We at Cards Inc are thinking about not producing ANY promo cards for forthcoming releases and i want to gather some opinion before we make a decision.

1. Does it REALLY effect you buying a product seeing a promo ?


2. Are the promos really going to the intended collector, or onto ebay for people to make money ?


3. If onto EBAY does it matter ??


4. Would you rather have no promo and SLIGHTLY cheaper in cost product. Saving monies on promos could be ploughed back as to savings on product.


Please advise

Decision has yet to be made

Darren

To me,A promocard is like a chase card. If you don't have it - try and find it.It helps me purchase a box of cards and tells me what to expect in the box.It is nice to collect these cards and it is like a mini-poster of the set.

I collect promos as a part of my set. To me, there's no way I could feel like I had a master set without them. But a promo card alone has never made me purchase a set. As said in earlier posts, it's kinda like another level of chase card to me, I suppose.

-angelchick182
"Could it possibly get uglier? I used to be a highly respected Watcher, and now I'm a wounded dwarf with the mystical strength of a doily." -Giles, from the BtVS episode "Chosen"

HI Darren
To your questions

1. Does it REALLY effect you buying a product seeing a promo ?

MY ANSWER; YES / So I know what the cards look like and what is in the set.

2. Are the promos really going to the intended collector, or onto ebay for people to make money ?

MY ANSWER; SOMETIMES / I SAVE THEM AND TRADE THEM WITH OTHER PEOPLE / SOME PEOPLE SELL THEM /
TO ME THERE ONLY WORTH THE PIZZA BOX CARDBOARD THERE PRINTED ON

3. If onto EBAY does it matter ??

MY ANSWER: I WILL BUY ON EBAY IF THERE FOR ONLY A FEW CENTS EACH

4. Would you rather have no promo and SLIGHTLY cheaper in cost product. Saving monies on promos could be ploughed back as to savings on product.

MY ANSWER: IF I CAN NOT SEE THE PRODUCT I WILL NOT BUY IT / ALSO THIS I GOT TO SEE CARDS BEING CHEEPER BECAUSE THERE IS NO PROMO CARD FOR THE SET (LOL)

Promo's are guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud.... hm hm hm !!!! YEah!!!!!

RupT

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.

Please remove the "_NO_SPAM" before emailing me, TA

quote:

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Originally posted by Darren:

1. Does it REALLY effect you buying a product seeing a promo ?

Definately, need to see what a potential set i may invest in will look like!!

2. Are the promos really going to the intended collector, or onto ebay for people to make money ?

Bit of both really...... but then dealers also sell promo cards onto collectors so money is being made somewhere along the line always.... not that its a bad thing, but even Cards inc sells it fair share of promos at premium collectors prices.

3. If onto EBAY does it matter ??

I will buy it on ebay if its cheap or if i really want it..... as promo are now almost an essential part of a master of mini master set.....

4. Would you rather have no promo and SLIGHTLY cheaper in cost product. Saving monies on promos could be ploughed back as to savings on product.

To be honest what is the average run of a general distribution promo in that axing a particular promo would actuall y kep the cost of the actual set down when it is released???

So answer to that is no i would raher not have a promo......

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RupT

Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.

Please remove the "_NO_SPAM" before emailing me, TA

I could never understand how card companies can afford to give thousands of promos away. It must increase the price of the set significantly. What if the card companies put the promo on their website and let the collectors download it and print it themselves. Do the same thing with the flyers. This way the price of the card sets and chase would go down and we could afford to buy more cards!
Beamer

Harris:

Pretty much what mtlhddoc2 said. I may post more about this later, but it's almost 3:30 a.m. here and it's past my bedtime.

-Bob-
--

"I'd take a bullet for safety."

I pretty much know the sets in which I might be interested, but I still want to see a sample of it before I plop down $50-$70 dollars a box!

I might know what sort of car I would like to drive, but I certainly wouldn't buy it without first taking a test drive!

Promos are necessary for non-sport trading cards. If manufacturers want to cut back on the number of promo cards per set, that's one thing. But to eliminate promo cards all together is a mistake.

I also collect comics. When I go into my local store, I'm able to flip through a book in order to decide if I want to buy it. If I can't do the same type of thing with a trading card set, I probably wouldn't buy it. I'm not going to risk that kind of money on something and then find out that I'm dissatisfied with it.

And that's my two-cents worth....

Kennywood

It's not so important who wins....Oh, what am I saying?? Of course it is!

Hi,

I have to agree with a little of everything that has been said as it's all relevant. I will add my two cents though:

1) As someone stated, will the consumer see the price difference if the free promos are elminated? I doubt it. So keep the promo.

2) As Lynne mentioned, promos are nice "tide me overs" -- so keep the promo. There are even times when only a promo(s) was produced (Prisoner set by Cornerstone) -- so in that case it's a nice "what might have been".

3) There have been cases where I've received a promo and thought to buy the set -- in some cases, the set never materialized, but again at least some kind of cards were produced. So keep the promo.

As for promos ending up on eBay, et al. -- what's the difference? Plenty of products end up on there -- why does it matter if a free card does? I've seen a collector send in for all the free Inkworks / Rittenhouse cards and then sell them on eBay -- if he wants to do that, so be it. There are people who sell DVDs [on eBay] for higher than you can buy them online. So, there are plenty of examples of people being unscrupolous. There are also cases where you might want to buy a preview set on eBay vs. buy it directly from Cards,Inc. -- for example, you might not have a credit card. Or you don't want to use your card over the Net, etc. Some people are like that and if they live in the US, they might wait until a US dealer has it on eBay. Again, nothing wrong with that.

Also -- if I get a free promo card and sell it for $2.00 on eBay -- is that a living? I mean, how many (free) promo cards would I have to sell to make a living? Hundreds a week -- and there just aren't that many! So let's not worry about the person selling on eBay.

Let's work on making the promos widely available and for free/low cost (SASE).

It would be nice if the promo cards were available for free on the Cards, Inc. Web site like they are on Inkworks or Rittenhouse, but being in the US, I'm sure the postage would eat up a good portion of the cost (for me to get the card).

OK -- with all that being said (ie, keep the darn promos! , if Cards, Inc. decides that their efforts are better put toward making quality card sets and if designing/distributing promos takes too much away from making an overall quality set then I would say -- "dump the promos".

I really want quality sets above all else -- if dumping promo card production, sell sheet production, etc. is the way to ensure that quality, then I say eliminate the extraneous material and concentrate on the set at hand (and lower the prices, ;-).

BTW -- while I have Cards, Inc. ear -- in some cases, I think you blew it with the promo cards -- you could have inserted them with the UFO DVDs being sold, the Space:1999 DVDs being sold (though the initial DVDs were sold last year -- there were still some new sets coming out in the US this year). The Prisoner would have been another series along with Capt Scarlet. All of those would have been a neat "cross sell" to include a free promo card in. Oh well.

And -- as for the "preview sets" -- those are nice, but I'd much rather have one free promo card or no promo cards at all than a Preview Set. But that's my 2 cents.

the public has ruled, we have now decided to keep the promos and distribute them with more ways than just to dealers. i will keep you all posted but you have won !!!!!

plus everyone else in the office here telling me i was nuts even to raise the point

thanks for all of your points, my replies may be samll, but i do read this everyday and think that this is a fantastic site for garnering opinions...

Darren,

You are a gentleman and a scholar
I find it quite amazing that you take time from what I am sure is a busy schedule to garner our opinion on the subject. This hobby never ceases to amaze me. Real people from all over the globe and from all walks of life converge on a tiny message board to discuss the decisions of international corporations and the heads of these corporations listen to our opinions! WOW

Thanks Darren

Dan

http:\\mtlhddoc2.8m.com

Darren,

I too would like thank you for listening to our input. Knowing that our opinions matter is both heart warming and greatly appreciated.

As for your co-workers who thought you were nuts to even ask, just ask them to speculate what the reaction might have been had your company simply eliminated all promo cards without warning! I'm not saying we would have stormed the castle with torches and pitchforks, but it might've come pretty close!

Thanks again for allowing us to have a say in the matter.

Kennywood

It's not so important who wins....Oh, what am I saying?? Of course it is!

Darren - a nice bloke!
It's interesting how influential this board is becoming - Inkworks, Cards Inc and Rittenhouse Archive (to name but a few) have all posted (or have been reported as reading) and all have respnded to comments and suggestions!
Now, if we can only get Topps onboard...
Au Res.,
Paul

Sometimes, one pack is not enough...

Promo's are a topic near and dear to my heart.

I have been collecting promos for about 14 years now.. Cards Inc deciding to not produce promos would of course have an impact on my collecting habits, especially with the UK exclusives.

I made the decision mnay moons ago to not purchase every card set that came out. I do buy boxes (as well as preview sets) now and then for topics that interest me. I also buy dumped boxes when I can find them. I concentrate on promos as I said earlier.

Promos generally do not impact my purchasing decision when it comes to regular card sets.
I usually know in advance if a card set will interest me or not.

As for Ebay. I do not see anything wrong with selling a promo. No one is going to get rich selling them as was mentioned in a previous post.
I do however get mad when a dealer (or a collector) picks up a stack of promo cards at a show such as I have seen at the last 2 Philly shows that I have gone to. You know those are probably heading for Ebay.

Cards, Inc. - Please keep promo cards around. They do have their place, to promote your product, and of course, in producing a collectible item.

Have a happy and safe 4th!

Mike.

Don't think downloadable promos, even if they could be of better quality, actually serve the purpose of promo cards...The manufacturers could simply post a few pictures from an upcoming card series on their website and those of us online could get a sneek preview with downloading anything (which some of them do now).

But what about folks who are not online?
Or who are, but who don't care to spend 1/4 of their life surfing the internet to find out what's going on, everywhere?

What about folks who aren't aware of an upcoming series? What about folks who rely on shows and stop at tables and get handed promo cards, or pick up a sell sheet to get a sense/feel for an upcoming product and talk to dealers about some of the finer details and pricing...and get interested in something new because of that?

What about NSU...how would folks feel about there being no promo cards enclosed with the magazine?

What about folks who find a promo card in an unlikely place, like a noncard magazine, or Wizard...folks who may not be collectors YET, but who get drawn to the hobby because of coming across a promo card in something they usually read?

I think 'in hand' promo cards can serve a terrific purpose, multiple purposes. To expand the hobby base..to increase an individual manufacturers market share, to keep those of us who are antsy about an upcoming product temporarily happy, to introduce card collectors to new magazines they might not otherwise read,
to get magazine readers introduced to a hobby they might know little about, to create some interest in a new series that many of us might otherwise pass up...Website promos (ones that get mailed out to requesters) drive traffic to a manufacturers website...keeping interest heated up...

Promo cards are advertising....and they work..

I don't think that a card that is downloaded and printed on my printer would quite have the quality of one printed by a professional printing company. Besides, card stock doesn't work very well in an average computer printer.

But let's all be honest about one thing here...does anyone really believe that any company would pass along the cost savings by lowering prices?? Maybe I'm cynical, but I highly doubt that companies are going to do that.

Kennywood

It's not so important who wins....Oh, what am I saying?? Of course it is!

I guess I'm in the minority here but...

Promos do influence me. I wasn't going to buy the new James Bond cards but I really liked how the promo looked and now I'm going to buy some of the cards. All because I really liked the promo. I don't know, maybe I'm a sucker but I like 'dem promos.

Perhaps the answer is to limit the number of promos produced. Keep the number of different ones IE- 2 instead of 4, 6, 8, whatever...as well as a somewhat limited print run. The idea of targeting realease is a good one, too. We all know the best release is through magazines, shows...there are some good suggestions posted so far here too. I happen to know there are lots of Star Trek fans who are big into gaming, but don't have a clue about cards, for example. The internet could be a good way to advertise (yeah- we all hate ads LOL), I know- off track, but it does the same function. Same rules apply for targeting, if you want to spend smart.

Living the thrill of the chase

I've actually purchased a few sets that I did not intend to buy after receiving one or more of the promo cards for the set. On the other hand, I have also decided not to purchase any of the cards after getting a glimpse of a promo from other certain sets (all of which will remain anonymous). Additionally, I also tend to think of the promo(s) as part of the complete set and have been known to get a few off of the internet. Personally, I believe that promo cards enhance most sets and hope that they are continued to be produced.