Finally, the Transformers: The Last Knight toys have arrived to Sri Lanka but with a minor change.
For many years since the 80s, Funskool was the sole distributor of Transformers (and other Hasbro products) to the South-East Asian (SEA) countries. Often there had been rare variants as well. Hence the term ‘Funskool Variant‘. This time however, not only the regular Funskool logo was missing from the packaging but a new sticker with the name ‘Hasbro India‘ has been spotted.
Obviously as others around the world, a price jump is noted. While Age Of Extiction Deluxes went for Rs. 3,999/- (approx. US$ 27), Titans Return and Robots In Disguise figures are listed at Rs. 4,999/- (approx. US$ 34). Transformers: The Last Knight Deluxe Class figures are listed at a whopping Rs. 5,999/- which is the exact equivalent of US$ 40. The price is more than twice of what is sold in the United States.
The retailers declined to comment on the price point of upcoming Voyager Class figures.
Gunmaster G9
Yeah man, Deluxe Barricade looks so good but it's just not worth it, I mean this is South Asia we don't have that much of disposable income. Thanks capitalism(evil) and DAMN ! they are so expensive in Sri Lanka, America is looting ur island but good times will come my friend when we remove our corrupt politicians and this region becomes the most powerful and prosperous as it was destined to be
SilverOptimus
I'm from your neighboring country of Sri Lanka. Our distributor was Funskool India and now Hasbro India. Indeed, indeed; even our prices are close to twice of the price of AOE figures. I picked up Barricade and immediately placed him back after seeing the price.
Gunmaster G9
What's with the price hike ? In India Deluxe class have an MRP of Rs.(₹) 1699 or $26 and Rs.2499 or $38 for voyager. This is double the price I paid for AOE figures. Here's a pic of my deluxe Lockdown's price .
View attachment 27726241
SirToys
Here's my China retail department store shelf pics.
Prime and Grimlock retail for $43 usd and BB, Barricade and the 2 steps go for $29 usd each in China.
Pavol Palat
And I thought Slovakia with the 31,50 eur deluxes and 44 eur voyagers had bad prices.
Anyway, I'm not buying any overpriced TLK stuff locally, and I am a plastic crack addict (what will normal parents think of the 50% price jump?). I'll wait for sales or let couple years pass until all no longer sellable figures from other parts of the world get dumped here. CW deluxes took two years arrive…
Black Convoy
Still waiting to confirm crazy prices in Peru, fortunately we usually have crazy discounts.
[Wing_Saber-X]
Same in Malaysia. Price hikes of usd3 per year on average across all size classes.
catz
About the same in Indonesia.
Deluxe price is around 500.000 rupiah (37 usd)
Voyager price is around 800.000 rupiah (60usd)
SPLIT LIP
I have a theory on that, but it's literally just a theory, but I think the reason prices stagnated for so long was because they pre-emptively rose prices during CW and TR, which were obviously trying to keep costs down while producing the same number of characters needed. But now they have to raise prices because the toys are more intricate, yet profits need to still go up.
I mean, the Last Knight figures are hardly mini MPs, but they are more akin to DOTM quality than AOE. If "inflation" as it pertains here is a steadily increasing factor for profit margins, then Hasbro can never fall behind that margin, but it's also impractical to simply be raising prices by a few dollars every wave, so instead the price hikes are less frequent but greater each time. Then there's also the fact that technically these are the retailers prices. The suggested MSRP is probably as low as they can go, but overseas retailers can probably Jack it up to whatever they want.
The rather dramatic increase in price compared to yester years is likely Hasbro/retailers' attempts to ensure a level of stability for as long as they can, getting ahead of the game so to speak. But that's just my theory. Personally, I'm just waiting for a sale.
TCJJ
I've never actually heard of such variants. Guess I'll have to look into that now. Interesting.
We had a price hike here too. Not that high, thankfully – that's absurd. Ours is NZ$40 (up from NZ$35, though most retailers have been pushing NZ$37-NZ$38 for some time now), which currently is about US$25 (usually higher, but the New Zealand dollar is in the pits right now).
I think it's going to be very off-putting to a lot of people, parents especially, with the much higher prices on Transformers toys now. I'm not even sure what the price hike is for. Inflation has been almost stagnant for the longest time now and so they're increasing prices on their products now? That's a weird decision. I'd love to know exactly why they made the change.
It's now cheaper than ever for me to just import Transformers from Japan, even after shipping, and it won't be long before it's about the same price for US citizens to import Japanese figures, shipping excluded (unless you bulk buy). A lot of stores over here often put them on sale now for prices closer to the early-to-mid 2000s prices, and they still don't seem to sell a ton.
Most kids I've seen looking at Transformers either opt to buy something cheaper that isn't a Transformers product or they make sure they buy the Deluxes – rarely more, and rarely the one-steps or stuff like that. Which isn't to say that my anecdotal evidence means a lot, but we always have a lot of early waves shelf-warming over here and bare-minimum of anything good.
I suppose my point in all of this rambling is that I'm worried for the Transformers brand, at least outside of the US. The movies are still doing well enough. Few people over here seem to care about the recent cartoons, though Prime got almost a cult following towards the end of it. The toy industry is shrinking, sure, but Hasbro is still on top and doing better than ever. But despite just having anecdotal evidence and despite Hasbro's financials suggesting otherwise, I can't shake the feeling that the brand is dying. I hope I'm just being paranoid and that it's just as bad over here as it has always been, but seeing things like Combiner Force and yet another price hike… I don't know what to think.
Red Goblin
Now I'm scared of the prices over here. Toys are yet to be spotted.
SilverOptimus
News Post: Transformers: The Last Knight Deluxe Class Wave 1 Found In Sri Lanka