"buying by the figure instead of packs" Topic

I want to purchase a spin caster and equipment so…
Would you be interested in a kickstarter that you could buy figures individually vs a pack of set figures.

I basically would do 3 US levels -- world wide would have different pledge levels with shipping built in to pledge – need to see when post office is adjusting rates and get some weights for each level to get a good solid price that I wont be out of pocket on,

25.00 you get 25 figures no additional shipping fee, no freebie stretch goal add on, no access to stretch goal add on items aka larger figures and vehicles

50.00 you get 50 figures no additional shipping fee, no freebie stretch goal add on, access to stretch goal add on items aka larger figures and vehicles

100.00 you get 100 figures no additional shipping fee, all freebie stretch goal add on 1st one will be 200 over funding amount and be 15 free figures, access to stretch goal add on items aka larger figures and vehicles

Risk – Time is main factor -- I would have to wait for money to hit my account and then pay for machine wait for it to get to me and then set it up and get it running, should something be off would have to deal with that.
-- back up is to use friends caster while issues worked out if any arise –
Also if I get too funded I am sure that will extend ship times but mainly if you do add on items. I will also fill smallest to largest orders.

Which Spin Caster are you going for?

A nice cheap one at $3,500 USD or the super deluxe multi-mould spinner at $35 USDk.

Might be interested in some figures, depends on what sales I have.

Regards

MMG

UK.

Won't you spend a lot of time melting down the least popular castings a lot because everyone will want the same ten guys? I suppose if you knew which were the popular ones in advance you could group them in sprues according to demand… Sorry, I'm kind of a negative nelly :/

Yeah, you can end up with really high costs because you are constantly spinning a mold for a few of the figures. For example, say you have 24 infantry in a mold and are selling by the figure. If only 6 of them are really popular you wear out the mold very fast but against much smaller sales. Plus your labor and utilities are now also spread over a much smaller base.

So instead of selling 30 packs of 8 for $150 USD you now sell essentially 30 packs of 2. Even if you charge more per figure, you are now spreading the same costs over perhaps $60 USD in sales.

Over time you'll be able to do molds based on sales, but there's a reason mini are sold by the pack especially for smaller sizes…

What figures, the ones you already have produced?

I personally don't mind buying a few extra figs to get that one I really want…pretty rare in 15mm, but it is nice to be able to pick singles, particularly for characters or special weapons/equipment.

Any chance to pick the brain of the guys at 15mm.co.uk? IIRC they offer just about everything as singles.

If I get your plan right, things should go this way:

1. Kickstarter campaign, people pledge for a given number of miniatures
2. End of the funding you get the money and order the equipment
3. You start the moulding and casting process

Waiting for the equipment in phase 2 should allow you to poll the pledgers for the exact miniatures they want so that you'll start phase 3 knowing exactly how many of each miniature you need and thus group them accordingly on moulds…

I might be missing something (I've no experience in the process what so ever) but that should allow you to avoid the problem described by NSA and Extra Crispy, shouldn't it?

Or you could group things by like type and sell an individual type, but not guarantee a specific figure i.e., you have six different Federation Troopers armed with laser rifles. The customer can buy one or they can buy 100, but what they get is the guys you grab from the bin and throw in the bag. You can also sell small (4-8) assorted figure packs.

IF you go with the sell of individual figures you might want to talk to the folks over at Ion Age and 15mm.co.uk they sell individual figures as well as their packs, and see how they manage it, why reinvent the wheel ;D

P.S. FYI, I buy individual figures from them all the time

MicroPanzer

If it was character figures or non-combatant civ pop types then possibly id buy singles because faffing around browsing all sorts of different pages looking at pictures saying i like that one ohh and that one etc etc is fine but for units I want them in packs.

79thPA's suggestion is good though I like the idea of I want 50 figures send me a random assortment kind of thing.

If I was setting up the stock/logistics of a single fig sale like this then I'd go with the smallest spin cast machine possible (12" if I remember correct) and make a mold for every fig or atleast select ones that will sell well. Overhead goes up but your production time goes down a lot. You just start every morning spinning molds to fill bins and then ship at night. I do the same thing at CorSec with Omni-stand bases. My "mold" cost is 0 but I also can't reuse material. I either do production runs with full sheets or special runs for less popular items that are setup to do 1-15 bases and I usually use scrap material for those.

There are also several inventory reduction tricks you can use. Like bag of random figs! Take a bit of a price cut per fig but allows you to dump overstocks easier. You can also run a clearance section and move figures in and out of it to keep stock down. Or just melt them back down and cast them into something else :)

I would just go with whatever your long term pack layout will be and then offer a price reduction for vouchers similar to what you did on your last self-kick starter. You already have a large selection of figs ready for casting so you leverage those to cover the acquistion of your caster and molds.

I don't think you will get enough traffic for individual figures to greatly increase demand over price reduced packs.

Don't forget the labor to correctly pick the 50 individual figures, then the extra labor hours and postage cost for fixing the order when 1 of the 50 figures is not correct.

the tirranti spin caster is under £1,000.00 GBP, but selling figs individualy is very time consuming and a lot less profitable,
good luck

I would have a better chance of getting in on a kickstarter if the figures were sold individually. But I would still buy something I like retail if they were only sold in packs. As both a business owner and a customer I understand that selling the figures individually is a huge hassle. I have bought figures individually from Eureka and it was a nice surprise, but the large majority of my figures have been bought by the pack. The business owner in me likes the idea of the small molds. Riflemen in one mold, specialists on another. Maybe smaller packs. Four riflemen in unique poses, sniper and spotter, a couple medics, heavy weapons guy and loader, two or three squad leaders. Comms guy and platoon leader.

I really like rebel minis figures, but having to buy whole packs of six specialists when I only want the two missile launchers in them sucks. I have a lot of un-painted snipers in a pile…

Actually would go like this --

1. Kickstarter campaign, people pledge for a given number of miniatures
2. once funded but before kickstarter ends pay for equipment
3.set up and Start casting process
4. Fulfill on time

The molding process would be done

-- Kickstarter seems a faster way than setting aside a few hundred a month for 6 months or so. The By the Figure thought is give people a way to get just the figures they want –
Kickstarter or not I plan on getting one at some point as it open up another avenue of revenue.

The reality is getting my own caster will cost me less than ordering the minimum required amount to restock inventory to a level that I wont have to restock for a few months.

My own spin caster means – cast on demand – no labor, no metal mark up and no shipping –

I would love to be able to contract cast metal as well as resin for other small companies -- diversifying micropanzer is key to being able to move from hobby to career -- or at least a minimum wage job.

Hahah Minimum wage… Oh we can dream. Currently rocking $5 USD something an hour after 3 years. Of course thats 100+ hours a week.

Looking long term, You should consider getting into something else as well. I do this a lot. Shift into a new genre or target a audience. I've noticed that a lot of gamers gloss over products (and companies) that don't produce anything they are into. This counts even if you do have items they might be interested in. I see a major tick in sales when I reach a new crowd. Be it a larger game system or even a new set of players. Like boardgamers or RPGers. Star Wars RPGS are hot and there isn't much out there for it. So maybe some not-star wars aliens or something. Stay away from Storm Troopers and the like but good star wars feel aliens/civs would be nice and other stuff like that.