58 replies to this topic

[Nik]

     The time has come that I am being forced to sell my entire collection and start over at another time. My ETSY shop grew out of control and we had to keep pushing ship dates back, until Etsy came in and shut us down until we ship all late orders. The shop is my family's only source of income and now we only have enough to ship all the orders we have already bought supplies for. Being that we still need to make rent and give my daughter a Christmas, I think it's time to pass them on. 

 

      After thinking of the best way I have decided to place them all in Random bags $5 each. There will be exactly 300 of them and they include my complete collection of series one trashies, muscle figures, cereal premiums, MIMP series 1,2,3 and of course my star on the back jotun troll.

 

     Shipping is included, except for international orders which will be an additional $5 flat shipping for any number of bags. 

 

     All random bags will ship on Saturday January 3rd. The reason for this is that it is possible for some or all of the super rares to be found in the first week if I shipped them right away, and then there would be little incentive for anyone to purchase more.

 

    I will also cancel and refund all orders if I fail to sell at least 100 bags by the 3rd. For the same reason, that all super rares can potentially be found in any small number of bags and then I'm out big time.

 

        I said awhile back that I would try and keep the troll in the community, and would really like to see the figure go to a collector here rather then put it up on ebay. The fact is that right now I really need the money, but don't want to get screwed, and at the same time I really want to give all collectors here a chance to get some great figures in their collections.    

 

Now, there will be only 300 bags, but you may notice in the listing that it is possible to purchase twice that number. The reason for this is I plan to make this as fair as possible. In the event that there are more than 300 sales or one person decides to purchase the entire 300, I will be refunding each order over 300 to the person or persons with the highest number of bags. That simply means that if 300 members on this site wish to participate, they all get to. If there are 200 bags going to any number of people and one person then wants to buy 100, they can do that. However if anyone buys a bag after that the person buying 100 will be refunded a bag and so on. Preference will be given to the earliest purchases in case I need to offer refunds.   

 

Thank you for checking it out, right now we are using store envy instead of etsy so I apologize if the site is still a little buggy:

 

http://inspirationxc...er-in-my-pocket

 

 

 

 IMG_1722.JPG   119.92K   5 downloads  IMG_1721.JPG   143.01K   25 downloads

[Behemoth]

I'll buy one (maybe a couple), but not because I expect to get the Star Monster. I really like the bags. Just out of curiosity, roughly how many figures are going to be in each bag?

[TheRiddler]

I didn't think there was a "star" monster...i dont collect them either so I could be wrong...can you post a pic of that one??

[Behemoth]

Riddler check out this thread where Nik posted several pics of it: http://www.littlerub...howtopic=213323

[Nik]

Thanks! Bags were surprisingly easy to screen print for what they are. At least 2 figures in each bag, trying to balance out rarity as best I can. Then it's up to god

[TheRiddler]

Riddler check out this thread where Nik posted several pics of it: http://www.littlerub...howtopic=213323

Wow! That's pretty awesome! Would be a sweet surprise to get that in a random bag!!

[jkaris]

At $5 per bag x 300 bags, you'd possibly get up to $1500.

My guess is that you'd get a lot more than that for it on eBay. Super Rare M.U.S.C.L.E. figures have sold for upward of $2500. Why not sell the entire lot on eBay instead?

[fkro6784]

Sorry to hear the circumstances call for the sale. I'll be grabbing a couple of these. It will be fun to see what I get.

[Ridureyu]

SUper-Rare MUSCLES, which often aren't one of a kind, go for more than you would get sellingthose bags.  I'd wager that openly selling the star Jotun Troll would likely earn you a lot more - you would also save on shipping bys elling the rare MIMPS individually, and the non-rare ones in larger lots.

[Rubberhammer]

At $5 per bag x 300 bags, you'd possibly get up to $1500.

My guess is that you'd get a lot more than that for it on eBay. Super Rare M.U.S.C.L.E. figures have sold for upward of $2500. Why not sell the entire lot on eBay instead?

That was my thought exactly.

You would probably end up with more than $1500, even after fees, for just the one fig.

[Ericnilla]

You are having too many orders in your etsy so you are putting your efforts into that by selling more on a different online store? and in a way that people are gambling at the chance to get a figure that you may or may not even put in a bag?

 

 

Lame.

Edited by Ericnilla, 03 December 2014 - 10:07 PM.

[hellscrape]

I know I'm new here, but if my family was in dire straits, I'd put the toy on eBay if it could command that much money.  That makes me think that in reality the blind bags wouldn't have said super rare toy, and are a way to get rid of toys of lesser value.  Now blind bags ARE a lot of fun, and I see no harm done as long as you are transparent about it.

 

I don't know you personally, so I hope you don't take this personally. But I've seen scams pulled here and there over time, and my spider sense is tingling on this one...

 

Regardless, I wish you and your family the best, and hope you get out of this current bind.

Edited by hellscrape, 03 December 2014 - 10:41 PM.

[bigburty]

I wish you all the best in regards to getting back on your feet for the sake of your family, but I do agree with the consensus that you'd be better putting the figures on eBay or even holding board auctions on here.

Edited by bigburty, 03 December 2014 - 10:55 PM.

[Screamer]

You are having too many orders in your etsy so you are putting your efforts into that by selling more on a different online store? and in a way that people are gambling at the chance to get a figure that you may or may not even put in a bag?

 

 

Lame.

To then offer refunds and deal with that? Not to judge but that might be a bad execution of your time? Perhaps it would be best to break up your rares and then sell them seperately. If you are in such a bind you could potentially have more money on just a handful of figures in a week or so. Why wait til January. You would have funds almost immediately to take care of all the overdue orders. I am no financial advisor but maybe this is the way to go. I never have been much of a fan of the ole "grab bag"

[PlasticSoul]

Overall this is just a bad idea. 

 

You could run board auctions here for free and make MORE money then with the random grab bags. Even ebay would pull more then this random stuff.

 

Your Etsy got shut down for not shipping stuff out so you want to ship another 300 packages through some random shop all over the world and people need to wait a full month for shipping to even begin...? Ebay or board auctions would mean sending out maybe a dozen packages. It doesn't make much sense.

 

I am in no way saying this is a scam but imagine how easy it would be to run the grab bag thing then simply not send out the rarest figures. Or say they went to some random person who isn't a member here. Or setup a deal with members to give them the super rare stuff for some money on the side. The fact you've said over and over that the star figure won't be for sale makes it all a little odd. 

[Nik]

Well I put a lot of thought and effort into this and believed I came up with a fun fair way to sell off my collection, only to wake up and see it has been ripped to pieces 

 

First let me say that I have no intention of scamming anyone. Otherwise I would just send them out as they were ordered with low value toys, or I wouldn't bother canceling the contest below 100 orders because why would it matter?

 

Second, ebay might not bring in as much money as this contest would and I would be obligated to sell to the highest bidder. If anyone here is seriously interested in buying the figure for $1,000 let me know now and I will consider a different route. Otherwise my blind bag sale will continue on.

 

That being said I have sold 7 bags so far, all from members here.

[fkro6784]

Having followed the recent Star Monster discussion closely and dealt with Nik in a trade, I don't get the sense that he'd be dishonest. You never know, but it actually didn't cross my mind in this case.

It's hard to say what the Star Monster would actually end up selling for in an auction because it's uncharted territory. I am a MIMP fanatic and I know I wouldn't spend that much on it. It would be a great piece to have, but not a unique sculpt/color so not something I'd drop a lot on. I guess he could list it with a high amount as a BIN and see if anyone bites.

[PlasticSoul]

If you really want this to be successful here is a simple solution.

 

Send the troll to Jkaris and when all the bags are sold give him a list of every buyer and he can run a random number generator and pick a random winner who gets the troll. That would make everyone know the sales were 100% legit. You would probably sell every bag you put up. There would be no risk involved at all for buyers or for you. There is literally no downside at all.

[Nik]

If Jkaris would like to be involved in this transaction, I have no problem with that. I can send him a list of the buyers and how many bags they have purchased and he can randomly generate the winner to receive the troll. That would actually solve a problem that I was struggling with, which would be to insure and track the winning bag without knowing which one had the figure. 

[Sixthwizard]

What a mess this seems to be.  I agree with Nilla and Meemie.  

 

Sounds like your trying to fix something (your storefront situation) by adding more situations you might need to fix later????  Kind of like opening a credit card to pay off your other credit card....Robbing Peter to pay Paul.....etc

 

300 shipping locales and you cant get stuff shipped as is???  

That doesnt even make sense to me.  And the effort of printing those bags (I am a digital printer- a lot of effort went into printing 300 bags....) plus the cost of the bags, the shipping costs....Not sure how you would be making money at all........

 

No offense.  My opinion.  

Edited by Sixthwizard, 04 December 2014 - 07:54 AM.

[Nik]

There is no mess, to clarify I sell custom screen printed shirts on etsy which are handmade items. I received a large number of orders when my turnaround time was about a week and had to then push it back to 4 weeks because of the volume of orders. With no new orders coming in it has slowed my production down by slowing my normal orders of supplies etc.

 

   Sending out 300 bags of already manufactured toys is a lot easier than screen printing 300 shirts then sending them, most of them with different designs, sizes  or colors.   

 

Bags cost me $4.00 at shoprite

Shipping them first class commercial rate

 

Gives me at least $3.50 profit on each, more if people buy more than one because of combined shipping

[TheRiddler]

Like Plastic said...best thing to do is senf Jkaris the troll (if he wants to get involved) and follow as planned...Everyone trusts him and knows he is honest. That is the safest bet on things going smooth

[Sixthwizard]

today is the 4th.  did you sell 100 bags yesterday?  so does this mean everyone who bought one will be getting refunded???  I think we have officially turned this into rocket science.

[ironmask]

Wait... So, you gave yourself 2.5 hours to sell 100 bags, or you'd cancel and refund all orders? 

There isn't a single part of this that isn't mind boggling to me.

 

Whoops! Syntax!

Edited by ironmask, 04 December 2014 - 09:16 AM.

[imperfecz]

Wrong month guys.......

 

 

edit:

But yeah.... this makes about as much sense as trying to dig yourself out of quicksand.

Edited by imperfecz, 04 December 2014 - 08:50 AM.