I absolutely love your idea, Weyoun_9!
If memory serves me correctly though, someone here suggested it, or a similar idea before; it was well-received by fans then, but there were supposedly logistical issues that DST would have to address, including:
- Bypassing online retailers without angering the aforementioned retailers who sell the majority of their products
- Setting up a "real-time" tracker to keep count of pre-orders, and preventing people from "bailing/backing out" of pre-orders based on early mock-up photos once the figure goes into production; in other words, making it so that fans don't "stick DST with the bill" if you will
- See above comment for "work-in-progress" photos; some people have jumped the gun as a result of these in the past and we've all gotten burned as a result
- Increased prices as a result of no retailer/warehouse to ship the product to once it leaves China
In truth, this isn't too different from the pre-order system that DST uses; the "big change" here would be that we'd get to see how many more people would need to pre-order an item in order for it to be released. DST has said that they've produced items at a loss in the past, due to fan demand, and that there have been times when they haven't sold. Since DST doesn't see a dime from our orders until they ship, they're technically producing everything at a loss, with some level of guarantee that the item will sell, and our pre-orders or lack of pre-orders really do serve as votes for what does and doesn't get made. When someone says "I'm not going to preorder 'X,'" whatever 'X' is, it ultimately serves as a "vote" against that item being made under DSTs current system.
That actually might be the real trick; making the number of required pre-orders "transparent" in a semi-real-time fashion. For example, take the new Enterprise-E; I'm making up numbers here, but let's say that DST needs to sell 1701 ships to make it worth producing at a loss, 2500 to break even, and they want to sell 5000 to turn a reasonable profit. Let's also say that 3,000 is the number required to justify production to compensate for people potentially backing out of pre-orders and/or the toy tanking upon launch. Using this example, the day the ship was announced, a "Needs 3,000 pre-orders worldwide" badge/counter could have been placed on DST's website, and on all websites selling the ship. Over the course of the month some people put preorders in, some online retailers might order stock for their business, and at the end of the month, the badge/counter/countdown clock reads "1700 pre-orders placed," a month later it reads "3500 pre-orders placed; ship in production." This would work too, but it creates a potential problem as well: In the example, DST wants to sell 5,000 ships, and has pre-orders for 3,500 of them. Now let's also say that as soon as the "ship in production" announcement is made, pre-orders grind to a halt; does DST shelve the ship because nobody else is pre-ordering, or do they produce it and hope that they can sell 1,500 more units once its released? What if 500 people back out and DST is just barely able to justify production? While the numbers I'm using are admittedly made up, the problem itself isn't; this is what happened with the figure (T&T O'Brien?) that NFCC was literally giving away for free with the purchase of an Enterprise-E.
Speaking of the Enterprise-E, the original run sold remarkably well on pre-order; so well in fact that DST did a second short run in 2007 expecting to be unable to meet demand for the ship. Then, once the first Enterprise-E's showed up and people took pictures of them, wrote scathing reviews, and shared those with their friends and other forum members, many people canceled their preorders. This effectively left people like Rick who run online stores like NFCC with warehouses full of unsold goods that had previously been sold hours earlier. Not everyone canceled their preorders though, and there were people who appreciated their new Enterprise-Es. Eventually they wrote positive reviews, and some new consumers, as well as those who had previously canceled preorders warmed up to the ship and bought it. The Ent-E did eventually sell, and sold quite well, justifying the second run, but imagine how much better sales would have been if there wasn't a massive pre-order cancellation. With the Enterprise-E and similar items, there's a good chance that the item in question will eventually sell. With more niche items though, such as non-bridge crew figures, this chance may not be as high.
I'd personally love the Sisko+Command Chair and Maltz/Kruge 2-Pack that I preordered to find their way onto shelves. The Sisko+Command Chair preorder cancellation seems to be the one that keeps coming back to bite DST in the behind, in part because it seems like less has been done to try and get Sisko+Command Chair onto shelves then what's been done for the Salt Vampire, Rand, and Chapel. The Maltz/Kruge 2-Pack also left DST with some harsh criticism, but CBS warned DST that said 2-Pack wouldn't sell, and DST took a chance believing that it would. Chuck mentioned that the preorder numbers were ridiculously low and I think he might have even quoted a rough estimate once, stating that the loss incurred would be too significant of a risk to justify production of an item that might not sell, even if it were produced.
I have to be honest; when I see an item I want, I preorder it. This way, if it gets made, I feel good knowing that I got my "vote" in for the item to be made, and ensured its production. If I don't preorder something from DST, then I don't have the right to complain when they pull the plug on it due to a lack of preorders, but if they pull the plug on an item that I preordered, then I do have the right to complain about them pulling the plug on the item. I've preordered several of the new Ent-E as well, partially in the effort to help move production along, so trust me, if DST pulls the plug on that, I'll be complaining quite a bit.
Given that the new Enterprise-E could very well be what people expected in 2006 though, I don't think that DST should have too much trouble snapping up preorders; ships sell well, the current Ent-E sold well in the long run, the Ent-E is a fan favorite, and the demand for an updated Ent-E has been rather high.
Don't get me wrong, Weyoun_9, I'm not trying to tear apart/bash your idea, because I really do like it, and I really would like to see it implemented. I just understand that there are some logistical issues that DST would need to work out in order for it to work, but maybe, just maybe if DST attempted something like this and it did well, they'd be willing to take more risks with Trek toys. And maybe, just maybe if it did really poorly, fans would finally realize that DST knows what they're talking about.
Finally, there is one more way to ensure that a massive pre-order cancellation doesn't occur, but most people probably wouldn't like it. When preorders were new, and generally reserved for video and computer games, people were required to make a money down deposit, usually about $10.00 US dollars. (If you look at the people who still have their original "Duke Nukem Forever" preorders, you can see just how much they put down; 2K is supposedly going to honor those pre-orders made in 1996.
Talk about going the extra mile!) The deposit was non-refundable, and if the game was canceled, you were out $10.00 dollars. This was done effectively to prevent people for preordering games and then canceling their preorders, but the practice was dropped when game developers realized that more people would preorder an item when there was no money down involved, and the cancellations of preorders were usually well under 1%. DST could try something similar to prevent people from canceling preorders en masse, but it could also drive legitimate customers away from preordering entirely. I just figured this was worth mentioning since DST has never required money down on a preorder.
