxes to everyone who purchases through pulse up front, so there is no extra customs fee to pay later for Canadians.

Ah ok, it hadnt even occured to me that it might have been tax on $12 plus a flat fee.

Just to confirm then, do US and Canada buyers pay $575 plus tax? UK prices always include tax so that throws me.

PadForce wrote:Just to confirm then, do US and Canada buyers pay $575 plus tax? UK prices always include tax so that throws me.

Yes. Which is why you see a 600+ $figure being cited ever so often. People arent rounding up, they are simply including tax when using that higher number.

thanks for clarifying!

Sabrblade wrote:

megatronus wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Jabba's sail barge got a sudden surge of 5000 orders on its last day, after having sat around 3000 for the large majority of its preorder time.

The number seen on Hasbro Pulse is specifically for the number of preorders made through Hasbro Pulse, not factoring in all of the other preorders made through all of the international preorder channels and all of the alternative American retailers like BBTS and TFSource. The number of preorders from all of those venues likely won't be added near to the very end of the preorder time in order to give each of those venues as much time to maximize all of their preorders as they can gather before submitting their order totals to Hasbro.

I understand that, you understand that - but most super fans don’t, so I think it would be helpful for Hasbro to clarify that for the fandom writ large.

That's why I was pointing it out here, to alleviate the concerns that were expressed above on this page of the topic.

Which I appreciate, but this a very small relative audience. I’d like to hear it from Hasbro, too, and then shout it from the rooftops.

Sabrblade wrote:

william-james88 wrote:We'll see. Regardless of how this all plays out, I will say it certainly wasn't a boring time to be a Transformers fan.

Indubitably! Especially with the enormous swathe of reveals that we got both right before and during SDCC, and then later in Japan at Summer Festival.

Yyyyyeeeeeesssss....

It would be strange if the Takara Tomy Mall orders don't count towards the goal when it's written all over TTM order page that it does.

Using a Google translation, but it seems accurate:

Commercialized with 8,000 worldwide! Acceptance starts at Takara Tomy Mall in Japan!

They've put many more stipulations on this order than anything I've ever seen on the site before, even they're own crowdfunds. Has anyone else here placed an order through TTM? I have (using a proxy shipping address) and just for fun I tried just seeing what would happen if I started the order process on Unicron and it was completely different from normal orders. Even the payment system is very restrictive, only allowing credit cards when they normally have a bunch of different payment options including paying at 7-11. It's a very specialized system just for Unicron. And it has nothing to do with the price, they've sold other things in the store before that have cost this much and even now they have 65,000 JPY golf bags on the store that you can just toss in your cart. They even cut the orders off early, what would be around midnight on the morning of 8/30 giving them ample time to add their orders to Hasbro's.

No matter how I look at it the TTM orders count.

Emerje

So kotaku did an article about unicron...
https://kotaku.com/it-s-not-looking-good-for-hasbro-s-4-6-million-transfo-1837201292#js_discussion-region

Ironically I found the comments more balanced then the article

It makes sense, to me, that outside retailers would only put their orders in at the very end, rather than drip, drip, drip as the days go by. If it's 1/4 of the way there just in individual pre-orders, my gut tells me that they have pretty much already got it made with pre-orders from retailers adding in at the end.

william-james88 wrote:
I want some clarity too because takara sure aint singing the same tune in their promotions. One thing I do want to point out though since I know you want to get the facts straight, only Australia has a partnership with EB Games. Canadians order through Pulse, same as Americans, so they are already included and always were. And as far as I know, the UK do not have first party partner to order this from, so I wouldn't include them in that part I bolded. Basically, all that is counted on the Hasbro side are Pulse orders and Australian orders though Zing/EB Games.

That is more true than you know. A friend of mine is still waiting his SIEGE Jetfire. "Delayed" is the only response from Hasbro UK, for the last couple weeks

To pull back the curtain on how bad Customs can be here: I once bought the G1 Piranacon boxset from BBTS. It worked out around $20, which after converting into £, was an entire combiner team for less than £15 at the time.
Bargain!

A couple weeks later I received a letter from Customs, with a bill for £30
Suffice to say, I've never used BBTS since.

Customs is bad, burt the parcel farce handling fees for paying the customs fee on your behalf so that you are repaying money back to them that they have essentially loaned you with out even asking is annoying too. I cant remember the price but I know my car robots fort max cost me a lot more than I thought it would with the customs being charged on the figure and postage costs.

Think I got custom charges on something from TF source back in the day too (and they had a problem with card details being leaked/hacked) which is partly why I cant understand anyone ordering from the unsecured robot kingdom website.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:That is more true than you know. A friend of mine is still waiting his SIEGE Jetfire. "Delayed" is the only response from Hasbro UK, for the last couple weeks

I find it really hard to understand, that a country that has such a large fan base, has a very large convention, is just across the pond from Hasbro US, has such a utterly useless local branch.

Australia doesn't have a convention, we've got a decent sized fanbase (but nothing the size of the UK) but for years we've enjoyed a great relationship with Hasbro AU thanks to a few blokes (like Griffin from OzFormers) who have spent well over a decade building a relationship between the AU fans and Hasbro AU. They know what we want, and they do their best to get stuff here (we won't be getting the likes of Siege Ratchet).

Why the heck Hasbro UK doesn't have that kind of relationship with fans is beyond me.

Kickstarters should be transparent. We should see exactly where our 600 dollars are going, not just take Hasbro at their word that this is what it costs. If they don't want to tell us, then they should just run it as a regular retail item.


Kickstarters are for start up companies. Mom and pop type setups, NOT for multi billion dollar international publicly traded mega corporations. Hasbro going this route is, to me, fishy as hell. This isn't how big business is done. I feel that they are testing the waters here for future retail. This is Hasbro's way, I fear, of making the toy equivalent of the video game 'pay to win' set ups.

Not because Hasbro is some "evil" entity, but because they are all about, and only about, making as much money as they possibly can. They simply would not do this without a grantee of a big payday. They board of directors/share holders would have the ass off all involved otherwise. That is the simple reality of how corporate business works.


Transparency of the costs involved would alleviate all of that worry.

Immortal Starscream wrote:I want this guy badly, but at this point with only 18 days left, and not even halfway to the goal, I don't see it happening same with the cookie monster (I want that one too but cant afford both... actually I cant afford either, but thats a horse of a different color) still anything can happen (please let this happen)

I share your doubts. They only have to the end of this month, and they're hardly at 30% of where they wanted to be. I love these guys, but the market for a $600 planetformer figure is really narrow.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

william-james88 wrote:
I want some clarity too because takara sure aint singing the same tune in their promotions. One thing I do want to point out though since I know you want to get the facts straight, only Australia has a partnership with EB Games. Canadians order through Pulse, same as Americans, so they are already included and always were. And as far as I know, the UK do not have first party partner to order this from, so I wouldn't include them in that part I bolded. Basically, all that is counted on the Hasbro side are Pulse orders and Australian orders though Zing/EB Games.

That is more true than you know. A friend of mine is still waiting his SIEGE Jetfire. "Delayed" is the only response from Hasbro UK, for the last couple weeks

To pull back the curtain on how bad Customs can be here: I once bought the G1 Piranacon boxset from BBTS. It worked out around $20, which after converting into £, was an entire combiner team for less than £15 at the time.
Bargain!

A couple weeks later I received a letter from Customs, with a bill for £30
Suffice to say, I've never used BBTS since.

45 pounds for a complete and mint g1 combiner is still a great deal.

I can't really afford it, but I want this to happen. Hasbro has great options for all price points. Looking forward to Apeface and Spinister myself.

So UK based TFs Express has unicron at £599. I assume shipping is on top.

Anyone used this before?

I love that Unicron has been considered

but at that price and being in UK it is a near impossibility to own one.

Hasbro UK needs to new life injecting into and someone willing to truly front their major brands across the UK. I'm still surprised they held 1-2-1 questionnaries at TFNation/AutoAssembly a few years back.

PadForce wrote:So UK based TFs Express has unicron at £599. I assume shipping is on top.

Anyone used this before?

Yep, just recently posted the below about them in the uk toysightings. O ordered off them as tf express and cant remeber their ebay ID at the mo. They charge for shipping. I didnt know they were still using TF express as a name as it changed to omegalock on my bookmarks. Exact item was TR Legends Nemesis Prime that I ordered from Ebay from them in the past. Cant remember the website order.

I've ordered from their ebay once (item was cheaper on their website ) and I think from their website once. a little bit weird how their business names are different/have changed and dont match their facebook name either but the ebay feedback is good and they were reliable.

Also weird how they have it for less than what hasbro is charging for it $549.99 on tf express in dollar price which would be cheaper than paying £599.99

also website not secure either, not sure if payment is secure.

It's a limited company with c.£40k net assets: Transbridge (UK) Ltd on companies house. No reason to think it is not legit.

I am sorely tempted to order this if I think I can make the chest panels glow red.

william-james88 wrote:45 pounds for a complete and mint g1 combiner is still a great deal.

The overall price wasn't the issue. I simply refuse to pay twice for the same item.

It's quite sad that this hasn't been fully backed by now.