Which Company has the Poorest Quality Control

[lcummins]

anybody know if there are different factories used for different SS products OR different levels of painters used on different products?

just wondering cause sometimes the 1:6 paint apps seem like they had to have come from another factory than that of the beautiful 1:1 busts.
.. and I know the lrger scale allows for more detail, but sometimes it seems as if there is more effort put into 1 eyeball on a 1:1 bust than on the entire head of some 1:6 figures.

I believe I've heard it stated that they use several different factories which would explain one figure arriving with a beautiful paint application and the next arriving with not so beautiful results!

 

[woodsy]

While SS's customer service really is second to none, I believe their QC is another issue altogether, and certainly this is indicated in the poll numbers to date. Instead of comparing SS to other companies, which some consider unfair. I will compare my SS purchases from 3-5 years ago, to my purchases over the last couple of years.
During ther boom days of LOTR I purchased well over 100 statues and busts and I can honestly say that I had QC problems with 5-10% of those items, and I'm not including breakage which I don't think SS can be blamed for. I'm strickly talking about sloppy paint app. and statue pieces not fitting together properly.
Over the last couple of years, while I haven't ordered nearly the same about of pieces, I can safely say I have had QC problems 25-30% of the time and in my opinion that is a huge increase.
Whereas several years ago I would open a statue and never give it a second thought, I now find myself practically holding my breath while inspecting a statue for the first time.
I realize that SS is a much larger company now and they are producing far more products, but we are paying alot of money for our collectibles and it is ultimately SS's responsiblity to ensure their item's leave the production facility in mint condition. It should not be our job to act as QC inspectors, but it seems we as customer's are left in that position all too often these days. At least I certainly am

 

[CAhobbit]

now if you're talking customer in mind. a buddy ordered 4 different sdcc items from sideshow. he was steamed because he received 4 e-mails the other day of 4 separate shipments going out. they didn't combine shipping and he had to pay FOUR shipping charges. they really need to work on that to try and save the poor guy some shipping bucks.

Did your friend contact Sideshow soon after he placed his initial orders and request that the items be shipped together? I know that Sideshow does offer that (to flag items that are coming in together, or close together to have them shipped in one shipment). It's my understanding they can't always guarantee but they will try their best.

 

[tylerd]

Did your friend contact Sideshow soon after he placed his initial orders and request that the items be shipped together? I know that Sideshow does offer that (to flag items that are coming in together, or close together to have them shipped in one shipment). It's my understanding they can't always guarantee but they will try their best.

i'm not really sure. i will ask him. i recently placed an order with bbts. a few days later i placed another order from them and in checkout, it automatically asked me if i wanted to ship both items together at a discounted rate, since the first one didn't ship yet. i know it's possible to setup checkout that way so imo, all companies should have this setup. especially ones that do alot of sales. the less you spend on shipping, the more you have to spend on other stuff.

 

[El Roranous]

i'm not really sure. i will ask him. i recently placed an order with bbts. a few days later i placed another order from them and in checkout, it automatically asked me if i wanted to ship both items together at a discounted rate, since the first one didn't ship yet. i know it's possible to setup checkout that way so imo, all companies should have this setup. especially ones that do alot of sales. the less you spend on shipping, the more you have to spend on other stuff.

Yeah, but Sideshow items are very large and rarely do they fit in one box. Each item usually has it's own dedicated shipping box.

 

[Darklord Dave]

Dude the first poll has no control number. A person who bought 2 pieces and gets 1 bad one votes 50% which carries the same weight as the guy who owns 200 pieces and has had 4 bad ones. You might as well be measuring farts in the wind. This poll takes for granted that everyone owns as many pieces from each of the companies represented in the poll which I doubt is the case.

That sums it up fairly well. If you can't see that the poll isn't objective, than you're probably as Sideshow-hostile as DekDave.

 

[El Roranous]

That sums it up fairly well. If you can't see that the poll isn't objective, than you're probably as Sideshow-hostile as DekDave.

Geeze, I never said it was an all encompassing, extremely accurate poll following all the steps of the scientific method. It's purely public opinion based. I can't control all the variables so results can't be confirmed.

The poll is just good fun. It's also interesting to see what people think about these different companies. I for one shop through all of them pretty frequently and almost evenly but still choose Sideshow as having the worst QC. No poll will ever give you 100% accuracy.

 

[El Roranous]

I won't vote because it really isn't a fair poll. I've never bought a Bowen, Hard Hero, or CS Moore piece. I've only got a few MR pieces and they are all the scaled replicas, so not a lot of diversity of product and no real problems to speak of. Same for GG, almost entirely one or two types of products, so not enough diversity here either and only a couple of issues. That leaves Sideshow, which I have owned across virtually every product type, and hundreds of pieces. How can I honestly vote when I don't even own a product from 50% of the companies listed? I'm betting that most of the people voting don't own or order an equal amount from each company to honestly determine who has the worst QC! I'm sorry El, but the poll is virtually worthless the way it is setup, in my opinion.

Man that kind of hurt my feelings....oh well, that is fine. It's all in good fun anyway.

IF someone can come up with a better poll that gets the point across and obtains more accurate results, then I am all for it. It's a difficult thing to do in real world settings. It would be virtually impossible to do on a board dedicated to Sideshow's greatness though. That is why it was at least a little better suited to the general section in the statue forum- a board that has all types of collectors. Honestly though....Sideshow is the big loser on both boards.

 

[Bannister]

That sums it up fairly well. If you can't see that the poll isn't objective, than you're probably as Sideshow-hostile as DekDave.

 

[lcummins]

Man that kind of hurt my feelings....oh well, that is fine. It's all in good fun anyway.

IF someone can come up with a better poll that gets the point across and obtains more accurate results, then I am all for it. It's a difficult thing to do in real world settings. It would be virtually impossible to do on a board dedicated to Sideshow's greatness though. That is why it was at least a little better suited to the general section in the statue forum- a board that has all types of collectors. Honestly though....Sideshow is the big loser on both boards.

Didn't want to hurt your feelings...

I think the only way to have an accurate poll about Sideshow QC, would be just about Sideshow products and no one else's. In other words, as someone mentioned earlier, has there been more problems in the last year or two, versus three or four years ago? To that question, I would answer yes; I used to never have problems or need replacements three or four years ago. In the last couple, is where I've had the majority of my replacements. And if they were all due to shipping and poor handling, then I would just chalk it up to bad luck, but unfortunately, many of the problems were due to issues that left the factory that way. But still, if someone only got into Sideshow in the last year or so (with Star Wars for instance) they would have no basis to determine if QC was better or worse.

For your original poll to work, you would have to do a "pre-survey" much like they do online or in malls, and ask some questions to determine whether someone was qualified to vote. If a person buys from all the companies in the poll, buys a fairly equal amount from each company, and has been buying for at least a year or two, then they might be qualified to answer the question of which company had the worst QC problem.

 

[El Roranous]

Didn't want to hurt your feelings...

I think the only way to have an accurate poll about Sideshow QC, would be just about Sideshow products and no one else's. In other words, as someone mentioned earlier, has there been more problems in the last year or two, versus three or four years ago? To that question, I would answer yes; I used to never have problems or need replacements three or four years ago. In the last couple, is where I've had the majority of my replacements. And if they were all due to shipping and poor handling, then I would just chalk it up to bad luck, but unfortunately, many of the problems were due to issues that left the factory that way. But still, if someone only got into Sideshow in the last year or so (with Star Wars for instance) they would have no basis to determine if QC was better or worse.

For your original poll to work, you would have to do a "pre-survey" much like they do online or in malls, and ask some questions to determine whether someone was qualified to vote. If a person buys from all the companies in the poll, buys a fairly equal amount from each company, and has been buying for at least a year or two, then they might be qualified to answer the question of which company had the worst QC problem.

This all makes sense. You have done well. Unfortunately...the kind of poll I created was very informal so it's level of accuracy isn't quantifiable. However, in my defense it still is interesting and a good conversation starter and the general consensus still is that Sideshow needs to work a little harder at upping their QC in my opinion. Maybe this result isn't as evident in the numbers so much as it is evident in the comments. If we were all happy with SS QC this thread would have gone much differently.

 

[Darth Rage]

The poll's not fair? LIFE'S NOT FAIR!!! Vote and be prepared to back up your opinion and listen to others.

 

[lcummins]

This all makes sense. You have done well. Unfortunately...the kind of poll I created was very informal so it's level of accuracy isn't quantifiable. However, in my defense it still is interesting and a good conversation starter and the general consensus still is that Sideshow needs to work a little harder at upping their QC in my opinion. Maybe this result isn't as evident in the numbers so much as it is evident in the comments. If we were all happy with SS QC this thread would have gone much differently.

And that is a very astute observation! There is definitely something different from just a year or two ago, so Sideshow does need to look into it.

 

[Fritz]

I won't vote because it really isn't a fair poll. I've never bought a Bowen, Hard Hero, or CS Moore piece. I've only got a few MR pieces and they are all the scaled replicas, so not a lot of diversity of product and no real problems to speak of. Same for GG, almost entirely one or two types of products, so not enough diversity here either and only a couple of issues. That leaves Sideshow, which I have owned across virtually every product type, and hundreds of pieces. How can I honestly vote when I don't even own a product from 50% of the companies listed? I'm betting that most of the people voting don't own or order an equal amount from each company to honestly determine who has the worst QC! I'm sorry El, but the poll is virtually worthless the way it is setup, in my opinion.

Agreed! Never owned a Medicom, Hard Hero, or CS Moore piece and have only owned 2 MR pieces with maybe 20 GG pieces with easily hundreds of Sideshow pieces. How can I vote fairly. I've had to return one of the MR items I had so that's a 50% failure rate so should I vote for them? Or should I vote for Sideshow who I've had the most problems with? Let's say something like 5 out of every 100 pieces for 5%.

 

[Darklord Dave]

And to backtrack a bit - the poll can be valuable for examining the PERCEIVED QC issues. If you only have one item from each of the companies, but the SSC one is the only one that had a problem, your perception is that SSC has the worst QC. Perception isn't quantifiable or objective, but does have some value in how a company may strategize it's marketing. So perhaps that lends some credence to the poll.

 

[Bonehead15]

Instead of comparing SS to other companies, which some consider unfair. I will compare my SS purchases from 3-5 years ago, to my purchases over the last couple of years. During ther boom days of LOTR I purchased well over 100 statues and busts and I can honestly say that I had QC problems with 5-10% of those items, and I'm not including breakage which I don't think SS can be blamed for. I'm strickly talking about sloppy paint app. and statue pieces not fitting together properly.
Over the last couple of years, ... I can safely say I have had QC problems 25-30% of the time and in my opinion that is a huge increase.
Whereas several years ago I would open a statue and never give it a second thought, I now find myself practically holding my breath while inspecting a statue for the first time.

I agree 100%.

It seems that the QC has just "nose-dived" in the last few years.

I never really had any problems with any SS pieces 5 years ago, but now it seems that at least 40-30% of my purchases have QC problems. That's not including damage caused by shipping.

I'm not a Sideshow hater but Sideshow really needs to fix their QC problems cause it is very sub par. I do believe that it isn't intentional and it's an overseas problem but ignoring it isn't going to fix it.

 

[TOE]

They are doing their best to improve their QC.

Here are some improvements that I have noticed:

12 inch packaging - no more silly bubble wraps. Instead they were replaced with foam board.

Large packages - stickers that states if any sign of breakage please call 1-800 #.

Choice of FedEx vs UPS

Factory paints, there isn't much they can do. That is the painters to be blamed overseas.

 

[LOTRFan]

I sure wish that they would put the foam corners around all the PFs that ship out.

 

[El Roranous]

I sure wish that they would put the foam corners around all the PFs that ship out.

WORD!

 

[Bonehead15]

They are doing their best to improve their QC.

Here are some improvements that I have noticed:

12 inch packaging - no more silly bubble wraps. Instead they were replaced with foam board.

Large packages - stickers that states if any sign of breakage please call 1-800 #.

Choice of FedEx vs UPS

Those aren't QC issues IMO. Those are shipping problems.

I'm talking about the quality of the products themselves.

Factory paints, there isn't much they can do. That is the painters to be blamed overseas.

So Sideshow is off the hook cause their production team makes subpar items?