Yeah that's also something I heard from those facebook sellers, companies make them pay now. Even Mezco, which didn't require deposits in the past, suddenly need anywhere between $15 to $20 deposit nowadays for a $90 to $120 item. This move by companies to require immediate payment has caused me to become more of a "Buy Later" kind of shopper. I don't even pre-order from my usual local sources anymore if payment has to be right away while the release date is 8 months or more later (or in Mezco's case, sometimes it gets pushed later a year or more, yikes!). Fortunately in my experience, I never had trouble acquiring stuff that I didn't pre-order. Sometimes I get them for the usual price, occasionally I get them lower (like the price drops that happen to Figuarts Dragon Ball prices on Amazon after a month or so), and rarely do I get them for more than half the original price as long as they were released that month.
I wonder why companies are doing this now. Are they in some kind of financial trouble... I wonder how the coronavirus problem would affect the toy industry.
Totally understand your perspective on it.
If you've been following Sideshow, Mezco, and even Tamashii Nations the past few years, NRDs are becoming more common. There's A LOT of buyers who simply do NOT have the funds and go and pre-order like crazy. Nothing wrong with cancelling orders as its been part of some of these companies and vendor's policies for a while, but I think it has become TOO frequent and probably ate into their bottom dollar. Hence the NRDs are some way of recovering losses. On a personal note, I sell stuff on eBay and I have frequently had to deal with non-paying bidders. Some don't pay at all and go radio silence, but recently I had a guy who talked up on message about how excited he was to purchase a figure for me and that he was amped he won the auction and promised to pay in a timely manner. He asked for a few days longer cause of his pay-day (this was pre-COVID) and I said sure. Sure enough, his pay-day comes and goes and I know instantly I have another non-payer. I have to file a claim with eBay and thankfully it's easy to do that and get my final value fees back, but as a seller, it's annoying that I put the time and energy into creating my auction, sold it, even generously gave the buyer a few extra days to pay (he went past my standard "pay due after three days of auction's end) and then have the buyer drop off after promising to pay. This is why I actually agree with the "pay first" mentality in some cases. I've been the seller/vendor on the receiving end of these dead-beat buyers. And for some of them, it's a constant issue. Stop buying stuff if you DO NOT have the money. Hence, why I think "paying first" (with a reputable company/vendor) is in some cases, a no-brainer.
In regards to Bandai Tamashii Nations...I think this is an interesting conundrum and I'm wondering what is driving this. If you remember about a year or two ago, there was suddenly this news that "allocations of figures to the US would be less". Some of the new figures coming out around then like DBS Future Trunks and some others were slapped with "2 or 1 per household" limits on websites like BBTS. Some of the other e-tailers were even commenting that they didn't know if they'd be able to fill all their pre-orders. Lo' and behold, after a few Dragon Ball figure releases, this turned out to be smoke that Tamashii was saying for WHATEVER REASON as it was clear that the figures were available. Maybe some sold out quicker than others, but it was clear there was "enough available". Some sites kept the limits, like BBTS, but I personally think that some sites like BBTS are just tired of people cancelling pre-orders and they end up sitting on a whole bunch of stock they can't sell.
Maybe it has to do with licenses and costs associated? Tamashii has bumped up extensively with the Star Wars and Marvel licenses, and those can't be cheap, so now they want more money to line their products with the costs associated. And Tamashii is NOT making these figures like Hasbro is, who basically re-use parts REPEATEDLY. Tamashii can't really re-use their molds in some cases (or chooses not to).
It's a real big mystery but Tamashii has clearly become more assertive with "money-upfront" when it comes to their products.