That's it; I am done buying minis'!

[Matrix Sorcica]

Been to Fantask in Copenhagen?

What is the trick regarding the customs and what is the name of that store in England?

Cheers

Fantask is the one. While I like to support my FLGS, they really need to get in the game. Especially reg. minis. And the core books. No discount for buying them all, no reduction in price the first day, week or anything.

Anyway, there's no 'trick' per se. Auggie never includes an invoice on international sales, which means the package is valued at the $25 Auggie writes on his custom declaration. That's close to the no significance threshold, and unless you're very unlucky, you're home free. (At one time, Auggie's package help included by accident a list of the minis and their price. And of course with just my luck it got snatched in customs. The $30 fee the bastards charge to tax you, Auggie promptly gave me as credit )

The book store is www.bookdepository.co.uk

 

[Jack99]

Fantask is the one. While I like to support my FLGS, they really need to get in the game. Especially reg. minis. And the core books. No discount for buying them all, no reduction in price the first day, week or anything.

Anyway, there's no 'trick' per se. Auggie never includes an invoice on international sales, which means the package is valued at the $25 Auggie writes on his custom declaration. That's close to the no significance threshold, and unless you're very unlucky, you're home free. (At one time, Auggie's package help included by accident a list of the minis and their price. And of course with just my luck it got snatched in customs. The $30 fee the bastards charge to tax you, Auggie promptly gave me as credit )

The book store is www.bookdepository.co.uk

Takker mange gange.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Lots of folks don't like random miniatures (myself included). Since I'm not really familiar with the business model, I have to ask: doesn't that generally increase their profitability for the company while maintaining a reasonable price for the consumer?

 

[SavageRobby]

Lots of folks don't like random miniatures (myself included). Since I'm not really familiar with the business model, I have to ask: doesn't that generally increase their profitability for the company while maintaining a reasonable price for the consumer?

You could do a line of low cost non-random miniatures (see: Confrontation, Reaper, etc), and those seem to have a direct correlation between price and quality. To me, it appears that random collectibility is more about increasing selection than decreasing price, or that is to say, it allows a larger selection without driving the cost up tremendously.

Because the manufacturer doesn't have to worry about individual best-sellers or worst-sellers (all the minis get sold equally in a given set, according to their rarity), they can produce a full set of 60 (or however many are in the set) and not worry about whether fringe pieces will sell at the same volume as the more popular pieces. (Think about some of the really out-there minis, and if they'd _ever_ sell as singles.) This means they can take chances on some of the out there minis, knowing that the [insert least favorite rare ever] will - by virtue of the packaging scheme - sell as well as the Beholder, or Red Dragon, or whatnot.


I view that as a plus, especially since there is a secondary market that still retains the (relatively) low cost of the minis, while removing the element of risk from purchasing. Or at least, the risk of randomness. In this case, the secondary sellers are passing on the benefits of the increased selection to us, while taking on the worry of good/bad sellers.



(I wish I liked the recent sets more. They're just not doing for it for me these days.)

 

[Xyxox]

The thing is, those niche miniatures are exactly the advantage that consumers get from the random packaging method. Without the bundling of the miniatures you wouldn't see those niche miniatures being created. They wouldn't be in enough demand to produce at a reasonable price point.

I've always found it's far more fun to create new monsters based upon miniatures from third party companies than to use those niche monsters from D&D that everybody can already find stats on. Keeps the players on their toes.

 

[Voadam]

$550? I am so glad I am not into collecting minis.

I use Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes counters and pdf ones I can print such as

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info....17820&it=1&filters=0_0_0&manufacturers_id=496 from IDA

and

http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?cPath=683 from Fiery Dragon.

The IDA ones worked really well. Print, cut, fold, tape, done and you have a standing figure with front and back image.

 

[Festivus]

I opened three cases last night. Over all, my favorite figures were the uncommon PC type figs and the medium sized rares.

Got two white dragons. This is probably the best looking of the huge rares.

Only got one giant out of three cases, odd for a set named "Against the Giants".

Overall, glad I bought cases, but likely won't buy many more cases in the future due to financial contraints and that I have like 2 million figs laying around.

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

The dragonborn in my game is making do with an old Baaz Draconian mini.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Dragoneye/28_Baaz_Draconian_tn.jpg

It works well enough.

LOL my wife actually prefers that mini! $220 CND and I got two dragonborns, both the same. I must say the quality of the painting has fallen dramatically. I only buy 8 from Amazon and then buy 2-4 individual packs from my local. But with the quality going down I don't want to invest. That said... the next set is Drow and Mindflayers....

 

[Oryan77]

Heck, I'd credit Andrew (Auggie) with being a huge factor in driving the secondary market price of minis down. He was the first seller I saw to consistently price his minis 25% below (often more) what others were charging, even as WotC raised the minis prices. He was the first seller I saw to offer flat shipping, too.

Yep, I credit him to driving the secondary market prices down also. But I'm coming from it from a negative perspective.

I became an online minis seller/trader several years ago as a part time gig to help me afford my wedding while I was also putting myself through college. I still have a full time job & sell minis on the side for extra income. But now that I'm about to finish my last night school class & look for another job, I might get out of the online minis business....Auggies has just not made it worth it for small online sellers like me.

Auggies is no different than Walmart; get bulk items at low cost, undercut the competition, & drive the little guys out of business.

I've heard his "brick-n-mortor" store is a flea market booth. So he saves on rent and still gets to buy minis direct from a distributor. He was also able to offer flat rate shipping because his postman let him get away with shipping via Media Mail, which minis do not qualify for Media Mail (believe me, I've tried doing it myself by asking 6 different postman at 4 different post offices in my area). His post office recently got a new postman who won't allow him to ship Media Mail so he has changed his rates.

Online sellers without a B&M store can't buy minis from a distributor, so we have to pay much more for cases. With the price increase of boosters, that hit our pockets hard because the value of minis didn't also increase. Then Auggies keeps tabs on people like me (he's admitted it to me) & undercuts our prices by a lot.

People used to think $0.40 for commons & $0.80 for Uncommons was a great deal. Thanks to Auggies, $0.30 for commons & $0.60 for Uncommons is too expensive to a lot of people. I won't even bother comparing the price difference in rare minis.

As someone said, word of mouth is a powerful tool. Auggies gets 99% of the word of mouth advertisement on the gaming forums. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about his fortunate position at all. I'd be grateful myself if I had those privileges, and I understand the name of the business game. He seems like a nice guy & deserves success.

I also understand that I'm not a LGS & by selling online, I'm competing with them. I never tried to undercut their prices & take their business, I simply based my prices on whatever the averages were on Ebay & other online stores & tried to offer good service. If I made extra money for my time, great! But I haven't bothered restocking my minis inventory in months because I don't feel it's profitable anymore. Just like the mom-n-pop stores that compete with the Walmarts of the world, there's only so much a seller can do before it's no longer profitable.

 

[Glyfair]

Lots of folks don't like random miniatures (myself included). Since I'm not really familiar with the business model, I have to ask: doesn't that generally increase their profitability for the company while maintaining a reasonable price for the consumer?

SavageRobby covers bits well, that's the main advantage to consumers. Also, the method helps keep the prices low. One thing many people aren't aware of is that plastic miniatures have very high set up costs (the prices of the molds are astronomical). You need to produce a lot of each miniature to make them affordable. That means that low selling plastic miniatures don't get made. The random packages mean that each miniature of a given rarity sells the same as the rest (The secondary market isn't a concern of the primary distribution partners).

There is another advantage to the retail chain. There is one "SKU" WotC, each distributor and each store only has to deal with a single "product" for stocking purposes for each set. They don't have to track dozens of figures sales, possible interest, stocking and restocking when order time comes. That requires employee time and costs them money.

Also, guessing wrong and over-ordering during preorders cost the stores storage space (or in profits if they drastically reduce the costs). Each set is about 60 miniatures. That's a lot for a retailer to have to stock and estimate interest from their customers. You could be cautious, but not having what the customer wants when he is in the store can cost you a sale (especially in this day of "it's cheaper on the internet" thinking).

For the retailer only having had handful of products to track (based on the set) is much easier and cheaper.