Death knell for Marvel Legends

This article was posted today:

Retailers Join Collectors in Marvel Legends Protests

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We've had a number of retailers contact us about possible issues surrounding Marvel Legends 7, distribution that impacts them and might impact you...


There's a very big part of me that doesn't want to add fuel to the flames right now, as ToyBiz's name is mud with collectors right now. But, at the same time we'd be doing a pretty poor job if we ignored this story (especially as we are read by so many retailers), which I've been sent by a number of retailers.

OK, so the issue is that there seems to distribution problems with Marvel Legends, which means that additional cases of waves might not hit stores until December 2004 / January 2005 or might get cancelled.

Now things to keep in mind is that Diamond did some kind of deal and got Marvel Legends 8 before anyone else. I think they must have flown them in, because they were hitting their retailer customers' stores before they officially left China (1st October).

Now Marz to all extents and purposes are a competitor to Diamond, so I can understand them being annoyed that Diamond has had them and they are still waiting to send to their customers. I like Marz, they are pretty open with their retail customers, and when something has got them riled, you sure here about it.

Now I believe that Legends should be arriving in the US around Halloween, but I'm unsure if the customs problems we've seen with Series 6 in the US gives us the date of Dec / Jan. If anyone knows different, please let me know.... I'd like to know why my info out of Hong Kong and Marz's info is different. Is it because of the customs issue, or were Marvel Legends 7 under-produced?

But the result is that, a lot of store owners are as fed up with the Marvel Legends situation as you guys, and as we keep getting told, collectors aren't ToyBiz's customers, retailers are, and a lot aren't happy. That's maybe good news for collectors, as it looks like the speciality retailers are 100% on your side.

One retailer (wanting to stay anonymous) on receipt of the email from Marz forwarded it to me saying


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I just got this from my Marz rep. I think you might want to share it with the readers who may be deluded into thinking that they are actually going to be able to find these figures any time soon. Please notice the projected delivery dates of Dec04-Jan05.

The cases of ML6, ML7 and ML8 that I will be cancelling later today are the last Marvel Legends I will be ordering from Toy Biz until they establish some sort of sensible, specialty market case packouts and reasonable delivery schedules. At the current case prices and miserable packouts, we small owners certainly cannot compete with Wal-Mart's price of $6.77 on even ground. And we have no chance at all when we receive the product an entire quarter later than the mega stores.
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So here's the letter from Marz that their customers got sent

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Marz has been attempting to work out various supply-time problems with ToyBiz, specifically regarding the differences in our forecasting systems and theirs.

While we are continuing to work these issues out and will certainly continue to carry the line, we find it a better short-term solution to not accept any further orders for various ToyBiz products that have already been oversold.

We fully understand that this may cause aggravation for some of our customers (and apologize for that); however it is better to let you know that most of the ToyBiz items which were hoped to be in from Aug-Oct 2004 are going to be delayed (or cancelled).

Therefore, we are asking all Marz customers to review any/all ToyBiz orders which you have currently placed and cancel them with your Sales Rep if you will be unable to accept delivery of said orders late (possibly "very" late - such as Dec04/Jan05). We completely understand if you need to cancel these orders and will count them as "REVOKED" instead of "CANCELLED" in our systems so as not to penalize your account ranking for purposes of Allocations, etc., in the future.

We again apologize for the situation, but assure you that we would like nothing more to deliver these goods to you (on-time) and that we are certainly working toward getting this situation fixed in order to better serve everyone's (our customers, Marz, and ToyBiz) mutual interests.
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OK, so no lynching Jesse Falcon cos he doesn't own ToyBiz, but if you have pre-ordered your figures online, it might be worth checking your order, in case that retailer is serviced by Marz.

If anyone knows any more, please do let me know

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">With that and the apparent comic book industry returning to variant covers with excessive purchasing requirements, is the Apocalypse of collecting near? [img]wink.gif[/img]

I wish I could say this surprised me , but it has seemed all along that collecting ML has been
something of a pain in the ass (Understatement of the year) Toy Biz seems to be able to get it together when they do the occasional Marvel Select figure, maybe that's all they can handle [img]wink.gif[/img]
I will say this, I think a great many companies could take a lesson from DC Direct. They seem to be the most consistant company when it comes to releasing items on the date promised.

You forget, TB doesn't care about the little guy, just their daddy: Wal-Mart [img]confused.gif[/img]

White Line Nightmare made a great post about this very subject over on the Fwooshnet.com forums:

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Originally Posted by White Line Nightmare

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Originally Posted by Maxim

First, Toy Biz cannot offer special packout ratios to specialty stores. They just aren't set up that way. Their cases are set up through Hong Kong. The same cases are then held to be picked up by whoever orders them, be it Walmart, Target, TRU, or Diamond.

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Their system sucks, plain and simple.

If collectors across the country aren't able to find Toy Biz's products, then there's obviously something wrong with the company's set-up. These aren't isolated incidents. These are countless nationwide reports. The only result has been pissed off fans, so Toy Biz needs to change the way it does things to rectify the situation.

Obviously, it's going to require a lot of time and money... I'm sure Toy Biz doesn't want to spend either, but if they want to catch the problem before it gets more out-of-hand, they're going to need to do it. They don't need to develop any worse of a reputation within the collecting community.

I don't need to collect Marvel Legends, just as I don't need to collect Spider-Man Classics or any other Toy Biz Marvel line. I collect them because I like the figures, not because I NEED them. If collecting Marvel figures becomes a headache, I'll stop. I'll use the money to buy 4" custom fodder and get my Marvel fix that way. I've done it before with other lines, and I'll do it again.

Toy Biz needs me a hell of a lot more than I need them, and they need to keep that in mind.

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Originally Posted by White Line Nightmare

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Originally Posted by TheBloodyAwfulPoet

People really need to stop bitching about ML...

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I have to disagree.

If people are unhappy, they need to tell Toy Biz-- especially if these are the same people who buy hundreds of dollars worth of TB product every year. They need to let the company know what the problem is (unavailability, bad quality control, etc.) so that Toy Biz is at least aware that there's a problem, so they can "fix it," as we (naively) believe they will. Since Toy Biz doesn't have their own message board, others like Fwoosh will have to suffice.

Time shouldn't be wasted with petty "YOU SUCK!" comments. Instead, an effort should be made to give constructive criticism. You're wasting your time otherwise, and there's really no sense in posting anything like that in the first place.

Luckily, everyone here has been civil and has offered well-thought-out responses, even if they disagree with other members.

The "Toy Biz can't do this" or "Toy Biz can't do that" comments, I think, really underestimate the company. They CAN change the way they do business... they just have to be willing to do so. Willing to spend the money and the time overhauling what is, essentially, a flawed system. Saying that the company isn't capable of making changes is exactly the kind of mentality that keeps them from doing it.

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...the situation will only either stay the same (variants, crappy case pack-outs), or there will be no line at all. There is no in between here. It has to be this way.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's just the thing: it doesn't have to be this way.

If Toy Biz stays on the track they're on, where I can't even find the figures I want to buy, it's pretty much just as bad if they stopped producing the line, period.

Like I said before, I'll have no problem making my own 4" Marvel customs, should the day come that I have no interest in Toy Biz. I'm hoping that day comes much later or not at all, but the way things are going, it might be sooner than we all think.

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Here's a link to the thread: http://www.fwooshnet.com/forum/viewt...=112133#112133

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ October 11, 2004 07:04 PM: Message edited by: 316what ]</font>

Yeah, it's really a hot debate over at Fwoosh.

I think people are letting their tempers flare out of control, on both sides of the argument.

I understand where others are coming from, saying that calling for the head of Jesse Falcon is unnecessary. Within the last few months, the "relationship" between Toy Biz and collectors has really deteriorated. I agree that collectors should be patient, but ever since Marvel Legends 5, I've had a serious problem finding TB's Marvel product at retail... including Hulk Classics 2, theTrain Battle Playset, and the still non-existent ML6.

ML6 was released almost three months ago, and I've yet to see any at my neighborhood TRU, Wal-Mart, or Target. Toy Biz's product is now consistently late, when before, there wasn't a problem.

There's something wrong with that.

I don't know if stores are holding new product until next month, when holiday shopping really kicks in, or if they just haven't gotten the cases. I'm more than willing to be patient, but there are bigger problems looming.

Toy Biz is, essentially, letting Wal-Mart call the shots. Wal-Mart is determining which characters are produced and how they're packed in cases. Toy Biz is so afraid of losing WM's business that they're willing to bend to their will. WM and other retailers (who buy the bulk of TB's stock) want well-known characters like Wolverine, Spider-Man, etc., chase figures, and all the other crap collectors are fed up with, but Toy Biz produces it.

Then Jesse Falcon has the audacity to say that the company "doesn't know" which characters to pack more heavily so that collectors can find them... that's absolute bullshit.

Mr. Falcon cruises message boards (like Toymania's Buzz Board), receives countless e-mails from fans, and is in communication with people like aftimes.com's Julius Marx, who are respected by and are in constant contact with the collecting community.

Toy Biz knows what's up and what collectors want, but they're too fucking scared or don't give enough of a shit about their consumers that they can't say:

"Listen, retailers demand certain case pack-outs, with popular characters weighed more heavily than the others. We're sorry for the headaches, but we'll make it up to you by sending evenly-packed cases to specialty stores and online retailers."

They could offer mail-away promotions for rare, limited, or exclusive figures with a cap on the number one person/one address can order. It would help clear out old stock, making way for the new, the fans would be getting characters they want, and maybe scalping would be curbed a little bit.

Toy Biz could open an official store (ala Spawn.com) and offer the newest figures through there without a nasty mark-up (like Marvel.com's store price gouging)...

IF TB really needs consumer feedback, they should have a message board-- I know hundreds of collectors that would flock to it and would want to interact with the company to help them. They could use McFarlane Toys as a good example. As much as McF collectors bitch, there's never a problem finding new product or polling consumers about what product they'd like to see in the future.

There are really a lot of alternatives and solutions, but as I said on Fwoosh, Toy Biz has to be willing to listen to their consumers and help them get the product they want to purchase. More than anything, that's what gets me:

Toy Biz has loyal customers, willing to buy lots of product (in many cases multiples) when they can find it, and the company does nothing. Excuse after excuse after excuse... don't these people want my money?

Don't they want the collectors' money?

yep - what you said!

nicely put - it is hard to understand, and to be honest, if they go away, it is just that much less for me to try to hunt down [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Originally posted by DARTH POOH:
I will say this, I think a great many companies could take a lesson from DC Direct. They seem to be the most consistant company when it comes to releasing items on the date promised.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">From what I've noticed, they delay almost every series by an entire month or two.

DCD's Batman stuff was late, but who knows if that was because of pressure or interference from Mattel.

It wouldn't surprise me, especially since the rest of DCD's (non-Batman) product seems to magically arrive relatively on-schedule.

After reading all these posts here and on other boards, I'm totally intrigued by what *really* goes on behind-the-scenes at toy companies like Toy Biz. It would make for a great tell-all book, or even-- GASP-- a reality TV show.

It's really weird and frustrating. I never used to have any real problem finding any Toy Biz product at retail (well except the chases, but most of those were underwhelming anyway). Now it seems like Toy Biz is the new Mattel. WTF? Are all the toy companies taking turns sticking their heads up their asses?
Retailers want toy companies to over-produce figures I don't want and severely short-pack the ones I do. If I cannot find product on the sheles, I can't buy it from a retailer. I have to buy it from a scalper and neither the retailer nor the toy company get any of the mark-up. The retailer is left w/ a surplus of figures they over-ordered and stop purchasing the line. Why can't retailers and manufacturers see that this is suicide?
Let's all say a little pray to the Malebolgia in thanks that McFarlane Toys are consistenly on time, evenly distributed, and equally packed.

ive protested ML from the get go, and ill continue till i get a Thanos figure....and then ill resume one i get it!

everyone has their priorities!

Although, once I get my Iron Fist, I'd be happy