There's a lengthy thread over on the RPF devoted to MR's demise. According to founder Steve Dymszo...
"...MR went out (of business) because they really never understood the subject or customer base, their founder and head of design lost his mind and went nuts, and too many people had their own agendas for how the company should be run, and the market was starting to dwindle and there were faaaar too many companies trying to sell too-similar (or re-packaged) items to an ever-decreasing fan-base. Customers were starting to get tired of the crap, and the money dried up."
Sums it up pretty well, I think.
Anyway, they made some cool stuff while it lasted. The guys at efx are attempting to carry on in the MR tradition, but their "keep the numbers down" business approach seems a lot more level-headed given current economic realities. Lord knows the market for these sorts of high-end collectibles has shrunken in recent months, but with any luck efx will be able to hang in there.
Well, I think the problem was, they just didn't understand how it all works today. If you put out a 'limited edition' item, probably 75% of the run gets eaten up by scalper/speculators who just want to 'flip' the item for large money, having no love for the item whatsoever.
While I firmly believe in the capitalist system, that just defeats the entire reason for HAVING limited items, which is 'we know we can't sell 100,000 of this, but we CAN sell 5,000 to those dedicated fans out there'.
Look at Mattel's Mattycollector, or that large Batmobile. How many He-Man figures are up on eBay at the moment?
The secret is, today, unlimited runs and low prices. Sell via web and select dealers (ignore the comic shops unless they come to you), and don't let the scalpers dictate your sales. Run off 2000, sell them, see what the reservation requests are looking like, run off another 2000...repeat until nobody wants it anymore or your license runs out.
MR and Product Enterprises both thought the future was more and more expensive and limited items because the margin was huge on such things, but good lord, how many 'studio scale' Eagles can you have room for?
Diamond almost has it right with their Star Trek stuff, but again they play to the scalper/speculators with 'limited this' and 'only available at that' nonsense. You've got the molds, you've got the license, the cost to make more is MUCH less than the original development cost, just KEEP MAKING THEM but....
*ahem* sorry, I get a little ranty about this subject
Low cost, high volume, no limited editions, that's how you make money.
Oh, and REALISTIC sales goals. You HAVE to understand that you're going to sell way more 'standard' Eagles than Commissioner Simmon's executive Eagle with special orange paint trim. In that case what you do is sell the Eagle, then sell a set of 'speciality' modules with all the variations. Simple, because you end up selling more Eagles.
Blah blah blah, sorry.
