Could A Supplemental Vintage Collection Subscription Service Work?

Posted by Chris on 03/06/24 at 07:05 AM Category: Vintage Collection

As the Star Wars universe continues to evolve and grow, the amount of consensus in the Vintage Collection community shrinks. We've actually always had this problem in the modern line, but of course in the early days, the debate was between the Expanded Universe (books and comics) and the movies (of which there were only three at the time). Since then, the fracturing of individual passions has only gotten worse. New media, classic media, video games, and publishing all tug the community's hearts in different directions. But if there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that we want more.

The problem with "more" is that it's not something that can merely be willed. The brand team can't simply wake up one day and decide to double the Vintage Collection budget. These types of business negotiations aren't as easy as Murray Hewitt makes it look:

The budget for the brand team is set from on high, and increasing that budget comes only via increased sales and not the stoke of a pen. It's a glacial process. Moreover, Hasbro isn't really a direct-to-consumer business. They can't unilaterally increase the number of TVC figures per year if the retailers are unwilling to stock them. Toys R Us ain’t walking through that door, folks. Walmart and Target aren't lining up to take more TVC. In fact, the opposite is probably true. One way to mitigate that would be to circumvent that distribution model through a subscription service. The problem is that it would assuredly mean reduced production and thus a much higher price. Finally, before getting into the details, this is not in place of main line and classic distribution. The idea would be to supplemental main line, and not replace it. Specifically, it would be fore figures that will never be brick and mortar viable.

Here are my thoughs:

The subscriptions would be broken down by source (OT, PT, Disney+, etc.)
Only subscribe to the sources you want (i.e. you could choose only OT if you wanted)
8 figures per year
All figures 100% newly tooled
At least four figures would have to be character debuts
The other four may be character debuts or badly needed updates (i.e. Labria)
The figures would have alternate numbering similar to HasLab figures
Here's where you wince: $30/figure

My thinking is that it would work sort of like HasLab where the subscription would only kick in if the requisite number of people opt in (thus bypassing budgetary concerns). What I hope all of our readers understand is that those deeper cut figures that we crave are no longer brick and mortar viable. There simply are not enough of us to support the production run sizes that the $17 price point requires. Those figures hardcore collectors want require smaller batches. Smaller batches mean a higher price.

When looking at it on the discreet level, $30/figure is a borderline extortionist price. But I prefer to zoom out a little bit and look at the macro. $240/year is a pittance to pay to be guaranteed 8 100% new figures that will never crack the lineup otherwise, and are strictly from my favorite source. I couldn't sign up fast enough. I'll tell you what is truly becoming too expensive: paying $17 for figures that all too often don't thrill me much.