Gamestop Raises Preorder Prices by 30-40% on Transformers

See ya collecting!

I'm probably stating the obvious, Gamestop is gauging in price. 30% tariff (up from existing 20%) doesn't necessarily translate to +30% MSRP.

Wonder if others will follow.

We have not heard as yet about CDN price increases and we may never see them. The Titan Star OP price is $205 up here. However, with the EB Games (formerly Gamestop Canada) 10% discount (Platinum Member) that falls to $185 before taxes with free S/H.

To buy it from Gamestop US it would now be US $210 which works out to be CDN $305 MSRP and then $275 with the same discount before taxes with free S/H. These are now way cheaper (CDN $90) in Canada, even with our weaker dollar. Crazy!

I do not trust that amazon.com will honor the price of the preorders that I made. So I cancelled everything.

Looks like I won't be buying from Game Stop. Pretty much everywhere. I'm gonna have fun looking at my incomplete Superion and incomplete Devastator.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I do not trust that amazon.com will honor the price of the preorders that I made. So I cancelled everything.

I'm actually the opposite, at least on cancelling. Your pre-order authorization is for a certain amount. If the actual price at the time of shipment will be higher and they want you to pay that, it would require a second authorization because you only authorized a certain amount. If they do try to make everyone re-authorize at the higher price, so be it. I'll make my decision then, but I wouldn't cancel until I know for sure.

Oddly enough, for the regular retail figures like SS deluxe VW Bee and AotP voyager Heatwave, Amazon looks like they are matching the available pre-order pricing with their algorithm on figures I did not pre-order. The reason I believe it is their algorithm is because their exclusive Wreck and Doom sets are still at the original price. It will be interesting to see if that jumps up whenever Hasbro raises the price for those 2 sets on Pulse, which should be the only other US based website that they could look at.

Solrac333 wrote:Looks like I won't be buying from Game Stop. Pretty much everywhere. I'm gonna have fun looking at my incomplete Superion and incomplete Devastator.

They will now be known as Inferion and Deficientstator.

megatran wrote:

Solrac333 wrote:Looks like I won't be buying from Game Stop. Pretty much everywhere. I'm gonna have fun looking at my incomplete Superion and incomplete Devastator.

They will now be known as Inferion and Deficientstator.

In both cases, an arm and a leg are starting to cost, well, an arm and a leg.

I'll show myself out.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

megatran wrote:

Solrac333 wrote:Looks like I won't be buying from Game Stop. Pretty much everywhere. I'm gonna have fun looking at my incomplete Superion and incomplete Devastator.

They will now be known as Inferion and Deficientstator.

In both cases, an arm and a leg are starting to cost, well, an arm and a leg.

I'll show myself out.

You both win this convo!

-Kanrabat- wrote:
I do not trust that amazon.com will honor the price of the preorders that I made. So I cancelled everything.

I don't know if their policy has changed as I haven't bought anything there in years, but when I use to buy game books there, I would occasionally find preorders that were obviously mispriced. They always honored the price. Sometimes I would end up with new books at 85-90% off cover price.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

megatran wrote:

Solrac333 wrote:Looks like I won't be buying from Game Stop. Pretty much everywhere. I'm gonna have fun looking at my incomplete Superion and incomplete Devastator.

They will now be known as Inferion and Deficientstator.

In both cases, an arm and a leg are starting to cost, well, an arm and a leg.

I'll show myself out.

Don't despair. There are options.
Put aside a few dollars each week and before you know it you'll have a foot in the door or a leg in.
Put your hand up and ask someone for a leg up.

Dino-Snarl wrote:We have not heard as yet about CDN price increases and we may never see them.

I have news but have yet to find the time to write the story, but it's confirmed that there is no increase to Canadian MSRP. Any change to MSRP and distribution is only for the US market.

So while people say that Hasbro is just looking for an excuse to raise prices, they are not increasing prices worldwide. If they increase prices, it's just for the US and just so that the government does not scold them for charging a separate fee on the item highlighting the tariff.

So Amazon has now raised their prices to match Gamestop. I'll say it again, these figures are not made in China, they're made in Vietnam where the current tariff is 10%. Transformers are being given unreasonable price hikes tso they don't have to raise prices on toys for younger kids. Hasbro is taking advantage of us.

Side note, this article from Business Insider shows how dire the situation was at Hasbro. It says they're pausing some of their pricing plans since the tariff was reduced, was planing to cancel lines, and considered making some lines international. They also mentioned this would have changed planed retailor promotions.

Emerje

william-james88 wrote:

Dino-Snarl wrote:We have not heard as yet about CDN price increases and we may never see them.

I have news but have yet to find the time to write the story, but it's confirmed that there is no increase to Canadian MSRP. Any change to MSRP and distribution is only for the US market.

So while people say that Hasbro is just looking for an excuse to raise prices, they are not increasing prices worldwide. If they increase prices, it's just for the US and just so that the government does not scold them for charging a separate fee on the item highlighting the tariff.

I think if the sales drop substantially under the new prices we could see international prices increase so it isn't just Americans shouldering them (though by all rights we should be) allowing US prices to become more manageable. Basically the same as what they're doing to us so they don't have to raise the prices on children's toys.

Emerje

GODD

william-james88 wrote:So while people say that Hasbro is just looking for an excuse to raise prices, they are not increasing prices worldwide. If they increase prices, it's just for the US and just so that the government does not scold them for charging a separate fee on the item highlighting the tariff.

IMO This won't stop it. Pretty much nothing will.

For the record, I saw a headline / news report on someone's phone saying "Trump tells Walmart to hold the line on prices and 'eat' the difference (new tariff-related costs)", if this were true it comes across as "use your profits to uphold my promise to the people, or, even better, negotiate with China so they pay you and you forward the collections to the Govt."

Delta Supreme wrote:

william-james88 wrote:So while people say that Hasbro is just looking for an excuse to raise prices, they are not increasing prices worldwide. If they increase prices, it's just for the US and just so that the government does not scold them for charging a separate fee on the item highlighting the tariff.

IMO This won't stop it. Pretty much nothing will.

For the record, I saw a headline / news report on someone's phone saying "Trump tells Walmart to hold the line on prices and 'eat' the difference (new tariff-related costs)", if this were true it comes across as "use your profits to uphold my promise to the people, or, even better, negotiate with China so they pay you and you forward the collections to the Govt."

I like the second one, let's go with that.

Delta Supreme wrote:

william-james88 wrote:So while people say that Hasbro is just looking for an excuse to raise prices, they are not increasing prices worldwide. If they increase prices, it's just for the US and just so that the government does not scold them for charging a separate fee on the item highlighting the tariff.

IMO This won't stop it. Pretty much nothing will.

For the record, I saw a headline / news report on someone's phone saying "Trump tells Walmart to hold the line on prices and 'eat' the difference (new tariff-related costs)", if this were true it comes across as "use your profits to uphold my promise to the people, or, even better, negotiate with China so they pay you and you forward the collections to the Govt."

Were you or someone added to that secret encrypted Signal app chat by accident?

Well, Trump says his deal with China is done and it so far looks like a terrible deal for us.

US gets-

• 55% tariff on imports (up from 30%)
• Mineral rights from China

China gets-

• 10% tariff on imports from the USA
• Chinese students can attend US universities again

So basically things are even worse for US consumers and China gets a great deal on imports and education. Yes, Chinese factories will hurt from this, but there's still no sign of alternatives to Chinese manufacturing for US consumers. Great deal for US billionaires who not only get to sell to China at a low tax rate but also get access to rare minerals to make the stuff they're selling there. But this deal seriously screw average Americans. It's also been pointed out that these minerals come from the notorious western region of Xinjiang known for their prison and slave labor mining. Republicans that are wrongly claiming Chinese factories are sweatshops as an excuse to move manufacturing out of China should be outraged over this, but they wont be since it's Trump's plan and he doesn't care so why should they?

Emerje

Emerje wrote:Well, Trump says his deal with China is done and it so far looks like a terrible deal for us.

US gets-

• 55% tariff on imports (up from 30%)
• Mineral rights from China

China gets-

• 10% tariff on imports from the USA
• Chinese students can attend US universities again

So basically things are even worse for US consumers and China gets a great deal on imports and education. Yes, Chinese factories will hurt from this, but there's still no sign of alternatives to Chinese manufacturing for US consumers. Great deal for US billionaires who not only get to sell to China at a low tax rate but also get access to rare minerals to make the stuff they're selling there. But this deal seriously screw average Americans. It's also been pointed out that these minerals come from the notorious western region of Xinjiang known for their prison and slave labor mining. Republicans that are wrongly claiming Chinese factories are sweatshops as an excuse to move manufacturing out of China should be outraged over this, but they wont be since it's Trump's plan and he doesn't care so why should they?

Emerje

On another US Transformers fansite (which I won't name), you will get an automatic ban just mere mentioning the T word(s). Glad we can have a mature discussion here, including posting factual news updates.

There are no winners in a trade/tariff war for the ordinary folks.

I'm not even from the US, but I've been asked by my work to look at alternative supply arrangements (secondary & tertiary suppliers) as assurance of supply strategy should preferred suppliers go bust for whatever reason. I already have a full workload thankyou very much.

I work at a factory where we mainly use steel and aluminum to create and build our machines. At first, the Trump tariffs slowed our work to a crawl for a month or two. But my competent boss found some work-around and now, we are so swamped with work, we have trouble to keep up!

So, if people know what they are doing, I'm sure everything will balance itself out.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I work at a factory where we mainly use steel and aluminum to create and build our machines. At first, the Trump tariffs slowed our work to a crawl for a month or two. But my competent boss found some work-around and now, we are so swamped with work, we have trouble to keep up!

So, if people know what they are doing, I'm sure everything will balance itself out.

Yeah, though right now it just sounds like companies are willing to move their factories from country to country as many times as it takes to avoid moving to the US. They seem to be banking on being able to outlast the Trump presidency.

Emerje

I was looking at the art for this thread and credit to the person or persons for the depiction of Trump, I think (please be listening ) the Powers should consider a type of Fans project/release like for Windblade and the creation of a figure based on the image for this thread and be a Terrorcon I feel.

Well this can only be a win/win situation for fans given current events and to have a figure representing/resembling Trump and the tariffs that affect us fans....'nuff said!

Vietnam goods to the US to be slapped with 20% tariff. Many of Hasbro Transformers toys nowadays come from Vietnam.

Apologies if providing news that is factual, apolitical & on topic breaks the rules here. Another Transformers site that I won't name locked the thread as soon as it popped up.

I was watching the news and it talked about inflation rising in the US. Toys, of all things, got a mention.