Mattel provided close to final production images of Hordak on their Facebook page. Hordak goes on sale on June 15.
Wow, is it already May! Holy cow this year is flying by. We are already up to Zodac in a few days and Hordak next month.
To get preped, here is the close to final Hordak carded images. (the actual sticker on the front will be a bit cleaner cut, this one was done by hand for the photo). But Hordak is already produced and likely heading for a boat this week to make his way to our distribution center for sale next month!
We produced Zodac, Hordak and Man-At-Arms in the same quantity as Mer Man (who was produced in higher quanty than previous figures himself). In reaction to the quick sales of Mer Man last month we have increased production again, and the first figure we will be able to increase is Tri-Klops.
We are committed to continuing to work with fans to increase production and hit that sweet spot. In the meantime, here’s Hordak carded! Note the longer “Grayskull” loincloth and increased paint ops on the final version.
Before we get to this edition of Ask Matty, here’s an update from Mattycollector’s Facebook account:
Hey toy guys and gals,
So here is the latest. As many of you know Mer Man sold out AGAIN in very little time. We have therefore increased production again on MOTU figures. However, as we need to purchase raw materials for figures sometimes 6-8 months ahead of the “on sale date” the first figure we will be able to increase production on is Tri Klops.
So Zodac, Hordak and Man-At-Arms will have similar runs to Mer Man (which is still the highest run to date) and starting with Tri Klops we will increase production again. We are committed to continuing to increase the run until we get it just right. Keep in mind, that it wook 41 days to sell as many Beast Man as we sold on the first Mer Man sale. We don’t want to get stuck with excess product, so it is a very careful balancing act between producing to demand without over producing. But we have our best folks on it and are working overtime to get it just right!
But in other news it seems that the sale went off without the major IP issues we had last time. We will continue to improve both product and the sales process every day to meet all of our fans needs. Here are a few more updates and FAQ answers:
1: We do not yet have prices or limits for the SDCC items. We will reveal these well before the show. Hang tight for now!
2: The Legion of Superheroes JLU 4 pack and Zodac will both go on sale on May 15th at 12:00 noon.
DC Universe Classics Adam Strange and Starfire 2-Pack
3: We will also have more Adam Strange/ Starfire packs on sale soon. We just got the second shipment in due to a delay. Check back this weekend for more!
4: We have heard fans asking about order limits, but again, we looked at the numbers and the vast majority (close to 90%) of orders are for 3 or less units. Yes there will always be people who buy more to resell or to save on shipping, but unless we see a spike in large orders at the limit we are not going to alter the limits again (except for SDCC items). We set the limits based on fan feedback that 4 was not enough. We are not going to keep changing the limits every month. 10 seems to work for most fans since 90% of you are ordering less than 3 anyway. We announce product about 3 months prior to onsale date, so if you want new figures you will know just when to be online to order!
5: DCUC Wave 8 is now in stores. Be sure to head out to pick up the latest figures with Hawkgirl., Gentleman Ghost, Dr. Fate, Parademon (in two colors!) Mr. Terrific, Vigilante and Commander Steel helping to build up a bonus 10″ Giganta figure (with mini Ray Palmer!). Truly one of the best waves yet with more on the way.
6: We won’t have any more big reveals until SDCC. Some of our product (like JLU) was held up a bit do to factory issues back in December. We are doing EVERYTHING we can to work with Target to get fresh figures in stock. It is not always easy, but we are extremly committed to this! New JLU is coming!
7: We are working on the CARs, Ghostbusters and DCU brand pages and hope to have them up before the summer.
8: We are also working out the final details on the MOTU subscription program. Ideally, subscriptions will be open for a set amount of time (10- 15 days). Fans can place as many subscription orders as they want in this time. Each subscription will get you the final 6 or 5 (depending on when we can launch it) figures of 2009. We will then have a new subscription for 2010 for all 12 monthly figures. Subscriptions will not include convention or bonus figures simply because these do not have as firm on sale dates and we don’t want to lock in to figures which may move around release dates.
All figures (both monthly and bonus figures) will also be available to order in the standard way on the 15th of the month per norm.
We are trying to set up the subscription to work in two ways. 1: Figures ship (and are billed to you) each month on the 15th. 2: Figures are held and will ship and bill all at once at the end of the year. Ideally we will have both options up and running. We don’t want to open the subscription program until we know 100% it will work and their are no IP bugs. It is coming, please just give us a bit more time to make sure it will run the way we intend it before it is up for sale!
Okay, that is it for now. Please keep the feedback coming and we will continue to do everything we can to keep the Matty.com experince smooth and easy.
Mattel has posted on their Facebook account that they have worked out the website issues that prevented many from ordering Mer-Man in the first round, and that their second shipment will go on sale at Noon ET on April 29th.
Masters of the Universe Classics Mer-Man
Hey MOTU fans,
Mer Man will offically be back on sale on April 29th at 12:00 Eastern. We have worked out all the bugs in the system which had haulted some international customers and for others blocked the site entirly. For this we are truly sorry and it was not intentional.
But on the 29th, all the bugs should be ironed out and Mer Man’s second shipment will go on sale.
To reitterate, this is not a second run, but rather the second shipment of the first run. Because we asked for an increase in production late in the game (when Stratos sold out in 3 days!) we had to take Mer Man in two seperate shipments. We also increased production of Zodac and Hordak as well but they will arrive in one shipment.
If this second shipment of Mer Man also sells out fast we will continue to look at increasing runs until we hit just right right number. We sold as many Mer Mans in 1 hour last week as we did Beastman in 41 days, so you can see the tightrope we have been on to not over produce while still having enough to go around. Seems right now each new figure is more popular than the last and with the current production run we are hoping he will stay available for at least a little while.
Also, we are working on completing the subscription run. This should be up in the next few month or so and will likley include the final 6 figures of 2009. It will not include special bonus figures such as SDCC or other monthly bonus characters. It will only be for the monthly figure and we will not be revealing who all of the characters are yet. So if you are buying the subscription, know you are committing to buying the remaining figures for the year no matter whom they are (and boy do we have some good ones coming out this winter!)
The subscription service will also continue in 2010, but will in that case be for all 12 monthly figures. There may be additional convention and bonus figures in 2010, but like in 2009, they will not be included in the subscription program. (as we can’t always lock down when they are coming out based on shows moving dates, etc…)
Hopefully this second Mer Man sale will go very smooth and we can head into next month where the Cosmic Enforcer Zodac will join your MOTUC collection on May 15th! (and don’t forget the JLU Legion of Superheroes 4 pack, also available on May 15th)
As part of their 4th anniversary celebration, Action Figures Insider has the scoop on an upcoming heavy hitter for DC Universe Classics.
And now it’s time for the big reveal. A BIG thank you to ToyGuru and the Mattel crew for allowing us to debut a new DC Universe Classics figure. This is VERY generous of them to let us do this.
So here you go….
She’s from a YET UNANNOUNCED wave of DCUC from Mattel! Here she is…. Ms. AFI 2009…..
Yes, it was Tax Day today for those of us in the United States, but the sting of writing a check to the Internal Revenue Service may have paled in comparison for some of us to the experience of ordering Mer-Man from Mattycollector.com today. The allotment for today sold out in an hour – a new record. But take heart, Mattel knew that they needed to up the quantities, so more Mer-Men are on the way. From their Facebook:
A quick update on Mer-Man sales. Yes, the aquatic warriror of Eternia did sell out this morning, but do to increased fan demand, we increased orders on Mer-Man. The only catch is that the full new revised larger order did not make it on the same boat. So the second batch will be here in about a week and will go on sale the last week of April. I will update everyone once we lock in an exact on sale day and time!
Now onto the questions and answers for today:
1. First, a question about DC Universe Classics 7 – the classic and modern variants of Booster Gold that we’ve seen released have the same coloring on the wrist bands (blue) and gloves (gold). In modern comics, most art has those colors reversed – gold wrist bands and blue gloves. Is the action figure color selection a design choice, and what are the chances we can see a running change for the modern figure?
All of our decos are based on the DC Comics approved colors. And as you stated, comic books tend to change some color details issue by issue sometimes. We will look into new decos if we re-release Booster in the future.
2. Now onto a question about one of the San Diego Comic Con exclusives you announced on 4/1. How did you go about selecting He-Ro as the MOTU Classics exclusive? What else can you tell us about his magic staff?
We selected He-Ro because we knew he was one of the most fan demanded characters whom has never had a figure made before (at least in this case one that was never produced). Also, Toy Guru is a huge fan of He-Ro and wanted to get him out there in year 1 since, quite frankly, he wanted a He-Ro figure for his desk!
The magical staff is 5 inches in length, painted gold and contains a colored Spell Stone. The staff can close up to conceal the Spell Stone and that is how it will be packaged. There will be three different colors of Spell Stones all blind packed with green by far being the most common. These will be available in both the version sold online and at the show.
We’ll have more details about this as we get closer to the show.
