What is XM Made to Order (MTO)?

NorthernLadMSP · 09-07-2018, 09:55 AM

Here's a really amazing article that XM just posted about the ins and outs of their new made-to-order system. It gives great info, including all the future max ES for all of their current licenses, and answers questions about pre-ordering XM pieces and how MTO works.

This is just one reason I love this company. They are up front and honest with their customers and provide responses to the issues collectors are concerned with.

Happy reading!

https://www.xm-studios.com/news/demy...ollectors.aspx

StatueDiva · 09-07-2018, 09:58 AM

Agree, great article and very informative. There are possibly more topics to come at the bottom.

For me, XM doesn't have products of my interest yet, but they are the best company around in consumer relations and transparency.

Subby1938 · 09-07-2018, 10:07 AM

Great read . With a company that pumps out such high end innovative statues I can see the MTO system paying off for collectors that end up with really rare pieces. It’s a great way to care about the market they share with other companies I believe others could learn from this too if they were not so busy trying to take all the money they can . Edition sizes of over 1500 are ridiculous and I’m def not buying them.

Keep on doing what you’re doing XM!

MPCanes · 09-07-2018, 10:59 AM

Great article, and I love the potential focus of future articles.

haljordan99 · 09-07-2018, 11:08 AM

Great read. I'm surprised a company actually acknowledged the over saturation of the market. XM hasn't really ever been part of that problem though as they usually keep low ES.

crimsinwing1989 · 09-07-2018, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

This is just one reason I love this company. They are up front and honest with their customers and provide responses to the issues collectors are concerned with.

Yeah, much respect to xm, funniest part is that they are answering questions about problems i don't recall being geared toward them and essentially trying to mitigate problems that they didn't escalate to begin with.

Indomitus · 09-07-2018, 12:52 PM

Classy move XM. Respect.

Armored_Berserk · 09-07-2018, 04:09 PM

Great explanation but I think that another main reason to make MTO is that the statue market is saturated. (Sideshow does the same with their "TBD"...)
While 5 years ago you had barely one major brand, now you have 4? 5? 6?
Like many I thought that concurrence was good, different choices and mastered prices...
I was so wrong. Indeed we have more choice but the prices are gone crazy these last years.
And on this point none of the brand is better than the other (maybe F4F is the only to maintain reasonable prices...).

SS prices have double... XM has a poor worlwide distribution so unless you live in Singapore it's overpriced. Prime 1 is...simply overpriced. Same for ECC.

Plus the fact that each brand announces dozen of statues, it's impossible to follow the rythm.
I don't know for you guys, maybe you have good position or else, but my salary didn't double in 5 years...and I still didn't win the lotery ^^

And the worst thing is that I can't sell old statues to buy new ones...because the second market is even worse (in my country or Europe.)
One example: I tried to sell XM Darkness at retail price. No contact. Almost one year later it's 350 euros below the price I paid for it...and still no contact!
Such a great statue and still...nothing.

It's not the only in this case since I sell a lot of statues (to follow a new passion...audiophile) and I barely have contact.

All this to say that MTO is great to avoid unsold stock (like XM seems to have with Kraven, Lizard and others) but others things to do is to slow down the announcement and lower prices.

As an old collector (almost 10 years) I feel frustrated by the market now...so much that sometimes I think of selling everything.

NorthernLadMSP · 09-07-2018, 04:13 PM

Sideshow's TBD is nothing like XM's MTO.

Sideshow keeps their statues up for often months and months at a time, resulting (usually) in much, much higher ES numbers. In addition, they release the same 20 characters again and again and again and again and again. Plus, they have no cap at all where as the highest XM has set is 1,200 for the 1/6 DC line, with other cap ES falling lower at 999 or 500.

Armored_Berserk · 09-07-2018, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Sideshow's TBD is nothing like XM's MTO.

Sideshow keeps their statues up for often months and months at a time, resulting (usually) in much, much higher ES numbers. In addition, they release the same 20 characters again and again and again and again and again. Plus, they have no cap at all where as the highest XM has set is 1,200 for the 1/6 DC line, with other cap ES falling lower at 999 or 500.

It's the only thing you retained? It's almost the same. They count the number of pre-orders, had more copies for future potential buyers and that's it, the ES is set.
The fact they do the same characters again and again, while it's something I hate about them, is not relevant in the MTO discussion and the fact that people don't buy statues like they did 5 years ago (don't remember The last time I saw a statue sold out in minutes...maybe Magneto XM?)