The United States suggested retail prices (MSRPs if you’re nasty) have long been the envy of collectors in the UK and Canada. When a preorder drops on Hasbro Pulse or Amazon, it’s not uncommon for there to be a markup for our FRIENDS across The Pond and to the North. Unfortunately, we in the “greatest country on earth” are about to get a taste of our own medicine.
Price increases on figures are not uncommon. It’s usually due to manufacturing costs or inflation. Now, we can add tariffs to the list.
This isn’t a political issue. It’s a business issue being impacted by a bad politician and an even worse businessman. I’m not an economist, but I know enough to listen to experts, and most of them will tell you that consumers will share in the burden of offsetting those costs. 80% of U.S. toys originate in China, so if you’re a collector, you’re about to start paying more for the things you love. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that price increases were not what most Americans thought they were getting when they voted to make America great again.
Tariffs are paid by the companies importing the products at the time they enter the country. This means if you have preorders that haven’t shipped to the states yet, the tariffs haven’t been paid. If you preordered a figure at $24.99, that price was set based on tariff policies at that time. They didn’t know we’d be in the midst of a full blown trade war. Now that there will be additional costs associated with that $24.99 figure, who do you think should have to pay for it?
Who do you think will pay for it?
While Hasbro and Mattel might be able to weather this storm, small businesses are going to be the one’s most negatively impacted by the erratic implementation of these tariffs. Joel Boblit, President of BigBadToyStore sent an email to customers to provide transparency around upcoming price increases:
This unfortunately is going to result in retail price increases on products impacted by the tariffs, including new and open pre-orders. We are working hard to minimize these increases through discussions with our vendors, deploying the most efficient importing processes, and ultimately sharing directly in the financial pain. I’m heartbroken to have to do this, and I hate this tariff situation: it is ridiculous, poorly thought out, poorly implemented, cruel and punishing to everyone involved in affected countries and at every level of our industry.
Fresh Monkey Fiction was forced to cancel their Kickstarter for Wave 2 of Longbox Heroes:
This means a single figure would now cost roughly $40 for Kickstarter backers once all tariff and shipping & handling fees are factored in.
We don’t believe this is a fair price for the type of figure we are producing, and we know many of you would share our concerns. Given these circumstances, we have made the incredibly tough decision to cancel the Kickstarter campaign.
Four Horsemen Studios just fully funded their Beyithirr dragon campaign. In the closing days, they posted a message on the tariff situation:
We’ve had a number of people message us regarding the Beyithirr dragon that is up for preorder now and the current situation happening with tariffs on products made in China, which is where all of our Legions figures are produced.
The situation with tariffs is changing rapidly, and every day there seems to be new information about what is happening. The Beyithirr dragon is not scheduled to ship until later in 2026. With the dynamic nature of this situation, it’s anyone’s guess what the tariffs will be at that time, if any at all. What we can tell you is that we have no intentions of charging customers additional fees once these items are produced and ready to ship.
I’ve sang the praises of Four Horsemen Studios for years. I’ve met a lot of the employees at conventions. They’re great people. I believe them when they say they have no intentions of charging customers additional fees. So should a company that I love and support have to take a significant financial hit in an effort to provide good customer service?
McFarlane Toys recently announced their figures would be going up 20% due to tariffs. To Todd’s credit, he’s held the line longer than any of the other major manufacturers. Hasbro’s CEO foreshadowed price increases are on the horizon. Not interested in price increases? Maybe you’d prefer Mattel’s approach of laying off 35% of their non-manufacturing workforce with more on the way. Whatever the approach, these companies will have to offset the costs of those tariffs.
Hasbro sold nearly 17,000 Ecto 1 HasLabs. Do you really think that they’re going to eat the cost of importing 17,000 Ectos when they’re paying an additional 120% in tariffs? Should they have to?
Should you have to?
I know we never want to talk politics, but the reality of the situation is… a politician, or at least someone that plays one on tv did this. I just wanted to talk about toys this week, but politics found their way into my toy column. I didn’t ask for this.
None of us asked for this.
