Wednesday 24 October 2007

How YOD spent the day.

YOD wasted the day bidding for YODs on ebay. But all the bids have been cancelled. They did not trust the bids of the_amos_equalizer. Shame on the naughty re-sellers and their friends.

YOD thanks them for their nasty messages. I promised to post the best ones on YOD's behalf. This one was a particular favourite.

Dear the_amos_equalizer,

I don't know who you are but if you are a member of the "amos crew" I just want to tell you that YOU are first responsible of this business ! Why make Yod so limited & not 1000 of each color so everyone can have one at reasonnable price ? Why say "be on our website at 1 pm, we won't have enough for all". YOU first are trying to make always more money with toys buy selling limited toys to stupid addicts & this is not surprising a few pple are trying to get their part of the business. That's not really fair-play...

Oh & one more thing : YOD SUCKS, it's no more about artistic creation, it's just about making money with an ugly crappy toy & the comic "Mr Vortigern's etc" SUCKS too : it's just a poor story, with poor drawings & backgrounds colored with Photoshop & full of useless characters just here to sell more toys ! Who do you think you are Mr Jarvis ? The new Hergé ? Lemuel & Samuel are Dupont & Dupond ? Haha let me laugh you're just an opportunist as those sellers.

Cheers.
lagokinetics

And here is my response on behalf of all of us at Amos. I have made this public as the sender hid behind an ebay moniker!

Dear Mr/Ms lagokinetics,

Produce thousands of figures, in every colour? And how do we do this? Call Hasbro to help us?!? Clearly you have no idea about running a small independent company. We try and earn a living doing something we like. We can not afford to make thousands of one product. How do we finance and distribute that? We do what we can and try to strike a balance. Now we try to sell product ourselves (independently) so we make a reasonable profit within safe parameters. So we would be fools not to tell people when our products go on sale (that is why we give a time for our products going live on the website!).

We tried to distribute the YODs to those that were really interested in the product. We feel aggrieved that there are spivs out there that want to sell our product at a far larger profit than we can make ourselves. They do nothing to earn the premium other than prey on a difficult situation. We can understand some collectors re-selling to fund their collections. But there is no excuse for the greedy profiteering happening at present! Speculative buying is wrong. Those that do, simply leech off a small independent culture, giving nothing back!

But lagokinetics my friend, clearly you have a bigger issue than the fact our products are limited. Do I detect a hint of artistic rivalry/jealousy? I can only assume that you have managed to achieve far more with your own work than we have with our limited output. Although if your artistic prowess is as proficient as your business accumen then I could be wrong!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

He has a point about the limited output.. take the proceeds of YOD sale 1 and remanufacture another 1000 each for YOD sale 2.

Putting your efforts in another batch rather than making postings on eBay has to be better to everyone who missed out.

russell said...

Thank you for you time management advice. Duly noted.

The proceeds from the sales of YOD would not pay for a third of such a production run. Amos receives a small share of the retail sales of each figure. We do not have the capacity or infrastructure to produce that many figures and I very much doubt we could sell them. The resources required would destroy other projects we are working on. From our point of view there is good reason for limiting output. And NOT one of the reasons is to cause a situation like the one we have now, with a high demand and a lack of product.

One thing is for sure. Speculative buying does not help things in any way. It merely hinders those that really want to own the figure!

Joe Decie said...

For me, part of the enjoyment of collecting plastic toys is that they are limited runs. OK I missed out on a YOD I'm disappointed but that should make those who did get one feel all the more lucky and enjoy that they are part of a privileged group. I think if I could get these toys in Woolworth's they would loose some of their appeal. And although I don't have the disposable income to justify expensive items it is fun to have a collection that includes rare or limited pieces, if only to be the envy of your friends.

Those who tout on Ebay are a real pain as they are buying up toys, tickets etc. purely for profit and stopping genuine fans get a fair price. But a friend of mine, who I argue with constantly about this, says that he has every right to try and buy Madonna or Zep tickets just like real fans. I don't know how he sleeps at night with his profiteering. The_amos_equalizer may not stop the re-sellers but at least it means they don't get an easy ride. All power to the_amos_equalizer!

stephen said...

Poor lagoskinetics! I feel your pain brother and I could probably be more bothered if I wasn't currently caressing YOD's smooth round body. Is that too X-rated for the Amos blog? Sorry, Russell! I would like more Amos Equaliser stories though. It certainly brightened my Friday afternoon.

toomuchhype said...

This has to be perhaps the most pretentious and most anal act that I have witnessed.

I am a huge fan of Amos and have collected numerous James Jarvis releases. It pains me to hear that Amos are actually employing someone to trawl through Ebay - price hiking Amos Yods. Not only is this against Ebays rules of conduct, but have you guys got nothing better to do with your time? Has the fame and fortune gone to your smoothly rounded heads?

I find it amazing that you feel that your products should not be resold. Should we stop people selling in Christies?

As a collector part of the fun is finding the item that you want be it on Ebay. The price that you wish to pay is at your own discretion.

You my friend need a reality check.

russell said...

Sorry you disapprove, Toomuchhype. But first of all you have to realise that this was a genuine and spontaneous response to a frustrating situation. When people buy directly from us to instantly re-sell at a huge profit they are effectively taking advantage of a difficult situation and acting the same as ticket touts (scalping etc). You have no idea how many people email us and ask if there is a way to get some of the scarcer figures. It is very frustrating when the product has just been released and there is still a bunch of them available through ebay etc at over inflated prices. The way some resellers acted over YOD is shameful and not in the spirit of the way in which we work. If they are toy collectors then I despair! The price some people can AFFORD to pay is certainly not at their discretion. And we definitely have better things to do with our time than help make unearned profit for undeserving spivs!

I don't mean to be rude or cause offense but this is my reality...

treeson said...

Hey there,

late comment but I think Lagokinetics had more than a point...

1st I wanna tell I'm a JJ fan since the very beginning : I've got near me a red Martin & the Holmes "we're all going to die" poster.

- You say Lagokinetics hid behind an avatar, but you were doing the same while bidding on Yods, & the only way to tell what he was thinking was to send you a message via Ebay. Moreover you answer him via this blog but there's not many chances he saw that...so no chance for him to discuss more...did you sent him a message ?

- You're not Hasbro & can't afford to produce many toys but in just a few monthes you've launched many different VM characters & they were not very limited : Harvey, Jubs, Mr V x2, the Witch doctor, Wiggs, Rusty & Dworkin, Mr Waverley, Mr Spoons, the Troll...how many toys does it make ?
You shouldn't be surprised about the Ebay biz when creating a buzz by launching very limited toys...this is just the market as it is, maybe you should remind all artist can't be as successfull as you & others (Obey, Kaws etc) are & you can't win from both side...well yes you did by selling on Ebay to the most offering as "FatKontrolla" !!!

3.James your drawings are so great...I've been disapointed too by the computerized comic...

4.£34 a T-shirt !!!! Who do you think your customers are ? Traders ?

Anyway I'm still a fan/art collector & I'll be there to buy on Amos store or on Ebay things I like...& I can afford !

Best regards,

Alfred.(this name or my Ebay nickname doesn't tell you who I'm anyway :-)