I think it's pretty obvious that the writing is on the wall for their ships just like all their other Trek product.
Eaglemoss's new larger scale models we just learned about will put the final nail in the coffin.
One thing it would do every toy collector well to think about is the fact that "price point" is to a large extent an exercise in fantasy. Obviously they need to sell the ship to resellers for more than it cost them to make. Beyond that, they more or less just make crap up, by observing the market. If the MSRP to us, from the toy store, is $60, do you think they sold that ship to the toy store for $55? $50? No. Probably lower. Maybe someone here is a diamond reseller and can tell us the wholesale, otherwise I'd just be guessing. And if that is enough for them to make money still, what do you think it's actually costing them to make it? Obviously the answer is, lower still -- and probably much moreso than you'd expect.
After all, isn't it obvious they are having all of their toys made at the lowest common denominator of offshore factories? The quality of their toys is ridiculously low compared to people like NECA and yes, even Mattel, because at least Mattel figures can be easily posed, stand up, and hold onto their paint -- and don't have components that will snap in half if they fall over. All of these are issues I have discovered in DST product ranging from Minimates to 7" figures and yes, even to ships.
When asking, how much should we charge, keeping it above cost is the first thing but then the next thing is simply "how much can we get away with?" Which all comes down to what we will pay -- as parents, and as collectors.
Let's just think about the recent blind bag toy and figure craze. For small blind minifigures/toys, they've managed to get us to pay $3-5 for something that is often on the level of would have come out of a 50 or 75 cent gumball machine just outside the store -- without even being able to see what we will get. Why? Well, this other company did it, and people are buying it, so let's all move up to "current market value" for tchotchkes.
Let's look at figures. For quite some time we've been at around $20 for a 6-7" figure. It doesn't matter if Playmates made it (think more like their Secret of the Ooze turtles, not the smaller and less articulated basic figures), or DST, or Mattel, or king of the crop NECA (after opening a crapload of toys this year, anyone who doesn't see NECA as the king doesn't know what they're talking about).
In fact, DST recently shocked me by starting to offer the "barebones" versions of their select figures
(they still come with a number of accessories, just not the larger diorama-ish pieces) for $15 at TRU. You know what that should tell us? It's corroboration of my allegation above that the price is way higher than you would think. They needed to get more competitive so they cut out some of their profit (on the select, too, it would seem), and to be able to drop it that far means that profit is (or was) high. And I'm sure part of why they were able to do it was the cheapest of cheap factories they seem to use. I'm sure that particular sacrifice in parts & labor quality is in large part responsible for all the back and forth delays of product, too. Speaking from experience in other industries, it's hard to communicate with even the best outsourcers, and almost impossible with the worst.
We're in part to blame for this as the consumer. And it works both against us, and in our favor. On the negative, it encourages high prices all the way up to what we are willing to think we should be paying even for crappy product. On the positive, it helps keep the true stars like NECA continuing to price competitively. If we collectors paid for true quality, like we should, then we should see each of these company's figures being market selected into graduated pricing but instead we allow ourselves to select it simply by size; thus, they are all $20.
So when we talk about how much ship DST is willing to give us at their ship price point, just remember that that ship price point is one we created for ourselves, and DST probably has a lot more cushion built into that final Point-of-Sale MSRP than we realize on first thought.
Now I fully expect Zach to show up at some point and try and convince us that no, they are actually running a charity, they barely make anything on the ships, they do it out of the kindness of their hearts. And woe is us, we are forced to work with our factories to keep the bottom line low so we can keep delivering you product in today's market. You decide whether that makes any sense to you.
