There is also the notion of the "loss leader" - something you sell at a loss to help drive sales of things that bring in even more profit.
Making minis that sell well, but NON RANDOM
There is also the notion of the "loss leader" - something you sell at a loss to help drive sales of things that bring in even more profit.
There are sound business reasons for selling figures randomly, and the main reason is not to trick consumers into buying minis they don't want.
Miniature figures have high up-front fixed costs -- you need to pay an artist to sculpt the original, and you need to pay to make a mold -- and low variable costs -- the plastic is cheap -- so there are tremendous economies of scale.
Then, consumers have wildly varying tastes and want different figures, which makes it hard to achieve those economies of scale. If you charge one high price for, say, the elf archer, only people playing an elf archer will even consider buying it, and they'll balk at the high price needed to cover the fixed costs. If you charge one low price, you miss out on the surplus those dedicated elf-players were willing to pay, so you sell more, but you might not make much more profit.
If you sell the figures randomly -- or bundled -- then people will on average pay more and be happy with what they're getting.
Further, selling the figures randomly means you're only selling one SKU (stock-keeping unit), so distribution is not a nightmare; it's a breeze. Store-owners don't end up with unwanted inventory lingering for months or years, and consumers don't end up hunting from store to store for that one figure. (That becomes a separate secondary market.)
It also makes forecasting a non-issue. How many do we make of which figures? This is a life-or-death decision for a small company -- if they sell the figures non-randomly. Randomly though, it's a non-issue.
So, if you want to sell figures non-randomly, you would probably like to stick to staples you know you could sell -- orcs, zombies, guards -- or rely on something like Kickstarter to get pre-orders before you even pay the artist or make the mold and sell direct from a single warehouse.
Print-on-demand could theoretically work too.
Miniature figures have high up-front fixed costs -- you need to pay an artist to sculpt the original, and you need to pay to make a mold -- and low variable costs -- the plastic is cheap -- so there are tremendous economies of scale.
Then, consumers have wildly varying tastes and want different figures, which makes it hard to achieve those economies of scale. If you charge one high price for, say, the elf archer, only people playing an elf archer will even consider buying it, and they'll balk at the high price needed to cover the fixed costs. If you charge one low price, you miss out on the surplus those dedicated elf-players were willing to pay, so you sell more, but you might not make much more profit.
If you sell the figures randomly -- or bundled -- then people will on average pay more and be happy with what they're getting.
Further, selling the figures randomly means you're only selling one SKU (stock-keeping unit), so distribution is not a nightmare; it's a breeze. Store-owners don't end up with unwanted inventory lingering for months or years, and consumers don't end up hunting from store to store for that one figure. (That becomes a separate secondary market.)
It also makes forecasting a non-issue. How many do we make of which figures? This is a life-or-death decision for a small company -- if they sell the figures non-randomly. Randomly though, it's a non-issue.
So, if you want to sell figures non-randomly, you would probably like to stick to staples you know you could sell -- orcs, zombies, guards -- or rely on something like Kickstarter to get pre-orders before you even pay the artist or make the mold and sell direct from a single warehouse.
Print-on-demand could theoretically work too.
I think we already have a completely viable strategy for buying minis in a non-random way. We call it 're-selling'.
I really have no idea why some people are so adverse from buying WotC miniatures from a company other than WotC. I mean, what difference does it make? WotC's distributor sells a crate of minis wholesale to a re-seller, the re-seller then either sells the packages as-is at like double the price... or they crack the packages open and sells the minis individually for a whole variety of prices... cheap prices for common or unpopular minis than they have a ton of, higher prices for rare minis that everybody wants.
What's the flaw in this?
I really have no idea why some people are so adverse from buying WotC miniatures from a company other than WotC. I mean, what difference does it make? WotC's distributor sells a crate of minis wholesale to a re-seller, the re-seller then either sells the packages as-is at like double the price... or they crack the packages open and sells the minis individually for a whole variety of prices... cheap prices for common or unpopular minis than they have a ton of, higher prices for rare minis that everybody wants.
What's the flaw in this?
This. A hundred times this. I have close to two thousand DDM figs, of which maybe 20-30 were purchased in randomized packs (usually an impulse buy when I was at the FLGS for something else). The rest came from Troll and Toad, CoolStuffInc, or Auggies.
Why is everyone so obsessed with buying straight from the manufacturer? Buying sealed boosters is for the fun of opening the packs. If you're trying to build a serious collection, for the love of Gygax, buy secondary! You get what you want, as much as you want of it, at a reasonable price. The way I see it, the manufacturer is selling individual minis, they're just outsourcing the job of pricing 'em.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
An audience of 1 does not a viable market make.
Cergorach
The Laughing One
Games-Workshop is selling non-random miniatures, has been doing that for ages, but they are pricey. Their new plastic heroes are $13.25 and you still need to cut them out, glue them and paint them. A box of 10 orcs is $29, a box of 5 boar riders is $24.75, 3 trolls are $44.50 and a singe huge/Gigantic Monster Spider is $57.75. A box with 50 miniatures is $105, a starter set is $99 for 70 figures. Sure, companies like Mantic make them cheaper, they make a 15 orc box for $25, but with far fewer possible poses. And their range is still very small. And that is without the assembly and the paintjob.
Reaper makes some prepainted minis, Legendary Encounters, but after 4 years their range counts 29 different miniatures. A single medium sized miniature is between $3 and $5.
Dwarven Forge is selling sets of 3 for $15, they have 3 sets with Orcs and 4 with skeletons.
Fantasy Flight did prepainted 54mm Warzone figures 3-4 in a box for $19.95, that product range lasted for less then a year, but produced more minis then Reaper did with LE in four years. Product failed.
Rackham did AT-43 (scifi) and Confrontation (fantasy) in prepainted minis, AT-43 lasted four years and Confrontation lasted three years before Racham went belly up. A single hero was $10, a unit box of 8 was $30, 2 large monsters or one huge was $35. You can pick them now up relatively cheap, but in those 3 years they only released around 5 armies, not even complete, there were a lot of different minis (and that was part of the problem). But still, I think that WotC released more minis in a three year stretch, I suspect that Paizo/Wizkids will do as well. One of the reasons for the failure was the size of the packaging, a gamestores nightmare, especially in Europe where space is often at a premium in stores. I ordered oodles of the stuff when Rackham had a huge sale and had absolute tons of plastic and paper packaging material for relatively very few miniatures. If folks complained about MWDA or DDM packaging, this was way worse! Products failed.
Mongoose publishing tried to do a near future/Modern range of prepaints for Battlefield Evolution. A tank $25, a squad of ten $30. The whole range went quickly the way of the dodo. Product failed.
Hasbro heroscape did miniature packs at $13 for 3-8 minis, lasted around six years before they ended with the product range. Did 3 starter sets and around 25-30 expansions, whole range is 100-200 different minis. Product failed.
Wizkids did Mageknight, lasted for around 5 years, have announced a return almost a year ago, haven't seen anything since. They did MWDA, which lasted around five years, the first four being random packed, the last year you saw what you got. Horror Clix died in two years. HeroClix lasted six years under Wizkids when Topps closed the whole caboodle, a year late Neca resurected HeroClix again. Mostly product failed, as only HeroClix is in production (although by a new company Neca/Wizkids).
WotC did DDM and lasted 8 years, did SWM and lasted 6 years, and Dreamblade last for almost a year. All products failed.
Sabertooth games (subsidiary of GW at the time) did LotR prepaints, the range didn't last long. Product failed.
Privateer Press does Monsterpocalypse, it still does, but I seriously doubt it has a long life. Product success (for now).
Paolo Parente is doing Dust prepaints (called premium) available unpainted from FFG. 4-5 infantry is $40, a tank is $50. The starter set with 32 infantry and 2 tanks was $300 (and is now sold out). Product success.
Upperdeck did a WoW range which lasted for less then a year. Product failed.
You might notice that of the ranges that were produced the last ten years or so relatively few have survived, those that have either have a very small selection or a random packaged. And not to mention, a lot are more expensive then their randomly packed counterparts.
Someone mentioned a 30 figure prepainted package, would you be willing to pay $120 for such a product? Battle of Hoth Scenario Pack was $60 for 17 figures, only two of which were new, the rest were already available (and that set is from 3.5 years ago.
You have a couple of issues:
1.) You need to limit product codes and the amount of space a package takes up. So you need to concentrate a relatively large number of minis in a relatively small space.
2.) Pricing, folks won't pay $10 for each single miniature, they might for a few, just not for the whole range. Packaging multiple minis pushes up the price of the package, thus a higher level of entry is required, resulting in less sales.
3.) Production costs, while the molds for plastic miniatures aren't cheap $30k should get you a mold for 12-16 models, $100k should get you your 40 figure initial range. But these prices only go down with time. The kicker is that salaries in China are rising quickly so your cheap workforce (I'm hearing salary is three times it was ten years ago) is now getting more expensive by the release with no end in sight. Only longterm solution is a custom designed machine that paints tiny miniatures, not cheap by a long shot.
4.) Interest, how do you keep interest fresh in your line. DDM did 21 sets, I bought minis from about half those sets, half of that were enough minis to net me at least 12 from each common, 4 from each uncommon and 1-2 rares each. At a certain point even the addictive personalities (like myself ;-) stop and think that they might have enough and spending another couple of hundred dollars on another batch of minis you won't all use and you already have buckets worth of orcs and skellies and never enough mindflayers. You might have noticed that HeroClix is still doing well, it's tied to the comics market, which is rife with collectors already, I suspect that the majority of HeroClix's success can be laid at the feet of comics collectors worldwide. D&D/Pathfinder miniatures just don't have that kind of audience...
I suspect that affordable prepainted plastic non-random miniatures are currently just impossible. If I had a million to spend it wouldn't be on this, HQ plastic minis maybe, but pre-paints not unless I had a million to literally burn.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Off the cuff, here's the problem. The orc mold costs $10,000 (quoted price for a plastic mold) to make. You sell 10,000 orcs at a buck profit, and recoup your cost. Its easy, people buy lots of orcs. The balor mold costs $20,000 to make (assuming 2 parts). How much are you selling these balors for? And people buy a lot less balors than orcs, since more people play at low levels and you fight orcs in groups.
That's why non-randoms have crappy variety. It costs the same or more to produce a mold of something that will sell a lot less units. The costs for the plastic molds are just so much higher than metal molds.
So yeah, non-random is viable at the basic level. This is likely what you'll see in their visible packs.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Which arent painted or assembled. And are much more fragile. Its a different market aimed at filling different needs.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Though the Mantic minis are designed in a way that lets them get painted very quickly and on the table.
I have painted an enormous number of ghouls and zombies from Mantic with a colored primer also serving as the flesh tone. For zombies you can spray with flesh, necrotic flesh, or bone colors with Army Painter primers (I used the flesh tones to distinguish units). A color for what little clothing they wear, put in some teeth, dip, then pick out the eyes. You can get sixty done in about three hours.
This was for a Pathfinder scenario that had an encounter with 300 zombies early on - at fifth level. The look on their faces when I put 300 zombies on the table was priceless. Then when about 60 of the zombies sprinted at the PCs.... The purpose of the fast zombies was to give the PCs something to blast, hack and maim, so that they didn't feel like they were just running away. Judging by comments afterward, it worked. A retreat in combat felt more heroic than just running away, and they could boast that they survived an attack by 300 zombies, even if they only fought 60 of them. Plus it made the wizard's first use of fireballs something worthwhile.
The Auld Grump
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
To continue [MENTION=59506]El Mahdi[/MENTION]'s point, there's also the issue of sufficient returns.
You run a business, and you have $100,000 to invest in something. You can invest it in something that, if your planning projections are correct, will make a 3% return.* Or, you can invest it in something that, if your planning projections are correct, will make a 12% return.
Given that you're a rational guy, why would you pick the 3% return over the 12%?
* Including, if you're smart about it, some estimation of the sales stimulation effect on your other product lines (e.g., Umbran's loss-leader point).
