As far as dealers. . .

It kinda goes back to my previous question -- who is buying this stuff? If a dealer thinks they could put this on a table for $75 a box and sell maybe they put a bid in at $50. Who knows if that gets accepted. Maybe it sell for $2000 a box to speculator bros.

I personally am ok with the direct to consumer model -- dealers can still find their niche by buying collections, selling on commission, breaking boxes, etc. I have no idea what percentage of business is sealed boxes for a dealer so maybe that isn't viable.

In a Blowout post a (former?) Cryptozoic employee made it sound like a significant reason to sell to a wholesaler is to basically shift the risk to the wholesaler. Clearly Zero can afford to manage their own risk.

The other main reason cited for a wholesaler is logistics, but many small companies manage their own shipping, it's certainly doable -- or a drop shipper could be used.

It seems to me that dealers would skip this one. A dealer wants to know months ahead of time what you get in a box and a case and multiple cases and the wholesale prices. If there's no price structure like that, a dealer might pass right there and especially if the most famous guy from the show, Johnny Knoxville, isn't among the signers.

The goal of a manufacturer is to sell out of product. It's easier to sell 10 10-box cases to one dealer and give him a break on the price than sell 100 boxes to 100 different people at full price. It's less time/hassle dealing with selling and shipping. Yeah, let the dealers be the ones to handle individual sales and hold any unsold product.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
It seems to me that dealers would skip this one. A dealer wants to know months ahead of time what you get in a box and a case and multiple cases and the wholesale prices. If there's no price structure like that, a dealer might pass right there and especially if the most famous guy from the show, Johnny Knoxville, isn't among the signers.

Great point about the lead time -- FYI Knoxville is on the autograph list.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
It's easier to sell 10 10-box cases to one dealer and give him a break on the price than sell 100 boxes to 100 different people at full price.

This is 100% true, but. . .

In the traditional distribution model the manufacturer is selling by the pallet to a wholesaler who is marking the product up when selling cases (or boxes) to a dealer who is marking the product up. I have no idea what the margins in this industry are, but I'd imagine an average box is marked up ~50% between what the manufacturer gets and what the collector pays.

That's money left on the table for the manufacturer, and extra money paid by collectors.

If I walk into a card store and buy a box -- I get it. I am paying for that convenience of having the cards locally and having someone stock them, etc. . . but if I'm having product shipped to me I'm not seeing any additional benefit than if an manufacturer shipped to me. Of course there is a lot of nuance -- old stock, etc -- in this case I'm just talking about new product at launch.

Also -- Zero will sell many of these boxes in cases through the auction. Any buyer who wins 8 boxes will be shipped a sealed case. They released the data on the VF release and sold 800 boxes to 330 unique buyers (https://zerocool.com/veefriends-auction-recap). This will obviously be more shipments with 9500 boxes, but I still don't think we'll see anywhere near 9500 unique buyers.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
What about dealer interests?

Yup! Been wondering about this as well. Even if Fanatics can't cant buy every card company can they pull enough from the local card store to shut em down? Are we seeing the future Amazon of trading cards?

Apparently Fanatics is packing tons of money and connections, plus all these partnerships in development. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I don't expect them to end hobby stores, because the ones left are still open just because they do have what customers want, including the whole gaming card industry and comics and whatever other collectible merchandise they sell. The store owners could also join in the auctions themselves, if it came to it. Although sales may go down if their customers are also buying direct from Fanatics.

It will definitely hurt those big distributors and middlemen that funnel shipments to the smaller guys and will no longer be needed if Fanatic products can be bought without them in the loop. It may depress internet box sales for the same reason.

The really big question is how Fanatics decides to handle their sports cards, over which they practically have a monopoly now. So far the majority opinion seems to be that the tactics of Zerocool is for these fringe "culture" titles and sports cards won't change much from the Topps Baseball card model. Also franchise non-sport like the Star Wars universe, Disney and GPK will stay the same. I don't think so. Why should they?

It's already pretty obvious with these radical ideas and tie-in talk that Fanatics is all about doing anything for the money or long term value, whichever sounds better. Retail cards are already having problems in the big box stores like Target and Walmart. Who knows how much retail Fanatics wants to do when they are pushing "investor" cards. Perhaps its to early this year to change a lot and Topps already had commitments, but going forward I think anything is possible and everything will be tried.

What makes the most money for Fanatics is what will win. Card collectors are going to have to decide what is and what isn't their hobby.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
It's already pretty obvious with these radical ideas and tie-in talk that Fanatics is all about doing anything for the money or long term value, whichever sounds better.

These first two releases feel very short-sighted. If there's a long-term play here I don't see it yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
It's already pretty obvious with these radical ideas and tie-in talk that Fanatics is all about doing anything for the money or long term value, whichever sounds better.

These first two releases feel very short-sighted. If there's a long-term play here I don't see it yet.

On a sensible level I don't disagree with you at all, but sense seems to have gone out the window with many things that have become commonplace in the card market now. I couldn't believe the prices quoted for Veefriends, but really is there any more long term value in Marvel PMGs? Some would say yes, but I would say if you want precious metals and long term value, opt for real Gold.

The Jacka$$ boxes will be very interesting when the final price is settled. This is a lot of production, and I'm looking at these cards, and I'm sorry but I'm seeing no better than an average product. There are even dud boxes. If it would normally retail at $75, than the wholesale should be around $50, my opinion alone. If they go into 3 figures with the auction, as some are predicting, that would be huge.

So we'll see just how sensible this one goes.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
It's already pretty obvious with these radical ideas and tie-in talk that Fanatics is all about doing anything for the money or long term value, whichever sounds better.

These first two releases feel very short-sighted. If there's a long-term play here I don't see it yet.

It is interesting that Zero keeps talking about cards as an investment. I can at least understand their angle with the VF release, but the Jacka$$ release . . . as an investment? I don't seven see the angle.

Add to that the production quality of the cards (breakers are reporting quite a bit of 'damage' on cards). . . doesn't seem like an investment.

As far as Zero though -- I think this is the long term play. Put as little effort/money into a product as possible and sell it as quickly as possible -- rinse, repeat.

The funny thing is that I think this model would work well if they appealed to entertainment card collectors. . . I think their focus on sports card collectors, speculators, influencers, etc is a big miss -- at least with a set like Jack@$$.

I could be wrong -- if people pay $100+ for these boxes they get what they deserve.'

To me this is a $40 a box product. . . 10 packs, no guaranteed hits. . . it's like a blaster with a 50/50 shot at an autograph -- it's kinda like a jumbo premium pack, really.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
It's already pretty obvious with these radical ideas and tie-in talk that Fanatics is all about doing anything for the money or long term value, whichever sounds better.

These first two releases feel very short-sighted. If there's a long-term play here I don't see it yet.

It is interesting that Zero keeps talking about cards as an investment. I can at least understand their angle with the VF release, but the Jacka$$ release . . . as an investment? I don't seven see the angle.

Add to that the production quality of the cards (breakers are reporting quite a bit of 'damage' on cards). . . doesn't seem like an investment.

As far as Zero though -- I think this is the long term play. Put as little effort/money into a product as possible and sell it as quickly as possible -- rinse, repeat.

The funny thing is that I think this model would work well if they appealed to entertainment card collectors. . . I think their focus on sports card collectors, speculators, influencers, etc is a big miss -- at least with a set like Jack@$$.

I could be wrong -- if people pay $100+ for these boxes they get what they deserve.'

To me this is a $40 a box product. . . 10 packs, no guaranteed hits. . . it's like a blaster with a 50/50 shot at an autograph -- it's kinda like a jumbo premium pack, really.

Agreed

I'm wondering what a license for Jacka$$ cards cost the company. It might have been relatively cheap or some kind of special deal was made (percentage of profits?).

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I'm wondering what a license for Jacka$$ cards cost the company. It might have been relatively cheap or some kind of special deal was made (percentage of profits?).

I would assume so, it only costs $10M to make the film. Knoxville is pretty good at squeezing every dollar he can from them. It really is a smart title for a card set. Can see it appealing to both sports and nonsport collectors. I don't believe there has been a set done on it before.

Closed at $101 a box.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
It really is a smart title for a card set. Can see it appealing to both sports and nonsport collectors. I don't believe there has been a set done on it before.

Were this released by just about any other company in any other way I'd probably participate. But even at the final cost of $101... I agree with webjon - $40 feels appropriate for the quality, box contents, and no guarantee of an autograph.

There is going to be a LOT of this product just sitting.

Based on who is posting about buying boxes on Blowout it seems like a lot of the buyers are not people who typically buy entertainment product.

Either these new buyers are going to create their own market for these buy random parallel cards for $$$ or these are going to sit.

I'm curious to see how the autographs sell. My gut is that only maybe 2 or 3 will cover the cost of a box -- but there are several people on the autograph list I am not familiar with.

That said I could be way off and sports card guys or speculators could push the prices up. Maybe a low numbered Tony Hawk will sell for $1000. . . I doubt it, but I've been wrong before.

Well there were people predicting the boxes would hit $250. I don't know what they thought they were looking at, but at least they were wrong.

Here's the thing though. The boxes are $101 AT COST. What this means is that if you are buying from anyone who bought from Zerocool, like dealers and eBay sellers, you as the consumer are paying more than the at cost price. How much more you are paying depends upon the profit margin the seller wants. They may be trying to peddle sealed boxes anywhere from $130 - $150 or higher.

The other alternative for first line bid winners, besides moving the sealed boxes, is to break those boxes. How many of the autograph hits, if they get boxes that even have autograph hits, are going to be worth $150? How many of the numbered cards are going to add up to a $150? Is this title so popular, or the hype so impressive to "investors", that demand for the cards will get them the $150 they want?

I don't know what others are seeing and I sure don't know what others will pay on the secondary market. All I know is that I'm looking at a card product that is at best average. Not premium, at best average, with some boxes without even a common autograph. To me, $75 at retail would be the most its worth as a sealed box. The price at cost is already 25% higher than it should be selling for, if you have a knowledgeable buyer.

And that to me is the reason why this stuff is being directed at sports card collectors, newbies to trading cards and "investor" types. Fanatics/Zerocool isn't making a mistake not to try to engage the non-sport card collector more. They know that people who are knowledgeable about entertainment cards aren't going to buy average cards for three times the price and still believe they have long term value.

And just to clarify, when I say $101 is AT COST, that is essentially the wholesale price here, and is AT COST to the first line buyer or dealer/seller. The manufacturer's AT COST price to make this product is probably less than 30% of that per box, and will depend in large part by how much the license cost. And the retail price would be what a card collector could expect to pay from that first line dealer/seller. The use of the Dutch Auction model is blurring cost, wholesale, retail and SRP info that were normal details and may serve to further confuse people.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

This blind dutch auction sales method is ripe for manipulation.

This auction resulted in $959k in sales.

9500 x $101 = $959,000.

If, by looking at the data, Zero realized they could have sold 8000 boxes at $125 they would have had a $41K additional in sales while reducing the print run by 15%.

Of course it's not quite that simple as each release is different, but you can be sure they are looking into things like that.

I am not sure what the buyers on this product are looking for. It doesn't seem like it will be possible to flip for a profit. . .

My prediction is that a lot of buyers are going to lose a lot of money on this and fewer buyers will turn out to similar sales in the future. One problem with Jacka$$ (and many entertainment releases) is that there isn't that big 'lottery ticket' hit to chase. Most of the buyers of this set will lose money, and those who make money won't make much.

The presale of Jacka$$ boxes just hit eBay.

I said sellers would look to jump to $150 per box to flip. You can double that and double it again for some. I truly find it unbelievable, if people are actually going to pay these prices for these cards. Talk about "jumping the shark", there are quality cards going begging and this will be on the Hot List?

Looking to make some sense out of it, don't bother. It's Bizarro World.

It's a funny thing and I think it does show what we all suspected here. On Blowout, posters are lamenting the fact that the Jacka$$ boxes went for ONLY $101 and they didn't get in because they believed it would be much higher.

Now in a way they are correct, because it's a good bet based on the few pre-sales up that when these boxes are sold on eBay, the asking price will be $225 and better. That's because the $101 was the wholesale and now sellers are adding their profits in. Ultimately how much gets bought and at what price remains to be seen, but sports card transactors seem comfortable that $101 a box is no big deal.

Non-sport card collectors however, at least those who have expressed an opinion so far, feel differently. I feel differently. This product should have wholesaled out for less than $50, because I don't believe it's worth more than $75 at retail, at most. Some have said its not even worth that.

Yet we may be looking at $200 and over and some buyers may think its still a good deal. They may be right if the autograph hits also sell way above their comparison value. Fanatics may feel that the Dutch Auction left too much money on the table, if flippers can multiply their investment right away.

So we have to see what the next stage of Jacka$$ cards brings, but I think it proves something already. We no longer know where the ceiling is. We can't tell if it's a bubble, let alone when a bubble will break. We can't tell the hype from the reality, because the hype becomes the reality, and that justifies even the nonsense. If you follow the hot treads, I have no idea where you will end up. Tycoon or pauper?

More so than ever, we have to know what we know, and stick to it.

Right, Fanatics might have expected a higher price but then they are probably making a profit at $101/box, and if it gets flippers to buy in now and they make some money too, they will have more people excited about the next product. Keep in mind that some dealers are happy to make just 25% on their money if they can make a sale with a phone call. Others push to make more like 40-50% on a quick sale.

The trick for Fanatics is to find the next affordable license that buyers are interested in. Of course, that's been the trick for every manufacturer for decades. What else would someone into Jacka$$ be interested in? Do they consider a skateboarding or extreme sports set or do something like Levi's 501 did last year which is make a deal with a mix of young celebrities who have decent followings and make a set out of that? Or can they squeeze another set out of Jacka$$?

I'm surprised to see box presales topping $200.

It seems like a lot of the buyers of this release are people looking to flip it.

I still feel that once boxes start getting cracked nearly all of them are going to be money losers.

As for the next set from Zero -- based on the cadence of the last 2 releases I wouldn't be surprised at all if they had it already produced.

Any body know what the top bid was it could of been anything.