Been busy… found a new obsession along with some toy nooze…

Its been a while, but in the last week, I finally got permission from Amazon to start selling again! I was banned sometime last year… that a whole ‘nother story, but now I’m back in action, and this time, I wanted to better streamline my process for updating quantities, changing pricing, and managing primary inventory levels across multiple 3rd party selling venues. Using some fancy formula finger work along with my penchant for spaghetti coding, I’ve created a whole basic management system using Google Sheets! More on this later as e-commerce interactions have been something of an on and off hobby of mine for the last 17 years.

In toy news, lots of good things!

1) Retro Nintendo consoles have just been announced for release later this year! This includes the popular NES classic that sold out immediately a few years ago, and a new Japanese ‘Fami-Com’ system that features all Shonen Jump games in celebration of the titular magazine’s 50th anniversary!

Retro gaming is definitely one of the hottest tickets outside the Disney juggernaut with great history, an appreciation for 8-bit designs, and a slew of wild, organically loved licenses of yesteryear. Nintendo has really been the only system maker who’s retro systems actually see any type of demand which goes to show how much of people’s childhood they control over the likes of Sega and Atari. I personally am looking forward to the Fami-Com edition. It won’t be available in America, so I might need to try and pull some favors with some connections in Japan to make this happen. I do feel it’ll be a hot ticket, and with TRU out of the picture, I can see other major retailers owning up to bigger chunks of business and also related venues like Hot Topic and Box Lunch which do cater strongly to gaming lifestyle goods.

2) TRU is closing out fast and it was revealed that the company will be shelling out around $350M just in bankruptcy fees.

No toy news would be complete without something on TRU nowadays. Its a rough time. With workers, executives, and politicians weighing in on the demise of TRU, the job loss count has been calculated to be anywhere around 30,000 (B. Sanders) to 133,000 (I. Larian). Seems like there’s still money to be had, but on the legal side of things. Painful to hear and it doesn’t make these growing pains any better. Note to all those former TRU workers: its easier than ever to get into selling online. You’ve got the experience, and the industry doesn’t have an official voice yet. Get heard, get to selling, and get paid.

2) MGA is killing it with their victory judgement of $1.1M and injunctions on overseas counterfeiters of the popular LOL Surprise product.

Though I’m pretty sure they’re not the first, MGA has proven that even in this day and age with internet everywhere and the ambiguity of world wide licensing control, protecting one’s IP is still achievable and enforceable. For the longest time in my own specialized industry (anime collectibles and media) bootlegging and counterfeits are of an enormous burden on all who are trying to make an honest living selling it here in the US. It was particularly troublesome in the late 2000’s, and even today, you can jump on EBay or Amazon and find fake products being offered form international sellers by the tank load. Most I’ve talked to including licensees, licensors, and distributors claim chasing these sellers would be extremely expensive financially. And being there were larger avenues of selling available for domestic product, the official goods should drown out the bootlegs. As more and more of these ‘larger avenues’ start to disappear though, the reality is starting to set in that in the long run, not addressing the issue early will not only cost a company financial trouble, but IP integrity trouble as well. To all IP holders out there, your IP IS your business in my opinion. Protect it at all costs. Now if we can extend this to that pesky parallel import issue…

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