Big Chief Studios BBC Sherlock

[siquisiri]

Im sorry but i dont demand high quality for a cheaper price, i expect to get what i pay for and most of the time i pay even more..in this case thats not the case. In the end your fans will buy no matter what you produce, but for 1/6 collectors, based on your previous releases, this is far from being a bang for your buck...

 

[Greggo]

No need to apologise at all. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Unfortunately certain members are still missing the point. Hot Toys are an Asian company, based out of the orient, i.e. they have much lower overheads than their western equivalents. They clearly have their own factory, whereas the rest of us have to pay a vendor. It is very difficult to find a vendor who has everything under one roof and so you end paying more as the vendor has to place the work with associate factories. This costs extra period.

I would argue that the quality of our first figure is certainly on a par with Sideshow with a better head deco. We utilised numerous paints to achieve subtle skin tones, not gloopy paint applied thickly as has been the case with a number SSC's human offerings. The tailoring of our figure's costume to is far higher. It is not just a suit on a standard body, we have worked hard to get the clothing to look accurate.

Can we improve? Of course and we strive to do so. Can we reduce costs? By removing items of clothing, or simplyfying the head deco, yes. But our customers tell us that they don't want this.

On the whole our first figure was very well received and we were generally happy with it. We believe that customers have more integrity than simply buying because it says Doctor Who on the box. If they like our products they will buy them. If they don't, they won't.

Thanks BCS

 

[Mau]

Firstly, thank you both for coming in and contributing to the discussion.

However, please don't act as though you have been attacked. You haven't and I am slightly affronted by some of the terms used. "You couldn't be more wrong" and "missing the point" aren't phrases designed to win friends and influence people. No wonder people felt obliged to apologise. Yes, we do sympathise with you being a small, UK-based company and all the hassles and costs that must involve. However, we are also entitled to our opinions on the quality and price of what we are buying. We currently live in tough, financial times and I am sure I am not the only one who has had to cut back to virtually nothing on my hobby spending. Each pound we spend counts, and we therefore scrutinise what we get for it. The fact that we say that the money we had to fork out is HT-high, yet the quality is (good) Sideshow and we are a little disappointed is therefore understandable, I hope.

I am sure there is no one here who has anything but good will towards BCS. No one has accused you of being crooks, or greedy or such. You are good guys and we know it. However, we have to continue to express our views and, hopefully, some of them will be useful to you in knowing what your customer base thinks.

I'm sure the future will be good for you, and I do sympathise with how difficult the first year/18 months of the company must have been and how you must be up to your necks in it at the moment. Please don't take our opinions personally. Whilst the details might differ, we all want the same thing, and I have no doubt that you will continue to produce it.

 

[annihilate22]

Firstly, thank you both for coming in and contributing to the discussion.

We currently live in tough, financial times and I am sure I am not the only one who has had to cut back to virtually nothing on my hobby spending. Each pound we spend counts, and we therefore scrutinise what we get for it. The fact that we say that the money we had to fork out is HT-high, yet the quality is (good) Sideshow and we are a little disappointed is therefore understandable, I hope.

I am sure there is no one here who has anything but good will towards BCS. You are good guys and we know it. However, we have to continue to express our views and, hopefully, some of them will be useful to you in knowing what your customer base thinks.

I'm sure the future will be good for you, and I do sympathize with how difficult the first year/18 months of the company must have been and how you must be up to your necks in it at the moment. Please don't take our opinions personally. Whilst the details might differ, we all want the same thing, and I have no doubt that you will continue to produce it.

Resonates my views.

 

[Captain Britain]

Sorry to say, but you could not be more wrong.

Putting aside which character it is for a moment, take a close look at any of the latest crop of 1:6 scale figures from either Hot Toys, Enterbay, Sideshow, or even our own Eleventh Doctor.

Remove the costume and study the detail and the stitching. Take a close look at the head, the accessories and other included items. The amount of hand work that goes into each figure is substantial and clearly far more than many of you realise.

Did you know that our male body alone has over 100 individual pieces that require assembly and this does not include the screws that hold it together? That’s basically an Ikea cupboard in miniature that needs putting together for each and every figure.

Hand assembling the body, trimming and painting the head and accessories, sewing the costume together, assembling the complete figure and packing all of the related parts. All this takes considerable effort and countless man hours. Does this process gets any quicker the more the workers do? Possibly fractionally, as they will possibly get quicker with each one that they complete. But seriously do you really think that the process can be sped up to the point where the cost per piece can be reduced significantly enough to warrant a price reduction? Whether a manufacturer orders 1000 or 5000 pieces, these are largely hand-assembled and finished items. Sure the price for the injection moulded plastic parts will see a slight cost reduction in greater order volumes, but again this does not make that much of a difference to the final selling price.

On top of this there have been any number of cost increases from China and why shouldn't they want to be paid fairly right? Who pays for these cost increases? The manufacturer obviously, who in turn passes this on to the end customer to recoup their outlay.

Finally with the downturn at retail, both distributors and retailers are seeking much higher levels of discount. In part to cover their overheads and of course to drive competitive sales. On face value it may seem like a buyer’s market and a great deal when you bag a particular collectable $30-$50 off the selling price. In the long run however, all this serves to do is actually devalue that collectable. Retailers offer the product at discount to get the sale and the manufacturer is squeezed for the lowest price to achieve this. The frustrating thing is if everyone maintained the recommended selling price, then everyone would have a fair playing field and make the same amount of money.

Customers’ expectation have grown exponentially. They demand high quality, yet they only want to pay the same as they did for a figure back in 2002. This is simply no longer achievable I am afraid.

We are aiming to improve upon our first release with our other figures in the line, but the cost to manufacture 1:6 scale figures is high, if you want the quality. We read comments from so many collectors complaining of the recent price increases from Hot Toys and to be honest, we cannot work out how they do what they do, for the prices they are asking anyway. They are the benchmark and their product excels. We would have a very hard time trying to match them at their price point, but we are working hard to get as close as we possibly can without breaking ours’ and our customers’ wallets.

Question is do you want manufacturers such as ourselves to keep going? Do you want us to continue making the products that you crave?

Thanks for reading BCS

Great post, thanks very much guys. That's so true what you say about each figure having over 100 parts. i recently took apart a CO mass-produced console - the one from the Doctor's wife - and I was amazed at how much there was to it. For a high end figure there must be even more.

But the important thing is what I put in bold. Hot Toys can do what they do, first, because they speak the language and they're physically close to the factory. You guys have to fly over and then try to communicate. May be you need a native speaker, if you don't already have one?

Second, that is a very, very good question you've asked there and I think it's worth revisiting a comment you made earlier in the post:

On top of this there have been any number of cost increases from China and why shouldn't they want to be paid fairly right?

I'm happy that what you do is produced ethically and the product on my child's shelf was produced under humane working conditions and for a fair wage. if it wasn't I wouldn't want it in the house. Perhaps we all, including me, forget this when we suck in our breath at the cost of Ten or whatever - has anyone ever worked out how much a figure like that would cost to make in England? And while I don't want to criticise any other company, if you can't work out how they 'do what they do' it's not impossible that they do it by being less scrupulous. Not saying that's the case, but it's a question worth answering.

Presumably you have to satisfy Worldwide that your products are produced ethically - why not put this in your advertising?

EDIT - just seen greggo's post which makes the same point about HT being an asian company.

 

[Hamanu]

My country (Croatia) has a long shipbuilding tradition, and, on the eve of the accession into the EU (July 1) we are having to privatise and/or close down all of them because they have existed over the last few decades on state subsidies which is against EU policy.

The reason why the needed these subsidies in the first place is because they could not compete with their Korean rivals. That was because our shipyards, while having the know how, had to import pretty much all the parts and raw materials to build a tanker, whereas the Korean shipbuilder owns the entire production process, from mines and processing plants all the way to the assembly line. Consequently, they could offer a vastly better price since they didn't need to outsource any portion of the manufacturing process.
The only way for our shipyards to survive on the global market was to restructure and delve into specialized (and more expensive) shipbuilding, leaving the "vanilla" or "standard" ships to the Koreans.

The lesson learned by the industry was that you can't compete with Asia with mass produced standard items.

I believe that Samsung's big advantage on the smartphone market (apart from making superbly designed phones, of course) lies also in the ownership of both the raw materials and the assembly lines.

The collectibles market can't possibly compare with heavy industry or electronics, but the overall pattern is similar.

Kaustic Plastic (based in Italy) is playing for a niche market of Ancient Roman figures, while offering die cast details and for a significantly lower price than HT. They produce all the metal parts in Italy and, therefore, need not pay import taxes or customs to get them into Europe). In that regard they're extremely competitive.

BCS, on the other hand is located in the UK where the living standard is higher which translates into higher salaries for everyone involved with the company and that means higher prices.

I think its commendable that BCS is bringing these cool and licensed figures to the market, but, factoring in the UK standard and outsourced production, higher costs are, sadly, inevitable. European manufacturing being what it is, it is impossible to bring it back at this time and produce a figure "in house" which means that HT will always (or for the foreseeable future) have the edge over western manufacturers at a similar price point.

 

[bigchiefstudios]

Firstly please accept my apologies if you felt insulted by some of the comments, that was certainly not my intention. When you are as passionate about what you do as we are, you sometimes make use of language that perhaps can be misread. Nothing could be further from the truth however. You are quite correct you are all entitled to your opinions and views, as are we. We are all too mindful of the high cost of these products, which is why in part we are moving ahead with the costume and accessory packs later this year. Whether they will work or not remains to be seen. If they do not prove successful and are only purchased by a handful of customisers, then sadly we will have to concede that offering full figures, is the only way. Hopefully people will embrace them and we can develop many more sets in the future.

The purpose of my lengthy explanation was to illustrate the high costs involved in manufacturing these products. For the record we have never stated that our product is of Hot Toys quality. We believe that we can get there and are working to do so. But as I said previously we do not know how they achieve the level of quality for the price they are charging customers, especially as they sell into distributors who are all seeking such high levels of discount. I can tell you honestly that if we were able to match their output 100%, we would be charging around 25% more than they do minimum. This is what I meant by "missing the point", you have to all of the facts before you can say resolutely that you are not getting enough "bang for your buck".

We do appreciate and value your feedback and comments. However, you must also concede that some posts on forums such as this one, can, and do at times, descend into a mob-like mentality. I am not saying that this thread falls into that category, but comments have been made about pricing and quality that needed to be addressed. All too often we are asked to "tell the truth" and when we do that, some people feel slighted, possibly through the use of poorly chosen language. Again this was not our intention. We have stated the facts for you to discuss openly.

Thank you for your participation
BCS

 

[Captain Britain]

Firstly please accept my apologies if you felt insulted by some of the comments, that was certainly not my intention. When you are as passionate about what you do as we are, you sometimes make use of language that perhaps can be misread. Nothing could be further from the truth however. You are quite correct you are all entitled to your opinions and views, as are we. We are all too mindful of the high cost of these products, which is why in part we are moving ahead with the costume and accessory packs later this year. Whether they will work or not remains to be seen. If they do not prove successful and are only purchased by a handful of customisers, then sadly we will have to concede that offering full figures, is the only way. Hopefully people will embrace them and we can develop many more sets in the future.

The purpose of my lengthy explanation was to illustrate the high costs involved in manufacturing these products. For the record we have never stated that our product is of Hot Toys quality. We believe that we can get there and are working to do so. But as I said previously we do not know how they achieve the level of quality for the price they are charging customers, especially as they sell into distributors who are all seeking such high levels of discount. I can tell you honestly that if we were able to match their output 100%, we would be charging around 25% more than they do minimum. This is what I meant by "missing the point", you have to all of the facts before you can say resolutely that you are not getting enough "bang for your buck".

We do appreciate and value your feedback and comments. However, you must also concede that some posts on forums such as this one, can, and do at times, descend into a mob-like mentality. I am not saying that this thread falls into that category, but comments have been made about pricing and quality that needed to be addressed. All too often we are asked to "tell the truth" and when we do that, some people feel slighted, possibly through the use of poorly chosen language. Again this was not our intention. We have stated the facts for you to discuss openly.

Thank you for your participation
BCS

People can think what they like, and should, but as far as communication goes, this is unbeatable. Thank you so much for coming here and discussing these issues - you really didn't have to.

 

[JonWes]

Unfortunately I think when some people are told they are wrong they feel attacked, no matter how mild the language is. Written language is an imperfect medium because no matter how precisely worded, you can't control what the other people read into it.

At no point did it seem to me, personally, that BCS were acting like they were attacked. They were just being honest about what the response from consumers can be. It's the great dilemma about interacting with customers on boards or through social media. You want to be communicative, but there's always someone who will take it the wrong way. That doesn't mean that customer is wrong or stupid, it's just their point of view coloring things which is a natural human response, I think. It's the reason why many companies don't interact that way, and in fact have policies against it. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth.

So, I'm glad BCS is still giving it a go, and I hope posters here will try to read the posts with the assumption that BCS is a company that wants your business and wants to be friendly with you and wants you to be happy, but still has to face some of the realities of business and the manufacturing world. And not everything they say, if you want them to be open and honest, is going to please you.

The alternative is just communicating through press releases.

 

[ProgMatinee]

Just an honest look at what you get for the price. The base non-DX HT is around $190+ The base DX around $250+. Im not slamming the fig as I have various figs that are not HT quality but still look good, just curious as to what would justify such a price? Would a BBC licence cost more than a DC or Marvel??

Its not about licensing costs. Its about a company taking a risk at a less famous show and producing an item knowing they'll cap that release at 1250 like the recent Doctor Who figure.

If HT made an item that only had 1250 released you'd be paying a premium too.

Instead, you've got HT focusing on Avenger figures that are probably made somewhere between 5000-1000 units.

 

[thamesvalidude]

Firstly please accept my apologies if you felt insulted by some of the comments, that was certainly not my intention. When you are as passionate about what you do as we are, you sometimes make use of language that perhaps can be misread. Nothing could be further from the truth however. You are quite correct you are all entitled to your opinions and views, as are we. We are all too mindful of the high cost of these products, which is why in part we are moving ahead with the costume and accessory packs later this year. Whether they will work or not remains to be seen. If they do not prove successful and are only purchased by a handful of customisers, then sadly we will have to concede that offering full figures, is the only way. Hopefully people will embrace them and we can develop many more sets in the future.

The purpose of my lengthy explanation was to illustrate the high costs involved in manufacturing these products. For the record we have never stated that our product is of Hot Toys quality. We believe that we can get there and are working to do so. But as I said previously we do not know how they achieve the level of quality for the price they are charging customers, especially as they sell into distributors who are all seeking such high levels of discount. I can tell you honestly that if we were able to match their output 100%, we would be charging around 25% more than they do minimum. This is what I meant by "missing the point", you have to all of the facts before you can say resolutely that you are not getting enough "bang for your buck".

We do appreciate and value your feedback and comments. However, you must also concede that some posts on forums such as this one, can, and do at times, descend into a mob-like mentality. I am not saying that this thread falls into that category, but comments have been made about pricing and quality that needed to be addressed. All too often we are asked to "tell the truth" and when we do that, some people feel slighted, possibly through the use of poorly chosen language. Again this was not our intention. We have stated the facts for you to discuss openly.

Thank you for your participation
BCS

Great response BCS.

 

[thamesvalidude]

Great post, thanks very much guys. That's so true what you say about each figure having over 100 parts. i recently took apart a CO mass-produced console - the one from the Doctor's wife - and I was amazed at how much there was to it. For a high end figure there must be even more.

But the important thing is what I put in bold. Hot Toys can do what they do, first, because they speak the language and they're physically close to the factory. You guys have to fly over and then try to communicate. May be you need a native speaker, if you don't already have one?

Second, that is a very, very good question you've asked there and I think it's worth revisiting a comment you made earlier in the post:

On top of this there have been any number of cost increases from China and why shouldn't they want to be paid fairly right?

I'm happy that what you do is produced ethically and the product on my child's shelf was produced under humane working conditions and for a fair wage. if it wasn't I wouldn't want it in the house. Perhaps we all, including me, forget this when we suck in our breath at the cost of Ten or whatever - has anyone ever worked out how much a figure like that would cost to make in England? And while I don't want to criticise any other company, if you can't work out how they 'do what they do' it's not impossible that they do it by being less scrupulous. Not saying that's the case, but it's a question worth answering.

Presumably you have to satisfy Worldwide that your products are produced ethically - why not put this in your advertising?

EDIT - just seen greggo's post which makes the same point about HT being an asian company.

Quite right Captain!

 

[siquisiri]

I love that BCS is taking the time to respond and I don't think the economic aspect is lost by 1/6 collectors. You can give a long list of valid reasons for the cost of the figures but in the end these don't matter. Collectors will buy them if the price is right, if not, on to the next fig.

 

[thamesvalidude]

My country (Croatia) has a long shipbuilding tradition, and, on the eve of the accession into the EU (July 1) we are having to privatise and/or close down all of them because they have existed over the last few decades on state subsidies which is against EU policy.

The reason why the needed these subsidies in the first place is because they could not compete with their Korean rivals. That was because our shipyards, while having the know how, had to import pretty much all the parts and raw materials to build a tanker, whereas the Korean shipbuilder owns the entire production process, from mines and processing plants all the way to the assembly line. Consequently, they could offer a vastly better price since they didn't need to outsource any portion of the manufacturing process.
The only way for our shipyards to survive on the global market was to restructure and delve into specialized (and more expensive) shipbuilding, leaving the "vanilla" or "standard" ships to the Koreans.

The lesson learned by the industry was that you can't compete with Asia with mass produced standard items.

I believe that Samsung's big advantage on the smartphone market (apart from making superbly designed phones, of course) lies also in the ownership of both the raw materials and the assembly lines.

The collectibles market can't possibly compare with heavy industry or electronics, but the overall pattern is similar.

Kaustic Plastic (based in Italy) is playing for a niche market of Ancient Roman figures, while offering die cast details and for a significantly lower price than HT. They produce all the metal parts in Italy and, therefore, need not pay import taxes or customs to get them into Europe). In that regard they're extremely competitive.

BCS, on the other hand is located in the UK where the living standard is higher which translates into higher salaries for everyone involved with the company and that means higher prices.

I think its commendable that BCS is bringing these cool and licensed figures to the market, but, factoring in the UK standard and outsourced production, higher costs are, sadly, inevitable. European manufacturing being what it is, it is impossible to bring it back at this time and produce a figure "in house" which means that HT will always (or for the foreseeable future) have the edge over western manufacturers at a similar price point.

And there's the nub of it Hamanu. Anyone involved in any sort of manufacturing is suffering the same sort of "squeeze" from the East. Although Chinese manufacturing is now being threatened in some areas as their labour force ratchets up their earnings ratios. Collecting quality figures is getting ever more expensive and if we want the best representations then they're not going to come cheap. It's tough out there!

 

[thamesvalidude]

I don't think the economic aspect is lost by 1/6 collectors. You can give a long list of valid reasons for the cost of the figures but in the end these don't matter. Ill get them if the price is right, if not, on to the next fig.

And that siquisiri is what happens at the end. We only buy what we can afford or can reasonably justify and that determines the market. I couldn't justify the price of HT iron monger or buying every Iron Man variant, even though I would have liked to have bought them all. Oh well!

 

[ProgMatinee]

I love that BCS is taking the time to respond and I don't think the economic aspect is lost by 1/6 collectors. You can give a long list of valid reasons for the cost of the figures but in the end these don't matter. Collectors will buy them if the price is right, if not, on to the next fig.

And that siquisiri is what happens at the end. We only buy what we can afford or can reasonably justify and that determines the market. I couldn't justify the price of HT iron monger or buying every Iron Man variant, even though I would have liked to have bought them all. Oh well!

At some point though, you have to consider desire for the character along with quality and price, and probably some other measurables I'm failing to mention.

If you're only considering items that meet some price/quality ratio you might end up missing niche characters or licenses that you otherwise are interested in.

As I mentioned earlier, is HT out there offering Sherlock or Dr Who figures? Nope. So if you want these figures you may need to bend your rules a bit.

Otherwise if all you're buying is what HT offers because you like their "value" well enjoy your 100 Iron Man variants that 5000-10000 others also have.

To drive home the point, I have an extreme example. I'm sure some of you Brits know who Rick Wakeman is. Well, a little secret of mine is I REALLY REALLY want a 1/6th figure of him in all his 1973-75 caped glory and a replica moog.

Well who the hell is going to make the thing? Not HT, not SSC and probably not even a UK company like BCS.

If I'm ever going to get one it would be from a customizer and it certainly wouldn't be $150.

I have to weigh whether getingt something I REALLY WANT (but few others want) is worth a premium. But to assume the price should be the same is folly.

 

[thamesvalidude]

At some point though, you have to consider desire for the character along with quality and price, and probably some other measurables I'm failing to mention.

If you're only considering items that meet some price/quality ratio you might end up missing niche characters or licenses that you otherwise are interested in.

As I mentioned earlier, is HT out there offering Sherlock or Dr Who figures? Nope. So if you want these figures you may need to bend your rules a bit.

Otherwise if all you're buying is what HT offers because you like their "value" well enjoy your 100 Iron Man variants that 5000-10000 others also have.

To drive home the point, I have an extreme example. I'm sure some of you Brits know who Rick Wakeman is. Well, a little secret of mine is I REALLY REALLY want a 1/6th figure of him in all his 1973-75 caped glory and a replica moog.

Well who the hell is going to make the thing? Not HT, not SSC and probably not even a UK company like BCS.

If I'm ever going to get one it would be from a customizer and it certainly wouldn't be $150.

I have to weigh whether getingt something I REALLY WANT (but few others want) is worth a premium. But to assume the price should be the same is folly.

I was a big "Yes" fan back in '75 and still have Rick's King Arthur and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but I wouldn't want a figure of him lol. I understand where you are at though because I'd love 1/6 Beatles and Stones!!!!

 

[DGTWoodward]

It's true...Rarity + Small Numbers = Higher Prices.

I really don't understand why people are so un-used to this basic business principle. This is how it has always been, is now, and is not going to change anytime soon.

This is the, what...fourth time BCS has come into one of these threads and explained how and why they are doing things in such-and-such a way? Yet we are still seeing these same sorts of posts

It would seem then, that the challenge is this....

If there is anybody out there that can do this at a higher quality, larger production numbers and for cheaper prices...don't just sit there...do us all a literally WHOooge favour and go out and do it.

Coming on here and talking to us is not compulsory you know, BCS can just ignore the pants off of all of us for as long as they like. But they don't. And it's not so much that they answer, but also how they answer. They could be stand-off-ish and dismissive, but they give us honest and polite information.

Those are not the actions of guys that are fly-by-night cowboys in it for a quick buck. They are, rather, the actions of a great bunch of modest and talented fellas who are in this to produce the best Dr. WHO figures ever made so far...until 1:6 scale bio-mechanical-reprocloning becomes a reality, that is.

Let's cut them some slack.

 

[ProgMatinee]

I was a big "Yes" fan back in '75 and still have Rick's King Arthur and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but I wouldn't want a figure of him lol. I understand where you are at though because I'd love 1/6 Beatles and Stones!!!!

Right on. I'd say I'd love some Pink Floyd figures but they'd be boring as hell. Black shirt, black pants. Hippy hair cut.

A real cool figure would be some Genesis era Peter Gabriel.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

It's true...Rarity + Small Numbers = Higher Prices.

BCS came in and said outright that small numbers do not equal high price.

It would seem then, that the challenge is this....

If there is anybody out there that can do this at a higher quality, larger production numbers and for cheaper prices...don't just sit there...do us all a literally WHOooge favour and go out and do it.

HT does this. And BCS said they don't know how HT manages to do it.

Coming on here and talking to us is not compulsory you know, BCS can just ignore the pants off of all of us for as long as they like. But they don't. And it's not so much that they answer, but also how they answer. They could be stand-off-ish and dismissive, but they give us honest and polite information.

Those are not the actions of guys that are fly-by-night cowboys in it for a quick buck. They are, rather, the actions of a great bunch of modest and talented fellas who are in this to produce the best Dr. WHO figures ever made so far...until 1:6 scale bio-mechanical-reprocloning becomes a reality, that is.

Let's cut them some slack.

We have all acknowledged how good it is of them to have come in here and address our concerns. I think we were all pretty satisfied with their response and are hoping for the best. So come on in and have a drink, eh?