So many businesses have been impacted by the Global Pandemic in so many ways. Supply chains have been impacted, shortages have occurred, and things are taking longer and costing more than usual. The toy industry has had it’s fair share of impacts as well, with pre-order items being shorted (some vendors getting it on time, most waiting months for inventory to arrive; or getting some of our order in and having to wait months for the rest of it), and prices increasing quickly (this started with an announcement of price increases for new items, but quickly turned into “adjustments” for previously ordered items as well. Even inventory that was ordered months in advance, and then delayed months, when it finally was coming out, there were price adjustments before they shipped so we were paying more for items than what had been ordered – and these items were all long-since spoken for, so we ultimately took losses on large pre-order releases).
Seeing these trends, while we have still been ordering pre-order items, we have also been delaying announcing these items for sale. While our listings indicate that dates are subject to change, indicating that an item comes out in January, and then it doesn’t arrive until May, even though we have no control over that delay and were told we’d have it for January, that makes us look bad, and our customers upset with us. We would field daily inquiries, often multiple inquiries, of where items were and when they could be expected. Unfortunately our distributors have little information as well, and often come back with “Hopefully soon,” as all of us are at the mercy of the manufacturers and current global conditions with supply chain shortages, labor shortages, factory slowdowns, port delays, container shortages, pallet shortages, and more.
We have been closely monitoring pre-order releases to see if items are beginning to come out more consistently and on time. We got from G.I. Joe Classified Series Flint and Lady Jaye early. The Marvel Legends Villains and Disney+ waves (being added this weekend) arrived on time. Yet there are some Star Wars items that were supposed to be out last July that we still do not have.
Yesterday we received an announcement that “Due to price increases coming from several of our vendors, as well as significantly increased costs for inbound freight… have to increase pricing on many of the products we sell to you.” The letter also indicated additional delays and items falling behind scheduled releases, with caution that holiday ordering and demand will likely outpace both factory and supply chain capacities.
While this is certainly understandable, further price increases and product delays certainly is not the news we are looking to hear about. As indicated, we have already delayed posting a large quantity of pre-order items while waiting for some added certainty of release dates and confirmation of the impact of price increases so that we would not be selling items at a loss. However, delaying listing pre-orders that are already accepting orders from other vendors does also have a detrimental impact as those items are often purchased elsewhere and for higher prices than what we charge for our items. Therefore, we will be seeking to post these pre-orders this weekend so our customers can order them, but will also be conservative with the release estimates (for instance, if we were told when we ordered it that an item should be out in July, but now the Distributor is reflecting October, we will indicate the October date and hope that our items come in sooner than that as originally quoted).
As always, ACB Toys & Collectibles strives to keep our prices as low as possible so that our customers can find rare and hard to find items at a reasonable cost. We do, unfortunately, have to take increased acquisition costs into account, so the new pre-order items will be seen at a higher price than items currently in stock. In stock items will not be adjusted in any way as our pricing is always based on acquisition cost compared to platform fees, and not market volatility or higher prices for high demand items.
Thank you for your support of ACB Toys & Collectibles. New items that just arrived and to pre-order will be posted shortly.