The Energon Pub

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=937743306245866&substory_index=0&id=284302084923328&refid=17&_ft_&__tn__=%2As

From their Facebook page.

Anyone know what this is about? Is it due to their patchy QC or something else?

A while ago, at TFW, some retailers were saying they were getting fed up with issues surrounding 3rd party products. Lack of communication, poor quality products (leading to returns), and overall treatment (I recall that pre-order prices really hurt the retailer's bottom line and aren't negotiable). I have no idea what's the deal here specifically, but maybe one of those?

Kapow did say a little while ago that they were going to stop stocking certain vendors soon because of a mix of unreliability, price and quality. Not surprised here.

Masterforce are also not keen on X-Transbots and they've limited sales of Apollyon to only a select few pre-orders.

KAPOW

s of today we will no longer be stocking any items from Keith's Fantasy Club or its associated companies Omnigonix and X-Transbots, we thank them for dealing with us in the past and wish them well for the future. Any items we currently have in stock from them will not be re-stocked, any questions please email contact@kapowtoys.co.uk

We will not be answering questions here on Facebook sadly as we won't have the time today.

For people who didn't read the post. but did you guys realize that KAPOW just outted KFC as Omnigonix? Didn't even realize who they were until I heard on a podcast that they are the guys doing the MP style Sunstalker?

Xtransbots announced that they'd be offering up their services to whoever so that people can use them to mass product their toy ideas, so it's more like Omnigonix is Xtransbots.

Also, Xtransbots is CHMS. zThey've come a long way since their KO Seeker days.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Xtransbots announced that they'd be offering up their services to whoever so that people can use them to mass product their toy ideas, so it's more like Omnigonix is Xtransbots.

Also, Xtransbots is CHMS. zThey've come a long way since their KO Seeker days.

Yea I know both Xtransbots and KFC is CHMS they are a factory first, which is probably why they can produce stuff so fast. But had no idea of the Omnigonix relationship. Did you know this before the Kapow thing? Didn't realize it was already known.

No, I didn't know that.

I just meant that KFC isn't the parent company here. Xtransbots is the overall company. I'm just being overly literal.

Sounds like another UK company, Masterforce, appear to be having issues with Keith from KFC. They posted this on their FB page. They also went on to explain that the reason behind it was because Keith has been effectively trying to blacklist them with lots of suppliers as a result of them pointing out QC issues with Apollyon.

Unfortunately after nearly 2 years of selling Mastermind Creations (MMC) and recently reaching an agreement where we could buy directly from them, MMC have decided to go back on their word and specifically state that they will not allow us to sell their product. This seems to be the way things work these days with third party companies screwing over retailers left right and centre. Effective immediately we will no longer be stocking their product and we'll be dropping most third party companies as buying from unprofessional fans in their bedrooms pretending to be businesses is getting old.

I've used Masterforce a lot, they're reliable and pretty flexible too. Morgan, the owner, is very easy going and eager to help. It's disappointing to see that they're not going to be stocking some 3P products going forward. I know nothing about the way independent retailers work with suppliers and I didn't realise that politics like this can arise.

Funnily enough, Kapow have mentioned on their FB page that they're the UK exclusive retailer for MMC products.

That's quite confusing...So they're having issues with KFC, MMC and X-Transbot?

guarayakha wrote:That's quite confusing...So they're having issues with KFC, MMC and X-Transbot?

I agree... maybe it's them that's the problem and not the third parties?? I don't see BBTS bitching about their problems with these companies..

MMC too? I thought those guys were pretty good when it comes to communication. Guess not.

MasterForce is last place i look and thats not very often . Kapow and omegalock are by far the best place to buy 3rdp stuff .

MF wont move as much product as the other two so MMC probably cut them out .

Here's a little interesting bit from MasterForce about there releationship with KFC .

I quoted MF and took the names off the people who asked questions .

Unfortunately after nearly 2 years of selling Mastermind Creations (MMC) and recently reaching an agreement where we could buy directly from them, MMC have decided to go back on their word and specifically state that they will not allow us to sell their product. This seems to be the way things work these days with third party companies screwing over retailers left right and centre. Effective immediately we will no longer be stocking their product and we'll be dropping most third party companies as buying from unprofessional fans in their bedrooms pretending to be businesses is getting old.

Exactly that. They choose who it is sold to and who their distributors can supply. X Transbots have spent the last 9 months trying to get every distributor in the world to stop selling to us.

What did you do to piss off X Transbots? xD

Point out that QC on Apollyon was likely to be **** and then when KFC/XTB decided to steal our money we sold it at cost.

what other crap did Keith pull?

Steal your money? gasp emoticon :{

We got the money back via Paypal but Keith has since then contacted every distributor and told them not to sell to us, he numbered every box of Apollyon on the inside so he could see who we got them from and then gave those suppliers hell. He's had all the other companies he works with like DX-9 and Unique Toys stop selling to us. Oh and he has a relationship of sorts with Fans Toys which hit us too.

Why are other companies listening to Keith?

Keith owns a small factory and produces products for other companies. He also distributes for some companies as he has his contact list from selling his own products. So Keith started out in CHMS, then he owned Unique Toys, left them to start KFC and is now involved in some way in either manufacturing or distribution of -
KFC
X-Transbots
DaCa
Cubex (before they became Badcube, now they are nothing to do with him)
Dr Wu
Omnigonix
TFDreamworks
Unique Toys
DX-9
DMY
Fans Toys
SXS
UFO

and a few others.

that's interesting... but no MMC connections? is that just a typo maybe?

So...just UK retailers having this problem?

I'm going to guess it's smaller retailers who work on much tighter margins than the likes of BBTS and TFSource.

I think there's more to this story than we're being told. I'm sure Keith has some level of influence, but not that much. Besides, just because a store says one thing, doesn't make it absolute, golden truth.

I'm sure the actual answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Plus, I doubt Keith's factory has it's hands in that many products/product lines. We'd never get the figures we do get, they'd be so backed up.

On top of that, RobotKingdom runs the 3rd party like a mafia, they own TFC and quite a few others, they dictate who gets what because they're so large they have distributor status.

It's like the women on the internet thing all over again. "It's really just one guy pretending to be a chick!"