Mattel has posted a couple updates on their Facebook page.
Due to Feb 15th falling on a weekend, and that being followed by a holiday (in the US), Stratos will therefore go on sale Tuesday the 17th at 12:00 eastern.
and
So we’ve asked our official research group to get some numbers behind collector interests as we move forward with even bigger and better figures both online and at retail!
Check out the link below if you would like to voluntarily tell us a bit about what you want from Mattel in the future!
Matty
https://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=13AWQ2NC598UD
Calling All Action Figure Collectors!
We’d like to invite you to participate in our new action figure research survey. As we strive to best meet your needs for action figures and collectibles, your responses are very important to us and will help us in our development of future products. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey and all of your answers and information will be kept strictly confidential.
I’ve filled out the survey, and it’s quite in-depth. Here’s hoping it has some significant effects on the future of DCUC and MOTUC.
Here’s a round-up of all the Mattel Q&As from yesterday:
- Kastor’s Korner
- The Fwoosh
- Action Figure Insider
- DC Collector
- Critical Mess
- Batman: YTB (scroll to bottom)
- Toy News International
- Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation
- Figures.com
Mattel also put up a new ad for Stratos.
Esbat
Ahhh completed it.
My final suggestion was for MattyCollector.com to run a quarterly poll on their site to allow visitors and buyers to vote on what they'd like to see come out as an online exclusive.
I mean if they're going to sell something online, then online buyers should have a say.
Esbat
Dude… i freaked when it told me 0 through 100. I thought I did something wrong. So I just put 100. Did they think children would be filling this out?
If I had kept every figure I owned as a child and only counted those I'd definitely have less than 100, less than 50 even.
Paul
"Why won’t Mattel claim fault for anything? That gets annoying."
Because they are a business and it's hard for a business to admit anything negative about itself.
PrfktTear
Maybe they just assume that whoever has 100 figures most likely has more than a hundred. Still, if they wanted to get accurate results they (Mattel) should have specified that they wanted up to a certain number.
Perhaps the person designing this survey not knowing anything about the toy industry/adult collectors just used 100 as a random number not really knowing that there are adult collectors out there in the world who have hundreds if not thousands of action figures.
Griffin
Don't you think range numbers for the survey would have been more appropriate, with an 100+ category if thats as high as they care about?
PrfktTear
I used to design surveys exactly like that as part of my job… before I got laid off. No doubt Mattel outsourced it to a market research firm. Those surveys are very fickle things, and are a bitch to program. I don't know why everyone over on the Facebook are getting their panties in a twist cuz the survey booted them or insulted their collecting habits.
Those surveys try to narrow down the specifics as much as possible, so one wrong answer could easily boot you. It would have been nice to have some sort of incentive to take the survey though. The company I used to work for offered up gift cards and other various incentives for those who took it.
I too found it odd though that they only let you input 100 figures.
Pete
Re: Talking to toy aisle people–this is not always a viable option. For instance, my local Targets have signs up that explicitly state their refusal to help locate collector-oriented product. Basically, you get what's on the shelves and you're happy with it, or you go elsewhere.
Newt
This'll come off as a lot of Mattel hate, but here's my wrap up of the Q&A's with various thoughts:
Kastor got duped. I always feel bad because Mattel gives him the worst answers.
Why won't Mattel claim fault for anything? That gets annoying.
I know this is beating a dead horse, but the fact that they say to go to Matty to get the Matty exclusives, yet pulled them from Matty to take to cons is an annoying answer.
There is NO way that a Infinite Heroes Batmobile wouldn't sell like HOTCAKES. Fans probably didn't vote on vehicles because they were afraid of Flash's motorcycle and Superman's jet showing up. A Batmobile in 3 3/4 would be awesome. So long as it was a good design… I'll vote for the B&TB design please.
More mini characters in JLU? Lameness. Don't get me wrong, I'd buy a Superman if he came with Mr. Mystiodhfadsoifjhdfepwrplick or something like that, but I totally passed on Farmer Batman because I don't need a .10 pig.
Not to hate some more but this: "we suggest you talk to the toy aisle manager and ask for it by name!" is the dumbest answer EVER said and Mattel uses it at least once every Q&A. There is nothing that can be done by hassling the local toy manager. Largely because Target doesn't have a "Toy manager" and two, they don't dictate what product is sold to them. Individual stores work off the planograms. Please Mattel, STOP answering questions with this BS. No matter how many times they say this, it's NOT true.
The QC takes 9 months bit seems a bit off, as I know people were complaining about DCUC falling apart from the get-go. Are they suggesting that it takes 9 months to fix individual figures? By that standard no figure will ever have improved QC because after 9 months the figure is no longer on shelves or being shipped.
I have no idea how they're going to keep that Dark Knight line going when all they do is remake Batman figures.
Mattel basically said what I said a week ago that the MOTUC line will be headed to retail once any sort of new He-Man product comes onto our screens. That's good news as MOTUC are cool toys. Bad news cause they'll probably retail for under $15.
Poe
I noticed that too. Kind of silly…I suspect the survey was put together by someone at the survey company, not by Mattel. “How many action figures could one person own? Surely not more than a hundred…” 🙂
Dark Angel
…the survey only lets you choose a number between 1 and 100 for total number of action figures in your collection.
…I…I don’t think Mattel really knows us at all!
Griffin
And yet the number could have been one or maybe even zero. Is someone with one action figure really going to take that survey? Is it really a collection if you have less than ten? I also balked at the "all things being equal where would you shop" question. Does that mean that I would be guaranteed to find everything I want (eventually) at retail? Is this a world without scalpers where everything on-line is at retail prices? Knowing I would find it at reatil would kind of take some of the fun out of it, but that knowledge would probably destroy the on-line market. I hate hypotheticals like this.