With Sideshow coming full steam and with the market being in a dreadful state, Sideshow is atm SUFFOCATING competition.
Old collectors are out of space (Prime1 with its ridiculous bases can be blamed, lol), new collectors are out of money, shipping is nuts and now Sideshow is handling Ls, left and right.
Sideshow is relentless, punching and punching and punching.
She CORRECTLY does not care for ES atm, she simply wants to produce magnificent sculpts at affordable prices and concurrently to suffocate competition.
So what other companies can do?
XM. I don't know and i don't care. XM is the reason this hobby is here. The tactics it used, its PAST, the online army it created with pushers and hypers pushing its agenda and getting their "freebies", the ELEVATED prices is all XM's (and partly Prime1's) fault.
LBS. She tried to mimic XM's strategy building an online army but this tactic does not work anymore. Especially in today's market. She needs to hire someone with true art knowledge and to improve her sculpts. She also needs to STOP LISTENING to Tubers. It is a recipe for disaster making business decisions based on what Tubers say.
Tweeterhead. It is a lovely company but her 1/3 bust line cannot work apart from 4-5 characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Freeze). Its style also is OUTDATED, especially its DC line. Its MoU line is losing steam, the latest ES are lower and lower. Thundercats line cannot catch fire, it does not have a depth of deep-pocketed collectors to go over 3-4 characters deep.
PCS. Forps battles with Ant in my older thread were epic. The guy was constantly bragging about himself and he still does it. He goes on Tubers constantly bragging. My advice? You have what ? ~ 60 POs last 2q and this quarter? Having delivered what? 4 products ? Blade 1+2, Shredder and Storm? All plagued with QC issues? Stop the CONSTANT POs and deliver some product. It nearly has 1 or even 2POs per week and the product DELIVERED is minimal. Collectors need ACTUAL product to be delivered, not constant POs.
Infinity Studio. One of my 4 beloved companies. She should continue on her path, but it would be wise to reduce its LSB offerings to 3 per year or 1 per quarter till the market stabilizes.
Queen Studios. She gets pressed by Infinity Studios in the LSB segment and by JND in the 1/3 scale. Both Infinity and JND have better products, so Queen must try to impove.
ECC. Another one of my beloved companies. It should STOP producing DINO-CR.P for losers and return to its bread and butter. Monsters. Dinos are for a paleontological museum and can be produced even without a license.
JND. The COC...EST company ever with its product being mediocre at best. I own 5 JND products and only 1 is top notch. Harley has a 40% likeness, Wonder Woman classic outfit 55%, Batman 65% and Heard 65%. Wonder Woman 1984 is the best with 90% likeness and the SOLE one which is going to KEEP its value in the long run. Its hype is dying and ALL of JNDs can be bought for retail or cheaper with the exception of WW 1984 (gold edition) which is the sole "grail" of JND. I LOATHE the coc...ness of this company though. Especially since it does NOT deliver, no-matter-what her online army of pushers and hypers say. They even threat people expressing their opinions.
Blitzway. Our big hope to end JND coc..ness. The company Sideshow should go after in order to cooperate. Its sculpts are good and also affordable for average Joes. I HATE though the fact that they do not set an ES, allowing for massive recasting of its products. They should start NUMBERING their statues.
The situation is extremely difficult. The winter is here as i CORRECTLY predicted.
This along with
Sideshow "taking no prisoners" and suffocating its competition by vacuuming collector's money with her EXCELLENT new statues at AFFORDABLE prices, leads to a need for other companies to react.
Surely not by listening to Tubers though