Transformerland.com

Its been a long time UM! Glad to have you back.

It's good to see you around, UM.
Sorry to hear that things haven't been all well during the past years, but I hope things have made/will make a turn for the better.

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Roadbuster wrote:

trance wrote:RB....Yeah, I'd love to carry 3rd party stuff...you got any sources?

I've got Jizai (developer/designer from FansProject) and Ceno Kibble (owner/operator of Mastermind Creations) as Facebook contacts. But I know neither of them on a personal level, other than a few interactions concerning releases here and there. I'd be willing to help you out, though, in any way possible Trance! Just let me know.

RB, that's great, do you have a way of contacting them, I'd like to ask them a few questions

trance wrote:

Roadbuster wrote:

trance wrote:RB....Yeah, I'd love to carry 3rd party stuff...you got any sources?

I've got Jizai (developer/designer from FansProject) and Ceno Kibble (owner/operator of Mastermind Creations) as Facebook contacts. But I know neither of them on a personal level, other than a few interactions concerning releases here and there. I'd be willing to help you out, though, in any way possible Trance! Just let me know.

RB, that's great, do you have a way of contacting them, I'd like to ask them a few questions

Other than through Facebook, no, probably not. I also have Dillenger (iGear Toys top designer) as a contact. I think the best way to go about getting wholesale rates would be to contact the sales dept./team directly. Here are a few helpful links from some of the 3rd party markets major players. There are more companies out there, but these four would be a good start and offer you plenty of high demand product...:

iGear Toys: e-mail- [email protected]
website- www.igeartoys.com
shopsite- www.shop.igeartoys.com

FansProject: e-mail: [email protected]
website: http://www.fansproject.com
wholesale rates: http://www.fansproject.com/?page_id=4

MasterMind Creations: website: http://mastermindcreation.blogspot.com/
e-mail: [email protected]

TFC Toys: website: http://www.tfclub.com/cn/index.asp
e-mail: [email protected]

RB: ...Contacted, thanks for the useful info and saving me probably an hour time or so

We'll see who responds and who seems interested in letting us carry their stuff!

Well, no replies yet from any of those 3rd party guys, and got this interesting Mail Delivery System error from one of them:

The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
[email protected]

We'll see, hopefully some of these guys are interested in answering their email/doing business

trance wrote:Well, no replies yet from any of those 3rd party guys, and got this interesting Mail Delivery System error from one of them:

The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
[email protected]

We'll see, hopefully some of these guys are interested in answering their email/doing business

A lot of these companies are Chinese based so even though you're inquiring about sales/purchase volume it's probably lost in the mix of a several hundred unanswered e-mails from fans either wanting replacement parts, asking about release dates, exc..., exc....and with the language barrier it's probably hard at first glance for them to decipher one from the other.

The response time, I'm guessing will be slow. Might be better to try and reach out to them on Facebook as well? As far as the Mastermind Creations link, that's the contact e-mail they have listed on their website. So I don't know...I know they're very active on Facebook. Look up Ceno Kibble and give him a shout, he speaks very good English and is active on TFW2005 as well. I'm sure he'd be glad to help you out!

I've got a few other "2nd tier" 3rd party companies that have great products either out now, or are in the pipeline. When I get time, I'll try and look up some contact info on them as well....

(ie: MakeToys, Mech Ideas, Fans Toys, Perfect Effect, exc...)

RB:
I made a little headway with iGear, got a few bulk pricings...
I've got a question though...their bulk pricing doesn't leave much of a margin over the prices they've got on their website.
However, I can price them way better than BBTS does.
My questions is - how does BBTS get away with pricing as they do, when the pricing is much lower directly on the 3rd party's site? Even with shipping costs factored in?

OH, and BTW, I've got a couple good friends fluent in Chinese =)

trance wrote:RB:
I made a little headway with iGear, got a few bulk pricings...
I've got a question though...their bulk pricing doesn't leave much of a margin over the prices they've got on their website.
However, I can price them way better than BBTS does.
My questions is - how does BBTS get away with pricing as they do, when the pricing is much lower directly on the 3rd party's site? Even with shipping costs factored in?

OH, and BTW, I've got a couple good friends fluent in Chinese =)

Good deal! Not a lot of people want to deal with iGears site as orders can take forever to even be processed, even with instock items. Punctuality isn't one of that companies best character traits. Not only that, but most fans here in the Western Hemisphere will pay slightly more for that "peace of mind" having domestic shipping and better communication regarding their orders. But they do deliver and with quality products every time, as they're one of the few 3PC's that you never hear about having QC issues.

On pre-orders, expect delays (goes with saying for ALL 3PC's...hell Hasbro/Takara too) as these companies a lot of the time share the same production factory. And that factory will cater to the highest profit contract a lot of the times, no matter who was next in line. Business morals over there aren't like what they are here. Not saying they're the best here in the US, either...

BBTS has a brand new storefront building. Brand new HUGE warehouse, I'm sure a staff of at least 6-10 people. And I'm sure other factors that play into their overhead. They also have a rabid, loyal fan base that refuse to shop anywhere else simply because they offer the "pile of loot" system. Meaning, you can pre-order as much as you want and not have to pay anything up front until the pre-order comes into stock...they also hold your orders until you're ready to ship, which cuts down on shipping costs (as orders are combined). TfSource has just recently started doing this also.

But, if you can beat them and TfSource in pricing, you pretty much already know you'll have the USA market cornered. A lot of fans (myself included) would rather pay upfront, as I don't like unexpected charges to my debit card when something suddenly comes into stock....BBTS doesn't allow you to do this. Transformerlands store already has a GREAT reputation, so I'm sure fans won't even think twice about pre-ordering from here.

Good luck and if you need help with anything, I'd be more than happy to do so!

Okay, okay, I'm back. Some jerk admin said he was going to delete my account for being a lurker

Hi, guys and girls!

Time Traveller wrote:Okay, okay, I'm back. Some jerk admin said he was going to delete my account for being a lurker

WB!

holy crap! TT!!!!!!!!! You still function?
WB

"HERE'S A HINT!"

TT! Good to see you again!

Good to see you, Choppahface! How's the new abode working out? I thought we were waiting for pictures of the new toy room! Did I miss that, in my long absence?

About time you showed up again, TT. Missed ya.

I have put up some pics of the new transformer setup i the collections thread. Im still debating on whether to do a youtube vid or just pics on the rest of the room.