How does a retailer decide whether or not to support a brand or not? First thing is sales history. Did this title perform last year? Second thing is calendar releases. How many products will it be competing with. Each retailer only has so many dollars coming to the rack each day and week for specific things. So if I have 4 NFL titles released that week...I don't do 4 times as much as I would have if I only had one. So we try and balance out the schedule. Unfortunately no body wants to be last to market so everyone front loads calendars. Also they look at quarterly results to a degree. Third thing then would be the actual product configuration (how good do we think this product will be). If the third thing is so good then the other two don't matter as much.
So where am I going with this....how do we get all these brands out and not compromise any of them. Simple we have the leagues start dictating release schedules. Can you imagine how much better products will be if revenue determined your release date? If you want to be first to market and keep that position you had better earn it. Don't get me wrong here, it would not be like months apart. Just a week or two. This would help everyone in the industry. Cash flow would be much better because your not having all the peaks and valleys.
It would also bring more consistency to the hobby because you would not have the turn over in brands like we do today. Granted a few new ones each year are fun but lets not get out whack like we have been.
On a side note...I apologize for the lack of comments available. I am learning this BLOG thing and had the improper settings to allow better feed back.
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We were all new sometime or another. Just keep at it because I find lots of the stuff over here extremely interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting to know about the trading card business I didn't know about before and I hope you'll continue to write.
Thanks,
sooz
I'll tell you what would be sweet....go back to a series-based product like in the 1952-1973 timeframe. how about 5 or 6 series of 110 cards each? At least for the flagship product...that keeps interest in the flagship throughout the season. space out their release dates 1 month apart and have special chase cards or short prints within each series. this approach replaces series 1, 2 and update with 5 or 6 total. put the update content in the last "series".
ReplyDeleteI'm an old-school collector and really love the heritage cards, so i know my view is biased.
And i still like chromes and refractors and the newer technology too, but game used and autos are not so much for me so ignore my opinions on those.