Saturday, August 25, 2012

13,000 people ordered 225 minis for $100

Well its almost done and I guess I'll have to wait for March 2013. The Bones KickStarter is going to give gaming companies a benchmark on how much people will be interested in ordering high volume and quality minis.

Actually It inspired me to go to Ebay and look for Mini collections and set deals... and I had a really hard time finding any. Minis were roughly their supplier cost last I checked. It makes sense the benchmark is only so low and economies of scale don't really factor in old minis. Although there was sponsored links to a place selling but the best deal is 50 for $99 and a random assortment :( Clearly there is a market for what DH has done.

I've gone around alibaba for some chinese suppliers and how much such an order would cost, not planning on selling such. It may cost about $100 per design of fig or less if the 3d artist costing is to scale; probably as low as $30 but 20 designs.
Note on Chinese Whole Sale suppliers - you can't get returns and exchanges. this is as much as a legal problem since the Qin Gov't doesnt let dollars out, and the lack of cooperation from the vendor. So you really need to measure how much your willing to lose and the more return business you can offer and relationship you can build the more leverage you have. 
I don't recommend going into it this since Dark Haven now has a large market share and there is a possibility its saturated (you'll end up targeting those same 13,000 buyers). There is also a huge marketing cost being a new up and comer.

But moving forward to next year if DH can make more of these sets I'll buy and if someone can make more larger value sets I'll consider it. Having less time, and having my own little gamer i could imagine a lot of fun playing imaginary games with such plastic toys. Especially if there are blocks. If its cheap enough, I can have the moral hazard against the risk of him destroying the figs.

Can't wait for the march 2013.
Toys for me, my brother and my son.

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