Asmus shouldn’t have said anything at all and just surprised people with hats in future figures.
It is clear the company didn’t want to be seen as profiting off of a mistake by offering these separately. And shipping is ridiculously pricey. Even if they offered to sell only for shipping cost, people would probably accuse them of profiting anyways. On top of that, others would probably order en masse to profit for themselves. Asmus is under no obligation to assist resellers. Could they also have required proof of purchase to buy a shipping-only hat? Probably. But we all know that their ability to handle CS tasks like that is extremely limited. Processing those receipt-based orders would be additional labor costs. But the staff they do have can shove hats into existing boxes.
Also keep in mind that fulfilling orders take labor. Labor has costs. They have essentially chosen to save on labor costs by having hats shipped out with other orders that they would have to be shipping anyways. This reduces labor and reduces costs. If you have never ran a business, you probably do not understand just how quickly your business could go upside down on labor costs alone. It is fine for all the keyboard warriors to demand separate order fulfillment only at shipping costs, but you’re demanding the company eat additional labor costs on top of what they already offered. There’s a reason why Amazon warehouse workers are pressured into pissing down their own legs to keep packing labor costs down.
It is also pretty unfair to compare the ability for a company like Hot Toys to eat the loss of shipping replacement parts compared to Asmus. Hot Toys is probably the only 1/6 company that can eat a cost like that without becoming financially destabilized. And considering the set backs they just had with Ash Williams and the costs they ate over there, I am surprised they still are going ahead with these hat replacements at all. Companies do not have unlimited funds to continuously fix stuff.
Is this an imperfect solution? Yes. But they’ve indicated a willingness to shove so many hats up the backends of so many upcoming figures that everyone ought to be taken care of as long as you‘re probably buying figures from them this year. They just aren’t about to make promises about future figures that production might be able to keep.
The only people kind of screwed by this solution are people who weren’t ever buying from Asmus ever again. Also at risk are the people who let themselves suffer from FOMO so badly that they have to act like children. Gotta go flip tables over a little hat for our dolls.
Keep in mind they didn’t need to do this. I think this is exactly where the phrase “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” applies. Is the collective whinging increasing or decreasing the likely that this company goes out of the way to address a shortfall in the future? If they get **** on either way, the next time they screw up they’ll probably just keep the money and not bother making an alternative.
And personally, I do have Crown GtG. I do NOT have Bilbo or Gollum or order, but I do have 3 Nazgûl on order. Will I get a hat? Maybe. We’ll see. After over four decades on this planet, I can wait a few months to see if I get a little plastic hat in my happy meal.
Do I think Asmus chose the best way to do this? Would it have been the solution I would have chosen? I don’t know, I don’t know their business constraints. What I do know is that I am confident enough in my abilities as an adult human to secure a hat in the future without acting entitled to a freebie in the interim.
from what I can remember there was nowhere near as much backlash for that move and those figures cost more than Crown Gandalf.
